Place-based education for environmental behavior: a ‘funds of knowledge’ and social capital approach

In this paper we suggest that a new theoretical framework is needed within environmental education in the discussion of rural, underserved communities in Latin America. We argue that a community-resources approach, comprised of funds of knowledge and social capital, should be incorporated into contemporary research on place- and community-based education and environmental behavior. The model we present builds upon previous research in the areas of education, anthropology, social capital, and environmental education. These perspectives are discussed in accordance with their relevance to high school students in one of the most bio-diverse regions of Central America: the Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica. In this context, we suggest that promoting environmental behavior is both contextualized by and dependent upon social and community interactions, or ‘mediations,’ after Lev S. Vygotsky. We believe that the framework presented here may contribute to increased socio-economic, academic, and environmental benefits for underserved, Latin American communities.     

‘In and against the museum’: the contested spaces of museum education for adults

This paper focuses on museum and gallery education for adults in Dundee, Scotland. Dundee has recently experienced a shift from being mainly working class to an educational, cultural and tourist centre. Hence, an interesting field for the examination of the educational policies and practices of the city museums/galleries and the different fashions they receive and act upon wider developments in the museum world has emerged. Questions arising are how the new, open and accessible museum (and gallery) has changed the way education is constructed and offered in the museums in the city? What is the relationship of education with marketing and the new discourse of social inclusion and participation in museums and galleries? For example, one of the most pertinent findings was that, at least in Dundee, activity-based and individual learning has been over-valued, at the expense of a more social and dialogic educational experience that participants seemed to largely prefer and indeed propose as more meaningful to them. Although new ideas and participatory practices have improved attendance and the engagement of the local adult population, other issues, such as the new economic reality for museums and the close relationship of education with marketing are policies that were often treated with resistance, if not opposition, by the research participants.     

Religious education and social literacy: the ‘white elephant’ of Australian public education

As a result of globalisation, the boundaries that once limited the trade of ideas and culture have largely dissolved. In Australia, the fruits of intercultural exchange have largely been enjoyed, yet this expansion of Australian interaction with diverse Others has posed a perceived threat to some. This parallel expansion and contraction of cultural engagement demonstrates the need for Australia to represent diversity more adequately as a part of our society. A central point of tension in this discussion is religion. This paper reports on a study that explored the question: Why is it so hard to talk about religion in public classrooms? This narrative inquiry attempts to unpack some of the challenges facing Australian educators at present. This study brings out the conflicting priorities and pressures of the secular system against student needs and puts forward an argument for the development of social literacy education that addresses education about religion in Victorian public schools.     

The social life of Learning Analytics: cluster analysis and the ‘performance’ of algorithmic education

This paper argues that methods used for the classification and measurement of online education are not neutral and objective, but involved in the creation of the educational realities they claim to measure. In particular, the paper draws on material semiotics to examine cluster analysis as a ‘performative device’ that, to a significant extent, creates the educational entities it claims to objectively represent through the emerging body of knowledge of Learning Analytics (LA). It also offers a more critical and political reading of the algorithmic assemblages of LA, of which cluster analysis is a part. Our argument is that if we want to understand how algorithmic processes and techniques like cluster analysis function as performative devices, then we need methodological sensibilities that consider critically both their political dimensions and their technical-mathematical mechanisms. The implications for critical research in educational technology are discussed.     

‘Going global’: conceptualization of the ‘other’ and interpretation of cross-cultural experience in an all-white,rural learning environment

Based on an ethnographic case study done in an all-white, rural middle school, this article examines the students’ experience with and interpretation of an international education program implemented with a hope of providing more global/international contents to the curriculum. The study shows that these students interpreted other cultures introduced by the program in relation to their own culture and their own identity formation. The process of local ‘othering’ within the student school community was analogous to that of the students’ collective ‘othering’ of unfamiliar non-US cultures. The idea of US-centrism based on US consumer culture became the main standard against which the ‘otherness’ of different cultures were measured. The findings show how prejudice and stereotyping of global others derive from both the everyday process of differentiation in local home cultures and defense of national culture.     

‘Won’t Somebody Think of the Children?’ Emotions,child poverty,and post-humanitarian possibilities for social justice education

Abstract

Under models of moral and global citizenship education, compassion and caring are emphasized as a counterpoint to pervasive, heartless, neo-liberal globalization. According to such views, these and related emotions such as empathy, sympathy, and pity, can cause people to act righteously to aid others who are disadvantaged through no fault of their own. When applied to the contemporary issue of alleviating child poverty, it seems such emotions are both appropriate and easily developed through education. However, emotional appeals increasing a sense of urgency regarding such a dire issue should not necessarily be prioritized in the face of competing possibilities. Emotions can be difficult to develop, regulate, and sustain. Their appropriate expression and application in global contexts can be problematic, as people’s valuation and understanding of feelings varies across societies. Additionally, there are tensions between discourses of emotional care and compassion and rational duty to social justice. This article examines competing views on education for understanding and responding to child poverty, and defends post-humanitarian imaginaries and the possibility of non-relational care ethics. Care, compassion, empathy, and emotion may be involved in learning about child poverty, but an a priori rational orientation is also essential in such grave matters of social injustice.     

The social construction of time in contemporary education: implications for technology,equality and Bernstein’s ‘conditions for democracy’

Abstract

This article discusses how the introduction of technology has led to a fundamental shift in the relationship between education and time. As a means of analysing the extent of such changes on pupils from different backgrounds, I use Bernstein’s ‘conditions for democracy’ as a framework for evaluating the impact new understandings of time in education are having on disadvantaged social groups in England. I conclude that Bernstein’s framework presents a useful way of illuminating the complex interplay of personal agency and the external environment. Consequently, here we see that new definitions of time in education, specifically with regard to synchronous versus asynchronous learning, have resulted in new inequalities for those in deprived areas.     

Personalizing twitter communication: an evaluation of ‘rotation-curation’ for enhancing social media engagement within higher education

Social media content generated by learning communities within universities is serving both pedagogical and marketing purposes. There is currently a dearth of literature related to social media use at the departmental level within Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). This study explores the multi-voiced interactions of a UK Psychology department’s ‘rotation curation’ approach to using Twitter. An in-depth analysis of a corpus of 4342 tweets by 58 curators (14 staff, 41 students, and 3 guest curators) was carried out using a combination of computer-assisted and manual techniques to generate a quantitative content analysis. The interactions received (e.g. retweets and favorites) and type of content posted (e.g. original tweets, retweets and replies) varied by curator type. Student curators were more likely to gain interactions from other students in comparison to staff. This paper discusses the benefits and potential limitations of a multi-voiced ‘rotation curation’ approach to social media management.     

Combining ‘subject knowledge’ with ‘how to teach’: an exploratory study of new initial teacher education for teachers of adult literacy,numeracy and English for Speakers of other Languages

This paper is based on a research project that explored a UK Government initiative to improve the quality of teaching adults, numeracy, literacy and English as a second other language. The findings will be of interest to teacher educators generally and also to those involved in teaching adults, language, literacy and numeracy. The paper reports on the main findings of the research and sets the context for the presentation of models and concepts for rethinking how to meet the diverse prior experience and qualifications of those on teacher training programmes, as well as the challenges of relating a deeper understanding of ‘what you teach’ and ‘how you teach it’. Among the many issues raised by this paper, priority is given to the importance of the sequencing and organization of teacher training courses to meet the individual needs of trainees, who in the context of teaching adults in the UK have very different levels of teaching experience, prior subject knowledge and learning needs.     

‘Our family business was education’: professional socialization among intergenerational African‐American teaching families

Teacher socialization is primarily examined as an institutional‐based phenomenon, with particular focus on individuals’ PK–12 schooling experiences, teacher education programs, or workplace‐based socialization. This study situates professional socialization experiences of African‐American teachers within teaching families, examining how culturally situated socialization practices inform and shape professional entry and conceptualizations. Nine Black women teachers, all members of three intergenerational teaching families, participated in the study. Data sources included individual life‐history interviews, group conversations and participant‐generated writings. Findings indicate intergenerational socialization into the tradition of Black women teachers, with an emphasis on individual and collective social responsibility. Participants were socialized into the family business of teaching for reasons of stability, complicated by the ironies of social, educational and economic progress for Black women.     

When ‘research ethics’ become ‘everyday ethics’: the intersection of inquiry and practice in practitioner research

The act of engaging in sound and ethical practitioner research, regardless of context, encourages and indeed demands an alignment between the ethical framework employed in the research enterprise and the ‘everyday ethics’ of practice. This paper explores the ethical dimensions of what Cochran-Smith and Lytle have termed the dialectic of practitioner inquiry. The paper argues that the reflexive nature of the theory/practice dynamic means that, in the context of sustained practitioner inquiry, the ethics of research and the ethics of practice both hold the potential to be shaped by and to shape the other. Elsewhere in discussions of the issue of quality in practitioner and other practice-based research, Groundwater-Smith and Mockler have argued that ethical professionalism can and does work as a platform for quality, pushing practitioner inquiry ‘beyond celebration’. This paper builds on these ideas and, in exploring the intersection of inquiry and practice in practitioner research, examines the implications of issues relating to: informed consent; ‘voice’ and ownership; transparency and negotiation; confidentiality, anonymity and trust; and deliberative action in the context of both practitioner inquiry and classroom practice.     

‘Ethnographic dazzle’ and the construction of the ‘Other’: revisiting dimensions of insider and outsider research for international and comparative education

This paper presents some initial ideas on how the theoretical concepts of the ‘insider’ and the ‘outsider’ might be re-examined in an era where advances in comparative, qualitative research methodologies seek to be more inclusive, collaborative, participatory, reflexive and nuanced. Earlier essentialist definitions of the outsider as detached and objective, and the insider as culturally embedded and subjective, are re-examined and set within an international research and teaching context that recognises the increased migration of people, ideas and educational policies. It is argued that, in the context of such change, it has become more difficult to categorise and label groups and individuals as being ‘inside’ or ‘outside’ systems, professional communities or research environments. Such essentialist notions, which often underpin the production of large-scale, international datasets of pupil achievement, need to be challenged so that more complex understandings can inform not only new methods of research design, research ethics, data collection and analysis, but also the creation of new knowledge, giving more validity to related education policy making. We recognise that individual and group identities can be multiple, flexible and changing such that the boundary between the inside and the outside is permeable, less stable and less easy to draw. The concept of a ‘third’, liminal space may have the potential to encourage new meaning which is constructed on the boundary between worlds where historical, social, cultural, political, ethical and individual understandings meet.     

‘Go,go on and go higher an’ higher’. Second‐generation Turks’ understanding of the role of education and their struggle through the Dutch school system

With reference to capital theories and rational choice theory, this paper aims to understand how abilities and schooling ambitions are intertwined with social class, gender and ethnicity. By drawing on 16 in‐depth interviews carried out with highly educated second‐generation Turks in the Netherlands, the paper discusses the resources, opportunities and educational attitudes of young people, together with the role of the school system and that of teachers in perpetuating ethnic inequalities in schooling, with special emphasis on gender differences in schooling ambitions.     

Reflections on the ‘site of struggle’: girls' experience of secondary education in the late 1950s

Brian Simon’s Studies in the History of Education, 1780–1870, published in 1960, set out to counter nearly all work previously produced on the history of education in Britain in this period, and to direct the field towards a new course. It provided a Marxist perspective that drew upon Simon’s involvement in campaigns for educational reform over the previous decade. It also reflected the character of the Cold War in the academy in Britain at this time. Overall, it produced a form of people’s history that was shaped by politics and ideology and informed by Simon’s leading position in the British Communist Party. His work in this period marks him out as a highly significant Marxist historian, as well as one of the leading Marxist educators of his generation.     

Enriching the subject of Greek Literature with the experience of the ‘other’: an approach that fosters citizenship education in Cyprus

This article reports on a research project that explored the potential to integrate autobiographical work emphasising personal experiences of exclusion and marginalisation into the Greek Literature curriculum followed in Greek-Cypriot schools. Given the difficulties encountered in Cyprus in promoting changes in attitudes towards diversity, we discuss the autobiographical poems of the disabled Turkish-Cypriot poet Orkun Bozkurt with the aim of strengthening efforts to foster citizenship education in Cyprus. One aspect of the study involved the analysis and comparison of Bozkurt's poems with those traditionally employed in the Greek Literature curriculum. By taking this analysis as a baseline, we designed and implemented an intervention programme that aimed at changing the attitudes of adult students towards the ‘Other’. Our findings suggest that changes in attitudes are possible, provided that traditional teaching methods and materials are enriched with alternative materials that represent typically underrepresented groups of people, and also that the teaching methods adopted encourage active involvement and critical thinking among students.     

Environmental education technologies in a social void: the case of ‘Greendrive’

This article is based on a case study that follows the trajectory of a technological device aimed at environmental education from the engineering laboratory in which it was designed into the contexts in which it is used. ‘Greendrive’ is a driving simulator that accurately reproduces the performance of a vehicle in terms of fuel consumption and greenhouse gases emissions, in order to instill the principles of safe and environmentally friendly driving. The text is divided into three parts. The first part introduces the issue of transport behavior as one of the causes of climate change and the role of eco-driving in reducing emissions. The second part describes how a team of Portuguese engineering researchers developed the driving simulator and how a local authority and a consulting and training company are using it. Finally, the discussion part aims to show that despite the intentions of its creators and their clients, the driving simulator is unlikely, by itself, to generate changes in behavior. An information-deficit approach to environmental education that fails to consider the social embeddedness of human action and disregards the engagement of citizens has a very limited chance of success.