Turning Ideologies Inside Out: Developing Young Readers’ Empathy for Critical Voices in Narrative Fiction

This article is located at the crossroads between two distinctive human traits, empathy and rational thought, with narrative emerging as a particularly powerful means to enable young readers to bring them together. Specifically, we discuss the role that critical literary exegesis plays in the development of empathic consciousness in literary readers. The discussion is conducted through the critical narrative discourse analysis of a short story that is widely read by Portuguese young students. The story deals with what has become a living experience for many students – emigration – and puts opposing social ideologies about this experience in a subtle dialogue. Narratological critical analysis provides an essential tool for readers to turn those ideologies inside out. It enables them to escape the main character’s conformist positioning and develop a liberating empathy, and hence a more sensitive perspective about the social reality that the narrator offers for our consideration.     

Policy discourse analysis: negotiating gender equity

This analysis of activists' and bureaucrats' politicking for gender policy in Australia demonstrates the utility of discourse analysis. Feminist policy initiatives are special: they challenge hegemony and they circulate counter discourse. Policy elites try to manage and discredit them. Traditional policy frameworks are used to identify policy with policy mechanisms, policy communities, value shifts and the like. But the use of policy discourse analysis for this Australian story elicits key strategies for constructing and managing a counter narrative and maintaining a counter public of outsiders using insiders to institutionalize gender policies even as equity and social justice value priorities recede.     

《献给艾米丽的玫瑰》中的女性诉求

作为美国当代文坛的大师,威廉·福克纳以高超的写作技巧和独具匠心的故事叙述吸引着世界的目光.他创造了著名的“约克纳帕塔法世系小说”,其中《献给艾米丽的玫瑰》是他一部经典的短篇小说.从叙事声音和叙事角度的结合和转换解读福克纳这部作品中的女性诉求,有助于我们理解作者的深刻用意及人文关怀精神.     

论艾丽丝·门罗短篇小说集《逃离》的叙事策略

加拿大女作家艾丽丝·门罗以短篇小说享誉欧美,获奖无数。2013年10月,她被授予诺贝尔文学奖,颁奖词称她为“当代短篇小说大师”。这主要得益于艾丽丝·门罗作品严肃的主题和独特的风格,但和她的叙事策略也不无关系。通过特意淡化故事情节、灵活运用叙述方式、巧妙变换故事节奏、精心营造故事悬念等杰出的叙事策略,艾丽丝·门罗的小说焕发出简洁精致、不施铅华、细腻优雅的风采,给人以“于无声处听惊雷”的强烈震撼。     

Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual Conference of the National Council for Jewish Education

The point of departure for this article is James Fowler's conception of the “master story.” In “master stories,” culture-heroes are portrayed as engaging in certain archetypal activities. These activities are then considered paradigmatic and life-orienting by future generations who adhere to that culture. In keeping with this line of thinking, we offer the rare narrative presented by Maimonides in the opening chapters of his “Laws Concerning Idolatry” as a potential “master story” for Jewish educators. The main section of the essay consists of a close literary analysis of selected passages from the “Laws Concerning Idolatry.” The article concludes by enumerating a series of educational implications that can be gleaned from the narrative, and by indicating some of the problems that might result from an attempt to put some of these implications into practice.     

A national hero or a Wily Politician? Students’ ideas about the origins of the nation in Sweden

The topic of this article is how primary school students express ideas about the ‘origins of the nation’. The study is based on texts written by Swedish students aged 12–13 about a historical event well embedded in Swedish national mythology, the rise to power of Swedish ‘founding father’ Gustav Vasa. The analysis is inspired by James V. Wertsch's concept of schematic narrative templates. The main finding of the study is that the students mainly structure their answers along one of two different narrative templates; either a kind of historical master narrative with strong foundations in traditional Swedish history culture, or a more generic story about the founding father as a ruthless or corrupt politician, which is arguably influenced by presentism.     

Challenging fundraising,challenging inequity: contextual constraints on advocacy groups’ policy influence

School fundraising is known to reproduce inequities in schools, yet it remains common practice in Ontario, Canada; findings from a critical policy analysis of an advocacy group’s efforts to change fundraising policy help explain why this is the case. Adopting a discursive understanding of policy, the study used rhetorical analysis to identify how the group has engaged in a decades-long struggle over the meaning of fundraising policy. The findings of the rhetorical analysis were examined in light of an historical narrative of Ontario’s social context to understand how the policy’s contexts have constrained the group’s influence. The study’s findings demonstrate that challenging school fundraising by defining the policy as a problem of equity is not strong enough to overcome neoliberalism’s pressure on parents to provide their children with educational advantages, a trend toward privatization in public education, neoconservative interests in reduced government spending, Canadians’ belief in meritocracy, and historical fundraising practices and dominant meanings. Further, the continuance of school fundraising even after Ontario’s government introduced policy that explicitly addressed the group’s concerns about equity and aimed to limit the practice challenges traditional notional of group influence and success in policy processes.     

Issues of Power,Masculinity, and Gender Justice: Sally's story of teaching boys

Despite calls for a more nuanced approach to issues of gender and equity that recognizes how broader relations of gender and power continue to produce injustices for many females, essentialized accounts expressing concern about boys’ poor educational performance remain the most common refrain in dominant equity discourses across Western contexts. This common refrain characteristic of current large scale gender reforms, such as Australia's parliamentary inquiry into the education of boys, Boys: Getting it right, is driven by a standards rather than social justice focus and thus creates silences around issues of gender injustice, power, and constructions of hegemonic masculinity. In this paper, I present “Sally's” story as a disruption of these silences. Sally is a young English teacher at “Penfolds College”, an all boys Catholic school in a large urban centre in Queensland (Australia). Her story, in illustrating how particular boys draw on broader discourses of masculinity to sexually harass and intimidate her, highlights the inadequacies of dominant public and policy discourse in terms of its failure to locate boys’ educational issues within broader contexts of inequitable gender relations.     

Beyond evaluative studies: perceptions of teaching qualifications from probationary lecturers in the UK

Probation is little used as a frame of reference in academic development literature. Frequently, the focus is on evaluating teaching qualifications for new lecturers. Less often investigated is the issue of situating such a course within the overall experience of new academics, to consider the role that teaching qualifications have within wider probationary processes in the UK. This qualitative study sought the views of new academics on various influences shaping their socialisation. Insights from this work can feed usefully into policy and practices for academic developers, and three key themes – equity, impact and congruence – are elaborated in this article.     

门罗小说《机缘》的叙事时间分析

艾丽丝·门罗的短篇小说在世界文坛享有盛誉。《机缘》是小说集《逃离》中的一篇,讲述了朱丽叶毅然放弃学术生涯,投奔渔夫埃里克的故事。本文从叙事时间这一理论入手,具体探讨省略、缩写、倒叙等手法如何造成《机缘》的时间畸变,进而分析叙事时间对小说艺术的影响。     

Target-driven reforms: Education for All and the translations of equity and inclusion in India

This paper critically examines the ways in which inclusion and equity are constituted through education development policies in India. Programmes implemented under global and national Education for All (EFA) policies have largely involved the quantification of ‘equity’ whereby schooling processes are measured against broad targets for school outcomes – focused mainly on student attendance, retention and academic achievement. Drawing on perspectives from Actor Network Theory, the paper puts forward the view of development reforms as ‘networks of translation’ in order to trace the shifts and vicissitudes of educational ideals. Reporting on ethnographic data of two reforms in the south Indian state of Karnataka, we show how narrow understandings of equity are produced through target-driven approaches to EFA. In doing so, the paper highlights the performative effects of education development policy and its potentially counterproductive consequences in contexts of poverty and marginalisation.     

Nation building and war narratives for children: war and militarism in Hebrew 1940s and 1950s children’s literature

This paper examines militarisation in child culture in Israel’s transition from a pre-state society engaged in the nation-building process to statehood. The paper studies children’s culture and the literary corpus for children created in the 1940s and 1950s in Jewish Palestine, before and after Israel’s establishment. It investigates the main stages in the rapid development of the militaristic narrative for children – from the beginning of World War II in 1939, through the War of Independence in 1948, and during the first decade of statehood. By examining the nature of the national-military children’s story, I demonstrate the extent to which militarisation in Israeli children’s culture was dictated from above. I also argue that society’s rapid change following the founding of the Israeli state in 1948 brought about a dramatic shift in the attitude of state institutions, and especially the education system, towards the militaristic narrative addressed towards children that was vigorously promoted prior to 1948.     

Counter from the cathedra: Democratic School Workers Association redefining teachers’ political agency in Finland 1973–1989

Finnish school teachers are unlike their colleagues in many countries, for their ethos and skills have traditionally formed the basis for a profession which has been very loyal to the state and to the changing educational ideologies of the government. Critical historical periods of wars and social revolutions have, however, produced – to a small degree – different kinds of tendencies. This article discusses the political agency of comprehensive and upper secondary school teachers by looking at a particular point of rupture in the Finnish “master narrative” of a neutral and impartial teacher image. As an example of a counter-narrative, the paper presents a small leftist teacher association called the Democratic School Workers Association (Demko) which existed between 1973 and 1989. Demko’s manifesto texts are analysed with the help of A.J. Greimas’ actantial model in order to find the possible kind of political agency that is constructed for teachers. The analysis shows a major change between the 1970s and 1980s. The early Demko narrative draws from the vocabulary of the neo-leftist student movement, inviting progressive teachers to join the “common struggle”. Demko aims at lobbying the more established political actors, whereas individual agency is shackled by the ideals of monolithicity and unanimity. In the 1980s, along with the fading of societal radicalism, Demko’s narrative evolves into a more polyphonic space for identity debates. Political agency is transferred from the collective to individuals who are supposed to critically reflect Demkoian ideals against their everyday praxis. All in all, Demkoian narrative is interpreted as having enriched the gamut of “possible discourses” in the era of the early Finnish comprehensive school. With its distinctively socio-political orientation, Demko tested the boundaries of the political agency of Finnish teachers.     

The teaching and learning of pupils in low-attainment sets

This study explored the ways in which schools addressed the needs of pupils in low-attainment class groups, or sets, in the context of multiple and contrary government policy directives and inconclusive research findings about setting. In this article we have focused on school and classroom practices as well as the organisational processes through which low-attaining pupils were identified, grouped and reviewed within schools. The empirical data reported here predominantly refer to case studies involving classroom observations and interviews with teachers, pupils and other staff in 13 schools – both primary and secondary – from four local authorities (LAs).

In the latter part of the article, however, we also draw on survey data collected from a larger sample of schools in 12 LAs in England. Although the study found ample evidence of innovative school practices and efforts by individual teachers aimed at optimising the learning opportunities for children in low-attainment class groups, the findings also raise important questions about some of the processes of set allocation, the lack of mobility between sets, and the over-representation of particular social groups in low-attainment classes. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for equity and inclusion that moves beyond an emphasis on classroom practice to include questions about the in-school processes of social selection and educational mobility for pupils identified as low-attaining.     

《叔叔的故事》的叙事解读

中篇小说《叔叔的故事》具有独特的叙述模式。在故事层面上被完全解构成了一个不确定叙述,在叙述层面上也是由于叙述者的独特位置,视角的选择、以及它的元小说因素,在小说叙事层面上也造成了一定的颠覆与解构。但这样一个颠覆性文本却在小说叙述形式以及对历史对永恒人幽的探寻上都开创了更为广阔的空间,使得这篇小说具有了耐人咀嚼的韵味。     

From role models to nations in need of advice: Norway and Sweden under the OECD’s magnifying glass

By analysing five separate OECD reviews of evaluation and assessment practices with Norway and Sweden as cases, our study illustrates different ways in which a specific international educational reasoning is blended into more context-based national education policies and, as such, works in parallel with internal reforms and agendas. It is evident that an overarching narrative promotes the importance of coherent and integrated systems of evaluation and assessment in order to strengthen social and political endeavours for equity, quality and achievements. The parallel mix of OECD discourses and national discourses creates a combined narrative in which evaluations and assessments appear natural, self-evident and rational as well as highly adaptable to national settings. The study shows that national vertical and/or horizontal developments are intertwined with the OECD policy recommendations, which are quite general in character. In a continuing process of uploading and downloading, within different contexts, policies are elaborated and recontextualised. Evaluations and assessments are part of a contemporary rational paradigm for mapping and promoting performance in national educational systems – what we identify as a comparative curriculum code.     

美国叙事性乡村歌曲歌词的文体研究——及物性过程选择及其文体价值

乡村歌曲是美国流行音乐的一个分支,深受人们的喜爱。它是美国民族文化的一个缩影。在乡村歌曲中,叙事歌曲占了相当大的一部分,许多乡村歌曲本身就是一个故事,这些故事是乡村音乐的基本元素。该文从一个特别关注歌词文体特征的敏感读者的角度对美国叙事性乡村歌曲歌词的文体进行研究。该研究以系统功能语言学中的及物性系统为文体分析模式探讨及物过程在歌词中的体裁类型、故事情节和人物个性的展开中所起的作用。大量的歌词表明不同的过程选择体现出不同作家的文体风格。在分析的过程中,注重歌词与歌词之间的横向与纵向的比较。通过本课题的研究让人们对于歌词中所体现出的美国社会和现实生活有更深入的了解,从而理解并欣赏美国乡村歌曲。     

Narrative autoethnography and the promotion of spiritual well‐being in teacher research and practice

This article demonstrates through an example the usefulness of autoethnography as a mechanism for teachers acquiring clarity about their spiritual experiences, which has the potential to contribute to facilitating pupils’ spiritual growth. I begin by examining the role of the spiritual dimension in the promotion of a holistic model of education. The purposes and ethical implications of autoethnographic research and its benefits for teacher development are addressed. A story about illness, neurosurgery and rehabilitation is presented, written according to introspective and autoethnographic techniques. The narrative reflects aspects of the writer’s spiritual growth and highlights the need among teachers to explore their own spiritual well‐being as much as the spiritual well‐being of their pupils. Suggestions are made about the diverse use of narrative to promote spiritual learning experiences in the classroom. This is an important part of the work carried out by teachers in the delivery of a curriculum that prepares learners to fulfil their potential in life and work.     

“We are Just as Confused and Lost as She is”: The Primacy of the Graphic Novel Form in Exploring Conversations Around Deafness

Cece Bell’s (El Deafo, Amulet, New York, 2014) is a middle childhood graphic novel memoir that explores the author’s experiences of losing her hearing and growing up with a severe hearing loss. As a graphic novel, the story is able to avoid a medicalized view of disability by combining image and text, a format that allows readers, those with hearing and those without, to step inside the narrative and deeply consider Bell’s experiences. The narrative elements typically found in graphic novel autobiography create a communal reading experience, which does not allow readers to forget who the book is about. After an analysis of the primacy of these narrative graphic novel elements in telling a story about a disability, this article shares the reading experiences of university students in exploring this story, during which students used both the image and text to help them confront misconceptions they had about deafness, broadening their understandings and experiences around disability.     

Bitter fruits of arranged marriage: a case study of North Cyprus

Throughout the world people face confusion in their thinking about love, sex and marriage. Since the problem is universal, it is useful to examine its scope in a limited or local sense. This paper examines a story of one person in the hope of shedding light on a problem that exists for all. The method we use is to record a narrative told by one woman as she seeks resolution and clarification of the problems that she identifies in her story. We use the narrative to present the magic realist approach where the story begins as it ends.