School Discipline,Educational Interest and Pupil Wisdom☆

In this article, the concept of school discipline will be explored in relation to that of educational interest. Initially, Clark’s account of two different kinds of school order (discipline and control) will be explained. The interest-based theory of school discipline advanced by Pat Wilson will thereafter be analysed. It will be argued that both these scholars persuasively explain how school discipline may follow when learning activities are successfully married to pupil interests and experiences. However, it will be maintained that the epistemic position adopted by Wilson is problematic. Although Wilson suggests that Richard Peters placed too great an educational emphasis on initiating pupils into public traditions of knowledge, it is here claimed that Wilson did not value that development enough. With reference to Whitehead, it is concluded that discipline in schools ought to be arranged so as to help pupils foster wisdom for life, as this concept integrates liberal knowledge and educational interest.     

‘Words of Wisdom’: Text,Voice and Justice in I,Daniel Blake

The film, I, Daniel Blake, has received critical acclaim for its portrayal of the experiences of those attempting to navigate the bureaucracy of the British welfare state system. In this article, I use the depiction of literacy in the film as a lens through which I examine both the role of literacy in compounding the challenge for those already made vulnerable by their circumstances, as well as the creative, collaborative and resourceful ways in which individuals use literacy practices to navigate everyday lives. The release of I, Daniel Blake comes at a time when the threat to social justice posed by austerity politics is becoming an acute reality for many in Britain, and across the globe. I argue for the continued importance, therefore, of the critical examination of the relationship between literacy, inequalities and justice.     

On Qualifying Qualitative Research: Emerging Perspectives and the “Deer” (Descriptive,Exploratory, Evolutionary,Repeat) Paradigm

This article presents the use of the qualitative research method and the challenges that this form of research imposes along with the increasingly systematic reluctance experienced by doctoral students and their chairs. Increasingly, doctoral students are opting for the qualitative approach over that of the traditional quantitative methodology. The qualitative method is an evolutionary process that addresses the phenomenon being investigated and must show a connection to the question or questions being explored. Within this approach, data collection and analysis often lead to additional questions or findings. The article presents examples of the process for developing the evolving concepts from the interviews of the participants. Additional research is needed to transform this process. This article acknowledges the overall approach for doctoral students and other novice researchers to embrace the qualitative research method within the evolutionary structure.     

On the Narrator in“Boys and Girls”

Widely regarded as Canada's best writer of short stories,Alice Munro reflects her precise social observation and penetrating psychologically insight into the complex existence.The paper analyzes the narrator in the mini-story "Boys and Girls" and sheds light on the suppression endured by the central female characters in a patriarchal society.     

On Schmidt's “Noticing Hypothesis” and Vygotsky's “Sociocultural Theory”

Schmidt's "noticing hypothesis" and Vygotsky's "sociocultural theory" are crucial for Second Language Acquisition(SLA).Language teachers and learners may benefit a lot if they have insights into these two theories.In this essay,I will illustrate these two theories respectively with my own English learning and teaching experiences,and I will show their implications on SLA.     

Defining literacy: Paradise,nightmare or red herring?

Abstract

In the past fifty years, hundreds of definitions of ‘literacy’ have been advanced by scholars, adult literacy workers, and programme planners. This paper analyses three major approaches to the problem of defining literacy: quantitative, qualitative and pluralist. The pluralist perspective, while not without its difficulties, appears to have the most to offer in understanding literacy in the contemporary world.     

Action,Freedom, and Education: Refugees and a “New Beginning”

In the mid-2000s, large numbers of refugees from North Africa and the Middle East sought to reach Europe to escape persecution, war, and famine. Images of children, women, and men in inhumane conditions attempting to reach the mainland began to circulate worldwide. This phenomenon culminated in 2015 with the worst immigration crisis in Europe since the end of World War II. In this study, Vasco d'Agnese draws on Hannah Arendt's work to demonstrate that refugees, in embarking on their often excruciating journeys, represent the paradigm of acting, natality, and a “new beginning,” features that, for Arendt, characterize the human experience. Starting from this premise, d'Agnese presents two refugee stories and attempts to foreground their intrinsically educational nature with two aims. The first is that engaging with these stories may help transform the traditional view of refugees as vulnerable, suffering, and needy, and instead promote a view that acknowledges refugees' actions, their agency, and that does justice to the strength, determination, and resiliency they demonstrate in taking the actions they do. The second aim is to show how the renewal of natality represented by such stories serves as a foundation for a different engagement with education. If, as Arendt argues, education is first and foremost about preserving natality, the renewal of natality seen in these refugee stories is one of the best educational examples we may find. In refugee stories, the natality of education is, in a profound sense, actualized.     

On ‘Politics,Markets, and American Schools‘

This paper traces the trajectory of New Labour education policy since the formation of the first New Labour government in 1997. During that time the policy discourse has moved from a position of individualized school improvement through competition, to one where there is an emphasis on ‘partnership’ and ‘collaboration’ as key mechanisms for improvement. We note, however, that ‘specialism’, ‘diversity’ and ‘choice’ are still key components of policy and that ‘partnership’ often denotes a deficit model, with more successful schools supporting (or in some cases taking over) less successful ones. Although there are the beginnings of a recognition that social class and social deprivation are factors which make achievement at school more problematic, generally New Labour policy has not attempted to alleviate the tendency to social polarization which has emerged as a result of school choice policies.     

On Cognitive Constraints and Learning Progressions: The case of “structure of matter”

Based on the analysis of available research on students’ alternative conceptions about the particulate nature of matter, we identified basic implicit assumptions that seem to constrain students’ ideas and reasoning on this topic at various learning stages. Although many of these assumptions are interrelated, some of them seem to change or lose/gain strength independently from one another. Overlapping or competing presuppositions about the structure, properties, and dynamics of matter may be able to coexist at any given level, particularly at intermediate stages of expertise. Our results allowed us to suggest common paths in the transition from naïve through novice to expert along relevant dimensions related to the structure and properties of chemical substances. The identification of these cognitive constraints provides a useful framework that educators can use to better understand and even predict many of their students’ learning difficulties. It can also assist in the design and organisation of learning experiences and assessment tools that recognise and take advantage of the most likely trajectories towards expertise (learning progressions) followed by many students.     

SAQ,SSI and STSE education: defending and extending “science-in-context”

Cultural Studies of Science Education - Many scholars suggest that recent major science education initiatives apparently tied to intense economic competitiveness and growth have prioritized...     

Prescient … and Not Always Accounted For: The Wisdom and Foresight of George A. Roeper

When George A. Roeper enlisted the aid of Dr. A. Harry Passow and other leaders in the field to help George convert his Michigan independent school to focus on gifted children in 1956, there was only one other elementary school in the country at the time devoted exclusively to gifted child education. Though his wife and school cofounder, Annemarie, later became quite well known in the field, George also wrote and spoke extensively about gifted children and their education. Those writings and speeches were rarely published but have been preserved in The Roeper School Archives. In this first in-depth examination, George’s writings display insight and prescience about the challenges and rewards of educating gifted children, touching on problems that still preoccupy the field, such as inclusive identification and motivation, all rooted in his humanistic point of view.     

“Depend On,Rely On,Count On”: Economic Subjectivities Aboard <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Polar Express</Emphasis>

Christmas literature and film produced for children is an important, albeit under-researched, site for the production of cultural values and norms. This paper analyses Chris Van Allsburg’s 1985 picture book The Polar Express, the 2004 Warner Brothers feature film of the same title, the film’s official website, and resources for teachers distributed online by Houghton Mifflin, considering how these texts construct childhood subjectivities in economic terms. The argument made is that nostalgic depictions of ordered, middle-class lifestyles, the representation of social class inequalities as immutable structural norms, and signifiers of corporate capitalism, together locate childhood and child subjectivities as inexorably tethered to socio-economic circumstance and experience. Dr. Sue Saltmarsh is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Teacher Education at Charles Sturt University, Australia, where she lectures in Cultural Politics of Education and Qualitative Research Methods. Sue’s recent work concerns the ways that cultural texts and practices construct children and childhood in economic terms, utilising poststructuralist theory as a lens through which to explore the discursive production of economic subjectivities.