A Critique of Modern Education,with Special Reference to the East

The population of urban migrants in developing countries has received little specific notice within the field of adult education, although, because of its size and importance to the economic and social development of much of the world, this group deserves significant attention. Examination of urban migrants as learners provides important insight for policies and programmes that support developing their creative potential, building on individual and community strengths. Two characteristics of the motivation and learning needs of urban migrants stand out. First, individual characteristics relating to personality or motivation somehow differentiate migrants from non‐migrants, beyond generalized economic or macro‐level factors that affect migration decisions. On the other hand, it appears that group learning processes that incorporate the participation of the members and build on their networks, motivation, and coping skills, are particularly effective. Both of these aspects are important in identifying appropriate policies and programmes that stimulate the positive potential of this group. This paper examines evidence related to the demographic and cognitive characteristics of the urban migrant population in developing countries, how these relate to the learning tasks facing this group, and the implications for successful adult education programmes. In addition, these characteristics have implications for broader policies designed to take advantage of the role that communities of urban migrants can play, within a more participative development approach.     

Increasing participation of adults in higher education: factors for successful policies

This article contains an analysis of policies aimed at increasing the participation of adults in higher education (HE) in seven countries (NL, DK, SE, UK, BE Flanders, DE and the state of California in the USA). In order to maintain their economic competitiveness, many countries have developed policies to increase the participation of adults in HE. However, the effectiveness of these measures has not been studied to any significant degree as yet. Therefore, the focus of this article is to assess the effectiveness of these measures within their particular context. For this purpose, the research team carried out an international comparative study based on desk research, case studies and interviews with both policy makers and academic researchers in the seven countries. The study shows that there are common ingredients for effective learning environments, such as a high degree of flexibility of HE provision. In short term, in rationalising policies there are a number of issues that need to be addressed, e.g. the issue of what is the primary objective for increasing participation. In the long run, one needs to reconsider broader HE structures within a lifelong learning perspective towards a fundamental revision of the current systems. This is both necessary in combating crises and in dealing with problems encountered by ageing societies.     

Competing knowledges in lifelong education

This is a discussion paper about access to, and participation in learning opportunities for Māori learners in New Zealand, and Indigenous learners in Australia. Teaching and learning practice in three separate institutional education programmes—one in New Zealand and two in Australia—highlight the problematic nature of inclusion based on competing knowledge systems and frameworks. These systems relate to differing worldviews about how knowledge is privileged and disseminated within society. One view is that whiteness behaviour, through a western worldview, is the erasure of inequality because it presents as the norm in many adult education teaching situations; quite often manifested as indulgent practice, but one that also reinforces the hegemony of normativity. In contrast, an Aboriginal/Indigenous worldview is one that places knowledge within a spiritual realm; constantly resituating the individual into the nexus between individual and cultural ties. The discussion here, is about ideas of whiteness behaviours being present in curriculum delivery, whereby mainstream ideals produce planes of engagement that encapsulate white subjectivities which are both visible and invisible, and represent just one chronology of whiteness. That is, consciously and unconsciously patterned behaviours of delivering curriculum, no matter what the discipline area, have the potential to produce accessibility and achievement, but many would argue that these same behaviours also reproduce inequalities. Ideas from the above theme, take on a whole new perspective with a focus on building workplace and academic skills to the exclusion of cultural identity development. Acquiring skills has the potential to provide another form of competence, yes, but may also undermine learner confidence in being able to transition successfully to further community or higher education programmes. For example, such development alone does little to improve and strengthen literacy, language and numeracy capability for learners to be able to access and undertake tertiary studies, but may do more to compound debates about whiteness behaviours implicit in the post-colonial criticism of ‘whose interest is being served’.     

Growth and Development through the Arts

The Partnership between higher education (HE) tutors and teacher mentors in schools has the student teacher at its centre and the common focus is the development of the student teacher's classroom competence. We argue, in this paper, that the relationship between tutor and mentor should go beyond the student teacher and his or her competence; it needs to be rooted in a view of the subject and what the subject can offer young people. Thus, there is another way of defining mentoring partnership which brings together the HE tutor and the school mentor and which has the subject at its centre.

This paper has been jointly written by a tutor and a mentor. It focuses on one subject area — the Arts — and offers a view of the subject that has been developed over time by the tutor and the mentor, working through discussion of ideas and reflection on shared practice. It concludes with an example of the way that mentor, tutor and student teacher can work effectively together on learning — but on the basis of a shared understanding of the potential of their subject.     

ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES, ADDITIONAL FEE INCOME AND ACCESS AGREEMENTS: THEIR IMPACT ON WIDENING PARTICIPATION AND FAIR ACCESS

ABSTRACT:  This paper argues that the introduction of access agreements following the establishment of the Office for Fair Access (OFFA) has consolidated how English higher education institutions (HEIs) position themselves in the marketplace in relation to widening participation. However, the absence of a national bursary scheme has led to obfuscation rather than clarification from the perspective of the consumer. This paper analyses OFFA's 2008 monitoring report and a sample of twenty HEIs' original 2006 and revised or updated access agreements (2008) to draw conclusions about the impact of these agreements on notions of 'fair access' and widening participation. The authors conclude that, unsurprisingly in an increasingly market-driven system, institutions use access agreements primarily to promote enrolment to their own programmes rather than to promote system-wide objectives. As a consequence of this marketing focus, previous differences between pre-1992 and post-1992 institutions in relation to widening participation and fair access are perpetuated, leading to both confusion for consumers and an inequitable distribution of bursary and other support mechanisms for the poorest applicants to HE.     

Conceptualising transitions from vocational to higher education: bringing together Bourdieu and Bernstein

Abstract

In this paper we provide a framework for conceptualising transitions from Vocational Education and Training (VET) programmes to Higher Education (HE), by bringing together Bourdieu’s and Bernstein’s theoretical approaches with the view to attend to the often side-lined epistemic and pedagogical parameters. We utilise the Bourdieusian tools of field, habitus and capital to capture the relational, material and cultural aspects of HE transitions. In using a Bernsteinian lens we shed further light into how social agents acquire differentially structured and valorised knowledges and develop a sense of themselves as hierarchically positioned knowers. The metaphor of transitional frictions is utilised to capture the ongoing struggles that students with a VET background experience as they make the transition to HE. We argue for the need of widening epistemic access and putting in place enabling pedagogies that can ease these transitional frictions, thereby potentially increasing the chances of successful HE participation and completion.     

How linguistically‐informed are phonics programmes?

Successive UK government policies have strengthened the phonics element of the National Curriculum for English in England. The policies have included inviting publishers to submit completed self‐assessments of their systematic phonics programmes. The self‐assessment criteria focus on what is deemed to be ‘high‐quality provision’, as defined in the Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading chaired by Jim Rose. The programmes whose self‐assessments were judged to be accurate by small panels of independent evaluators have been subsequently listed on a central government website. The authors have acted as independent evaluators in this process and, between them, had the opportunity to inspect the content of over 100 phonics programmes. They have noted that many of these programmes (most of which did not meet the Rose criteria) contained numerous linguistic inaccuracies, particularly in relation to the English spelling system and its grapheme‐phoneme correspondences. The existence, number and range of these errors jeopardise policy implementation and National Curriculum delivery and pose risks for the quality of teaching and learning. The article suggests some reasons for these findings in related published debates and in policy documents, and that phonics programmes need to be more linguistically‐informed. The article concludes with some implications for practice.     

Learning from patients: constructions of knowledge and legitimacy in hospital-based quality improvement programmes

ABSTRACT

Health services organisations are increasingly incorporating patient engagement strategies as a form of quality improvement. Such strategies take form in programmes where organisations partner with patients in order to learn from their experiences and thereby change how services are designed, delivered, and implemented. In this study, we examined the enactment of patient engagement programmes within an academic health science organisation in Canada. This was accomplished through an exploration of the various constructions of patient participants’ legitimacy, credibility, and expertise as manifesting through participation in the various practices associated with the programmes. Analysis was based on a selection of international, national, and organisational texts, as well as interviews with patient participants (n?=?20) and hospital staff members (n?=?6). Through this analysis, we argue that organisations are not learning from patients per se, but are learning from particular constructions of patient subjectivities in the form of patient advisers. We argue that if patient engagement programmes are premised upon opportunities to learn from patients, these programmes require a coherent theory of workplace learning. We suggest attention to the politics of knowledge production as a fruitful way to conceptualise how clinicians and administrators might learn from patients at the organisational level.     

Adapting an Outcome-Based Education Development Process to Meet Near Real-Time Challenges to Sustainable Agricultural Production

Purpose: This paper examines the benefits of using an outcome-based education (OBE) method within agricultural extension outreach programmes for professional and farmer audiences. Design/Methodology/Approach: The method is elaborated through two practical examples, which show that focused, short-duration programmes can produce meaningful skill development and impacts at the farm level. Both examples addressed pressing problems that were evolving during the education programme, and we sought a method that would respond adaptively to local circumstances and unanticipated changes. Key aspects of the method include strategic planning to properly focus education programmes, and the integration of data-driven decision support tool development to reduce uncertainty associated with the use of high-risk pest management inputs. Findings: Professionals and farmers increased their knowledge and skills related to pesticide management, and follow-up evaluation documented high levels of adoption of risk reduction and mitigation practices by farmers. Practical Implications: We recommend OBE for several reasons: (1) it uses a group process to elicit an accurate view of the system that learners operate within, (2) it provides cohesive and active learning with the potential for continuation, and (3) it enables feedback between all stages of programme development and implementation. Originality/Value: The most novel aspect of our adaptation of the OBE approach is the integration of, and feedback between, participatory programme design and tool development throughout the process, which maximises the value of each, and their ability to deliver outcomes. The OBE method integrates science, technology and social learning, and connects these with authentic problem-solving tasks to perpetuate learning beyond the classroom to where outcomes are attained.     

THE FUTURE OF CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN AN ERA OF SHRINKING TRANSCENDENCE

This article seeks to understand religious education as a process of communal endeavor that prioritizes and considers the learning experience intrinsically connected to its social and cultural contexts. Two authors will be of help to develop this pursuit: Lev Vygotsky, whose work emphasizes learning as constructed through interactions and in collaboration with members of a community, and Victor Turner who identifies the potential for creativity and transformation within the concepts of liminality and communitas. The article concludes by suggesting that when a community acknowledges the multiple zones of proximal development—which creates opportunities of mutual support and democratic participation—communitas surfaces as a sign of liminal vitality, openness, and solidarity.     

Language Games in the Ivory Tower: Comparing the Philosophical Investigations with Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game

Wittgenstein explores learning through practice in the Philosophical Investigations by means of an extended analogy with games. However, does this concern with learning also necessarily extend to education, in our institutional understanding of the word? While Wittgenstein's examples of language learning and use are always shared or social, he does not discuss formal educational institutions as such. He does not wish to found a ‘school of thought’, and is suspicious of philosophy acting as a theory that can be applied to other areas of life. While Wittgenstein's focus on developing independent thinking was neither individualistic nor anti‐institutional, it did, however, focus on developing the thinking of his students rather than theorising about how this could be applied on a large scale. An analysis of Hermann Hesse's novel, The Glass Bead Game will help us to pick up where Wittgenstein deliberately left off—thinking about how (or if) one can institutionalise learning methods that encourage thinking for oneself. These differences in the writers’ treatment of education will become evident in the differences between their game analogies. While language‐games combat our ‘craving for generality’ in Philosophical Investigations, the Glass Bead Game represents this craving, and how it manifests itself throughout history in disciplines other than logic and philosophy of language. It also represents the potential for institutions to become insular, exclusive communities.     

Payment Determines the Status of an Actor

The scenario was quite explicit—local actors and local situations. As part of a daily educational television programme aimed at semiliterate adults living in Lubumbashi in the Congo, it had been decided that not only programmes to teach French and arithmetic should be produced but also certain programmes under the title of general information. These programmes have been based on courses which the Training Within Industry department of Union Minière du Haut-Katanga had been giving over the last ten years. The main object of this course was to teach an appreciation of such things as elementary notions of economics—the convention of money, insurance—as well as hygiene and safety. To illustrate these programmes film had to be shot.     

Higher education students’ experiences of a short-term international programme: Exploring cultural competency and professional development

Background: Globalisation trends such as increased migration to and within European countries have led to even greater cultural diversity in European societies. Cultural diversity increases the demand of cultural competency amongst professionals entering their work field. In particular, healthcare professionals need knowledge and skills to equip them to work with clients from different cultural backgrounds. Within higher education (HE), the professional development of cultural competency should ideally feature in undergraduate education and is often promoted as a by-product of a study abroad period. However, recognising that logistical and financial barriers often exist for extended study abroad, one alternative approach could be participation, at home or abroad, in a short-term international programme set within students’ own HE institutions.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to explore HE students’ experiences of participating in international ‘short-term mobility week’ programmes at three European universities.

Methods: Each university involved in the research offered short-term programmes for healthcare professions students at their own institution, where both local students and students from abroad could participate. Participants were healthcare students in the programme at one of the three universities. Data were collected through focus group interviews (4–8 students per group; n = 25). The data were transcribed and then analysed qualitatively, using a content comparison method.

Results: The analysis identified six categories, which reflected students’ journeys within the short-term international experiences.

Conclusions: The analysis suggested that, for these students, engagement in a short-term mobility week programme provided valuable opportunities for encounters with others, which contributed to personal and professional development, greater confidence in the students’ own professional identities, as well as an increasing sense of cultural awareness.     

Transforming collaborative writing tasks into opportunities for learning: educational assistance and the use of rubrics in Higher Education / Transformando las tareas de escritura colaborativa en oportunidades para aprender: ayuda educativa y uso de rúbricas en la Educación Superior

Abstract

This study, framed within a socio-cultural perspective of teaching that sees collaborative writing as a learning instrument, presents an innovative teaching experience related to the use of collaborative writing tasks to foster learning, combining face-to-face and online group work sessions. The study was conducted with the participation of 13 students — organised into three different groups — taking a subject of a Master’s degree in Psychology of Education, and the two teachers responsible for delivering the subject. The results of the experience have highlighted the need to provide different learning assistance which is not solely aimed at managing meaning, but also at managing the task itself and the participation in it. The results also show the importance of embedding such assistance in the design as well as the development of the instructional process. Among the different forms of assistance available, the data show the benefits of using rubrics as tools to support the shared understanding of tasks by teachers and students and as a tool to support learning. Finally, results show that the collaborative writing tasks carried out throughout the course have been useful both for learning the content and for developing the abilities required for managing the students’ own joint activity.     

Assessment guiding learning: developing graduate qualities in an experiential learning programme

As industry demands increase for a new type of graduate, there is more pressure than ever before for higher education (HE) to respond by cultivating and developing students who are prepared for these workplace challenges. This paper explores an innovative experiential learning programme built on the principles of work-related learning that develops students to attain graduate qualities for competitiveness in the business sector. The role and importance of assessment as a core influence for learning is recognised and embedded into the programme, as well as the prevalence of meeting the needs of its stakeholders. Issues concerning assessing work-oriented learning are explored as well as what assessment methods might be most appropriate for enhancing and evaluating learning in this context. Feedback from stakeholders on the structure of the programme and its assessment are discussed as well as the question of how to maintain work-related programmes in HE. If such programmes continue to focus assessment and design around student learning, students will not only have the opportunity to apply their knowledge in a practical context, they will also be maximising their personal learning outcomes with the added advantage of being better equipped to compete in an increasingly competitive marketplace.     

Learning and Innovation Competence in Agricultural and Rural Development

Abstract

Purpose: The fields of competence development and capacity development remain isolated in the scholarship of learning and innovation despite the contemporary focus on innovation systems thinking in agricultural and rural development. This article aims to address whether and how crossing the conventional boundaries of these two fields provide new directions for developing learning and innovation competence in international development.

Design/methodology/approach: Using mixed methods research, this article assesses work environments for experiential learning and innovation, and investigates effective ways of enhancing core competence in agricultural research, education, extension and entrepreneurship.

Findings: Findings suggest that while the focus on input and output indicators are relevant for technological innovation competence development, outcome indicators, such as measures of changes in cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains of learning and innovation, would better serve the purpose of developing organisational and institutional learning and innovation competence.

Practical implications: This research concludes that crossing the conventional boundaries of competence development and capacity development serves as a way to renew the role of education within the innovation systems thinking. However, such an attempt to enhance human capabilities and functionings through education should integrate theory-based, competence-based and experiential learning components as a coherent whole.

Originality/value: This article demonstrates the value of crossing the conventional boundaries of the two seemingly unrelated fields—competence development through education and capacity development through extension—to provide new directions to operationalise innovation systems thinking in agricultural education and extension.     

Opportunities to analyse pupils’ learning within coursework on campus: a remaining challenge in teacher education

To support pupils’ learning, teachers must understand what and how their pupils have learned, and teacher education should teach candidates how to do this. This article reports on survey data (n = 270) from three programmes and observation data (N = 104 h) from six programmes, located in Norway, Finland and the US. It examines the candidates’ opportunities to analyse pupils’ learning within their coursework. The authors argue that such opportunities might constitute profound possibilities to examine the complexity of teaching and learning. However, the study finds that the candidates have few opportunities to analyse pupils learning and that the full potential of these opportunities is unrealized. The authors argue for increased, specific attention to pupils’ learning within teacher education coursework, through a pedagogy of teacher education informed by existing research on how to elicit pupils’ learning.     

Science Education and Health Education: Locating the Connections

Context-based chemistry education aims to improve student interest and motivation in chemistry by connecting canonical chemistry concepts with real-world contexts. Implementation of context-based chemistry programmes began 20 years ago in an attempt to make the learning of chemistry meaningful for students. This paper reviews such programmes through empirical studies on six international courses, ChemCom (USA), Salters (UK), Industrial Science (Israel), Chemie im Kontext (Germany), Chemistry in Practice (The Netherlands) and PLON (The Netherlands). These studies are categorised through emergent characteristics of: relevance, interest/attitudes/motivation and deeper understanding. These characteristics can be found to an extent in a number of other curricular initiatives, such as science-technology-society approaches and problem-based learning or project-based science, the latter of which often incorporates an inquiry-based approach to science education. These initiatives in science education are also considered with a focus on the characteristics of these approaches that are emphasised in context-based education. While such curricular studies provide a starting point for discussing context-based approaches in chemistry, to advance our understanding of how students connect canonical science concepts with the real-world context, a new theoretical framework is required. A dialectical sociocultural framework originating in the work of Vygotsky is used as a referent for analysing the complex human interactions that occur in context-based classrooms, providing teachers with recent information about the pedagogical structures and resources that afford students the agency to learn.     

Teachers’ motives for learning in networks: costs,rewards and community interest

Background: This paper discusses teachers’ perspectives on learning networks and their motives for participating in these networks. Although it is widely held that teachers’ learning may be developed through learning networks, not all teachers participate in such networks.

Purpose: The theme of reciprocity, central to studies in the area of learning in networks, is often approached from a rational exchange perspective. This study attempts to extend this approach with reference to the concept of symbolic interactionism. The study was guided by the following research question: What is the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of learning networks and their motives for participation or non-participation in these networks?

Design and methods: In order to address this research question, semi-structured interviews among 25 teachers in secondary education in the Netherlands were carried out. The semi-structured interviews consisted of three parts: background information, perspectives on learning networks and personal experiences with those networks. Data were analysed qualitatively and analyses consisted of within-case analysis, and cross-case analysis of interview fragments. Three themes were considered: (1) perspectives on learning networks, (2) motives for participation perceived as rational exchange, (3) motives for participation perceived as related to social order.

Findings: The findings are presented around these three themes. Each theme is discussed in relation to relevant aspects from the literature. Findings indicated that teachers perceived learning networks to be organised both within-school and outside school, and mostly focused around specific content knowledge. Reasons for participation or non-participation were related to rational costs and rewards (such as time, technology, self-efficacy); in symbolic motives (such as joy, sharing and mutual understanding), and also in a sense of meaning that resulted from networking activities.

Conclusions: We conclude that, in addition to social exchange motives, the data suggest that symbolic aspects of communication and interaction play an important role in considerations for participation in learning networks. This may be described in terms of four ‘types’ of networking teachers: the Community focused networking teacher, the Locally focused networking teacher, the Not-yet-networking teacher, and the Non-networking teacher. It is hoped that these exploratory findings could be helpful in supporting the development of learning networks for all teachers.