Intercultural Identities: Addressing the Global Dimension through Art Education

Recent educational policy and practice have established an extended role for all subjects in addressing children and young peoples' academic and interpersonal development, with strategies facilitating key skills and wider learning across areas of Citizenship and Personal, Social and Health education providing an integrated approach to education and welfare. The significance of global development education within a holistic curriculum acknowledges the increased awareness of the interconnected nature of our relationship with each other and with the planet we share as world citizens. The arts have a strong track‐record in addressing such key issues – challenging hierarchical paradigms which reinforce prejudice and stereotyping, the arts encourage reflexive processes and critical engagement with diversity and pluralist perspectives. This article investigates curricular approaches to the global dimension within education in relation to theoretical perspectives and policies, presenting an intercultural art case study as a model of practice in engaging diverse participants in reflection on their own and others' experiences across a range of socio‐cultural contexts. Current political shifts reaffirming the centrality of the discrete disciplines over cross‐curricular practice could potentially undermine a more holistic approach to education. The article argues that policy and practice, implemented in response to changing political and philosophical ideology, must nevertheless maintain a commitment to fostering interdisciplinary values of cultural awareness. Such practice must form part of an inclusive internationalist educational vision, impacting on social cohesion.     

‘Philanthropizing’ consent: how a private foundation pushed through national learning standards in Brazil

ABSTRACT

This article explores how the Base Nacional Comum Curricular (National Learning Standards), entered the policy debate in Brazil and became the most important reform initiative of the Ministry of Education between 2015 and 2017. We argue that this accelerated policy process was contingent upon the practice of philanthropizing consent: foundations’ use of material resources, knowledge production, media power, and informal and formal networks to garner the consent of multiple social and institutional actors to support a public policy. In other words, these foundations do not impose policies on governments; rather, they ‘render technical’ high-stakes political debates on pressing issues of educational equity and then influence state officials’ consensus about which policies to adopt. We argue that this philanthropic influence is not simply a neoliberal, profit-maximizing scheme; rather, it is an attempt by foundation and corporate leaders to garner power and influence on different scales, and re-make public education in their own image. Although this educational policy game is in many ways participatory and widely accepted, foundations are only able to play this role due to their tremendous economic power, a direct product of the unequal global political economy, and the systematic defunding of the public sphere.     

论影响印度基础教育政策的因素

作者认为,印度政治局势的变化直接影响着基础教育改革的政策取向;多民族、多语言和多宗教的国情直接影响了印度教育媒介和语言学习政策;种姓制度是影响印度基础教育改革政策的最独特因素;农村的贫困直接影响着义务教育普及政策的实施.     

The increasing role of non-State actors in education policy-making. Evidence from Uruguay

ABSTRACT

Over the last decades privatization policies have taken centre stage in many processes of educational reform globally. In Latin America, these policies have played an important role since the 1990s leading to an increasing participation of private agents in educational provision. The case of Uruguay stands out for having remained somehow apart from this privatization agenda. More recently, however, research has identified a significant shift in the discursive order especially driven by a series of new actors including think tanks and civil society organizations favourable to different forms of privatization. Building on case study methods and informed by a cultural political economy (CPE) approach this paper addresses two purposes. First, it attempts to explore possible explanations for the scarce development of the private sector in Uruguayan education. Second, it aims to characterize the discourses and strategies increasingly used by different actors to frame and promote policy ideas potentially leading to privatization policies. The study shows how a small but influential number of actors have become involved in the process of promoting ideas that seek to influence policymaking. Findings reveal how these actors frame school autonomy and accountability as policy solutions by means of different strategies of networking and knowledge mobilization.     

Curricular responsiveness to the Covid-19 crisis: The case of Indonesia

This article focuses on the effect of the Covid-19 crisis on education systems in Indonesia. It describes and illuminates various curricular responses, from nation-based actions to policies by the office of the Ministry of Education and Culture of the Republic of Indonesia. The article asks: How does the Covid-19 crisis affect education systems, activities, policies, and practices in the Indonesia archipelago? How has the central government responded to the Covid-19 crisis within educational institutions? What do these institutions’ curricular responses look like? What are some of the guiding curricular principles of schooling, teaching, and learning emerging and circulating during the Covid-19 crisis and within educational institutions’ efforts to revive educational life, possibilities, and continuance? It is hoped that this article on the case of Indonesia will promote and contribute to new sharing of the global understanding of curriculum responsiveness, teaching, learning, policy, and practice during the current Covid-19 crisis.

     

Getting to New Horizons in the Educational Milieu

Given the prevailing spirit of teacher frustration regarding current educational policy, the authors perused frequently visited teacher blogs and discussion boards in the summer of 2009 to determine whether teachers are effectively using them to express professionally informed political dissent regarding educational policy. While many teachers are frustrated with educational policies, they are not particularly adept at voicing their dissent against such policies. Many downplay their professional knowledge, avoid overtly political postings, and feel isolated from others who share their views.     

Science Teacher Education in Brazil: 1950–2000

This paper analyzes the most significant events occurring in Brazil’s educational, social and political areas over the last half century, viewed against a background of relevant worldwide events. The hypothesis presented here is that the relations between the country’s educational policies, the demands of the various segments of academia, and the public school system have always been strained. This strain has contributed positively to the evolution of academic knowledge and production, to the design of more modern curricular projects by institutional authorities, and to the initial recognition of the specific construction of school knowledge by the school system itself. However, the interaction of these major institutions lacks a crucial element—one that would lead to an effective change in the education of science teachers and produce a positive impact on Brazil’s schools—namely, the wholehearted participation of science teachers themselves. With this analysis, we intend to contribute by offering some perspectives and proposals for science teacher education in Brazil.     

英国中小学课程政策的影响因素分析

制约和影响英国中小学课程政策的因素十分复杂.然而,纵观英国课程改革和发展的历史进程,我们仍能发现,英国中小学的课程政策和各项改革措施无不受到英国实用主义的教育历史与文化传统、社会经济发展、主流政治意识形态、杰出政治家和教育家的关键作用以及其他欧盟国家和美国课程思想等因素的制约和影响.     

The Severity of State Truancy Policies and Chronic Absenteeism

ABSTRACT

Since the Common School era, states have maintained truancy laws to ensure that students attend school. However, we know little about the severity of these laws and their relationship to student outcomes, particularly absenteeism. In this study, we survey state education statutes to document the severity of truancy policies. We estimate the relationship between these truancy policies and rates of chronic absenteeism via multilevel models using data on all U.S. public schools from the Office of Civil Rights. We find that most students live in states where they may be referred to legal authorities for levels of absenteeism below federal standards. We find little evidence that states with truancy policies have lower chronic absenteeism after adjusting for demographic and other characteristics. However, while non-White high-school students are overrepresented among chronic absences overall, they have rates of chronic absenteeism comparable to their White peers in states with less severe truancy policies.     

Powerful knowledge,intercultural learning and history education

This article theorizes on the role of school subjects, especially history, in multicultural and intercultural education, arguing that to ensure intercultural learning there is a need to integrate these curricular intentions in subject teaching. However, the epistemological reorganization that such integration involves will challenge both a traditional structured content knowledge, and the multicultural research focused on deconstructing these traditions. This article investigates Michael Young’s concept of ‘powerful knowledge’ as a way to incorporate knowledge in the discourses of intercultural education. While proponents of the intercultural perspective emphasise educational policies and socialisation, advocates of powerful knowledge tend to dismiss such political interference. In order to use powerful knowledge in this context the concept is reconceptualised by relating it to curriculum theory and Gert Biesta’s conceptual distinction between educational purposes. Finally, this intersection is pursued through the example of history education. When acknowledging that societal needs, policy and disciplinary boundaries are interrelated, the perspective of ‘powerful knowledge’ can bring the potential of subject knowledge to intercultural research, and thus prove useful in identifying the guidelines necessary to develop History as a contemporary relevant subject.     

知识的生命意蕴及其重构——对知识教学问题的再反思

在新的时代背景下,知识不应仅成为学生何以为生的手段,还应成为学生理解为何而生的思想源泉。为此,我们应该从两个方面把握知识的生命意蕴：从知识本身来看,我们应该尊重知识本然的自由的生命属性;从知识与学生的关系来看,每个学生都应该在自由的知识领域内独享属于自己的知识空间。针对当前知识教育中存在的知识工具化和知识泛化的弊病,可以通过加强学生知识学习的生命体验和提升教师知识教学的反思能力来重构知识的生命意蕴。     

后“9·11”时代美国教育外交战略及其对中国的启示

后"9·11"时代,美国积极发展新形式教育外交,以软实力理论为理论基础,强调将教育作为软实力的资源生产者和重要平台,发挥美国文化、政治价值观念和外交政策在全球的吸引力、感召力和同化力。美国既注重培养美国公民的全球素养,又注重塑造他国精英的美国精神,在双重维度下构筑并实施教育外交政策体系。借鉴美国的教育外交战略,中国需将教育外交纳入中国特色大国外交体系,从教育自觉走向教育自信,发挥在全球教育治理中的重要作用,注重培养中国国民的全球素养,并塑造外国精英的中国精神。     

Rise and decline of education systems: a contribution to the history of the modern state

If by ‘education systems’ we understand institutional units, constituted by common legal provisions, organizational structures, curricular goals and value foundations, the current period signals their decline. This indicates the decline of the modern nation state, which has characterized the political map of Europe for 300 years and gradually expanded to the other continents. Therefore education systems in their ‘state‐bound’ constitution must be identified as a category of ‘organized space’ within a given historical period—and not as a perpetual phenomenon. This understanding of the current ‘education system’ points the way to the concept of ‘educational spaces’ in periods preceding the modern nation state. It helps to identify the current stages of transition, indicated by the emergence of regional ‘educational spaces’, the expansion of private sectors, and the invasion of the globalizing markets into the ‘knowledge society’.     

The coherence of vocational education and training in Norway and Spain: national traditions and the reshaping of VET governance in hybrid VET systems

Coherence of national education and training systems is increasingly tabled in European policy debates. Leaning on literature about the emergence and consolidation of national education systems, this article explores the rationale for VET reforms in Norway and Spain by scrutinising attempts to strengthen the coherence of their VET systems. Coherence has been sought through the unification of different strands of vocational education; initial, continuing and active labour market policies (what we call ‘horizontal coherence’) and the mainstreaming of VET curricular elements; plus the systematisation of VET practices across educational levels (‘vertical coherence’). While both countries looked for coherence, their motivations, how they operationalised the term and the emphasis of their actions differed substantially. Spain has experienced a move from the three largely unrelated strands into a more unified system; Norway from a fragile VET system to the availability of more VET courses and apprenticeship arrangements at all educational levels.     

Tackling social inequality and exclusion in education: from human capital to capabilities

Both in the international context and in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium), research shows that many young people experience social exclusion in relation to education. However, research evidence concerning structural social inequality in education is predominantly underpinned by an outcome-based approach, since educational policies and practices are largely informed by a human capital model. Inspired by the theoretical insights of the Capability Approach, we aim to contribute to process-oriented knowledge about the ways in which educational and social welfare actors can support socially vulnerable young people in realising their capability for education rather than focusing on human capital. We draw upon a rich empirical basis of participatory biographical research with young people in the system of part-time vocational education and workplace learning, perceived as the residue of the educational cascade mechanism in Flanders and pertinently revealing problems of social exclusion and exit of young people.     

Bologna 2010. The Moment of Truth?

Government policies are central factors shaping the environment of higher education institutions. European governments have included in their higher education political strategies the principal goal of implementing the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The perceptions that key actors of higher education institutions (HEIs) have about political developments are important as they may influence the achievement of government policy. The Bologna Process is at the heart of policy coordination, the instrument selected at European and national levels to establish EHEA. This article seeks to discuss empirically the views of institutional actors about the Bologna Process, taking into consideration the achievement of EHEA. The discussion is based on the analysis of the EHEA implementation in seven HEIs located in four higher education systems — Germany, Italy, Norway and Portugal. This paper draws on the theoretic-methodological approach of the policy cycle to analyse the perceptions of HEIs' constituencies about Bologna.     

日本"综合学习时间"与中国"研究性学习"的比较研究

中日两国是一衣带水的邻邦,在文化、教育上既各具特色,又多有共通之处。日本“综合学习时间”与中国“研究性学习”具有同类性质,同属于世纪初基础教育课程改革的重要特色。通过从政策演进、课程目标、课程实施、课程内容、课程评价、课程开发等方面对二者进行深入细致的比较研究,可以透析彼此的亮点和不足,从而为“研究性学习”的深入开展提供有益的借鉴。     

Content-Related Knowledge of Biology Teachers from Secondary Schools: Structure and learning opportunities

Teachers’ content-related knowledge is a key factor influencing the learning progress of students. Different models of content-related knowledge have been proposed by educational researchers; most of them take into account three categories: content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and curricular knowledge. As there is no consensus about the empirical separability (i.e. empirical structure) of content-related knowledge yet, a total of 134 biology teachers from secondary schools completed three tests which were to capture each of the three categories of content-related knowledge. The empirical structure of content-related knowledge was analyzed by Rasch analysis, which suggests content-related knowledge to be composed of (1) content knowledge, (2) pedagogical content knowledge, and (3) curricular knowledge. Pedagogical content knowledge and curricular knowledge are highly related (r_latent?=?.70). The latent correlations between content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge (r_latent?=?.48)—and curricular knowledge, respectively (r_latent?=?.35)—are moderate to low (all ps?<?.001). Beyond the empirical structure of content-related knowledge, different learning opportunities for teachers were investigated with regard to their relationship to content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and curricular knowledge acquisition. Our results show that an in-depth training in teacher education, professional development, and teacher self-study are positively related to particular categories of content-related knowledge. Furthermore, our results indicate that teaching experience is negatively related to curricular knowledge, compared to no significant relationship with content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge.     

高校思想政治教育生活化运行机制探讨

高校思想政治教育要真正实现生活化必须把教育理念、教育政策、教育内容、教育效果反馈等融入大学生的现实生活,重点把握社会、生活等方面的影响因素,搭建基于生活的社会、学校和家庭等多方联动教育运作平台,建立以马克思主义为主导的思想政治教育保障体系。