Discipline‐based educational development

Abstract

This paper grows out of my academic journey from a long period teaching and researching geography to recently taking on the role of an educational developer. For most staff, their primary allegiance is to their discipline. In my experience, educational developers often fail to recognize and value staff's focus on their discipline ‐ or see it as an obstacle to improving the quality of their teaching. My central argument is that, to have a significant impact on the broad mass of staff, educational developers should work with these discipline‐based concerns. I detail how this can be achieved, drawing on much good practice from the UK, Australia and North America. Approaches include recognizing particular curricular and pedagogic concerns of the disciplines; helping staff to develop as scholars in the teaching of their discipline; for some staff to develop careers in the teaching of their discipline; and for educational developers to work with disciplinary organizations to promote discipline‐based teaching initiatives.     

Supporting students' preparation for the viva: their pre-conceptions and implications for practice

In universities theories and concepts are created and used within a disciplinary context, and some understanding of this context is necessary if students fully are to make sense of their studies. Thus, we investigate computer scientists' perspectives on their discipline. Biglan characterises Computer Science as being hard, rather than soft and as being applied, rather than pure. Therefore, Computer Science is associated with the engineering disciplines. Although many computer scientists support this view, others see the discipline as being identified more properly with Mathematics and/or the sciences. We suggest some reasons for the difference of opinion and highlight the implications for what students might learn about the disciplinary context.     

Child discipline in low- and middle-income countries: Socioeconomic disparities at the household- and country-level

BackgroundIn the past month, an estimated eight of ten children worldwide have experienced violent discipline. Understanding the economic and social contexts in which parents are more likely to use particular disciplinary practices is necessary to reduce violence against children. Critical examination of disciplinary practices and beliefs in cross-country analysis of low- and middle-income countries (LMICS) has been limited.ObjectiveTo estimate the association of country-level stressors and household-level economic stressors with disciplinary behaviors and beliefs.Participants and settingUsing Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey data between 2010 and 2013, 231,221 parents from 32 LMICS were included.MethodsThe prevalence of past-month nonviolent discipline, physical discipline, psychological aggression, belief in the utility of physical discipline, and incongruence of disciplinary practice and belief were estimated. Country-level prevalence was regressed on country-level stressors (economic burden, economic inequality, human security, and human development). Individual-level disciplinary practices and beliefs were regressed on household wealth.ResultsCountry-level stressors predicted psychological and physical discipline use and belief in the utility of physical discipline. Lower household wealth was associated with increased violent disciplinary practice and belief. Lower household wealth was associated with increased likelihood of using violent discipline, even when the caregiver did not believe in its utility (OR = 1.63 [1.34, 1.98]).ConclusionsDiscipline use and belief in LMICS should be understood within the context of salient societal and household stressors.Parental disciplinary beliefs and practices reflect complex interplay with broader social, political and economic contexts and should not be taken to be defined by monolithic views of culture.     

Disciplinary Differences and the Integration of Technology into Teaching

ABSTRACT

The preparation of teachers involves academics from across the disciplinary spectrum but research on the differences between academic disciplines has revealed that a faculty member's discipline is a major factor in shaping the several aspects of course planning and teaching. The purpose of this paper is to present a model for investigating disciplinary differences as they may relate to teaching with technology, thereby enabling more effective integration of technology into the curriculum. Components of the model include: the structure and ethos of the discipline; preparation for, and experience as, a teacher; faculty assumptions about students; faculty beliefs and perceptions about technology; and the environmental context.     

Boundary-Work and Discipline Construction: Boundary Strategies to Institutionalize Guoxue as a Discipline and Its Failure

Abstract

The construction of knowledge boundaries is an important mechanism in the formation of disciplines. This article examines and analyzes boundary strategies and difficulties in the institutionalization of guoxue (“national studies” or “Chinese classics”) as a discipline in recent years from the perspective of boundary-work. To establish guoxue as a discipline, proponents of the discipline have proposed the knowledge strategies of “new guoxue” and “broad guoxue,” so as to dispel potential conflict between guoxue and the external political environment. In addition, in the construction of the discipline, proponents have emphasized the differences between Chinese and Western scholarship, and also made analogy to Western Sinology, to highlight the necessity of constructing a holistic “discipline of guoxue.” However, these strategies and efforts have not achieved the objective of building guoxue as a discipline. One important reason is that guoxue studies are, to a very great extent, embedded in Chinese literature, Chinese history, Chinese philosophy and other related disciplines. The knowledge boundaries between guoxue and these disciplines are fuzzy, and the construction of the discipline lacks driving force from daily research practices. The process of to build a guoxue discipline can contribute to reflect on the existing discipline governance system in mainland China.     

An Examination of the Relationship Between Academic Discipline and Cognitive Complexity in Academic Deans’ Administrative Behavior

This study investigates Braxton and Hargens’ (1996, Variations among academic disciplines: Analytical frameworks and research. Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research. Vol. XI, pp. 1–45) assertion of the profound and extensive effects of academic discipline as it might pertain to administrative work. Academic deans in research and doctoral institutions nationwide were surveyed to investigate the relationship between academic discipline and cognitive complexity in their administrative behavior. A bivariate regression showed that being from an applied field was a significant predictor while the influence of consensus was not significant. Discipline effects waned when other predictors were added, suggesting that when other factors are considered, the extent to which one is exposed to their particular disciplinary paradigms becomes more important than mere affiliation with a discipline. Split sample analyses demonstrated variable influence structures. Findings indicate that the effects of discipline cannot be discounted in framing studies of administrators’ perceptions of their leadership context and the behavior which necessarily flows from those perceptions.     

Living with Ghosts: ‘Disciplines’, Envy and the Future of Teacher Education

The continuing instability of Education as a discipline is examined against renewed arguments for its ‘disciplinary’ status. Teacher education in particular is seen as Marjorie Garber’s concept of ‘discipline envy’ to propose a more positive relationship between disciplines that might work for the good of teacher education.     

新建地方本科院校学科建设的问题及对策

新建地方本科院校学科建设起步较晚,基础薄弱,存在对学科建设认识不足,学科总体水平不高,优势特色学科不足,学科队伍不强,科研水平不高,学科经费不足等问题。针对这些问题提出学科建设应采取的对策:提高对学科建设的认识,优先建设特色优势学科,积极构建学科体系,加强学科队伍建设,提升科研水平,增加经费投入,完善运行机制等。     

Conceptions of quality in four different disciplines

Abstract

The paper is based on a book (written by the author and his colleague Markku Lehikoinen) dealing with definitions of quality and views on the applicability of different methods of quality assessment to four different disciplinary fields: physics, biology, sociology and history. The paper focuses on conceptions and definitions of quality voiced by scholars representing the different disciplines. The study involved semi‐structured in depth interviews with 33 experienced scholars. The disciplines under study were chosen to represent diverse disciplinary cultures, with the aim of finding out about the potential impact of (social and cognitive) cultural characteristics of the disciplines on conceptions of quality. The findings show both common views across disciplinary fields and disciplinary differences.     

A lasting impression: the influence of prior disciplines on educational developers’ research

Can research on disciplinary socialization and imprinting help us understand the extent to which educational developers bring aspects of their disciplinary training to their educational development research? In this paper, we explore the relationship between the research approaches developers associate with their original disciplinary training and those they actively use in their own educational development research, comparing and contrasting the strength of imprinting by discipline cluster. We discuss implications for how educational development as a field supports new developers moving into the field from another discipline and for how developers work with academic colleagues in other disciplines.     

我国职业教育学科建设:使命与方略

我国职业教育学科建设在学科体系、学科梯队、学科成果、学科平台及学科反思方面取得了令人瞩目的成就。今后的主要任务是:谋划学科布局,明确主攻方向,构建学科体系,完善规训制度,创建研究学派。其建设策略是:着眼价值学科,丰满学科事实;着重应用研究,催生学科理论;着力人才培养,彰显学科功能;着实合作研究,打造学科精品;着手学科整合,构建学科文化。     

Tradition,Authority and Disciplinary Practice in History Education

Abstract

The concepts of ‘tradition’ and ‘authority’ are generally understood to be problematical in history curriculum design. Drawing on MacIntyre’s account of disciplines as social practices, this article argues that, to the contrary, these are concepts that need to be incorporated into any curriculum theory that attempts to build a school subject on the foundations provided by an academic discipline. In history education, there is a strong consensus towards deriving the ideas of the history curriculum from the discipline of history, and this article argues that it is therefore necessary for history curriculum theory to account for the concepts of ‘tradition’ and ‘authority’ as they exist in disciplinary practice.     

Review Essay

Abstract

Teachers and university professors hold strong, and often different, views on school subjects and academic disciplines. This paper explores the meanings of subjects and disciplines for teachers and university professors who have different subject or disciplinary affiliations as these emerge within discussions about curriculum in a professional development context. It describes a group of university professors and secondary school teachers who met to discuss new developments in research in the humanities and social sciences and their impact on school curriculum. The professors brought their expertise in their academic disciplines and their teaching experience to the conversations. Teachers brought their varied disciplinary knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge and a deep understanding of schools. They perceived their primary goal as making ‘translations’ and ‘transformations’ between university and school. There were many bridges to cross within these complex and multi‐layered conversations. The possibility of bridges was enhanced by sharing common experiences in dealing with dilemmas of teaching. However, it demonstrated the importance of exposing the key structures and arguments of the disciplines as a first step in building bridges among subject communities and between universities and schools.     

A New Disciplinarity: Communities of knowledge,learning and practice

The welcome new attention paid to subject teaching should have bridged the old divide between pedagogical and disciplinary research. But this paper argues that the focus on subject, rather than disciplinary communities is part of the commodification of higher education; that what is needed to re-energise both teachers and students is an inclusive new model of disciplinary education based on an engaged community's processes and practices. Each discipline, it is proposed, will model differently its practices, knowledge creation and dissemination, its writing, its community. The model may change received ideas about the focus and central concerns of the discipline, and in modelling disciplinary learning will change teaching and assessment. The model will be discipline specific and, as such, will resist generic and imposed 'skills and outcomes' frameworks. Evolving out of practice, rather than an external agenda, it should link disciplinary and pedagogical research so that they are mutually informing and transforming.     

Parenting and discipline in post-conflict Sierra Leone

BackgroundWhile the literature on physical punishment concludes that it has negative effects on children, the practice remains common in many countries. In post-conflict countries with nongovernmental organizations (NGO) operating in child protection, traditional disciplinary practices may conflict with international child rights agendas. The country of Sierra Leone has a unique history of conflict, abject poverty, low literacy, and weak governance – often, NGO agents are responsible for providing social services that the government is unable to consistently provide.ObjectiveWe examined how Sierra Leonean caregivers think about appropriate discipline for children, and whether they perceived any changes in their attitudes toward disciplinary practices since the end of the war.Participants and SettingWe collected data from parents and caregivers in urban, peri-urban, and rural areas of Sierra Leone’s four districts.MethodsWe used focus groups (12 groups, n = 92) and individual interviews (n = 21) to collect data in 2013. Focus groups and interviews were conducted by research assistants fluent in Krio and English. We used a thematic content analysis approach.ResultsWe found that physical discipline—“beating”—was widely acceptable and common. A few parents mentioned other means of discipline, such as withholding food. Parents widely agreed that parenting had changed since the war, and reported that child rights movements supported by NGOs had made it more difficult to discipline their children in traditional ways.ConclusionsDiscipline was seen a central component of child-rearing and a means of ensuring safe and proper development. This may be a protective mechanism in the precarious, high poverty environment of post-war Sierra Leone. The negative responses of parents to NGO efforts to reduce physical punishment and other forms of child abuse suggest that grassroots approaches are needed to address this pervasive problem.     

Review and Abstract

ABSTRACT

Case studies have pointed out that teachers’ disciplinary knowledge affects their pedagogy; however, the results are not consistent. There is a need for quantitative research to examine the relationship between teacher knowledge and practice, particularly in social studies where content-specific studies are mostly qualitative. The authors used history as an example and surveyed all public and private junior high school social studies teachers in Taiwan to examine if disciplinary backgrounds significantly affect teachers’ knowledge, conceptions about the discipline, and their teaching practices. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses show that disciplinary backgrounds significantly affect teachers’ subject matter knowledge and pedagogy. Evaluations of effect sizes suggest that academic backgrounds can serve as useful proxies for teacher recruitment. The results also indicate that nature-revealing courses affect teachers’ subject matter knowledge and pedagogy.     

学科视野下成人教育学的内涵及发展策略

学科是某一研究领域制度化与建制化的结果。基于学科内涵,成人教育学可被视为一门“形成中的学科”。在未来学科制度化的进程中,成人教育学应在建构学科范式、明晰学科边界、深化学科理论体系研究等几方面做出探索。     

Gender equity in the academic labor market: an analysis of academic disciplines

This study uses hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to analyze the effect of human capital, structural characteristics of the discipline, and disciplinary labor market conditions on faculty salaries. Faculty in disciplines characterized by relatively low demand, high teaching loads, and low amounts of research funding earn less than do faculty in other disciplines. Additionally, even after controlling for an array of individual and disciplinary characteristics, women faculty members earn less than their male peers.