Tasks for Comparative Education in the New Millennium

This article reflects upon the experience of teaching and research in comparative education to reconsider the potential of the field for the new millennium. In doing this, specific attention is given to ways in which comparative perspectives have traditionally been applied, or misapplied, in educational policy debates and the related academic literature. The potential of comparative studies to increase our understanding of the complexities of educational processes is underlined. The uncritical 'borrowing' of educational policy and practice is challenged, and the contemporary need for educational research that recognises the significance of culture, context and difference is highlighted.     

Conceptualizing educational leadership: does exploring macro-level facets matters?

The present review attempts to examine the present status of educational leadership highlighting the role of macro-level facets in Asian Pacific context. The conceptualization of educational leadership among researchers so far had been found to vary according to different contexts and situations. Theoretical perspectives associated with educational leadership have either approached the concept from dimensions working outside the school or from dimensions reflecting the personality trait of the principal. There is an urgent need to shift the focus of attention toward understanding educational leadership through an interactive collaboration of these dimensions. Specifically, in school contexts, the phenomenon of educational leadership was explored and theorized from one perspective only, giving less space to have multidisciplinary view, which need to be revived in terms of contexts and associated metaphors of educational leadership. Although the importance of educational leadership has been widely acknowledged, its role still remains unheeded in various sections of education. The purpose of the review, thus, is to gain macro-level insight into this concept which can hopefully answer many aspects of education which are otherwise left unanswered, thereby helping in formulating better educational reforms.     

大学英语课堂学生沉默行为的原因分析及其相关对策

通过调查分析认为造成课堂学生沉默的原因主要与以下几个方面有关:中国的传统文化和传统的道德观念,传统的教育理念及教学方法以及教师和学生本人的因素。基于以上原因本人针对如何学生课堂沉默这一现象提出了以下对策首先要更新教育观念,消除传统文化中的不利因素的印象;其次是改进教学方法,提高学生参与课堂教学的积极性,最后就是要关注部分后进生和性格内向的学生,提高学生整体参与课堂教学的广度。     

Collaborating for educational change: The role of parents and the community in school improvement

Following the attention given by the Jomtien Declaration to the need for new partnerships and collaboration in the promotion of educational improvement, the International Institute for Educational Planning has initiated a programme of case studies and workshops to examine how partners involved in education can be empowered and encouraged to improve the education in which they have responsibilities or interest. Cases which have been studied fall into three categories: those which enhance collaboration within and across schools, those which centre on school—community interaction and those which involve collaboration among a range of government officials and agencies, NGOs, village organizations and private enterprises. Collaboration in each of these groups may involve changes in the stimulation or control of resources or innovations in educational content or delivery methods. This paper identifies the problems inherent in collaborative exercises, including poverty, institutional or individual inertia and structural obstacles within political or cultural systems. Finally the factors or conditions which affect collaboration are examined along with the implications for staff training, structural re-alignment and skill development at all levels of the educational system.     

Making history relevant to students by connecting past,present and future: a framework for research

History teaching usually focuses on understanding the past as an aim in itself. Research shows that many students don’t see the point of this and perceive history as not very useful. Yet history plays a major role in the orientation on present and future. If students fail to see this, the question arises whether this is due to a lack of explicit attention in history classes on the application of knowledge about the past to the present and the future. This article explores two questions: (1) If history is to be more relevant to students, what kind of objectives should play a central role in history teaching? (2) What kinds of teaching strategies align with these objectives in history teaching? The first question is answered by means of historical and educational theory. The second is answered by exploring a number of teaching strategies that have been described in the literature, as well as a small-scale experiment conducted by the authors. This article aims at providing a basis for developing meaningful history curricula as well as for research into educational strategies which can be deployed to teach students how to make connections between past, present and future.     

Learning difficulties associated with the particulate theory of matter in the Scottish Integrated Science course

Summaries

English

Educators need to know when an adolescent will use a particular available problem‐solving mechanism or strategy. If a student can solve proportional reasoning problems in mathematics and physics classes but fails to comprehend the ‘odds’ in a local lottery, the teacher would like to know why. Three task context factors that form obstacles to generalizing logical reasoning strategies are illustrated by research studies. The obstacles are perceived relevance of the variables, perceived goal of the experiment and variable salience. The relationship between these factors and Piagetian theory is explored. Piaget's view that generalization is difficult to predict is a pessimistic one for educators. In contrast to this view, our findings suggest that it is possible to make some predictions abouthow and when logical mechanisms will be generalized to new situations. Implications for designing educational programmes which enhance generalizability of instruction in logical reasoning are described.     

Participatory action research and the struggle for legitimation

There is little reason why educational research in Australia should be progressive and highly developed given that its history and direction are subject to the economic and political determinants of an increasingly conservative and uncertain world. Whether or not educational research is an entirely derivative field or a semi-distinctive social science, is essentially qualitative or quantitative in character, desires knowledge that is vaguely accurate or accurately vague, seeks epistemological or ontological explanation, remains to be seen as history works itself out. It cannot be considered a neutral endeavour and demands that researchers identify a political perspective or worldview from which new knowledge is described and interpreted. In developing an approach to participatory action research, in particular from working with Indigenous communities, a number of challenges and knowledges have emerged that are described in this paper and which embrace community partnership, two-way enquiry learning and the educational public sphere. Participatory action research as outlined here may be the only framework appropriate for democratic community research although it is not as yet legitimated within the pantheon of available methodologies and philosophies.     

The Ethics of Belief and the Ethics of Teaching

Notwithstanding its obvious educational importance, the idea of an ethics of belief has been little explored by educational philosophers. The notion turns out to be more complex and to involve more difficulties than is usually supposed. Exploring these complexities and difficulties opens up many avenues of philosophical and educational inquiry. These in turn can enrich our reflections on contemporary educational developments and on ethical aspects of teaching. In particular they alert us to the need for educational theorists to give overdue attention to the intellectual virtues.     

The Art of Straying: Benjamin on Distraction and the Informal Education of the City

In this article, Tyson E. Lewis argues for an alternative form of educational attunement beyond attentiveness. Discourses and practices of schooling emphasize being attentive as a primary educational virtue. This emphasis casts distraction as either the negation of attention or its deterioration. In either case, distraction lacks educational use and, as such, must be overcome through the cultivation of attention. Yet this approach to the question of attention versus distraction misses how distraction contains within itself a different kind of educational potentiality, a different kind of educational attunement. In an attempt to carve out space and time for distraction, Lewis turns to the writings of Walter Benjamin who offers up a more complex view of distraction than is presently found in educational philosophy. In particular, Benjamin argues that cities are not only places of negative forms of distraction (as mere diversions), but also places for cultivating productive distraction in the form of an open and alert attunement to new ways of experiencing and perceiving the relationship between world and self. Cities, for Benjamin, become educational spaces that teach lessons in a distracted form of life, the culmination of which is the creativity expressed in what he refers to as “the art of straying.”     

Qualitative Versus Quantitative Research Design: A Plea for Paradigmatic Tolerance in Educational Research

The tension between the generality of approach in causally-driven quantitative educational research and the individuality of particular cases is exemplified in the types of reasoning employed. Unlike the scientific search for antecedents, still popular in some forms of educational research, investigating particular persons and policies necessarily requires a form of practical reasoning. In order to ease this tension between qualitative and quantitative research, this essay asks questions as to what is to be described and how this is to be done. Responding to these questions, it is argued, necessarily draws attention to a range of ethical issues often ignored.     

Re-imagining active learning: Delving into darkness

Ample attention is being paid in the higher education literature to promoting active learning among students. However, critical examination of educational purposes and ends is largely lacking in this literature on active learning. In expanding this debate, we consider it important to ask: About what substantive matters are students to be active? To what end is this activity directed, especially beyond gaining skills and competences within a unit of work or course? In this article, we critique and extend the conceptualisation of active learning. In particular, we discuss dimensions that are neither readily visible nor instrumental, which are overlooked in much of this literature. In doing so, we explore features and potential consequences of such an expanded conceptualisation. Drawing from educational philosophy and, in particular, existential philosophies, we show that active learning may also be partly invisible, unfocused, unsettling, and not at all instrumental—sometimes even leaving the learner more confused and (temporarily) incompetent. However, such forms of undisclosed or ‘dark’ learning, we conclude, are necessary and even vital counterparts for the forms of active learning that flood higher education curricula today.     

Schools for tomorrow

If we are to have a much better educational system, we need to have a vision of what such a system should be, and we need to have a strategy for attaining such a system. The present chapter considers a vision of a future educational system. This system is heavily based on the use of highly interactive learning technologies. This includes the computer and associated instruments such as the interactive videodisc and the CD-ROM, creating a true multimedia learning environment that is individualized to the needs of each student, and that provides a unique interactive learning environment for each student.We do not currently have experience to move directly towards such a system, so this chapter proposes a large scale experiment which will develop the necessary information, and provide the basis for securing the substantial funding needed for the new educational system.     

“Pretty Darned Cold”: Single Mother Students and the Community College Climate in Post-Welfare Reform America

Feminist analyses of the “chilly climate” have documented the ways in which women have been and continue to be marginalized within institutions of higher education. Yet there has been little attention to the relationship between the “chilly climate” and the lived experiences of particular populations in specific educational settings. This article attends to that relationship and draws on a two-year ethnographic study that focused on single mothers attending a community college in the Midwestern United States. Situating their experiences within the particulars of post-welfare reform America and the dynamics of the institution they attend, I argue that the educational climate these women face is particularly chilly, something that is evident in the various attitudes, practices, and policies they encounter in their interactions with faculty, staff, and other students. In addition to analyzing the ways in which the “chilly climate” influences both academic and social aspects of single mother students' experiences, I offer specific suggestions for ways in which colleges and universities can create a more welcoming and supportive environment for members of this particular student population.     

The significance of context for the emergence and implementation of research evidence: the case of collaborative problem-solving

One of the fundamental purposes of educational research is to provide evidence to facilitate effective practice. However, the evidence itself does not have much value for practitioners unless key information about the context from which the evidence was generated is also provided. In this paper, we use the word ‘context’ to refer to factors that are relevant for learning, including the interactions that learners experience with multiple people, artefacts, and environments. Unfortunately, in many educational research studies, either these factors do not get the required attention or information about them is presented in an incoherent structure. The resultant lack of information leads to two significant drawbacks. First, it creates confusion among practitioners who want to apply research evidence in their practice. Second, it leads to research studies that on the face of it are similar, but that in reality have resulted from evidence that has been collected in significantly different contexts being included under the same categories in reviews, meta-reviews, and best-evidence syntheses. In this paper, we draw on the concept of ‘relatability’ of evidence and present taxonomy for collaborative problem-solving (CPS) that can be used to provide the valuable information against which research evidence can be indexed. By addressing the need for more detailed information about the contextual factors from which the evidence is generated to bridge the gap between research and practice in CPS research, we aim to exemplify the approach that is needed in educational research more generally.     

Expanding the Foundation: Climate Change and Opportunities for Educational Research

Human-caused climate change is a dominant global challenge. Unlike other disciplines and fields, there has as yet been only limited attention to climate change in educational research generally, and in educational foundations in particular. Education is key to assisting humanity in mitigating and adapting to climate change, and educational researchers working within diverse disciplinary and methodological traditions and a broad array of research contexts need to engage in this most pressing of challenges. We argue that the field needs a new commitment to a form of educational justice appropriately scaled to the size of the challenge we face. We address this gap by reviewing current thinking on the human dimensions of climate change and summarizing what research has been conducted in the area of climate change education as a means of identifying a range of possibilities for educational research and praxis.     

Instructional systems design and public schools

A great deal has been written in the last several years about the use or lack of use of instructional systems design (ISD) in public schools. The general discussion has revolved around why ISD has not been accepted by public schools; why instructional design experts have not been hired by public school systems; and primarily what an educational technologist can do to change the situation. The focus of most discussions by educational technologists is: how can schools and teachers alter their practice to benefit from ISD? In this article, we maintain that one reason why ISD has not been adopted in schools is that there may not be a fit between the philosophies, needs, resources, and constraints of schools and the benefits of adopting ISD. We also argue that for ISD to have a significant influence in public schools, it must be accepted by teachers. The general question we ask in this paper is this: are we attempting to redesign schools and classrooms to accommodate our technologies with insufficient attention to the perceived needs of clients and to the consequences of adopting ISD? Our approach to answering this question was to search the literature to uncover perceived inconsistencies between ISD theory and practice on the one hand and teacher needs, wants, and practices on the other.     

What If We Look at the Body? An Embodied Perspective of Collaborative Learning

The bodily experiences and implications of understanding the functioning of the human brain–body mechanism has been a center of attention in the field of cognitive neurosciences for over two decades. Research in this field has enlarged the theories of learning and development, and contributed to changes in educational practices involving language processing, mathematics, and spatial thinking; however, these changes have not yet been applied to the analysis of transversal competencies such as collaborative learning. The aim of this paper is to bridge the theoretical and applied advances in the field of embodied cognition, specifically collaborative learning. The definitions, theoretical frameworks, and current methodological approaches in the field of collaborative learning are reviewed, with a particular focus on those studies that have investigated interactive dynamics in collaborative situations. The need to take the field further by exploring the theoretical perspective of embodied cognition as a possibility that can open the field is also presented. The relevance of investigating learning in groups by analyzing bodily engagements and intersubjectivity is demonstrated and methodological considerations are raised.

     

Educational Transfer as Transformation: A Case Study about the Emergence and Implementation of Dual Apprenticeship Structures in a German Automotive Transplant in the United States

The apprenticeship system in Germany is carried out both by companies and vocational schools (the Dual System). The question of whether the German Dual System is transferable is currently being asked in vocational education and training research. The analysis of current transfer discourses alludes to a research desideratum: the actual approaches consider either the input or the output of an educational transfer, but the transfer process in relation to its input and output has not been investigated to date. We focus on this desideratum. In the present case study, the processes emergence and implementation of dual apprenticeship structures is analysed in relation to its input and output in a German automotive transplant in the United States. Transplant organisations provide an ideal case to explore the transfer phenomenon because they have been transferred from a familiar context to a foreign context. The research questions are: firstly, why and how did the need emerge to implement dual apprenticeship structures in the German transplant in the United States (input); secondly, how and in which way have these structures been implemented (process); and thirdly, how can the implemented structures be characterised: as an imitation, adaptation or transformation of the original model (output)? The central findings of the case study are: firstly, that growing contradictions in the production system triggered the implementation process; secondly, that the original Dual System was transformed within the implementation process; and thirdly, that this transformation led to innovative solutions. These findings may not be valid for every transfer at any time, but they reflect that educational transfer of dual apprenticeship structures can be more than just a more or less successful imitation or adaptation.     

Conclusions of Part I

I. The comprehensive studies that have been made of French economic and social planning, which includes planning of employment as well as educational planning, have hastened an awareness of the need to promote vocational training research on a systematic basis. Difficulties in coordinating job planning and educational planning - stemming, in particular, from a lack of knowledge of the relation between the institutions that impart skills and those that put such skills to use - gave rise to the realization that some form of government-run institutionalized vocational research was necessary. In 1970 the National Institute for Studies and Research in Occupational Skills (CEREQ) was founded. The CEREQ studies potentially relevant for our present purposes have not yet been completed; therefore, we were unable to include them in our report.