Early childhood education: Notes from the past for the future

Early childhood education has made great progress internationally in the last thirty years, in large measure through the efforts of researchers and practitioners. In contrast, many governments have failed to establish the unified systems of management and administration recognized as essential since the 1970s. Maintaining dual systems, they have not been able to generate and implement a coherent curriculum or unitary training programs for practitioners. As these are achieved, it will be necessary to include in the academic components of practitioner education programs a knowledge base about child development and its facilitation. The theoretical underpinnings and empirical findings supporting this knowledge base were established in the 1960s and 1970s. However, they have been ignored or re-invented as subsequent fashions succeed each other. The central components of this knowledge base are recapitulated.     

Disabled Learners in South Asia: lessons from the past for educational exporters

South Asia's historical heritage of ideas and practices for educating children with special needs contains many of the approaches that western teachers discovered independently in the past 150 years. These include close observation of children's current abilities, adjusting the curriculum to individual needs, valuing the social benefits even where intellectual progress is weak, allowing more time for learning, using specially designed materials, educating children with disabilities in ordinary schools, and providing role models of adult achievers who have disabilities. These approaches are here illustrated with stories from ancient India and educational documents from the British Raj. The cultural heritage has largely been ignored during the inflow of western educational ideas to South Asia. Some of the simpler approaches were displaced by the growing professionalisation of special education in the late 19th century. Casual integration of children with mild and moderate disabilities is still obscured in modern integration debates. To facilitate exchanges on a basis of mutual respect and reciprocity, the cultural and conceptual riches of South Asia's educational history must be rediscovered.     

Three Educational Scenarios for the Future: lessons from the sociology of knowledge

This article draws on social realist approaches in the sociology of knowledge and in light of them constructs three scenarios for the future of education in the next decades. The primary focus of the article is on one of the most crucial questions facing educational policy makers — the relationship between school and everyday or common sense knowledge. The different possibilities for how the school/non-school knowledge boundaries might be approached are expressed in three scenarios —'boundaries treated as given', 'a boundary-less world' and the idea of 'boundary maintenance as a condition for boundary crossing'. The curriculum implications of each are explored and the article makes the case for the third scenario. The factors likely to make one or other scenario dominate educational policy in the next 20–30 years are also considered.     

Charter schools: learning from the past, planning for the future

Charter schools have garnered strong support over the past decade, however, opponents question this choice option on many grounds, including their effectiveness, accountability, equity, and sustainability. This paper addresses these concerns by synthesizing what we know from the literature on charter schools, exposing areas where evidence is lacking, conflicting or ambiguous, and assessing the overall maturation of charter school reform. To help answer the question of sustainability, we draw in part on findings from our in-progress, long-term case study of a conversion charter school. This ethnographic data reveals the existence of serious challenges for researchers and policymakers, but also provides useful guidance for the future direction of the charter school movement.     

Viewing the changing world of educational technology from a different perspective: Present realities,past lessons,and future possibilities

This review paper focuses on likely reasons for the rhetoric-reality gap in the use of educational information and communication technology. It is based on the assumption that the present challenges being experienced with educational ICT might be avoided in the future if we look at the current challenges from a different perspective, by revisiting past research to gain insights from the history of innovations in educational technology. Seven major lessons emerging from the review could inform future directions so that the future does not simply replicate the disappointing results achieved thus far. We argue that the vision for ICT has been unrealistically ambitious, and review reasons to justify this point of view. We suggest that setting more attainable goals, based on the actuality of educational contexts, might be a more pragmatic way to go in a future of constantly changing educational technology.     

Learning from the past to shape the future

Abstract

This paper is a personal narrative of a journey from teaching to teacher educator, and researcher. The first part of the paper tells the professional story which at first glance is a rather common trajectory into teacher education, whereas changing contexts has formed development, perceptions and actions. The story is followed by a discussion of the underlying principles that have served as a personal guide throughout my career. Next, the paper briefly presents some of the lessons learned from the long experience before finally some views on future directions for teacher education are mentioned. The main argument throughout the paper is that limiting the discussions to the structure of teacher education is not enough. Building strong relations through collaborations in the near and far context is essential to all working to improve education.     

Professional experience: learning from the past to build the future

The title of the 2014 Australian Teacher Education Association (ATEA) conference was Teacher Education, An Audit: Building a platform for future engagement. One of the conference themes was Professional Experience: What works? Why? I seized upon this theme and the title of the conference as it afforded me an opportunity to do an audit of my research in professional experience over the last 25 years. This article presents this evidence base and the messages I have taken from this evidence. I have done this in the hope that, by collating some of the insights gained from the past and the present, it will help to “build a platform for future engagement” in professional experience. In preparing this article I was asked by the Editors to reflect also on how I developed my distinctive line of inquiry and expertise in relation to the practicum across an extended period. These reflections are included. I hope they will support university-based teacher educators in enhancing their satisfaction and achievements from working in this stimulating and provocative field of study.     

The early assessment conundrum: Lessons from the past,implications for the future

The early childhood educational field has garnered attention with initiatives to foster skill acquisition in young children prior to kindergarten entry. These initiatives, in conjunction with the rigorous demands of curricular reform and a burgeoning accountability movement, invoke questions regarding the adequacy of the instruments used to assess young children and the inherent difficulties in conducting such assessments. Because the effectiveness of education relies critically on the sound diagnoses of children's readiness for learning and the measurement of their subsequent progression throughout the schooling process, critical issues in early assessment must be addressed. An examination of past practices was synthesized with recent research to focus awareness on the insufficient content domain, restrictive context, adverse timing and questionable psychometric properties, specifically the inappropriate norms and low predictive validity, of many instruments. Both the implications of and compensatory strategies for each issue are considered. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 41: 737–749, 2004.     

教育研究的困扰与出路——国外视野中的教育研究效益

如何克服教育研究的障碍,提高教育研究效益,是困扰我国教育研究者的一大难题。国外学者在教育研究的组织层面,外部环境,全球化趋势,以及个人研究技能等方面对提高教育研究效益做了一些探讨,虽仍有不足之处,但对我国学界提高教育研究效益的探索或许有一定参考价值。     

Education and social justice: gender lessons of the past

In 1927 the Swedish grammar school opened up for girls. Thereby girls got access to higher education on the same conditions as boys, at least formally. Thus, many towns' boys and girls were seated in the same classroom. In the large cities, however, sex segregation remained, as separate grammar schools for girls were established and some boys' grammar schools were still reserved for boys. The main aim of this paper is to compare the process of gender construction in these different school forms during the period 1927–1960. The questions put are: Were the discourses and the discursive practices of these schools part of the politics of equality or the politics of difference with regard to gender? Which representations of gender and gendered patterns of communication and domination did they produce? The main data consists of interviews with 30 ex-students of coeducational schools and female and male single-sex schools. The conclusion is that the pedagogy in all school forms was inscribed within the meritocratic discourse of equality, which was also important in shaping the students' subjectives. Both girls and boys had to prove themselves worthy of the privilege of attending the grammar school, and in this respect girls as a group were more successful than boys. To begin with the politics of equality also operated in the norms for how girls should dress and look, but later on a discrete make-up was allowed. The politics of difference was manifest in the swot syndrome, the techniques for punishments and rewards, and also, at least partly, in physical education. It was also manifest in the traditional representations of masculinity and femininity, like the male breadwinner and the housewife, prevalent in boys' grammar schools. Girls in female single sex schools, on the other hand, were firmly determined to make a career of their own.     

Literacy,myths, and legacies: Lessons from the past/thoughts for the future

Sketching broadly to suggest the power of the past in shaping how we think about, use, and even abuse the skills of literacy, Literacy: Myths and Lessons draws practical and theoretical instruction from the history of literacy. Its goal is to suggest new perspectives on literacy and literacies today and tomorrow in part by probing the connections tying past to present and both to possible futures.     

Conferences past and future

Education and Enquiry. By John Anderson, edited by D. Z. Phillips. Pp. 240. Blackwell, 1980, £21.00 hardback, £5.25 paperback.

Injustice, Inequality and Ethics. By Robin Barrow. Pp. xii, 204. Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books, 1982. £18.95 (cloth) and £4.95 (paper).

Universities, Politicians and Bureaucrats: Europe and the United States. Edited by H. Daalder and E. Shils. Pp. viii, 511. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. £37.50.

Conflict and Compromise: Class Formation in English Society 1830–1914, A Comparative Study of Birmingham and Sheffield. By Dennis Smith. Pp. xiv, 333. London: Routledge &; Kegan Paul, 1982. £17.95.

English Education, Social Change and War 1911–20. By Geoffrey Sherington. Pp. xiii, 194. Manchester University Press, 1981. £14.50.

The Sociology of Childhood: Essential Readings. Edited by Chris Jenks. Pp. 290. Batsford Academic Books, 1982. £6.95 paperback.

Hooligans or Rebels? By Stephen Humphries. Pp. viii, 279. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981. £12.50.

A New Case for the Liberal Arts. By D. G. Winter, D. C. McClelland and A. J. Stewart. Pp. xxvii, 247. London: Sage Publications, 1981. £14.75.

Sources for English Local History. By W. B. Stephens. Pp. xvi, 342. Cambridge: University Press, rev. ed., 1981. Hard covers £25.00, paperback £8.95.

Innovation in the Science Curriculum. Ed. by John Olson. Pp. 178. London: Croom‐Helm, 1982. £12.50.

Brightest and Best. By W. P. Gothard. Pp. 270. Driffield: Nafferton, 1982. £10.95.

Verbal Deficit: A Critique. By J. C. B. Gordon. Pp. 181. London: Croom Helm, 1982.

Multi‐lingualism and Mother‐tongue Education. By D. P. Pattanayak. Pp. xvii, 185. Delhi: O.U.P., 1982. £7.95.

Asia: the Winning of Independence. Ed. Robin Jeffrey, London, the Macmillan Press Ltd., 1981, xv, 337     

信息视野中的教育研究设计——教育研究设计与教育研究工程

紧扣当前教育信息化的时代背景,首次从信息视野,即基于信息视野教育研究原理,对教育研究设计进行研究探讨.以教育研究系统的教育研究者、教育系统、教育研究内容、教育研究方法、教育研究媒体、教育研究交互六要素不断迭代深入,为总体研究思路,并以案例进行了实践思考.期望为教育信息化时代教育研究设计及其相关理论提供一些借鉴.     

Educational Assessment in China: Lessons from history and future prospects

Imperial China is widely regarded as having introduced the first systematic assessment system for civil service appointments. This paper briefly reviews this history and then discusses the evolution of assessment during the twentieth century, especially the period of the People's Republic from 1949. It explores the highly centralised nature of the resulting system, which changed as political and economic circumstances dictated.     

Engineering Education in Ireland: the past and the future

In Ireland, content and level of engineering courses have in the past been influenced by views of professional institutions. Demands of industry are leading to provision of a wide range of courses at different levels with closer contact with industry, not all of which meet the requirements of professional institutions; the major increase in courses has been at sub-degree level.