Interpreting Kant in Education: Dissolving Dualisms and Embodying Mind – Introduction

This introduction to my Interpreting Kant in Education: Dissolving Dualisms and Embodying Mind begins with a disturbing puzzle. Immanuel Kant is one of the most significant thinkers of modern times, with unrivalled influence, but he receives a great deal of criticism in educational theory. The widespread, supposedly ‘Kantian’ picture – according to which mind structures or makes sense of experience and imposes its meaning and maxims – is frequently disparaged for its alleged dualisms, intellectualism and disembodied mind, detached from real life. But this ‘Kantian’ Kant stands in sharp contrast to the Kant to be found in more careful exegesis and contemporary work in the philosophy of mind and epistemology. By contrasting interpretations of some of Kant's central terms and insights, the chapters that follow seek to show that Kant can be understood in an altogether different and more valuable way. Exploring Kant's philosophy is at the same time delving into different ideas about knowledge and concepts, about rationality, about what it means to be minded and to be human, and about the role of education in these. This introduction gives a taste of Kant's status in educational theory. It lays the way for the argument that his conception of mind, as a capacity for knowledge, can be read as embodied and his idea of the human subject understood as embedded and engaged in everyday life.     

Teaching Traditions in Science Teachers’ Practices and the Introduction of National Testing

Our main interest in this article is to explore whether Swedish teachers changed their teaching and assessment practices in relation to the new national tests in science education that were introduced 2009. Data was collected using a web-distributed questionnaire, which was answered by 407 teachers. The concept of teaching traditions is used to capture patterns of what is emphasized by teachers in terms of goals and content in teaching and the design of the questionnaire was based on the concept of curriculum emphases. The results show two distinct groups of focus, which are compared with two traditions within science education: the Academic and the Moral tradition. The main content where teaching has been changed is in making science more applied than before, where applied not only means the application of science knowledge to practical technical issues, but also to moral and political issues.     

Introduction to “Racial Inequality and Education: Patterns and Prospects for the Future”

Abstract

American society is in the midst of profound economic and demographic changes. At the same time that the racial and ethnic composition of American society is changing, disparities in income and wealth have grown wider and more pronounced than ever before. This article explores the ways in which race is implicated in the widening gaps in wealth and opportunity, and how these inequities impact educational achievement.     

BSW and MSW Students’ Opinions About and Responses to the Death of Freddie Gray and the Ensuing Riots: Implications for the Social Justice Emphasis in Social Work Education

In April 2015, a Black man, Freddie Gray, died in police custody in Baltimore, Maryland. A day of rioting followed. These events provided the researcher with the opportunity to ascertain social work students’ opinions about and actions in response to these occurrences and their implications for the social justice mission of the social work profession. Students expressed a commitment to social justice and reported that it was emphasized in their education. A significant minority indicated that the Gray case was not addressed in any of their social work classes or in their field practicum. Although respondents reported that the Gray case further enhanced their commitment to the principle of social justice, few engaged in any sort of activity in response to Gray’s death and the unrest either at the time of the events or 6 months later. Implications for social work education are discussed.     

From schools to Higher Education – neoliberal agendas and implications for autonomy

Neoliberal agendas have acted to limit the agency of groups and of individuals through both the imposition of boundaries and through setting up rigorous systems of accountability which together act to codify behaviours. Such systems do not so much remove freedom as influence conceptions about the alternatives available. In this article we outline the English educational policy context and the pressures placed upon first primary schools and then Higher Education establishments, considering the extent to which accountability and an emphasis on the needs of the individual impact on leadership behaviours in schools and upon academic freedoms in Higher Education. Boundaries to individual or group agency are explored drawing together lessons about the limits on professionals in these two situations.     

Students’ Perception of Change in the Singapore Education System

This paper presents the findings of a research that examines students perception of the change in the Singapore Education System and how that impacts on their satisfaction and outlook. Analysis of the data obtained through a questionnaire and face-to-face interviews shows that the more favourable the perception of change amongst students, the more favourable is their satisfaction and outlook. The implication for education leaders is that it is important to understand student perception of change because they are the ultimate beneficiary of change.     

From Oxbridge to the Market‐place ‐‐ Management and Leadership in Higher Education

Institutions of higher education world‐wide are in a state of flux; whether in developed countries where there is unease on the part of the community and politicians as to the value of such education for the resources expended, or in newly emergent nations where the institutions are often valued for the contribution they can make to nation‐building, but where the elitism they foster can lead to the imposition of a new social stratum on formerly agrarian societies.

Against this background this paper calls for an alert, active response to the task of leadership and management in our institutions. It is postulated that to meet the situation most institutions of higher education (IHEs) may have to move from the traditional “Oxbridge” community of scholars stance, to a more market‐oriented approach in patterns of governance and in their relationship with the societies they serve.     

“Talent” and the Misrecognition of Social Advantage in Specialized Arts Education

Attention has been drawn to the persistent underrepresentation of underserved populations in gifted education programs. Though a small number of working-class students, students of color, recent immigrants, and students with limited English proficiency attend these programs, access to gifted education remains closely linked to White and upper-middle-class populations. The question remains: how, in a system that claims to be committed to achieving equity, do such disparities come to be and, furthermore, how are they justified? In this article we attempt to make sense of this phenomenon by examining how discourses of talent are mobilized within the context of a particular kind of gifted education program: a specialized arts program within a Canadian public secondary school.     

Introduction to Special Issue—STEM Workforce: STEM Education and the Post-Scientific Society

Journal of Science Education and Technology - An assumption is often made that STEM shortages can be remedied by either increasing the number of STEM graduates or...     

Access to Gender‐Sensitive Higher Education in Eastern and Central Europe: Reflections from the CEPES Project on “Good Practice in Promoting Gender Equality in Higher Education”;

Summarizing the incomplete results of the UNESCO Programme on “Good Practice in Promoting Gender Equality in Higher Education”;, the author asks that any assessment of the progress made in the area of gender‐sensitive education take regional specificities into account. The regional environment is at best neutral and usually hostile to feminism in subtle ways. In spite of the lack of tradition and experience in gender‐sensitive social institutions, valuable things have been happening in the region. Placed within their socio‐economic and political contexts (and not necessarily judged according to western standards) individuals, programmes, and institutions are pioneering in the field. Access to the benefits of an education incorporating a coherent gender dimension is, for the time being, limited. Some reasons for this situation are outlined in this article.     

Reimagining the purpose of VET – Expanding the capability to aspire in South African Further Education and Training students

This paper applies the capabilities approach to the broader debate of the role of vocational education and training (VET) in poverty alleviation. The capabilities approach provides an approach for conceptualising and evaluating VET which differs in orientation from dominant productivist conceptions. It does so by shifting the focus from economic development to human development. By placing the well-being of VET students at the centre of our concern it shifts the lens from income generation and with it employability to a lens on capability expansion which includes but is not limited to the capability to work. The paper is based on interviews with 20 South African Further Education and Training (FET) college students. The central argument is that VET has an important role to play in poverty alleviation, but only if located in a multi-dimensional view of poverty which understands poverty as capability deprivation across multiple human functionings. In this broader notion of poverty, the role that VET plays includes training for employability, but also includes the expansion of other important capabilities such as, and in the voice of a FET student interviewed in this study, ‘the ability to dream’, or in the language of the capabilities approach, the capability to aspire.     

Collaborative Partisans in a World of Change and Uncertainties: Responses to Staff Support Developments in the Education of ‘Difficult-to-teach’ Pupils across Cultural Boundaries

The Family Service Units is a national charity working in some of the most deprived areas of the country. This paper is concerned with one part of its work, The Connections Project. This project aims to develop non-punitive anti-bullying partnerships between young people, schools, adults in the community and other agencies. This article focuses on a particular aspect of this project, the Support Code, which seeks to promote an ethos of proactive mutual support. The development is described and the teachers’ reactions are explored. Though this work is currently being undertaken in primary schools, much is applicable to the early years of secondary education too.