Educational Research for Policy and Practice in Japan – With Particular Reference to Youth Education

Based upon the Fundamental Law of Education, Japanese school education system has long been a source of pride for the country as a result of the high school participation rate, the homogeneity of compulsory education throughout the country. However, the confidence of the people in its schools is now showing severe signs of strain and fatigue. In recent years, there have been many reports about the growing seriousness of a number of educational problems having to do with young people in their childhood and adolescence. Since the mid-1970s, a number of problems have been highlighted. They include violent behavior, juvenile crimes, bullying, refusal to attend school, dropping out at secondary level of education, and corporal punishment. Against the above background, based on recommendations from such advisory bodies as the Central Council for Education and the National Commission on Education Reform, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) has adopted a range of policies and launched a series of educational reform programmes. For instance, what is called “Rainbow Plan”, based on the final report submitted by the National Commission on Education Reform, provides the country with basic guidelines for the educational reform in the near future. Roles of educational research for making policies have been of significance. Research initiated by the National Institute for Educational Policy Research (NIER) and the National Federation of Educational Policy Research Institutes (NFERI) is an example of contributions to the development of educational qualities in the country. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Experiences in education innovation: developing tools in support of active learning

The paper focuses on educational projects developed in the ETSII (Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Industriales) of the Polytechnic University of Madrid during the past few years. These projects were developed as new tools for enhancing the active role of students, for improving practical teaching, especially by means of virtual laboratories and different sets of problems and exercises, and for promoting self-learning. The paper analyses the use of ICT in teaching, with the case of a developed e-learning platform as a tracking system for subjects. The paper concludes by discussing the new educational trends in the Centre, devoted to develop an active role of students by activities such as peer mentoring and laboratory monitors programs, and competitions for achieving multidisciplinary engineering challenges.     

Building the open road: The NREN as a test-bed for the National Public Network

While the National Research and Education Network will meet the computer and communication needs of scientists, researchers, and educators, its implementation should also be used as an opportunity to extend the benefits of public networking technology to new groups of users. If built in a competitive environment, according to the principles of open interconnection, adherence to nonproprietary standards, common carriage, easy-to-use user interfaces, and respect for personal privacy, the NREN could demonstrate the great potential of public broadband networks in the future. As policy makers debate the role of the public telephone and other existing information networks in the nation's information infrastructure, the NREN can serve as a working test-bed for new technologies, applications, and governing policies that will ultimately shape the growing National Public Network.This paper was originally written in September 1991, so legislative citations are not all to the latest version of NREN legislation.The authors wish to thank Art Kleiner and Danny Weitzner for contributing to the writing of this article. A version of the article will be published in Building Information Infrastructure: Issues in the Development of the National Research and Education Network (B. Kahin, ed., McGraw-Hill), a collection of papers from a symposium sponsored by the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program and Strategic Computing and Telecommunications in the Public Sector Program of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.     

Balancing basic and post-basic education in Kenya: National versus international policy agendas

The article traces the policy history of Kenya over more than 40 years (1963–2006) in order to tease out the tensions between the key themes of its own national agenda and the priorities of its principal development partners. The national concerns with the education-and-employment connection and with the orientation of schooling towards skills for work in the formal and informal economies can be contrasted with the aid agency priorities on quality and on education-for-poverty reduction. Equally, national preoccupations have been with the whole of the education and training system—from early childhood, to technical, to university. By contrast, external donors have frequently prioritised a particular sub-sector such as primary schooling. In the most recent period, 2002–2006, the paper identifies the emergence of common ground between the national and external agendas. Thus the international education agenda, as marked out by the UN Millennium Project, the Commission for Africa, and the World Bank's most recent education policy paper, is not dissimilar in its priorities to the latest Kenyan education agenda, as expressed in the Kenya Education Sector Support Programme. There is also an agreement that the education sector, on its own, cannot deliver the many benefits so often associated with schooling; rather, there needs to be an enabling environment in other sectors of the economy, if the investment in education is to be most productive. The one area where there is serious divergence, between the Government of Kenya, and, at least, its principal Western donors is on the treatment of corruption. At the point of writing, the extent of corruption remains a major threat to the external funding so necessary to Kenya's large educational ambitions.     

Towards an electronic independent learning environment for statistics in higher education

This study focuses on the feasibility of implementing independent learning in a traditional university and the feasibility of providing this independent learning by means of an electronic interactive learning environment. The target group contained students enrolled in an applied statistics course at the Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences at the University of Gent (RUG). Three experimental variables were designed: learning environment, delivery and support. This created five different learning conditions to which subjects were assigned at random. The present study gives empirical evidence that an electronic-based independent learning environment with discernible support devices can take its place in a traditional university setting. Our results indicate that the cognitive outcomes of students' learning in a computer-based environment are neither fostered nor hindered by attitudes towards computers. The merely cognitive aspect of attitude towards computers, i.e., interest in learning about computers, affects the perception of structure in the materials; more interested students have a better perception of structure. Students with better prior knowledge and having fewer problems with statistics have a better perception of the learning access to the contents. In order to construct electronic learning environments, further investigation is needed into student characteristics interacting with learning environment characteristics, and this is currently in progress by our group.     

教育专网:助力中国教育信息化迈上新台阶——访中国工程院院士吴建平教授

吴建平院士介绍了互联网的核心技术和中国教育科研网建设的历程。吴院士团队实现IPv6关键技术的突破,使得中国教育科研网走在了世界互联网建设的前列:CERNET已经成为全球最大的学术网络。“互联网+教育”应用也是吴院士重点关注的内容。结合当前互联网教育现状,吴院士从缩小数字鸿沟、推进教育公平、确保青少年健康成长等方面探讨了教育专网建设的必要性,并界定了教育专网建设的概念和内涵,分析了教育专网建设的基本框架和可能带来的教育管理上的变革。他提出,教育专网将提供快速、稳定、绿色、安全的教育服务,作为智慧教育的支撑平台,支撑各种新兴技术对教育的渗透,进而对教育资源建设、教育改革方面发挥积极作用。未来教育场景中,教育专网必将成为“教、学、管、评、测”全链条信息化、智慧化的基础平台,将推动我国教育高质量均衡发展。     

Science education: innovation in rural and remote Queensland schools

Outside its heavily-populated south-eastern corner, Queensland is a huge administrative area with many small, remote communities that can be separated by hundreds of kilometres of dirt road, or, in other areas, not accessible by road. In this study, parents, students and teachers in nine schools from rural and regional Queensland were interviewed about their perceptions of school science. Teachers, parents and students defined remoteness by reference to their social ties, as well as the social capital and resources they drew on to teach science meaning that not only did different groups differ in their interpretations of remoteness; different teachers in similar circumstances also responded differently. Science teachers’ responses to remoteness were related to their perceptions of school-community communication and their perceptions of their freedom to innovate. Teachers who felt that remoteness gave them more freedom and recognised opportunities to utilise their environment created innovative and relevant science programmes. Teachers who felt their remoteness gave them less freedom felt isolated from the community were less likely to innovate.     

Developing a knowledge network for applied education research to mobilise evidence in and for educational practice

Abstract

Background: The importance of ‘evidence-informed practice’ has risen dramatically in education and in other public policy areas. This article focuses on the importance of knowledge mobilisation strategies, processes and outputs. It is concerned with how these can support the adaptation and implementation of evidence from research and professional knowledge to inform changes in educational practices. It presents a case study of the Knowledge Network for Applied Education Research (KNAER), a tripartite initiative in Canada involving the Ontario Ministry of Education, University of Toronto and Western University and 44 KNAER-funded projects.

Purpose: The purpose of the article is to analyse the developing approach towards supporting knowledge mobilisation by the KNAER provincial partners through the governing body of the Planning and Implementation Committee and strategic and operational work of the university teams, and also the knowledge mobilisation strategies, challenges and successes of 44 KNAER projects.

Design and methods: We utilised a qualitative case study approach to investigate the Knowledge Network for Applied Education Research’s (KNAER) approaches to developing knowledge mobilisation over four years (2010–2014).To explore the work of the KNAER provincial partners, we analysed 17 meeting notes from the Planning and Implementation Committee and 9 notes from the university KNAER partners’ meetings. To explore the knowledge mobilisation strategies, challenges and successes of KNAER-funded projects, we analysed the 44 knowledge mobilisation plans, 141 interim reports and 43 final reports submitted by projects. To further investigate the experiences of KNAER projects during their implementation, we analysed responses from 21 people from 19 KNAER projects who participated in a facilitated discussion about their experiences.

Results: The Planning and Implementation Committee’s role involved three core responsibilities: (1) Approving knowledge mobilisation proposals submitted to the KNAER; (2) Ensuring that collaborative partnerships were developed at the local, provincial, national and international levels; and (3) Approving the KNAER operational and strategic plan. The university partners have taken on the roles of operational management, strategic leadership, and research and knowledge mobilisation expertise. KNAER projects varied in their knowledge mobilisation strategies, challenges and successes. ‘Exploiting Research’ projects focused on establishing connections and engaging communities of practice with people relevant to the project’s focus, creating an analysis of needs, designing or producing a relevant knowledge mobilisation product with the purpose of improving practice, monitoring the results or impact of the new product and sharing the dissemination process and results with others. ‘Building or Extending Networks’ projects engaged in creating or extending existing networks, developing a needs-based or gap assessment and producing appropriate products and dissemination processes based on the results gathered. ‘Strengthening Research Brokering’ projects organised steering committees to guide their work and gathered information via a literature review or by collecting information from stakeholders and then served as research brokers by collecting and mobilising relevant knowledge to inform practice. ‘Visiting World Experts’ projects developed knowledge mobilisation plans for host experts’ visits, involving establishing partnerships with networks, including universities and schools, and utilising social media and communication processes for knowledge mobilisation products.

Conclusions: KNAER included aspects of linear, relationships and systems models for connecting evidence and practice. Looking forward, KNAER is seeking to further advance a systemic approach. A systems model is in preference to linear models – which focus on evidence production only without attention to mobilisation or uptake of research, and/or relationships models – which may develop networks, but do not attend to capacity and resource barriers that need to be addressed for systemic and sustainable knowledge mobilisation.     

Research and teacher education in the UK: Building capacity

The need for capacity-building in teacher education in the UK has been raised as a serious issue by a number of commentators. Tensions about the place of research in teacher education have persisted for many decades, but following changes to the core funding mechanisms in the UK, the maintenance of education research bases within many universities has become increasingly tenuous. This paper provides an analytical account of an initiative conducted by the Teacher Education Group (TEG) to build research capacity in teacher education. With reference to a review of the national contexts for research in the UK and research on teacher educators, the article argues that, in order to build research capacity initiatives we need to provide motivation and new types of networking opportunities for researchers, as well as developing their expertise. In developing this argument, the article also explore the relationships between national policy changes, institutional research cultures and individual habitus and agency in research capacity-building. The paper also describes a new initiative in England, the Teacher Education Research Network (TERN).     

Nurturing identity formation in adolescence through narrative learning: a dialogue between the pedagogies of media literacy and religious education

ABSTRACT

In these last four decades or so, adolescence became understood as the time when young people ask fundamental questions about themselves, each other, the world, and one’s past, present and future life that seek unity of purpose and coherence. For most young people the digital media are popular modalities through which they seek, consciously or unconsciously, meaningful answers to such questions. Multimodal spaces are sites for adolescent identity construction, a reality that prompted media educators to focus more on youth as authors of multimodal productions that provide opportunities to create narratives of self. RE has been increasingly justified by the support it provides students to become subjects of life, and the potential to provide opportunities for meaning-making. This essay explores how these functions of RE become more possible through the creative pedagogy of MLE and the digital technologies it utilizes for storytelling, especially photography and film-making which can engage the processes of interpretation and meaning-making, imagination and critical reflection. The creativity of MLE can be positively utilized in RE for meaning-making and identity formation. This paper draws upon the Maltese context in which RE is more of a confessional nature (CRE). This model could significantly benefit from such an endeavour.     

Implementing education system reform: Local adaptation in school reform of teaching and learning

This paper has two purposes: first, to investigate centre- periphery, and within-school relationships and processes by which Vietnam schools undertake system reform implementation; second, to develop the explanatory power and complementarity of two theories – complex adaptive system theory and loose-tight coupling. Main findings - schools’ internal enablers driving reforms were shaped by external enablers; a plethora of internal enablers then worked in concert to implement the intended reforms (eg. the take-up of student-centred teaching and learning); in the local adaptation process, school culture and professional development were pre-eminent. Conclusions – complex adaptive system theory was validated in how Vietnam schools locally adapted policy.     

On global absences: Reflections on the failings in the education and poverty relationship in Latin America

This paper explores some of the aspects of the relationship between education and poverty as it has been constructed by international organisations and national governments in Latin America. The analysis is carried out from two separate angles. On the one hand, the paper highlights the main failings that underlie the positive and hoped-for relationship between investment in education and the reduction of poverty. On the other, it demonstrates how a good number of these failings can be attributed to an underestimation of the inverse relationship, i.e. the effects that poverty has on education. Though this analysis can be understood from a general perspective, evidence from Latin America is used to illustrate the consequences of these global absences.     

The future for industrial engineers: education and research opportunities

EU graduation and the recruitment of industrial engineers (IEs) have been investigated. An increasing demand is observed for graduates in almost all industrial engineering (IE) subjects. The labour market in the EU is evolving towards the service sector even if manufacturing still represents a significant share of both IE employment and gross domestic product. On average, IE in the EU is still within the framework of the ‘market-driven’ paradigm, which contrasts with the knowledge society aims pursued by the ‘Bologna process’. R&D resources and human capital are identified as major success factors to overcome current limits for IE development in the EU. With reference to both factors, a comparison between the EU, Japan and the US is provided. In the EU, the attractiveness of universities and the social dimension are recognized as major forces attracting human capital. Patent maps outline current and future IE research and education fields of interests. Finally, EU higher education opportunities are briefly described.     

Spaces of contest for religious education reform in comparative perspectives: Scotland and Malawi as cases

Educational reforms, particularly in a contested subject such as Religious Education (RE), have unsettled boundaries principally because actors demand or expect different outcomes of these reforms. In the cases of Scotland and Malawi the present paper examines how different stakeholders have engaged with RE reforms. It thus ascertains whether, if at all, there are major points of difference on salient issues that underscore the micro-politics of RE reform in radically diverse national contexts, one African (Malawi) and other European (Scotland). It concludes that despite the complexity of RE as a school subject and subtle differences in national contexts in which it is debated and constructed, there is greater similarity on issues that underpin the micro-politics of RE reform in transnational contexts.     

义务教育改革与发展的政策工具研究

本研究运用自愿性、强制性和混合型政策工具三分的框架,系统分析国家以及各省中长期教育改革和发展规划纲要中义务教育政策工具的运用状况。研究发现,我国义务教育政策工具运用不足的问题尤为突出:强制性工具仍以规制为主,虽逐渐引入命令性和权威性工具,但并未充分运用;混合型工具的使用始终比较单一,主要集中于鼓励号召、直接补助等;自愿性工具中虽然家庭与社区、自愿性组织、市场、自我管理与服务在总体上均有涉及,但运用频次较低。     

Financing universal primary education: An analysis of official development assistance in fragile states

At existing rates of progress, fragile states represent those countries most at-risk of failing to achieve universal primary education. It is estimated that around a third of the world's out of school children live in countries where the state faces severe development challenges instigated and perpetuated by weak institutional capacity, poor governance, political instability, or the legacy effects of past conflict. Typically, fragile states have the most difficulty in mobilising domestic resources to finance national education strategies and, consequently, rely heavily on other sources of educational investment. This paper examines the provision of development aid within a group of 52 low-income countries, and concludes that despite the international commitment to universal primary education, the prevailing attitude of selectively allocating aid to ‘good performers’ has led to education in fragile states being sidelined by the development community.     

Demonstrating a situated learning approach for in-service teacher education in rural India: The Quality Education Programme in Rajasthan

Recent educational policy in India has repositioned elementary school teachers as active, reflective practitioners, not just ‘deliverers’ of syllabus material. This article examines innovations in teacher support in Rajasthan's government schools through the ‘Quality Education Program.’ Drawing on qualitative research of collaborative learning processes, the paper discusses two support strategies used by the program: professional dialogic interactions and modeling of pedagogic strategies, which paralleled introductory or developmental phases within a ‘collaborative apprenticeship model’ of teacher professional development. In doing so, the paper outlines the potential of situated, collaborative approaches for Indian in-service teacher education and education development reform, more broadly.     

Influencing the Probability for Graduation at Four-Year Institutions: A Multi-Model Analysis

The purpose of this study is to identify student and institutional characteristics that influence the probability for graduation. The study delves further into the probability for graduation by examining how far the student deviates from the institutional mean with respect to academics and affordability; this concept is referred to as the “match.” The validity of the matching model is tested using a multivariate analysis with select variables from the Beginning Postsecondary Study: 1996/2001 (BPS:96/01) and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). Traditional multivariate models examine the importance of both student and institutional characteristics but assume the two are independent of one another. This study is different in that it uses the matching model to examine the relationship between student and institutional characteristics. The results are compared to more frequently used models and show that the relationship between students and their institutions plays an important role in understanding the probability for graduation.

Conceptualising transitions from vocational to higher education: bringing together Bourdieu and Bernstein

Abstract

In this paper we provide a framework for conceptualising transitions from Vocational Education and Training (VET) programmes to Higher Education (HE), by bringing together Bourdieu’s and Bernstein’s theoretical approaches with the view to attend to the often side-lined epistemic and pedagogical parameters. We utilise the Bourdieusian tools of field, habitus and capital to capture the relational, material and cultural aspects of HE transitions. In using a Bernsteinian lens we shed further light into how social agents acquire differentially structured and valorised knowledges and develop a sense of themselves as hierarchically positioned knowers. The metaphor of transitional frictions is utilised to capture the ongoing struggles that students with a VET background experience as they make the transition to HE. We argue for the need of widening epistemic access and putting in place enabling pedagogies that can ease these transitional frictions, thereby potentially increasing the chances of successful HE participation and completion.     

Challenges and prospects for improving teacher education and development through the National Policy Framework on Teacher Education and Development

Abstract

This paper examines the prospects for improving teacher education and development in South Africa through the National Policy Framework on Teacher Education and Development (NPFTED). The key elements of the policy framework are critically analysed in terms of their limitations and their potential for improving teacher education and development as a crucial means to improve learner performance. The paper looks at the current realities in teacher education and development, the progress made and opportunities available, the identifiable gaps, and the proposals for closing the gaps. Possibilities and constraints in the current situation, as they are described in the NPFTED, are discussed. These include globalisation, the challenges facing a fledgling nonracial democracy, the legacy of skewed development under apartheid, current social inequalities, conditions in rural schools, declining recruitment trends, large mismatches between the supply and demand of teachers, HIV/AIDS and other diseases among teachers, the limits of the current planning, information and communication systems, and the situation in education faculties in higher education institutions. The paper concludes that the challenges are formidable, but that proper planning and synergisation of objectives and resources by government, higher education institutions, labour unions, the private sector and the public can contribute to significant improvements.