The expansion of compulsory education in Turkey: local and world culture dynamics

Drawing on world culture and local culture explanations of educational change, this article aims to understand the dynamics of educational reform in Turkey in 1997 that expanded compulsory primary education from five to eight years. To do so, speeches given by opponents and proponents of the reform in the Turkish parliament were analysed. Imam-Hatip schools, vocational secondary schools for educating religious functionaries, were central to the debate. In support of world culture explanations, both sides of the debate made references to Western educational models and universal values such as democracy and human rights to frame and legitimise their arguments. However, all these arguments were embedded in local cultural and political issues. This article therefore proposes that both world culture and local culture should be considered when analysing national policy changes since local actors can easily appropriate global developments to support their local cultural and political interests.     

历史讨论课与教育创新

从素质教育到教育创新，体现了中国教育改革的不断深入。教师肩负着教育改革的重要使命，高等师范院校的教师更是责任重大。从教育思想、教学理念到教学方法，都要适应教育改革的需要进行创新，推动中国教育改革不断走向深入。历史讨论课这种教学形式恰好体现了教育创新的精神。要上好历史讨论课首先要选好讨论内容，其次要很好地组织课堂讨论，最后还要认真总结。历史讨论课使教师和学生的多种能力都得到了提高，这正是素质教育的具体体现。     

Societal culture and teachers’ responses to curriculum reform: experiences from China

Educational change is intrinsically bound to the cultural characteristics of the society. However, the relationship between educational change and societal culture is rarely explored, especially in the context of mainland China. Following a 3-year qualitative research project, the present study explored the influence of societal culture on teachers’ responses to the national curriculum reform of upper secondary education in mainland China. The results generated three themes highly relevant to teachers’ responses to curriculum reform in Chinese culture, namely teachers’ obedience, teachers’ facework and teachers’ collaboration. These teachers’ responses reflected some Confucian ethics rooted in Chinese culture and explained the absence of radical teacher resistance to the national curriculum reform. It was suggested that a culturally sensitive approach to change leadership may have been more fruitful for facilitating the aims of curriculum reform in mainland China.     

Culture and Technology: implications for multicultural teacher education

ABSTRACT

American classrooms are experiencing a rapid growth in cultural and ethnic diversity, as well as an increase in educational classroom computing. Because culture directly affects classroom organisation and classroom learning, teachers need to understand, incorporate, and support their students’ cultures. Furthermore, since educational computing is not culturally neutral, teachers in culturally diverse settings must integrate the computer culture, the classroom culture, and students’ learning preferences. To meet the need for culturally and technologically competent multicultural teachers, teacher education programs must first define both cultural competency and computer competency. After examining the relationship between culture and educational computing, the paper explores some essential components of cultural and technological competency for multicultural teachers. Finally, it indicates the need for further research on the interaction of culture and technology in the multicultural classroom.     

论多元化教育的理论研究框架

多元文化教育的理论研究必须建立在一定的哲学思想基础之上，其研究框架应含盖即课程改革、公平教学、多元文化能力和社会公平四个领域。这对于反思多元文化教育的理论和实践及师范教育的改革具有重要意义。     

论班主任评语的温馨化及其时代背景

目前一种基于现实生活，富有人性味的动人而诚挚、透明而亲切、温情而诗意的温馨评语正悄然在教育实践中兴起。温馨评语的情感化、个性化、生活化、生命化的特征，体现了教育、教师对人性的解读、对生命的珍爱、对生活的感悟和对教育真谛的诗情守望，反映了当代哲学对人的主体间性的呼唤、教育生活化的发展趋势和世界教育改革的潮流。     

Exploring How a Study Abroad and International Service-Learning Project Shaped Preservice Teachers’ Understanding of Humanizing Pedagogy

In an attempt to better prepare future teachers to fight against social injustice, support their culturally and linguistically diverse students and wrestle with social and educational complexities around the globe, many education programs have increased the number of study abroad programs and international service learning projects. In this qualitative study, we explored seven preservice teachers’ experiences related to humanizing pedagogy after participating in a study abroad program combined with an international service-learning project in a South African rural community. Analyzing multiple data sources such as interviews and reflective journals, we discovered that the preservice teachers grappled with the political, social, economic, and educational differences they encountered during the international project and wrestled with conflicting ideas and beliefs about poverty and language. They identified their relationships with students as catalysts to address these educational issues and their need to reverse systemic inequities. They built caring relationships with students in the community and developed additive perspectives the focused on the students’ community cultural capital. The preservice teachers expressed deep critical reflection and a desire to promote a more fully human educational world where students have the opportunities to enact their agency, their creativity, and their language and culture.     

Teachers’ cultural differences: case studies of geography teachers in Brisbane,Changchun and Hong Kong

The primary purpose of this exploratory study is to identify variations in the ways in which individual teachers in different educational contexts interpret their curriculum and plan their lessons and in particular to explore the possibility that cultural differences as identified by Hofstede (1991) may be a contributing factor to understanding how teachers understand their work. “Educational reform” has become a catchphrase in the Anglo-American world, including the United States, Canada, Australia, and England and Wales, as well as in the Confucian Heritage Areas such as Mainland China, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Across the world, the educational reform measures being implemented are surprisingly similar. This paper describes a study of how geography teachers in Queensland, Australia, Hong Kong, and Changchun, China, plan their lessons and curriculum. From classroom observations and interviews with the teachers involved, we confirmed marked differences in each location regarding their cultural traits of power distance, individualist and collectivist preference and uncertainty tolerance, and that these traits appear to be highly influential in their curriculum planning. Despite the small scale of this study, we contend that there are good reasons for caution before national education systems import policies and curriculum reform initiatives from other countries for unthinking adoption.     

Girls and basic education in Ghana: a cultural enquiry

This paper attempts to do three things: first to provide an argument for acknowledging and using the cultural dimension in educational development; second to put the case for a culturally more appropriate research methodology; and third to address the issue of access and gender in schooling within a cultural framework.Using predominantly life history interviews with women teachers and girls in and out of school, the research identifies three domains of enquiry: the home, economy and school, where problems and solutions of girls' access to schooling are to be found. It concludes with implications for policy makers at national and local level.     

Critical thinking as culture: Teaching post-Soviet teachers in Kazakhstan

This paper explores the question of whether critical thinking can eventually become part of the cultural fabric in Kazakhstan, a country whose Soviet educational system not only trained teachers to memorise, lecture and intimidate students but also created a culture in educational institutions fraught with many fear-based behaviours engendering competitiveness, intolerance and other hostile behaviours antithetical to critical thinking and an open, democratic society. While educational reform can have profound effects on a nation, education is but one system in a complex network of governmental and cultural systems, and change must be borne by many. This paper reviews literature and presents qualitative data gathered through interviews with Soviet-trained teachers. The authors recommend that teachers should embrace student-centred techniques and critical thinking methodologies, as well as shift from a fear-based, authoritarian, top-down system of relating to students and colleagues to one of cooperation, openness and fairness. Such a reform will take repetitive, intensive and experiential training as well as regular assessments of progress.     

论教育改革之魂

教育改革最大的缺憾是灵魂的缺失。教育改革之魂在于人本,在于以学生为本——启迪学生的心灵,挖掘学生的潜能。人本的目标是培养学生人本观念。进行教育改革,要全方位、全过程体现人本精神,教育管理者和教师要真正做到把人本作为教育改革之魂。     

学前教育专业教师专业化成长的途径

教师专业化成为世界教师教育改革、发展的趋势和潮流,现代教师教育发展要求教师成为一种职业,每种职业在不同专业领域有不同的发展途径。学前教育专业的教师由于培养对象的特殊性,其发展途径离不开学校的培养和自身的努力,更离不开幼儿园的实践教学。     

区域文化视野下汉水上游地区教育发展探究

从文化学的视野出发,站在区域文化的角度,汉水上游教育发展要以培养适应现代化发展的新型区域人才为目标,利用区域特有的文化资源进行教学内容改革,并建立相应的为教育服务的支持系统,以达到整个区域经济文化的繁荣和发展。     

提升教育改革效能，完成建设高质量教育体系的重大历史任务

建设高质量教育体系,包括培养德智体美劳全面发展的建设者和接班人一个核心,学校和家庭教育、各级各类学校教育高质量发展的两大路径,以及高质量的教师队伍的人力资源、充足的教育经费的财力资源、教育的公益性和教育公平的价值引领三大条件。完成高质量教育体系这一重大改革任务的关键驱动力是要提高教育改革的效能。教育改革效能是人们为不断满足教育系统内外的要求,有效获取和充分利用对培养人有利的各种资源,在学校、家庭和社会教育中,通过教育管理和教育的过程,以实现培养人的目标为核心,进而使教育的组织和人得到相应发展的特性、有效作用及其状态。建设高质量的教育体系需要提高教育改革效能,是由教育改革效能与教育改革思想上的引领性、理论上的一致性和实践上的同步性决定的。提高教育改革效能,要适应教育内外环境发展的需要,有充足的教育改革资源,有高效的教育改革路径和高效的教育改革过程,要以德树人,把培养德智体美劳全面发展的人作为教育改革的目的,注意处理好教育改革中组织及人的发展的特性、作用及状态之间的关系。     

教育实习改革初探

教育实习是师范院校教学内容的重要组成部分，由于传统教育实习制度本身的历史局限性，当前我国教育面临21世纪世界范围内的教育改革的挑战时，教育实习也必然面临着改革。世界教育实习改革的趋势，教育实习基地的功能及现状，我国教育实习改革的方向及巩固教育实习基地的对策。     

我国50年代院系调整及其反思

我国50年代的院系调整不仅是高等教育史上的一件大事，也是新中国成立后整个社会革的一部分。其深层的影响在于它动摇了中国化中重大伦事理，轻实用技艺之传统的根基，这次院系调整给予我们以重要启示：高等教育的改革尤其要注意处理好当前利益和长远利益的关系；深刻领会综合性大学的内涵，挖掘大学合并和拆分的原动力，要充分考虑本国的国情和化传统。     

从“专业人”走向“文化人”——论当代教师认识论的转变

教师发展是教师文化的创生与转变,"文化人"是现代教师的一种崭新形象。教师的本性是文化性,教师是文化的建筑和寓所,教师文化能够充分表达教师的完整形象和存在方式。从"专业人"走向"文化人",整合教师的多元发展路径,致力于为教师打造一种"通过文化、在文化中、为了文化"的发展方式,努力实现教师发展与教育实践转变的同步化变革,是当代教师教育改革的应有之义。     

Fostering Cross Cultural Competence in Preservice Teachers Through Multicultural Education Experiences

Diversity is increasing in our classrooms implying the need for teachers to be prepared to work effectively with students from different backgrounds, such as cultural, linguistic or national origin. Additionally, the focus on diversity education is important because of the need for students to develop, from an early age, the ability to communicate with and relate to others from diverse backgrounds. This article focuses on cross cultural experiences gained from cross cultural partnerships between preservice teachers and English Language Learners over the course of a semester at a medium size public university. Evidence from this project suggests the need for teacher educators to model and support appropriate cultural competencies that are critical in classrooms that are fast becoming more culturally as well as linguistically diverse.     

论教育改革的逻辑

教育改革作为社会改革与发展的组成部分,具有各种偶然性、不确定性和主观性,但总有一些基本的原则或逻辑不能违背。基于我国教育改革的历史和现实,当前和未来的教育改革应当注意把握教育的独立性和超越性、教育的时代性和历史性、教育的文化性和民族性、教育的多样性和个性化的逻辑路径。从宏观、长远和形上的角度来看,这四个方面分别展示了逻辑与历史、内容与形式的张力。教育改革应参照各种历史机缘保持动态的平衡。     

Culturally responsive teaching in special education for ethnically diverse students: Setting the stage

Two major premises are developed in this discussion. One is that many students of color are disproportionately assigned to special education because educators lack knowledge about or appreciation for their cultural values and socialization, and how these affect learning behaviors. The other premise is that the educational quality of students of color in both special and regular education can be improved significantly by using instructional programs and practices that reflect their cultural heritages, experiences, and perspectives. Several components of this ''culturally responsive teaching'' are explained, along with some research findings about its effects on student achievement. These include critical cultural consciousness of teachers; culturally pluralistic classroom climates; diverse communities of learners; and multicultural curriculum and instruction. The author concludes that without culturally responsive teaching education can never be the best it should be for students who are not part of the majority and mainstream of schools and society.