Youth cultures,activism and agency: revisiting feminist debates

Following the invitation issued by the London Feminist Salon Collective in the pages of Gender and Education, this paper offers further theoretical suggestions for understanding agency. Based on an ethnographic study with young people engaged in activist politics, I offer a conception of agency that is at its core relational. I build this theoretical contribution upon a lineage of feminist theorising about the nature of agency, which began in debates about poststructuralism/postmodernism but have since moved to incorporate Pierre Bourdieu's cultural sociological approach. I suggest that while previous theorising has been enormously important for yielding insights into the possibilities for agency, it has not adequately accounted for the everyday means by which agency takes place. My empirical work highlights one of the modalities through which young people come to take political action – that is, through relational processes. I suggest that such an understanding about agency can further illuminate the means by which progressive and feminist goals might be reached.     

‘Invisible’ teachers of literacy: collusion between siblings and teachers in creating classroom cultures

The promise to raise literacy standards significantly at age 11 in economically disadvantaged areas has been an important part of the present British Government's educational policy. Integral to this promise has been the introduction of official home/school ‘contracts’ or ‘agreements’, which oblige parents to engage in specific literacy activities with their children. However, evidence from a longitudinal study of family literacy practices in East London suggests that family and community members other than parents might play a crucial role in initiating young children into literacy. Siblings particularly have been found to be efficient ‘teachers’ of school literacy practices. In this paper, I investigate particularly ways in which an unspoken collusion takes place between teacher and older sibling revealed during ‘play school’ sessions in Bangladeshi British households in East London.     

一只蜘蛛的经验

Since I moved from London and started living in the Italian countryside,I have encountered a greater variety of strange insects than I even thought existed.I have also become more of an observer.……     

Exploring The Island: Mapping the Shifting Sands in the Landscape of English Classroom Culture and Pedagogy

I begin with an account of my own observation of an English lesson taught by one of my student teachers using a teaching resource, The Island, that I used myself as a new teacher more than 20 years ago and of my own responses on finding it transformed by two decades of change in educational policy and practice. It has become almost a given in academic articles on English teaching, to refer, in a sentence or two, to the reduction of the English curriculum, the narrowing of pedagogy and the loss of teacher agency due to the dominance of a high stakes assessment regime. The policy changes that have given rise to this change have been clearly analysed elsewhere, but part of my purpose here is just to look again at how it might be experienced by a particular pupil in a particular class. I am interested in analysing some of the features of The Island’s incarnation then and now, from three different angles: as it is inscribed in the project book, as I remember teaching it and as I observed it recently in a London classroom. I draw on theories of literacy and of the teaching of writing in particular in trying to account for some of the differences but beyond that, I argue that it is essential to link such theories to wider political debates about culture and to reflect back from this to the purposes of the English curriculum and culture of the English classroom.     

Using Actor Network Theory to Trace and Improve Multimodal Communication Design

During the aftermath of recent disasters (both natural and human made), people have communicated by cobbling together available social software resources—relying on the capabilities of Internet tools such as blogs, news sites, and Flickr. Examining the use of social software taking place after the London bombings of July 7, 2005, I propose a method by which we can study users' literate appropriations to shape the development of more accommodating communication systems.     

Five academic development programs in the eastern cape province: Reactions of an American academic in South Africa

In February 1996, I came to Border Technikon on a one-year appointment as a visiting professor under the Educators for Africa Program of the International Foundation for Education and Self-Help. My major responsibility in South Africa has been to establish a center for Academic Development (AD) at Border Technikon. My background in the United States includes first evaluating and later directing a program for Instructional Development at Utah State University and for five years directing a four-state consortium promoting instructional development in the western United States. From April 30 to June 8, 1996, I visited four nearby AD programs in the Eastern Cape: University of Port Elizabeth and P.E. Technikon (April 30), Rhodes University (May 8), and the University of Ft. Hare (June 5). In each case I was received hospitably and shown the workings of an ongoing program of academic development. Spinoffs from the visits have been surprisingly fruitful: attendance at a three-day workshop on Supplemental Instruction, participation in two joint presentations on distance education on two campuses, and involvement as a campus representative in a South African Association for Academic Development (SAAAD) workshop. But more importantly, these visits have given me a set of professional contacts that have been invaluable in setting up the AD program at Border. Beyond that, they have changed my thinking. I have seen how the AD enterprise, particularly with the addition of a supplemental instruction program, can combine the energies of both faculty and students to overcome learning problems. During 1996, he served as the Director of the Academic Development Centre at Border Technikon, East London, South Africa, under the Educators for Africa Program of the International Foundation of Education and Self-Help.     

伦敦学派语境理论国内研究成果综述

伦敦学派是语言学发展史上的一个重要流派,该学派在英国备受推崇,在英国国外很长一段时间内却毁誉参半,该学派的许多理论在语言学界也存在着争议,例外的是伦敦学派的语境理论从一开始就受到了整个语言学界的重视和研究。国内学术界对伦敦学派语境理论的研究主要开始于20世纪70年代末80年代初,对伦敦学派语境理论的国内研究成果进行一番系统梳理,一方面可以从侧面展示国外语言学理论对中国现当代语言学发展的影响和作用,另一方面也可以进一步总结我国当代语言学在吸收与借鉴国外语言学理论的经验与教训,为今后的语言学理论研究及应用奠定更坚实的基础。     

Creativity as a twenty-first-century competence: an exploratory study of provision and reality

Recently, creativity has begun to be talked about as a twenty-first-century competency [UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation). 2006. The World Conference on Arts Education: Building Creative Capacities for the 21st Century: Working Document, Lisbon, Portugal, 6–9 March 2006. Lisbon: UNESCO]. Several government-endorsed publications have also stressed the importance of fostering creativity in the classroom [Robinson Report. (1999). Great Britain Department for Education and Employment. Department for Culture, Media and Sport. National Advisory Committee on Creativity and Cultural Education. All Our Futures: Creativity and Culture in Education. London: DfEE; DfES. (2004). Excellence and Enjoyment: A Strategy for Primary School. London: DfES; QCA. (2005). Find It! Promote It! London: QCA]. This study aims to explore opportunities to foster creativity following the new National Curriculum’s introduction (DfE (Department for Education). [2013a. National Curriculum for Art & Design. London: DfE; DfE. 2013b. National Curriculum for History. London: DfE; DfE. 2013c. National Curriculum for Science. London: DfE]). It explores provision and attempts to go beyond this into daily classroom practices by interviewing teachers. Analysis indicates a wide variation in terms of in-school provision. Certain schemes of work may be more successful at fostering creativity and that relying purely on the National Curriculum can hinder opportunities for creativity. Teacher responses indicate that they value creativity but find it hard to accurately describe incidents of creativity being fostered and teaching creatively is often confused for teaching for creativity. Training has been designed to address this, although a pervading emphasis on schools’ performativity will mean creativity is not embedded into daily learning to the extent it can be a twenty-first-century competence unless there is a major policy change.     

‘That great educational experiment’: the City of London Vacation Course in Education 1922–1938: a forgotten story in the history of teacher professional development

Each summer between 1922 and 1938, up to 500 elementary school teachers from across Britain, and some from overseas, joined together in London for a two-week residential vacation course. Organised by Evans’ Brothers Publishers and patronised by leading educationists, politicians and policy-makers, the City of London Vacation Course came to be regarded as an important annual educational institution and a cutting-edge exemplar of teacher professional development. In spite of this apparent fame, it appears to have been entirely overlooked in the history of teacher education. This paper seeks to recover the lost story of the City of London Vacation Course and documents its educational and professional focus and its social and cultural function. Locating it within a wider educational, economic and political climate, the paper also examines how the City of London Vacation Course somehow captured and embodied the promise of an emergent new professionalism for elementary teachers during that period.     

重构自主性作为教育目的:中西耻感取向的积极意义

长时间来,西方罪感文化承接道德自律意义,东方耻感文化则被视为他律。论文尝试消弭此一刻板印象。而自伦敦学派以降,自主性也成为核心的教育目的。论文首先检视伦敦学派对自主性的提出及近年所受的批评,企图说明理性自主观,无须放弃,但须吸纳情感、意志、认同等元素,重构后的自主概念,将更易于与耻感接轨。接着从人类学者雷德菲德大小传统之概念架构,分别从代表大传统的儒家典籍中,诠释耻感在其中扮演自律的积极意义;小传统中,面子(脸)文化,也同步加以反思。论文也从两位西方学者对羞耻的分析,即威廉斯发掘前苏格拉底的希腊传统,以及舍勒对抗来自弗洛伊德泛性的释放本能欲望说,重温耻感在现代生活的积极意义。论文暂时的结论是无论东西方,耻感或面子文化,容或有他律道德的负面意义,但其所设定的外在他人等,若经转化,将能修正西方理性自主近年受到之批评,同时能发掘出道德自律的积极意义。     

Reading collaborative reading partnerships in a school community

ABSTRACT

This article is an investigation into the Reading Partners scheme at a large inner London comprehensive school in England; this research comes from a small scale study I carried out as part of my Masters of Teaching at the Institute of Education, University College London. Reading Partners is a project whereby younger and older students within the secondary school education system are paired up to read aloud together in the school library every week over the course of a school year. The purpose of my study was to explore the relationships between these readers and to further understand what is gained from such shared reading. I argue that such collaborative reading aloud provides fertile ground for students’ development and that the sessions go beyond ‘just’ reading and, in fact, make reading become a ‘social’ activity. The significance of the personal relationship these students build and all that happens ‘beyond’ reading texts together should not be underestimated.     

The disposition of concern: an exploration into the affects of the power-knowledge dynamics uncovered during research into pupils’ perceptions of terrorism

In recent years, counter-terrorism measures have become incorporated into the UK education system, with the latest 2015 Counter-Terrorism and Security Act expanding on previous government policy by making it mandatory for schools to be actively involved with counter-terrorism measures [Clause 21, H.M. Government 2015. Counter-Terrorism and Security Act. London: Crown Copyright, 18]. However, during my research into pupils’ perceptions of terrorism, I discovered that conducting such discussions within the classroom setting were restricted from the outset. These findings are useful in demonstrating the difficulties facing those expected to deliver government policy and highlight how education researchers (and teachers) need to be aware of certain considerations prior to engaging in such sensitive subject matter with young people. This article provides an overview of my findings in this regard and demonstrates the complexities associated with discussing the topic of terrorism, in particular it’s relationship with religion, within schools. By using Foucault’s philosophical insights into power-knowledge [[1975] 1991. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. London: Penguin] to analyse this data, I discovered a common trait, which I categorized as ‘the disposition of concern’, that affected and restricted the scope of such discussions.     

Electromagnetic Induction Rediscovered Using Original Texts

Some of Faraday's diary-entries from 1831 have been used frequently as starting point to introduce the phenomenon of electromagnetic induction. This has been done on various levels of knowledge and to pupils of different ages during the last 5 years. I try to let my pupils witness, how Faraday made his discovery, but to show as well, that we cannot infer from his notes, how he arrived at his ideas proper. Reading the original notes (in English), my pupils were expected to take out of it, what Faraday did at his lab, what apparatus he used and what his observations were. Why he did what he did was point of discussion later on. Just here, I expected, that my pupils learn a lot about the properties of electricity, of taking conclusions from experiment, of scientific methodology etc. In addition, we repeated some of Faradays experiments with modern quipment, realizing always to common surprise that the effects observed are extremely faint ones. Depending on knowledge, age and motivation of the group, Lenz's Law was rediscovered in succession. Here I myself try to find out, why Faradays initial mistake as for the direction of the induced current is likely to be overlooked even by the informed modern reader (myself included!). This may become part of a story, why this mistake of Faraday has found serious attention by historians of science only very recently. My approach was connected with group work with English courses, with the reading of more papers by Faraday and two times even with a visit of the Royal Institution at London. In any case, I always tried to put my pupils into the state of knowledge Faraday had at the time of his discovery before this unit, to make the process of discovery as correct as possible. For this claim is somewhat artificial at first glance, it may be an interesting point of discussion.     

Literary apartheid in the post‐war London novel: finding the middle ground

This article examines the development of literary apartheid in post‐war English fiction. While Anglo‐English novelists have generally not included black or Asian characters, London novelists have been an exception to the prevailing little Englandism. Separate critical traditions have also played a role: Anglo‐English critics have shown little interest in race, while black and Asian critics have been engaged in the necessary task of tracing black and Asian British traditions. Drawing on key texts from the 1950s to the 1970s (Colin MacInnes and Barbara Pym) and from the 1980s to the present (Michael Moorcock and Maggie Gee), the essay discusses varied Anglo‐English responses to the development of London as a multicultural city.     

A White Veneer: Education policy,space and “race” in the inner city

This paper explores how neo-liberal education policy change and urban renewal in inner Sydney and London has interacted with “raced” and classed educational identities. I draw on two examples of policy change, the Building the Future policy development in the inner city area of Sydney and the “Excellence in Cities” partnership programme in East London. The paper outlines, and applies, a spatial education policy sociology framework to explore the interplay of space, place, “race” and education policy. This paper suggests that in inner Sydney and London “whiteness” as a racial construct is present but noticeably absent and that this absent presence creates a “white veneer” around educational policy change and urban renewal.     

Assimilation, Faith and Identity: Educational Implications of Change and Continuity

In England, the presence of an established church places its adherents within the social mainstream. Other religious groups have been tolerated though suffering social and educational disadvantages. With the passage of time through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, minority religious groups such as Irish Catholics have been assimilated into the host culture, and allowed to have their own schools.
However, it would appear that contemporary movements of people to the United Kingdom have retained loyalties not only to their own religion, but, in some instances to their own language, which they perceive as a vital element of their own culture and identity. Demands for schools, within the state-funded system, for minority religious groups have not lessened. As faith schools in England increase in number, their role in a multicultural society becomes increasingly problematic. Lessons about changing models of assimilation and identity can be learnt from a brief review of the historic Irish Catholic experience that, in turn, can illuminate the current experience of a Greek Orthodox school in south London.     

Clare Soper's hat: New Education Fellowship correspondence between Bloomsbury and New Zealand, 1938–1946

Broadening horizons beyond nations, transnational histories trace global flows connecting people and places. Historians have studied the New Education Fellowship (NEF) as a global network. Focused within the nation, research on New Zealand's involvement with NEF has emphasised how its activities before the Second World War impacted on the Labour Government's postwar policies. This paper's focus is NEF's transnational networking during the war. While previous discussions of correspondence between NEF's Headquarters and New Zealand have emphasised its New Zealand side, my focus is on its London correspondent, Clare Soper, NEF's International Secretary. Historians have studied NEF's theorists, leaders and progressive teachers, but office staff who effected its circulation of texts, objects and people have not been researched. Locating Soper in her Bloomsbury Headquarters at the hub of NEF's global web, I trace what her correspondence with two New Zealand Branch Secretaries reveals about everyday operations of NEF as a wartime educational resistance movement.     

The behaviour of abused children in foster care

This article is about my experiences of fostering abused children. I have been fostering for ten years and ours is perhaps a unique situation of two single women sharing the work. We have 13 foster children and have used the other children in the family as much as possible to help the two I am going to describe.I feel very strongly that children can give greatly to other children and that they grow in the process. Children can be cruel to each other — yes, but they have a tremendous capacity to give if we encourage them. We can help them to harness their own bad experiences constructively and achieve something in their giving.I have chosen two very different children to talk about. Mike was perhaps the most easily recognisable “neglected” child, and had all the classic symptoms. Alan is a much older child and I have decided to tell you about him because there is such ignorance about the long term effects of verbal abuse and mental cruelty, and sadly such children are rarely given the opportunity of being fostered.     

Teachers' Attitudes towards Disruptive Behaviour and their Use of Internal Referral

This study offers a very neat demonstration of something which conventional wisdom holds: that our actions reflect our beliefs. But the topic under investigation is a challenging one – teachers' uses of 'referral systems' in school. The evidence suggests that referrals reflect teachers' beliefs – not, therefore, the pupils' behaviour. We do not know of a study of this sort anywhere in the literature on school behaviour, yet these findings have major implications for those pastoral systems which have become distorted into discipline systems. Michael examines these with care, taking pains not to be simply 'pointing the finger'.
Michael Evans has been teaching physical education and mathematics in London for seven years. Currently in his second secondary post as Head of Year, Michael is working to complete his MA at the University of London Institute of Education. In his spare time he heads for the hills, wind and rain of Scotland.     

‘All the World’s a Stage’: William Shakespeare’s Cultural Capital 400 Years after his Death

The article reviews the evolution of Shakespeare studies over the last 50 years and proposes a narrative to trace its development since the commemoration of Shakespeare’s birth in 1964 in three phases: first, the unfolding from the 1970s to the 1990s of what I have called the postmodern paradigm in Shakespeare studies, which I argue breaks with previous humanist universalising readings of his plays; second, the serious consideration of Shakespeare on screen in the 1990s and the 2000s, an academic field that grows in the context of performance and popular culture studies; and, third, the scholarly analysis of Shakespeare’s plays in the digital media in the new millennium, a period that also witnesses the study of the bard on the global stage of world cultures, with the continued perception that his work is both core British heritage and inevitable global commodity. These most recent trends in Shakespeare studies were present in the overall approach to the celebration of the bard during the 2012 London Cultural Olympiad, an event with Shakespeare at its centre that can be seen as the forerunner of the explosion of activities in 2016 for the 400th commemoration of his death.