The Sociology of Education and the National Curriculum

The aim of this paper is to encourage sociologists of the curriculum to contribute more both to curriculum policy advocacy and the curriculum development process. It concludes by suggesting four areas of curriculum policy research around which both sociologists of education and curriculum studies ‘specialists’ could unite and which would go some way towards meeting the demands of the National Curriculum at the level of policy analysis and implementation.

No one should be expected to say all the time, at the same time, everything that is to be said. (Karl Popper[2] [2] Quoted in Schilpp (1974), p. 1167. View all notes)

     

From Board of Education to Department for Education and Employment

’The rise of a central authority for English education had been a slow, tortuous, makeshift, muddled, unplanned, disjointed and ignoble process.‘ ¹ 1. A.S. Bishop, The Rise of a Central Authority for English Education (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1971), 276. View all notes

     

ERASMUS: THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY'S HIGHER EDUCATION ACTION PROGRAMME IN ITS FIRST YEAR

On 14 May 1987, the Education Ministers of the Twelve reached agreement on the European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students (ERASMUS). With a total of 85 million ECU** ** One ECU is worth approximately $ 0.8131 United States dollars. View all notes earmarked for its initial phase (1 July 1987 to 30 June 1990), the programme will aim at encouraging increased student and staff mobility throughout the European Community by means of the creation of a European University Network, the award of grants to individual students, arrangements for the mutual recognition of qualifications and courses or parts of courses, and a range of additional supporting measures. In the following article, the authors will examine, in some detail, the Actions provided for in the Programme, which was formally adopted by the Council on 15 June 1987.

     

Gender and Religious Tradition: the role‐learning of British Hindu children

Much of children's attitude to gender is developed in their home. For children from a Hindu background dharma (right conduct) involves all aspects of life. It includes family and ritual responsibilities and they are largely gender‐specific. This article is based on research among 8‐13 year‐old Hindu children of Punjabi and Gujarati origin in Coventry [2] [2] The Hindu Nurture in Coventry Project and the Punjabi Hindu Nurture in Coventry Project, both parts of the Religious Education and Community Project, directed by Robert Jackson, were made possible by generous funding from the Leverhulme Trust. The Punjabi Hindu Nurture in Coventry Project focused upon children in two low caste communities, namely the Valmikis and being conducted among children in other faith communities as part of the Religious Education and Community Project with funding from the Economic and Social Research Council ‘Project number R000 232489’. View all notes. I contend that gender is significant in the religious involvement of both boys and girls. This article draws attention to areas of their experience as young British Hindus in which their gender is decisive and examines these in relation to the role expectations enunciated by the children.

     

Mapping Visual Culture in Comparative Education Discourse

It would be fascinating to map out the political implications of scopic regimes, but it can't be done too reductively. The perspectivalist regime is not necessarily complicitous only with oppressive political practices. Under certain circumstances it may be emancipatory; it really depends on how it is used. [1] [1] M. Jay (1988) Scopic regimes of modernity, in: H. Foster (Ed.) Vision and Visuality, pp. 3‐28 (Seattle, WA, Bay Press). View all notes

     

Central Intervention in Local Educational Disputes 1902‐1944

This authority . . . claims to be supreme in the borough . . . this authority . . . claims to be arbiters of their own destiny. We intend to be masters in our own house untrammelled and will submit to no dictation from any source whatever . . . there is nothing in the Education Act that warrants the board of education in interfering with the local authority in its discretion as to whom it would appoint and discharge. ^{1 1}Lowestoft Journal, Report on the meeting of the borough council 16 June, 1923. View all notes

     

Invisible and special: young women’s experiences as undergraduate mathematics students

This paper reports on young women students’ participation in their undergraduate mathematics degree programme: their gendered trajectory is characterized in terms of their being both ‘invisible’ in the dominant university mathematics community and yet ‘special’ in their self‐conception. It draws on data collected from a three‐year longitudinal project investigating students’ experiences of undergraduate mathematics at two comparable traditional universities in England. Specifically, students’ narratives are interpreted as providing insights into their defensive investments in their particular ways of participating. An interpretive feminist perspective is used to claim that these young women are involved in the ongoing redefining of the gendering of participation in mathematics, and conveys how they manage to choose mathematics, and achieve in university mathematics, whilst in many respects adhering to everyday views of femininity.

Leitmotif

No one could see [the witch] Serafina from where she was; but if she wanted to see any more, she would have to leave her hiding place. …There was one thing she could do; she was reluctant because it was desperately risky, and it would leave her exhausted; but it seemed there was no choice. It was a kind of magic she could work to make herself unseen. True invisibility was impossible, of course: this was mental magic, a kind of fiercely held modesty that could make the spell worker not invisible but simply unnoticed. Holding it with the right degree of intensity, she could pass through a crowded room, or walk beside a solitary traveller, without being seen. (Pullman, 1998 Pullman, P. 1998. The subtle knife, London: Scholastic Point.  [Google Scholar], p. 35)     

INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS OF UNIVERSITY OPERATIONS ‐ THE CANADIAN EXPERIENCE

The Annual Conference of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) entitled “The Changing Conditions within the Universities” was held from 1 to 4 November 1976 in Regina.

The meeting mainly concentrated on the following issues:

• participation of the AUCC in public policy on higher education and research

• problems facing the research community in Canada

• the status of women in universities

An important part of the conference was cax'ried out in the form of workshops which had the following themes:

• the problems of ahanging growth rates

• the nature and level of university research

• international aspects of university operations

• graduate education

• the future of the community of scholars

• the evaluation of performance in the university

• continuing education

The below article is based on papers presented at the meeting devoted to the international aspects of university operations in Canada.

The traditional role of universities throughout the world has always been to:

• safeguard and preserve knowledge

• impart and disseminate knowledge

• expand the frontiers of knowledge

To this list was recently added a fourth dimension, which, implicitely, has always existed, namely:

• to contribute to the cultural, social and economic development of society

     

Credentialing Early Childhood Paraprofessionals in the United States: The Child Development Associate and other frameworks

The United States has two national credentials for paraprofessionals (persons who do not hold a bachelors degree, and are therefore not eligible for state certification). The first of these is the Child Development Associate (CDA) credential, currently overseen by the Council for Early Childhood Professional Recognition in Washington, DC[1] [1] The figures contained within this article are reprinted with the permission of the Council for Early Childhood Professional Recognition, Washington, DC, USA. View all notes. The Council is affiliated with NAEYC. This credential has undergone a number of changes, which were the subject of a recent book by Bouverat and Galen. The second credential is called Certified Childcare Professional (CCP). It is awarded by the National Child Care Association, a professional trade association of licensed private child care centers, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Primary attention will be given to the CDA National Credentialing Program by the author, who is a CDA Representative (an assessor and validating agent in the program).

     

Talk of a number: self‐regulated use of mathematical metalanguage by children in the foundation stage

How can I know what I think until I hear what I say? (Sir Huw Wheldon (1916–1986). (Attenborough, 2002 Attenborough, D. 2002. Life on air: memoirs of a broadcaster, London: BBC Books.  [Google Scholar])

This paper presents the findings of a study exploring the self‐regulated use of mathematical metalanguage in the early years. Young children were filmed on two occasions in the naturalistic context of their eight foundation stage settings, including both nursery and reception classes. The children were engaged in mathematical activities designed by practitioners to facilitate self‐regulated learning. ‘Events’, or vignettes of conversation were identified and the verbal interactions recorded in these were analysed for indications of metacognitive thinking. Findings were that the young children did indeed show evidence, through their talk, of emergent metacognitive processes, indicating both metacognitive knowledge and strategic awareness in relation to their mathematical tasks.     

ekstasis@cyberia

Elvis presided over the birth of a great new means of expression, one of three such flowerings in America since World War II. The second was television from broadcast to cable to music videos. The third is the net.

(Katz, Wired, pp. 10–14)

The lived meaning of space, time, and subjectivity has been radically altered by electronic technologies in an experience that may be described, and cannot be denied/

(Dery, Flame Wars, 1994, p. 19)

     

Educational psychologists and multi‐agency working: exploring professional identity

This research was conducted in the light of the Every Child Matters (Department for Education and Skills, London, 2003 Department for Education and Skills (DfES). 2003. Every Child Matters, London: The Stationery Office.  [Google Scholar]) agenda which highlights the importance of multi‐agency working. The research explored the professional identity of Educational Psychologists (EPs) with experience of multi‐agency working in six Local Authorities within the Midlands area. Ten EPs participated in detailed semi‐structured interviews.

Activity Theory was used to facilitate the comparison of aspects of the EPs' two work roles, as part of the Educational Psychology Service (EPS) and as part of a multi‐agency team (MAT). Each EP was asked to consider different elements of their two roles, using a series of questions designed to elicit relationships between the ways in which they worked, the contexts and the other people involved. From these questions, issues of professional identity emerged and these were then explored in more detail.

The experiences of EPs working in MATs were generally described very positively. It appeared that multi‐agency working enhanced feelings of professional identity. In some cases participants indicated that this was aided by the clarification and development of their own skills and in other cases by being afforded the opportunity to work creatively in a wider range of contexts. The flexibility of multi‐agency working appears to have presented opportunities for individuals to work to their strengths and increased positive feelings EPs have of their own professional identity.     

Severed Heads and Compliant Bodies? A speculation about principal identities

When I had to reapply for my own position as principal I felt as if I was facing the prospect of losing a part of myself. Conversations with other women colleagues confirmed that I was not alone in this response. Taking this as my cue, I explore the notion of principal “identification” practices—that is the continuing process of forming a “principal identity”—through personal narrative, a Cartesian metaphor and emerging research evidence. In particular, I focus on how conditions of entrepreneurial governance change a continuing policy commitment to heroic leadership, and how principal and school identities are conflated through accountability regimes, marketing requirements and work intensification. I propose that a study of changing principal identities might fruitfully add to critical leadership and management scholarship, complementing the emergent corpus on emotions in leadership.

I am telling you stories. Trust me. (Winterson, 1988 Winterson J (1988) Passion London: Vintage  [Google Scholar], p. 160)     

ROMANIAN HIGHER EDUCATION DURING THE TRANSITION PERIOD

Romania has a long tradition of higher education, one which was stifled during the period of communist rule from 1948 to 1989 and is now, during the period of transition which began in 1990, beginning to re‐emerge. The system is confronted with shortages of academic personnel in a number of fields and with the financial inability to offer academic staff proper salaries or even to finance much needed improvements in infrastructure. The system, which used to be completely public, is now confronted with the mushrooming of private universities of dubious quality. The system of assessment and accreditation of the new institutions, both private and public, is described, as is the development of national standards for a final licenta ^{1 1} This degree/diploma, similar to the French licence, is the first degree/diploma of long‐cycle undergraduate higher education that is awarded in Romania. View all notes examination. The hope is that these and other reforms coupled to an annual expenditure of at least 4 percent of GNP on higher education will lead to steady improvement in the output of Romanian higher education institutions.

     

Prevention is better than cure: coping skills training for adolescents at school

Children and adolescents today face a plethora of stressful problems, including family and relationship conflict, death of close family members or friends, and academic and social pressures. Such problems have been found to contribute to an increased risk of various emotional–social–cognitive difficulties in adolescence. These include academic failure, social misbehaviour, interpersonal problems, and depression.

Programmes that promote coping with normative stress, delivered to the whole population, have been considered to represent a promising direction for the prevention of social emotional difficulties. The Best of Coping: Developing Coping Skills Program (Frydenberg & Brandon, 2002 Frydenberg E Brandon CM (2002) The best of coping Melbourne: Oz Child [Crossref] [Google Scholar]) was introduced in two school settings on four separate occasions. Evaluation of the results provides modest support for coping skills enhancement but provide a warning about the need for caution when implementing and evaluating the Programme. First, it appeared to have some opposing effects on males and females. Second, improvements in students' coping responses were apparently related to the authenticity of implementation of the Programme.

The findings are discussed with regard to the need to implement programmes through which we can teach adolescents coping responses, which include optimism and problem‐solving skills, so that they may handle problems and stressors more effectively. Additionally, an important feature of such programmes is a focus on the reduction of the use of non‐productive coping skills. With an increase in psycho‐social problems, the need to provide school‐based programmes is discussed, with emphasis placed on programme implementation. In particular, the probable need for ongoing involvement of psychologically trained school counsellors with teachers, through the life of the programme.     

Innovative Child Care Programmes in India

The history of Early Childhood Education in India dates from the 1890s, though growth remained restricted till independence. In 1953, the Government began to play a larger role, promoting through voluntary effort, kindergartens (balwadis) in rural areas. The first large training effort was the Bal Sevika (child care worker) scheme launched in 1969 by the Indian Council of Child Welfare.

The second big breakthrough came with the Integrated Child Development Services in 1974, the world's largest intervention aimed at the most vulnerable children in urban slums, rural areas and tribal communities. Presently over 10 million children aged 0–6 years receive a package of six services in 400,000 centres, throughout the country.

There are also a number of small‐scale innovative programmes which reflect not only the geographic, cultural and occupational diversity of the country, but also represent a diversity of auspices ‐‐‐ from statutory provision in industrial units to community‐based initiatives, educational institutions, charitable trusts, women's organisations, trade unions, denominational groups, commercial ventures and nonprofit organisations, as well as variety in the nature and quality of services offered.

While the ICDS is characterised by its vast outreach, explicit targetting and integrated approach with emphasis on child survival and health, the small innovative programmes are known for flexibility, sensitivity and responsiveness to local need, emphasis on quality, cultural relevance and low‐cost approaches, experimentation in programme content and a strong component of community participation.