Academic restructuring: Organizational change and institutional imperatives

A perennial challenge for universities and colleges isto keep pace with knowledge change by reconsideringtheir structural and resource commitments to variousknowledge areas. Reflecting upon changes in theacademic landscape of public higher education in theUnited States over the past quarter of a century, theauthor diagnoses a macro-trend whereby the dominantlegitimating idea of public higher education haschanged from higher education as a social institutionto higher education as an industry. Threeinterrelated mechanisms are identified as havingadvanced this process: academic management, academicconsumerism, and academic stratification.This pattern of academic restructuring reflects multiple institutional pressures. Whilepublic universities and colleges have increasinglycome to rely on market discourse and managerialapproaches in order to demonstrate responsiveness toeconomic exigencies, they may end up losing legitimacyas they move away from their historical character,functions, and accumulated heritage as educationalinstitutions. Thus, responsiveness to compellingeconomic pressures that dominate contemporaryorganizational imperatives in an attempt to gainlegitimacy in one dimension may result in loss for another.Wholesale adaptation to market pressures and managerialrationales could thereby subsume thediscourse about the future of colleges anduniversities within a logic of economic rationality ata detriment to the longer-term educational legaciesand democratic interests that have long characterizedAmerican public education.     

The designability paradox: rethinking authenticity and situatedness in educational video games

Educational technology research and development - Video games’ capacity to facilitate complex and interactive modes of engagement has led to their portrayal as particularly effective means...     

Making agency matter: rethinking infant and toddler agency in educational discourse

This article engages critically with the concept of agency in infant and toddler educational discourse. It is argued that agency, when conceptualised with emphasis on individuality and the autonomous self, poses a conceptual ‘dead end’ for those who are not-yet-in-language, such as babies and toddlers. In considering agency as an aspect of becoming that is inherent in all matter, the article seeks to explore new pathways for conceptualising agency in infant and toddler education. Methodologically, the article aims to generate complex questions and, following Nigel Thrift's call, ‘wild ideas’, rather than solutions by addressing the relationship between discourse and matter to open up new spaces for thinking and doing ‘agency’ in education, for babies and toddlers and beyond.     

Collective curriculum design as a tool for rethinking scientific literacy

This is a review essay from an educator’s point of view, on the article written by Maria Inês Mafra Goulart and Wolff-Michael Roth Engaging young children in collective curriculum design. The article as well as the commentary essay contributes to the current agenda about the feasibility of social practices in (science) education even from the early childhood. A child centered collective curriculum design can be a tool for rethinking scientific literacy towards a multi-science perspective, participative thinking and dialectical teaching strategies that take account of structure or/and agency relationships. The review is structured on five levels: (a) scientific literacy, (b) multi-science perspective, (c) participative thinking—structure or∣and agency, (d) comments on methodology—the emergency of a new order, (e) conclusions.     

UNDP and educational development: An institutional policy analysis

The role of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in shaping educational development has been considerable. For more than half a century, the scale and reach of UNDP education projects have been significant, yet have not been adequately researched. For both UNDP and its precursors, the evolution of policies for development and for educational development is traced. UNDP's project priorities in education are considered, as is the role of UNESCO as a key implementing agency for UNDP. The rationale underlying UNDP's recent abandonment of education as a designated priority sector is also examined, as are its implications.     

Materialist epistemology lends design wings: educational design as an embodied process

Educational technology research and development - Materialist design is presented as an embodied perspective on educational design that can be applied to redesign of classroom-based learning...     

Globalization and educational restructuring: University merging and changing governance in China

This article sets out in the context of globalization to identify, examine and discuss issues related to structural adjustment and educational restructuring in China, with particular reference to university merging and changes in higher education governance models. While it is basically an historical and documentary analysis of policy change in Chinese higher education, this article focuses on restructuring strategies that the Chinese government has adopted to make its university systems more competitive and efficient in the global market context. University merging in China should not be simply understood as a pure higher education reform but rather a fundamental change in higher education governance model from an ‘interventionist state model’ to an ‘accelerationist state model’. Rather than globalization bringing about the decline of the nation state, this article shows transformations taking place in Chinese universities may not necessarily diminish the capacity of the state but instead make the Chinese government a more activist state in certain aspects.     

Can the English Baccalaureate act as an educational equaliser?

ABSTRACT

Ensuring equal access to a broad and balanced curriculum for all students is a key component of a socially just education system. Yet in England, the freedom that 16-year-old students have to choose the GCSE subjects they study has created divisions in the pathways taken by students from different backgrounds. In 2010, a new accountability measure, the English Baccalaureate (EBacc), was introduced to encourage more disadvantaged students to study the ‘core academic’ GCSE subjects. This paper investigates the success of this initiative by analysing the relationship between free school meal (FSM) eligibility, studying the EBacc subjects and GCSE attainment. The findings are used to illustrate the complexities of balancing equal access to academic subjects against fair access to future opportunities, which often depend on good grades, when trying to deliver social justice in an education system that has an entrenched attainment gap.     

Assessing Learning Quality: reconciling institutional,staff and educational demands

Two major frameworks for educational decision making, including decisions on assessment, can be distinguished: quantitative, whichis adequate for construing some kinds of learning; and qualitative, which should be the appropriate framework for enabling decisions flowing from most tertiary educational aims. However, for various reasons, institutions implicitly encourage a quantitative framework for assessment‐related decision making, particularly evident in the recent emphasis on accountability and performance indicators. This is unfortunate because, through the backwash effect, quantitative modes of assessment encourage surface approaches to learning, which typically lead to low cognitive‐level outcomes that are not compatible with stated course objectives. It is argued that an institution and its educational practices comprise a system in equilibrium, and that if educational goals are to be realised, the whole system needs to be compatible with those aims.     

The ‘punk rock principal’: a metaphor for rethinking educational leadership

ABSTRACT

This paper advances an alternative leadership metaphor of ‘punk rock leadership’. I work through the usefulness of a metaphor of punk rock leadership as a way of exploring one principal's vision of leadership and his efforts to work outside of system expectations in his quest to achieve the school's goals. In doing so, I contribute to our wider understanding of the methodological process, affordances, and challenges of using metaphors to theorise empirical data. Empirically, this paper contributes to critical research into principals’ practices in times of change, and to notions of power and leadership discourses in schools.     

Semiotics as a basis for educational software design

Semiotics has recently been used to support formalisms for software design. On the other hand, every program has a certain educational potential as it exposes the user to a world of entities with which to interact. In this paper, we present a group of semiotic principles for software design and use them to show how they explain different educational possibilities. Our approach is illustrated by Theatre in the Computer: a software environment for children to experience the theatre.     

An institutional approach to the evaluation of educational technology

While the evaluation of the development, implementation and use of technology in higher education can legitimately be carried out on an individual by individual basis, it is reasonable for institutions to develop their own evaluation approaches to support and guide the evaluation efforts of their staff. This paper outlines an institutional approach that guides the evaluation of educational technology in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne. It proposes roles for an internal evaluator and educational technology practitioners and provides a conceptual framework that guides the evaluation process. Practitioners are supported using micro evaluation guidelines and this process is discussed for two types of evaluation. A discussion of the practical implementation of the framework is supported by the presentation of two evaluation case studies.Une approche institutionnelle d'évaluation de la technologie de l'éducation. Alors que l'évaluation du développement, de la mise en oeuvre et de l'usage de la technologie dans l'enseignement supérieur peut avec légitimité être marquée sur une base d'individu par individu, il est raisonnable que les institutions développent leurs propres approches d'évaluation pour soutenir et guider les efforts d'évaluation de leurs enseignements. Cet article décrit l'approche institutionnelle qui guide l'évaluation de la technologie de l'éducation dans la faculté de médecine, dentologie et de sciences de la santé de l'Université de Melbourne. Il propose des rôles pour une évaluation interne et des praticiens de technologie de l'Education et fournit un cadre conceptuel qui permet de guider les processus d'évaluation. Les praticiens sont aidés par l'emploi de guides de microévaluations et ce processus est discuté pour deux types d'évaluation. Une discussion sur la mise en oeuvre pratique du cadre est illustrée par deux études de cas d'évaluation.Ein institutioneller Ansatz zur Auswertung der Bildungstechnologie. Während die Auswertung der Entwicklung, Umsetzung und die Verwendung von Technologie im Bereich der höheren Bildung mit Recht auf individuellen Basis ausgeführt werden kann, ist es vernünftig, daß Institutionen ihre eigenen Auswertungsansätze entwickeln, um die Auswertungsbemühungen ihres Stabs zu unterstützen und zu leiten. Dieses Papier umreißt einen institutionellen Ansatz zur Auswertung der Nutzung von Bildungstechnologie in der Fakultät für Medizin, Zahnheilkunde und Gesundheitswissenschaften an der Universität von Melbourne. Es beschreibt die Rolle eines internen Auswerters und Bildungstechnikpraktikers und liefert einen begrifflichen Rahmen für den Auswertungsprozeß. Praktiker werden durch Micro-Auswertungsrichtlinien unterstützt. Dieser Prozeß wird für zwei Evaluationstypen erörtert. Die praktische Umsetzung des Rahmens wird anhand zweier Auswertungsfallstudien diskutiert.     

现阶段我国教育供求矛盾调节的制度性思考

现阶段我国教育供求矛盾依然十分尖锐。人们从不同角度进行思考,提出许多新的主张,有关部门采取了一定的措施,使教育供求矛盾得到了部分缓解。但长期以来,人们忽视造成教育供求矛盾紧张的内在制度根源,即由于教育产权和职责的模糊所导致的教育资源配置和使用效率低下的状况。教育供求矛盾的调节,最终需要从制度上加以变革和保障。     

Decolonization,Nationalism, and local identity: rethinking cosmopolitanism in educational practice in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

Cosmopolitanism and its application for education in western societies has been well examined. Yet cosmopolitanism in society and in education has not been systematically explored in many Asian societies. Facing a large number of people from diverse backgrounds, the society and its education system in Hong Kong are troubled by issues similar to those found in western postindustrial societies, related to cultural and national belonging and identity. Prejudice and racism towards ethnic minorities – particularly those from South Asia and Africa, is quite common. Additionally, animosity and hostility to mainland Chinese newcomers has increased and intensified in the context of Hong Kong’s “repoliticization” after its 1997 handover. This article aims to explore how cosmopolitanism is understood, valued, and approached in Hong Kong education. We start by exploring the role of decolonization and nationalization in political education in Hong Kong. We then discuss cosmopolitanism, and consider how it impacts particular social and educational issues in Hong Kong. We also provide an analysis of discourses on cosmopolitanism taken from Hong Kong General Studies and History textbooks, to identify challenges faced in facilitating cosmopolitan values, a balance of identities, and global citizenship in Hong Kong education.     

Ghosts of research past: institutional memory and its implications for educational research

Not all research projects progress according to plan. When a project culminates in a published piece that the research participants do not support, what are the effects and for how long do they endure? Using a retrospective case study, this article explores what memory can teach us about the long-term ramifications of research conducted in schools. Results suggest that for as long as 25 years after the publication of a controversial article, memory traces of the piece may survive at the research site, even if they have largely faded from view at the researchers' institution. The article argues that such memory stores expose much about institutional identities and practices, and that they contain important lessons for how we should approach, carry out, and conclude research in schools.     

English immersion in China as a case of educational transfer

The English immersion program in China is a case of educational mode transfer from foreign language immersion in North America. This article analyzes the process of the transfer from the perspective of comparative education, using the model of “four stages of educational borrowing.” First, it revisits the recent research on educational transfer and briefly introduces the model. Then, it highlights the stages of English immersion program transfer in China. Finally, it concludes that the transfer initiated actively by innovative Chinese scholars, occurs at local and micro levels, with structural context factors and supra-national and sub-national actors playing significant roles in the process. It argues that the model may be applicable in analyzing other educational modes with some adaptations when necessary.     

Confucian revival and the hybrid educational narratives in contemporary China: a critical rethinking of scale in globalisation and education

ABSTRACT

Today China witnesses a renaissance of classical studies and Confucian Academies across the nation. With an estimated 10 million children attending Confucian kindergartens, classes, and schools, cultural heritage has increasingly become a new marker of social distinction. At the same time, Confucian tradition is often associated with excessive testing, competition, and academic burdens that continue to hinder China's educational innovation. Disenchanted with state-run schools, many urban middle-class families turn to alternative schools that use imported pedagogies such as the Waldorf, Montessori, and Reggio to cultivate a better future for their children. In reform-era China, Westernisation coexists with a return to tradition to produce a fascinatingly complex cultural-pedagogical terrain. This paper examines such curiously hybrid educational narratives to understand the idiosyncratic features of Chinese educational globalisation and offer a critical perspective to rethink the concept of scale in comparative education research.     

Promoting a culture of scholarship among educational developers: exploring institutional opportunities

Educational developers tend to be located in centres and units of teaching and learning outside the academic mainstream. They have little opportunity to engage in scholarship. Through an overview of the literature on educational development and educational professional roles and responsibilities, the author suggests that promoting a culture of scholarship among educational developers will contribute significantly towards their pedagogical professional development. It will enhance the quality of professional consultation between educational developers and academic staff in the faculties. The discussion concludes with suggestions for implementing innovative strategies to promote a culture of scholarship within the higher education academic mainstream.