Hearing children’s voices? Including children’s perspectives on their experiences of domestic violence in welfare reports prepared for the English courts in private family law proceedings

This research examined Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) reports prepared for private family court proceedings in domestic violence cases in England. The research found that in cases where children’s accounts identified them as victims of violence, these disclosures regularly disappeared from report recommendations. Particular discourses regarding ‘child welfare’ and ‘contact’ were identified, which routinely impacted on the ways in which children’s voices were taken into account. Whilst culturally there has undoubtedly been an influential move towards including children’s perspectives in decision-making that affects them, how these views are interpreted and represented is subject to adult ‘gate-keeping’ and powerful cultural and professional ideologies regarding ‘child welfare’ and ‘post-separation family relationships’. This research found that the unrelenting influence of deeply embedded beliefs regarding the preservation or promotion of relationships with fathers continues to have the effect of marginalising issues of safeguarding, including children’s voiced experiences of violence, in all but the most exceptional of cases. Rather, safeguarding concerns in respect of domestic violence and child abuse were persistently overshadowed by a dominant presumption of the overall benefits of contact with fathers.     

Toward a dialectical notion and praxis of scientific literacy

Received conceptualizations of scientific literacy are grounded in (1) the notions of ‘knowledge’, ‘concepts’, and ‘skills’ that science students have to ‘acquire’, ‘appropriate’, or ‘construct’ or (2) the notion of ‘practices’ to which they have to be ‘enculturated’ so that they become part of a ‘community of practice’. All such notions articulate scientific literacy in a static form, which does not correspond to the dynamic nature of the literacies that can be observed in society. This study proposes a dialectical notion of scientific literacy, which makes thematic its nature as a situated, distributed, collective, emergent, indeterminate, and contingent process. It articulates the idea that knowing a (scientific) language is indistinguishable from knowing one's way around the world. As a consequence, the goal of science education can no longer be to make individual students exhibit particular forms of knowledge but to provide them with contexts in which it is more important to deal with, select, and negotiate different forms of expertise and knowledgeability. This leads one to think of science education as but a part of a democratic liberal education that allows students to become competent to participate in any conversation that includes others with different forms and levels of expertise than their own.     

‘Making do’, understanding the economic ‘possible’: social positioning,money and mother’s economic habitus in the school context

This paper is a qualitative consideration of how working-class mothers manage money, daily life, their children’s education and, in the process, internalise a particularistic economic position. It is uncommon that educational sociology incorporates a critical engagement of the daily drudge of extending money, and the implications of managing the varied and frequent costs of keeping children at school. I draw on Bourdieu’s model of practice and particularly that of the economic habitus. For these mothers, ‘making do’ refers not only to stretching the economic but to mental dispositions that emerge out of negotiating the economic, ‘not as a universe of possibles … but rather … impassable barriers’. The data reveals in wider and narrower cycles how economic conditions are foregrounded in the doing of ordinary life and in lives of heightened economic difficulty planning, or calculating dispositions towards the future are curtailed.     

Special needs: a philosophical analysis

This paper attempts to illuminate a central concept and idea in special education discourse, namely, ‘special needs’. It analyses philosophically what needs are and on what grounds they are defined as ‘special’ or ‘exceptional’. It also discusses whether sorting needs into ordinary and special is discriminatory. It is argued that individualistic tendency in special need rhetoric has serious shortcomings, although it does not inevitably lead to discrimination against those with ‘special needs’. Improving individuals’ capabilities as well as social conditions are the means to create societies and schools which are inclusive, and which put justice into practice.     

Students' Meaning‐making of Socio‐scientific Issues in Computer Mediated Settings: Exploring learning through interaction trajectories

This article reports on a study concerning secondary school students’ meaning‐making of socio‐scientific issues in Information and Communication Technology‐mediated settings. Our theoretical argument has as its point of departure the analytical distinction between ‘doing science’ and ‘doing school,’ as two different forms of classroom activity. In the study we conducted an analysis of students working with web‐based groupware systems concerned with genetics. The analysis identified how the students oriented their accounts of scientific concepts and how they attempted to understand the socio‐scientific task in different ways. Their orientations were directed towards finding scientific explanations, towards exploring the ethical and social consequences, and towards ‘fact‐finding.’ The students’ different orientations seemed to contribute to an ambivalent tension, which, on the one hand, was productive because it urged them into ongoing discussions and explicit meaning‐making. On the other hand, however, the tension elucidated how complex and challenging collaborative learning situations can be. Our findings suggest that in order to obtain a deeper understanding of students’ meaning‐making of socio‐scientific issues in Information and Communication Technology‐mediated settings, it is important not only to address how students perform the activity of ‘doing science.’ It is equally important to be sensitive with respect to how students orient their talk and activity towards more or less explicit values, demands, and expectations embedded in the educational setting. In other words, how students perform the activity of ‘doing school.’     

Ages and ages: the multiplication of children’s ‘ages’ in early twentieth-century child psychology

This paper explores the trend, between 1905 and the late 1920s in UK and US child psychology, of ‘discovering’, labelling and calculating different ‘ages’ in children. Those new ‘ages’ – from mental to emotional, social, anatomical ages, and more – were understood as either replacing, or meaningfully related to, chronological age. The most famous, mental age, ‘invented’ by Alfred Binet in the first decade of the century, was instrumental in early intelligence testing. Anatomical age triggered great interest until the 1930s, with many psychologists suggesting that physical development provided a more reliable inkling of which grade children should be in than chronological age. Those ages were calculated with great precision, and educational recommendations began to be made on the basis of these. This article maps this psychological and educational trend, and suggests that it cultivated a vision of children as developmentally erratic, worthy of intense scientific attention, and enticingly puzzling for researchers.     

Twice exceptionality in neoliberal education cultures: Implications for special educational needs co-ordinators

‘Twice exceptionality’ describes the coexistence of a learning difficulty or disability (SEN/D) and exceptional performance in one area of learning. A popular discourse around autism and savantism in the United States promotes a hierarchical differentiation of the ‘twice exceptional’ based on measured intelligence and commodifies support for this group. Such support is designed to appeal to a neoliberal ethos of seeking competitive advantage in a marketised system. Alternatively, special educational needs co-ordinators (SENCOs) could raise awareness and promote a non-hierarchical understanding of ‘twice exceptionality’ in schools, thereby highlighting what is missed when allegedly science-based discourses become hegemonic within education and when governmentally mandated accountability practices are prioritised over professional judgement and the interests of individual students. Calls for ‘twice exceptionality’ to be recognised as a SEN/D category risk additional pressures on SENCOs at a time when governmental demands on SENCOs throughout the COVID-19 pandemic have served to heighten existing tensions associated with the neoliberalisation of education (commercialisation, commodification, decentralisation, and residualisation). Nevertheless, SENCOs could play a key role in addressing longer-term processes affecting children with dis/abilities and learning difficulties such as stigmatisation and, in this instance, discriminatory configurations of ‘giftedness’.     

Students’ Views and Attitudes Towards the Communication Code Used in Press Articles About Science

The present research was designed to investigate the reaction of secondary school students to the communication code that the press uses in science articles: it attempts to trace which communication techniques can be of potential use in science education. The sample of the research consists of 351 secondary school students. The research instrument is a questionnaire, which attempts to trace students’ preferences regarding newspaper science articles, to explore students’ attitudes towards the science articles published in the press and to investigate students’ reactions towards four newspaper science articles. These articles deal with different aspects of science and reflect different communication strategies. The results of the research reveal that secondary school students view the communication codes used in press science articles as being more interesting and comprehensible than those of their science textbooks. Predominantly, they do not select science articles that present their data in a scientific way (diagrams and abstract graphs). On the contrary, they do select science articles and passages in them, which use an emotional/‘poetic’ language with a lot of metaphors and analogies to introduce complex science concepts. It also seems that the narrative elements found in popularized science articles attract students’ interest and motivate them towards further reading.     

Control and professional development: are teachers being deskilled or reskilled within the context of decentralization?

Many researchers have identified a process they call ‘deskilling’, which they use to describe the daily experience of teachers who have been gradually losing control of their own labour within ‘low‐trust’ workplaces. Conversely, other scholars have found that under similar conditions, some teachers have their own ways of dealing with it which leads them towards a process of ‘reskilling’. This study is an attempt to explore the actual teachers’ perceptions towards their daily practice within the context of educational decentralization, a neglected area of research which needs to be further discussed and explored. This paper uses data gathered from seven schools in Guangdong Province, China as a case study to show that educational decentralization in China not only results in teachers being deskilled because indirect control is still being maintained, but also provides a small number of teachers with a competitive working environment to reskill their pedagogical techniques and educational knowledge, and to pursue good practices in teaching under the pressure of competition. All in all, educational decentralization provides a context in which teachers can experience either deprofessionalization (deskilling) or reprofessionalization (reskilling).     

Alltagssituationen und Experimente: Was sind geeignete naturwissenschaftliche Lerngelegenheiten für Kindergartenkinder?

Natural sciences are an educational topic in kindergartens. At the same time, little is known about how to promote and facilitate the learning of natural sciences for children in kindergarten. This contribution reports on a quasi-experimental study with 245 children, which compares the learning situations ‘experiments’ with ‘discussions on the relevance of the natural sciences in daily life’. Three experimental groups, in which the learning situations were varied, where compared with a control and a baseline group. Children in the last year of kindergarten took part in three 90-minute learning settings on the topics ‘melting and freezing water’, ‘evaporation and condensation of water’ and ‘solubility and insolubility in water’. Learning gains were measured using a pre-post-design with a Rasch-scaling. Cognitive performance and family background were controlled for. A significant benefit in comparison to the control and baseline groups could only be found for a combination of both learning situations.     

Imagining the World: The Significance of Religious Worldviews for Science Education

This article begins by examining whether ‘science’ and ‘religion’ can better be seen as distinct or related worldviews, focusing particularly on scientific and religious understandings of biodiversity. I then explore how people can see the natural world, depending on their worldview, by looking at two contrasting treatments of penguin behaviour, namely that provided in the film March of the Penguins and in the children’s book And Tango Makes Three. I end by drawing some initial conclusions as to what might and what might not be included about religion in school science lessons. Science educators and teachers need to take account of religious worldviews if some students are better to understand the compass of scientific thinking and some of science’s key conclusions. It is perfectly possible for a science teacher to be respectful of the worldviews that students occupy, even if these are scientifically limited, while clearly and non-apologetically helping them to understand the scientific worldview on a particular issue.     

Special educational needs: a public issue

This article explores the contribution of sociological scholarship to understanding and analysing the notions of ‘special educational needs’ and ‘disability’ and the ways in which the two notions have been reconfigured and theorised as ‘public issues’ rather than ‘personal troubles’. Barton's contribution is signified both in terms of his contribution to the evolution of the ‘sociological imagination’ – as a powerful theoretical tool for unravelling the highly political and contested nature of disability and special educational needs – and also in terms of his analysis of the emergence and development of sociological theorising in the field. The parochial obsession with deficit and medical‐oriented approaches to dealing with ‘difference’ and ‘need’ have been significantly challenged through the ‘sociological imagination’ aimed at pointing up the highly political and complex nature of disability and ‘special educational needs’. Times have changed and sociological theorising has evolved, but presumed ‘personal troubles’ are still not unequivocally conceptualised as being intertwined with, resting upon and emanating from ‘public issues’ embedded in the social, cultural and political edifice of educational, social and national communities. The ‘sociological imagination’ should be constantly invoked and deployed in order to expose and challenge the sophisticated ways in which individual pathology accounts and special educational imperatives re‐invent themselves through more inclusive linguistic veneers.     

Corresponding values and colonising discourses: situating ‘Hindu children’ and their values in relation to hegemonic Norwegian discourses about religious education☆

This article discusses the relationship between values expressed by ‘Hindu children’ in Norway and hegemonic ‘Norwegian values’. The discussion is based on interviews with children from the Indian Punjabi and the Sri Lankan Tamil traditions and on observations in religious education (RE) lessons. The children emphasise the culture of their parents’ country of origin. When asked what the most significant part of their identity was, being Indian and Tamil turned out to be very important to the children. They also value other religions and talk about the divine in ways that are different from traditional Norwegian conceptions and attitudes, expressing tolerance, respect and openness towards other traditions. This article discusses how ‘Hindu values’ relate to ‘Norwegian discourses’ about RE, exploring the ways the children’s values both correspond to and differ from the values we find in hegemonic Norwegian discourses. Will the children have to adapt to hegemonic discourses in RE, or is it possible to learn from and integrate their values?     

从“谌”“忱”二字看周人的天命观

《尚书·周书》及《诗经》中经常出现类似"天棐忱(谌)"的语句,前辈学者大多认为"棐"是"匪"的假借,而"忱(谌)"的意思则为"信",因此"天棐忱"的意思就是天不可信。按从"甚"、从"冘"之字常有"极"、"盛"之义,还有"因超出一定限度从而导致过度"之义;故"谌"、"忱"二字皆有"因过度相信从而导致迷信"的意思,则所谓"天棐忱"可以理解为天不可迷信。同时,周人还将对天的不可迷信与天命所归乃在民心结合在一起,二者共同构成周人天命观的主要内容。     

Hard to reach parents or hard to reach schools? A discussion of home—school relations,with particular reference to Bangladeshi and Pakistani parents

In the authors' research with Pakistani and Bangladeshi heritage parents, some teachers, head teachers and other educational professionals referred to the South Asian parents as ‘hard to reach’. Whilst it was clear from the parents that they were not very, and in some cases not at all, involved in their children's schools and knew little about the education system or what their children were doing in school, it was also very apparent that the parents were not ‘difficult’, ‘obstructive’, or ‘indifferent’—the kind of behaviour ‘hard to reach’ implies. The article therefore considers that rather than parents being ‘hard to reach’, it is frequently the schools themselves that inhibit accessibility for certain parents. The authors challenge the cultural interference model, arguing that it is incorrect and pathologises parents. The article arises out of a two‐year, Economic and Social Research Council funded, qualitative study of Bangladeshi and Pakistani heritage families and schools, in the north‐east of England.     

Saving rhetorical children: sexuality education discourses from conservative to post-modern

Sexuality policy is currently changing at global, national and local levels. This move is affecting the sexuality education discourses in education policies around the world. However, the changes are not always translating into a direct re-thinking of approaches, and in some cases result in a push for more conservative policy. This paper provides a discourse exemplar for understanding the broad range of sexuality education discourses currently at work in education policies and policy movements internationally. It is intended for use in sexuality education policy research, conception and practice. The different constructions of ‘the child’ at the core of the various discourses are examined, including the ways in which the different discourses attempt to ‘save’ these children from perceived sexuality problems through education. The article posits that such rhetorical children should not ‘stand in’ for the needs of actual children in sexuality policy, without being explicitly acknowledged as constructs.     

‘Touch’ in educational and child care settings: dilemmas and responses

Abstract This article considers the touching, or rather, not touching, of children and young people in professional settings. Some have argued that many schools and other childcare environments are becoming ‘no touch’ zones. Formal guidelines in the UK are centrally concerned with ‘child protection’ issues, and ‘force and control’, and as such appear more reactive than proactive. From the authors' exploratory studies it has emerged that this is an area where fear and confusion (resulting from a moral panic) have tended to replace a response that is primarily concerned with the caring needs of children. The authors regard this as an area that can no longer be left to chance and suggest that future policy should be informed by research that takes account of the complexities as discussed throughout.     

A study of perceptions that significant others hold of the inclusion of children with difficulties in mainstream classes

The perceptions of mainstream teachers and parents of other children, and ‘significant others’, are crucial to the extent to which children with difficulties are accepted in mainstream classes. This study examined the views of 507 ‘significant others’ towards the inclusion of children experiencing a variety of difficulties. They were asked to rank how they felt about children with certain types of ‘difficulty’, and given the opportunity to explain their decisions in a subsequent interview. Five main issues were examined, namely the most suitable age for inclusion, the problems faced by parents, the type of difficulty most suitable for inclusion into mainstream classes, the allocation of resources and how resources should be allocated to children with different types of giftedness. Views towards these issues varied depending on the type of difficulty the child experienced. The findings of this study indicate that some children are more likely than others to be readily accepted by ‘significant others’ for inclusion into mainstream schooling. It is stressed that the perceptions of these ‘significant others’ impact upon how successful any attempt to include children in mainstream classes will be.     

Teacher as ‘Shape-shifter’: Exploring the Intersection of New Times and the Teaching of English Language Arts

This article explores how the current era in which we live, ‘New Times’, a term used to characterize the changing social, economic, and technological conditions of our current era, both affords and constrains the identities of future teachers. The case of Anna Cunningham, a pre-service English language arts teacher, is highlighted as a portrait of the intersection of New Times with teacher identities rooted in content/disciplinary affiliations. Findings suggest the beginning teachers in New Times become adept at negotiating multiple, and sometimes divergent, teacher identities. This negotiation becomes a primary tool in responding to a changing notion of what is means to teach English language arts.