History of education in Brazil: the construction of a knowledge field

This article analyses the general characteristics of the construction of the field of history of education in Brazil. To do so, it highlights the existing historiography and aims to describe the process of institutionalisation of this knowledge field, which, in general terms, has been focused on the area of teacher training. Since the nineteenth century, however, it has also been possible to identify systematic historiographical efforts in Brazil that are not directly related to the school system, but rather to the teaching of and research into the history of education within Brazilian universities. The article addresses the organisation of the field, the ways in which it has been structured and the strategies of academic legitimisation employed to achieve this. These include the regular production of dissertations and doctoral theses, the publication of books and journals, academic events and the creation of research groups and scientific associations, through which research findings have found national and international circulation. This set of indicators creates conditions for an understanding of the expansion and reconfiguration of the field of history of education that began in the 1980s, as well as of the challenges this phenomenon presents to current historiography and teacher training in Brazil.     

Comparative education as a field in Asia: retrospect and prospect

Comparative education in Asia is witnessing changing discourses, structural opportunities, and invigorated leadership. This article will review the institutionalization of comparative education in Asia from a sociological perspective, drawing on Bourdieu’s theory on the logic of social practice. After giving an overview of the historical roots of Asian comparative education, I will describe broadly its landscape noting developments in the last two decades since 1995, the foundational year of the Comparative Education Society of Asia (CESA). Four main themes are explored: comparative education teaching, professional societies, research centres, and specialist publications. With a baseline understanding of the infrastructures of the field in Asia and the power dynamics that shape them, I will propose an agenda for Asian comparative education to offer meaningful contributions to multipolar knowledge production in the field. Priority themes and directions will be highlighted to articulate a stronger Asian voice and leadership in an increasingly diverse and uncertain world.     

Shaping the field: the role of academic journal editors in the construction of education as a field of study

In a previous British Journal of Sociology of Education article (Nixon & Wellington, 2005 Nixon, J. and Wellington, J. 2005. ‘Good books’: is there a future for academic writing within the educational publishing industry?. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 26(1): 91–103. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]) we examined current trends in book publishing and how these have influenced and will influence the construction of the field of educational studies. (The latter study was a follow‐up to an earlier study reported in Nixon [1999 Nixon, J. 1999. Teachers, writers and professionals. Is there anybody out there?. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 20(2): 207–221. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]].) The present article focuses on journals and their editors and, to a lesser extent, the role that the peer review process plays in shaping the field of educational studies. We use (critically rather than deferentially) notions drawn from the work of Bourdieu (1996 Bourdieu, P. 1996. The rules of art: genesis and the structure of the literary field, Cambridge: Polity Press. (Trans. S. Emanuel) [Google Scholar])—the ‘field of power’, defining boundaries, systems of dispositions, right of entry and the ‘illusio’—to consider and conceptualise data from interviews with 12 journal editors. Our own position in writing this article is as academic practitioners involved in reading, peer‐reviewing and editing academic journals within the field of educational studies.

The plea is to recognise that the pen is a mighty sword. We are of course embedded in practices and constrained by them. But these practices owe their dominance in part to the power of a normative language to hold them in place, and it is always open to us to employ the resources of our language to undermine as well as to underpin the practices. We may be freer than we sometimes suppose. (Skinner, 2002 Skinner, Q. 2002. Visions of politics. Volume 1: regarding method, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  [Google Scholar], p. 7)     

Comparative education: Towards a basic theory

Former Vice-Rector in charge of Planning and former Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature at the National University, Heredia, Costa Rica. Former Unesco educational planning expert (Somalia, Central America). Consultant with the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP). Founding President of the Institute for Social Cybernetics Applied to Planning (ICSAP), Costa Rica. Author of several works on educational planning and administration and on comparative education.     

Emergency education: a critical review of the field

Emergency education, (that is, education in emergency situations) came to the fore in the 1990s. Defining this new field is not free from contestation. This article describes the trajectory and characteristics of the field and issues arising, focusing on different international discourses as well as contents of teaching and learning, and pedagogy. A key issue addressed is the underpinning concept of development in discussions of emergency education. This article is critical of the narrow focus on economic development and suggests that emergency education needs to address comprehensive development towards quality of life for all. It also suggests that participation is key to sustainable initiatives.     

教育云系统的构建

云计算是现阶段新兴技术之一,在各领域应用中取得了良好效果。为顺应社会发展,在教育领域建立云系统成为教育行业重要发展趋势。云计算在教育行业的应用要结合教育自身特点,做到合理技术支持。教育云系统的成功创建要结合其多方面理论基础,通过系统理论分析后实现其平台搭建,再进行多角度、全方位分析和设计以促进教育云系统技术实现。     

整合与构建:现代化成人教育体系

21世纪的成人教育面临新的发展使命,过去以学历教育为主的办学模式需要向成人 的继续教育转变.要顺利实现这种转变,满足各类成人群体不断学习的需要,只有从大教育 观出发,优化成人教育组织结构,整合社会各类优势教育资源,形成相互认同、相互衔接、功能健全的成人教育组织网络,构建新型的成人教育网络体系,方能把学习型社会实 践推向纵深发展.     

英语网络教育平台构建方案

作者对准英语网络教育的特点,构建一个英语网络教育平台。在文中作者对这个平台构建思路进行了阐述,并对其投资成本及收益作出细致分析,最后指出本构建方案的潜在风险。     

Anti-austerity adult education in Canada: a survey of a nascent field

As the realities of austerity agendas exert pressure on adult education around the globe, this paper attempts to map the developing, albeit small, field of anti-austerity adult education in Canada. In doing so, I attempt to trace the connections between anti-austerity education and existing fields of adult education. I argue that the cases we see of anti-austerity education have distinctive features of new political realities. While not unrelated to popular pedagogical projects of the past, anti-austerity adult education sits in compulsory opposition to what Albo and Fanelli describe as the austerity initiated ‘disciplinary democracy’ project of neo-liberalism. As a result, new adult educators and educational initiatives are emerging in relation to a morphing political-economic hegemony.     

1 The politics of urban education as a field of study: an interpretive analysis

Researchers in the field of urban education politics have much in agreement ‐ they refute the notion of bureaucratic insulation in school policy making, connect the school to its broader political and economic community, and address the effects of school governance on race relations, governmental legitimacy and political representation. At the same time, approaching the field with different disciplinary backgrounds and substantive interests, researchers have offered competing frameworks in analysing school politics. In my view, disagreements and consensus within the field can be better appreciated if the diverse approaches and their substantive findings are understood in the proper context of the school policy organization ‐ the way power is allocated between the top of the system and the school site and the way clientele are involved in schooling decisions. In this partial review of the literature, I shall propose an integrative framework that specifies the circumstances under which different kinds of politics occur. The final section will explore research and policy implications.     

The mathematics problem: the construction of a market-led education discourse in the Republic of Ireland

Educational change in the neoliberal state is permeated by the effects of forces from outside the field of education itself. The process of governmentality welcomes, indeed demands, the participation of those non-state actors valorised by neoliberalism as well as government agencies dedicated to the advancement of such groups. Inevitably, the concerns of such organisations become central to how the state sees education. This article traces the assembly of national and international agents from industry, business and special interest groups around the concept of ‘knowledge economy’. It treats this assemblage as an apparatus (dispositif), examining how the construction of an economic problem is brought to bear on the demand for educational change, and how this construction of the problem is used to shape public opinion in order to prepare the public for a radical change of direction. Confining itself to the reform of mathematics education introduced in the Republic of Ireland in 2010, this article traces the emergence of a mathematics discourse focused on market-led education. It interrogates the construction of ‘the mathematics problem’ or ‘crisis in maths’ and argues that the discourse of the present construction is economic in nature, centring as it does on human capital production and market-led reform.     

院校研究:高等教育研究的新领域

院校研究是高等教育研究的一个新领域。它在二战后的美国逐渐发展起来 ,并对其他国家和地区产生了较大影响。院校研究以单个高等学校作为研究对象 ,旨在研究特定院校的特定问题 ,在研究方法上力求科学的程序与形式 ,其作用可概括为管理的科学化 ,理论的实践化     

和谐社会视野中的大学德育环境建设

从人与自身、人与人、人与社会、人与自然的和谐视野去审视大学德育建设,提出应重点加强大学生心理健康教育、道德教育、思想政治教育和环境教育建设,实现和谐心灵、和谐人际、和谐校园与和谐生命的完美构建。