Teachers,Writers, Professionals. Is there anybody out there?

This paper draws on questionnaire responses from senior commissioning editors located within nine of the major UK education publishing outlets. It explores changing priorities in educational publishing with reference to authorship, readership and the changing policy context within which publishing 'lists' are conceived, developed and marketed. The shift of orientation within educational publishing from a 'general' to a 'professionalised' public is central to the argument of the paper. That argument is pursued through an analysis of how the changing priorities of educational publishing are impacting upon academics and practitioners. Central to that analysis, however, is a recognition that publishing houses, schools and institutions of further and higher education are subject to social and economic pressures that not only shape the educational agenda, but help determine what groups, individuals, institutional interests, etc. constitute the 'public' debate around that agenda. Through a specialist focus on educational publishing, the paper is able to identify some of the key issues that need to be addressed in order to revivify the public sphere and reintegrate it into what is becoming an increasingly 'professionalised' debate on education.     

'The Trouble with Our Schools': A media construction of public discourses on Queensland schools

This paper gives an account of competing public discourses on schooling. In particular, it investigates one newspaper's coverage of the release of an educational report. The paper combines interview data with a critical discourse analysis of newspaper texts to show how media reporting of Queensland schools constructed a preferred discourse on education that represented schools as being in crisis, 'in trouble'. The analysis describes how the paper shaped popular opinion on educational policy through the construction of public discourses of crisis in education. Further, the analysis shows how this discourse positioned particular groups as the authoritative voice on standards in Queensland schools. It shows how, at a time when teacher quality was under question, the media constructed a public discourse that diminished the authority of teachers to speak about education policy, granting that authority to the newspaper's editor, who assumed the people's voice on educational issues. This analysis of the construction of public discourses about education policy gives insights into the media's place in educational policy-making. In so doing, the paper adds to the small body of literature that investigates the relationships between the media and education.     

全球治理视域下我国高等教育国际化：内涵新解与实践进路

高等教育国际化既是新时代我国高等教育高质量发展的应然要求,也是参与全球教育治理体系和彰显全球教育治理能力的重要尺度。从全球治理的视域出发,构建“价值共识-制度公约-组织协商”的多维度分析框架,以此梳理我国高等教育国际化实践从接纳共享到输出共享、从场外接轨到场内共建、从松散联合到协作共商的演变特征,并揭示出当前我国高等教育国际化发展面临三大矛盾：价值共识共享中的路径依赖掣肘、制度公约共建中的本土角色暗淡、组织协商共商中的合力发挥不足。基于此,我们应加强文化自觉,构建中国高等教育国际话语体系;提升制度能力,深度参与高等教育国际规则的实施与制定;注重多元面向,打造分层分类的国际化网络协商新格局,以提升我国高等教育国际化水平和全球教育治理能力。     

Family Education and Community Power: New structures for new visions in the educational village

Noting that differences and inequality of education exist in the United States of America, this paper presents two model educational programs that address the iniquities in American public education. The first model is a collaborative effort of a public school in an urban northeast community, the Robert L. Ford Elementary School of Lynn, Massachusetts, USA and a public supported college of higher education, Salem State College, Salem, Massachusetts, USA, whose joint venture is known as The Partnership for the Educational Village Project. The second model utilizes technology to outreach families and child care providers through a televised distance learning project that was nationally presented by its producer, Mass Interactions, and a US Department of Education Star School Grant. The Ford School's principal (head teacher) forged the partnership with the college to create a 'full service school' that provides multiple avenues of support to the school's children, their families, and community. The distance learning programs, entitled 'Taking the First Steps: Parents as Teachers' and 'Building Bridges for Excellence in the Early Grades: Home/School Partnership', were conceived as two live and interactive television series that promoted literacy development in preschool and primary school-aged children in their homes. Both educational models recognize the paramount role families and communities play in the education of children. To compensate and overcome the plight of poverty and disenfranchisement, educational endeavors need to respect the parental role, offer new structures for engaging the family and community in the education of their youth, and provide options as a foundation for sound schooling practices. The two educational models in this paper face these challenges of contemporary society. The paper illustrates how the models define and exemplify initiatives that attempt to transform society to accept social responsibility for educating the whole 'village'.     

Education,Equality and Social Cohesion: A distributional approach

Promoting social cohesion through education has re-emerged as an important policy objective in many countries during the past decade. But there is little clarity in policy discussions about what social cohesion means and how education may affect it. In this article we distinguish between social capital and societal cohesion and argue that education acts in differential ways on each. Using comparative, cross-country analysis, we develop a 'distributional model' which shows the relationship between equality of educational outcomes and various measures of social cohesion. In the final part of the article we discuss theories explaining the cross-country trends and variations in educational inequality and social inheritance in education, and argue that education system characteristics, such as degrees of 'comprehensiveness' in secondary schooling, may be an important factor in both. We conclude by arguing that policies to increase social cohesion through education must pay more attention to the reduction of educational equality than they currently do.     

Performance,Citizenship and the Knowledge Society: A new mandate for European education policy

In this paper we map out the debate concerning a new mandate for European education policy based on recent socio-economic, political and educational developments, seen from the perspective of educational researchers located on the European (semi)periphery. The first part of the paper looks at the category 'preparation for the labour market', while the second part concerns itself with the category 'citizenship'. With regard to the former, it is argued that a new mandate for European education policy finds itself inextricably linked to the new education mandate of the new middle class, in a setting of globalisation and, closer to home, European construction. The latter attempts to conceptualise the emergence of new forms of citizenship at a time when the modern social contract suffers a process of transformation (or, what we term, reconfiguration). Based on the distinction between 'attributed citizenship' and 'demanded citizenship', we analyse changes taking place in state regulation as well as explore some of their implications for schooling.     

中国基础教育研究的国际影响审视：主题、价值表述与被引

基于对99篇研究中国基础教育的SSCI高被引论文的主题分布、对中国基础教育研究价值的表述以及被引用情况的分析,发现这些高被引论文通过凸显中国学生的优异成绩、揭示与他国教育存在的共性问题等方式吸引了国际学界关注,但对有中国特色教育实践的描述分析以及对中国基础教育独特研究价值的发掘尚有不足。相关成果对中国基础教育研究价值的建构方式需要实现从成绩到经验、从问题到方案、从数据到理论的转变,才能进一步提升中国教育研究的国际学术影响力。     

Bernstein and the Middle Class

This paper explores Basil Bernstein's insights into education and social class, and in particular the relevance of his work for understanding the British middle class. Bernstein is one of the few sociologists of education to recognise and explore differences and tensions within the middle class. We begin by exploring some of the influences of Bernstein's theorisation of social class in general, and outline his main ideas on the relationship between the middle class and education in particular. We then examine the relevance of his work for research on education and middle-class differentiation through drawing on data from our 'Destined for Success' project. This project traced the educational biographies of 300 young men and women from the beginning of their promising educational secondary school career to their mid-twenties. We argue that the distinctive dispositions and orientations of the 'new' and 'old' middle class proposed by Bernstein are evident within parental preferences for types of school, processes of student engagement and, ultimately, differentiated middle-class identities.     

中国一流大学个性化教育的理论基础与现实困境

个性化教育是富有中国文化和教育传统的思想,也是中外学界公认的21世纪国际教育发展趋势之一。本文从教育活动三大主体层面分别探讨我国现行一流大学个性化教育的实践现状及存在问题。在理念层面,我国一流大学的个性化教育要继承并创新中国既有“因材施教”的教育传统;在实践层面,要突破目前主要集中在少数学业优秀学生群体、具有明显选拔性的做法,走向更具普惠性、面向所有学生的探索性实践。为此,建议一流大学在政策和制度层面,完善生师多元评价系统,以撬动个性化教育理念的落实;重塑整全的个性化教育体系,使个性化教育实践从培养特区向全员全段式发展;加强与基础教育改革的合作,在更大范围内带动个性化教育向各学级和全教育场域渗透。     

话语分析的逻辑:谬误与澄清——当前教育研究中话语分析的教育学审视

教育研究的"语言学转向",将教育概念、命题的话语分析作为基本任务,旨在澄清教育语言的逻辑谬误,促使教育学语言的精确化。然而,对教育话语的分析,实际上是对教育话语背后隐藏的教育观念和行为目的的探究,是实现由符号到意义的研究过程和理论分析工具。因此,对于教育语言的"教育学"批判、反思,才是对教育概念和命题重新阐释的基础性前提。尽管教育研究的工具可以是多样化的,但目的和立场却是唯一的——它只能指向"教育学"本身。     

Last Past the Post: Comparative education,modernity and perhaps post-modernity

Comparative education, as a university field of study, has been late in addressing issues of post-modernity. The first argument, through an analysis of the history of comparative education, indicates why this is so. The second argument, construed through ideal-typical models of 'modern' and 'late-modern' educational systems, suggests one way to think about changing patterns of formal education in a globalising world. The third argument, notably through a stress on 'transitology', identifies some difficulties in such an ideal-typical approach. The conclusion suggests that we should recover some of our less publicised ways of thinking comparatively and sketches a contemporary research agenda that might assist both specialists and non-specialists to work together on a 'new' comparative education.     

A Vote for Consensus: Democracy and difference in Japan

How evident is democracy within education in Japan, and is current practice different from elsewhere? This paper assesses the perception that Japanese political and educational practices are not fully 'democratic'. The first part examines the Japanese perspective on democracy, and then considers democracy and education in Japan. From a school-based study, the second part discusses examples of class practice concerning decision-making. The paper concludes that democracy is deeply rooted in Japanese history, but not in a form that is readily recognisable to Western observers. Consensus has been more significant than voting. The view that the US administration had a strong influence probably reflects policy rhetoric, not the reality in schools. But this rhetoric may have led to a belief that 'democracy' is not an appropriate term within contemporary Japanese education. However, what happens in Japanese classrooms equates with 'democratic' practice elsewhere.     

我国教育元评估指标体系构建

教育元评估是推进教育评估专业化发展的重要路径,对于实践层面教育评估活动的元评估而言,其核心要素是制订教育元评估指标。文章指出教育元评估指标的制订应遵循合目的性、科学性和可行性原则,借助理论推演、因素分解和Delphi法等方法,按照规范的流程在教育评估领域专家的指导下进行。文章还借鉴了美国教育评估标准的逻辑架构,并结合我国教育评估实践的经验,提出一套适合我国国情的教育元评估指标体系,相关的实践探索将为教育元评估的实践提供依据,也为建立我国教育评估行业规范和专业标准提供参考和借鉴。     

Parents' views on nursery education: Perceptions in context

The analysis describes the broad consensus which is currently emerging about the nature of the educational changes which are necessary for the creation of a 'learning society' and contrasts this vision with the contemporary reality of an education system which is every day more constrained by formal assessment. The implications of these tightening bonds for the development of universities in the third millennium are explored in terms of research evidence which documents the impact of conventional forms of assessment on student learning. The argument is made that this emphasis on 'categoric' assessment if fundamentally incompatible with aspirations towards the creation of a 'learning society'. This is partly because institutions must necessarily give their attention to obtaining high scores and cannot risk the substantial changes in the reorganisation of teaching and learning that an 'empowering' educational environment would arguably require and partly because of the power of the prevailing assessment discourse to define priorities. The article uses Lyotard's concept of 'performativity' to examine these contemporary tensions in higher education, their origins and potential significance for the creation of a 'learning society'.     

John Wilson and the Place of Morality in Education

This paper asks whether it would be better not to talk about morality in schools. The issue is raised through a consideration of changes in public discourse and especially in educational discourse, where categories such as ''personal, social and health education'' and ''citizenship education'' are more salient than ''moral education''. Drawing on John Wilson's arguments, the paper considers claims for the indispensability of the concept of morality. It is argued that such claims, in Wilson's own writings, are applied to both an ''individual'' and a ''social'' conception of morality. Contrary to Wilson, the paper argues that the ''wisest strategy'' for public education is to take the social conception of ''morality in the narrow sense'' as a central focus.     

The National Grid for Learning: Panacea or Panopticon?

Although not fully established, the National Grid for Learning (NGfL) initiative is already being presented by both government and industry as offering students, teachers and school extensive freedom and autonomy in their day-to-day work. However, this paper argues that the official discursive construction of the NGfL in this way, as a 'panacea' to educational problems, obscures vital issues of power and control that may only become apparent once the initiative is fully integrated at the classroom level. Drawing initially on the work of Foucault, and then Poster's more recent conception of the electronic 'SuperPanopticon’, this paper re-examines the basis of the NGfL and its role in extending and reinforcing existing power configurations in education. The paper concludes by considering directions for future research into the NGfL, and educational use of the Internet in the light of this analysis.     

Development Policy and Science Education in South Africa: reflections on post-Fordism and praxis

South African science education is in a state of flux as the new government embarks on a process of renewal and redress in education policy. Existing curricula reflect priorities that are not relevant to new needs, patterns of participation testify to systematic neglect of the science education of the mass of the population under apartheid. The paper argues that the first step in developing new policy is to understand the links between science and technology based development strategies and investment in science education. It then offers an analysis of innovations in production technology associated with 'best practice'; post-Fordist production methods and flexible specialisation that seem likely to have direct implications for the education system. The influence of these on the reform of science education is discussed in some detail. Finally, some reflections on the problems that arise when implementing educational innovations in conditions of rapid change are identified and explored.     

Latin American Education: Perceptions of linearities and the construction of discursive space

Through an account of eight contemporary books that refer to Latin American education, this article offers an interpretation of the processes of construction of 'Latin American discursive space'. The similarities in the principles that dominated the latest educational reforms in the region and the main perspectives that 'explain' these similarities in the literature are taken as the starting point. The article then suggests another interpretation, based on the analysis of discourse, to understand limitations for thought and action in Latin American education.