Feeling Heard: Inclusive Education,Transformative Learning,and Productive Struggle

Developments in international inclusive education policy, including in prominent UN documents, often refer to the aim of a quality education for all. Yet, it remains unclear: What exactly is meant by quality education? And, under what conditions are quality educational experiences possible for all learners? In this essay, Diana Murdoch, Andrea English, Allison Hintz, and Kersti Tyson bring together research on inclusive education with philosophy of transformative learning, in particular John Dewey and phenomenology, to further the discussion on these two questions. The authors argue that teacher–learner relationships, of a particular kind, are necessary for fostering environments wherein all learners have access to quality educational experiences associated with productive struggle as an indispensable aspect of transformative learning processes. They define such relationships as “educational relationships that support students to feel heard.” In developing their argument, the authors first analyze the concept of productive struggle, an aspect of learning increasingly recognized in research and policy as an indicator of quality education. Second, they discuss three necessary, though not sufficient, conditions for the teacher to cultivate educational relationships that support students to feel heard. Third, they draw out connections between environments that support feeling heard and those that support productive struggle, and they discuss teachers' challenges and risk-taking in creating such environments. The authors close with a discussion of implications for international policy, practice, and research.     

Evaluations and the Forgetfulness of Pedagogical Relations: Remarks on Educational Authority

In this essay, Christiane Thompson addresses the question of evaluative practices, particularly student evaluation of teaching (SET), and their effects with respect to pedagogical relations in the university setting. In the first part of the essay, Thompson draws on Michel Foucault's analysis of power to show how university teaching has come to be defined according to notions of obligation, accountability, and assurance. The forgetfulness of pedagogical relations that results from the increasing use of SET prompts Thompson to rethink the significance of pedagogical relations in the second part of the essay. Referring to the notion of “educational authority” and Foucault's framework of power, Thompson argues that education is about the continuous re‐institution of pedagogical relation to the other. In the final section, Thompson reflects upon the professor's “authority” in terms of constituting a “community of inquiry”: specifically, the seminar is interpreted as a pedagogical setting that implies a different “being‐with” than SET suggests. She concludes by considering what possibilities and limitations the seminar setting offers and how we can discuss this issue (by means of evaluative practice).     

Educating World Teachers for Cosmopolitan Classrooms and Schools

This essay responds to the question of what it might mean to educate “world teachers” for cosmopolitan classrooms and schools through an examination of an ethnographic play entitled Satellite Kids. The author begins with the idea that teachers need to develop or build up “intercultural capital”, that is, knowledge and dispositions that will help them in intercultural exchanges of teaching and learning. The author then explores what such knowledge and dispositions might entail through an analysis of Satellite Kids. The play's focus on issues of power, identity, and intercultural conflict within a Canadian cosmopolitan school makes an interesting case study for exploring what intercultural knowledge and dispositions might look and sound like, and how the educational project of building intercultural capital is different from the project of multicultural education that has been dominant in Western teacher education throughout 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.     

Educational research in educational practice [1]

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), notably through its Teaching and Learning Research Programme, has laid strong claims to the benefits of research which leads to an enhancement of research capability. What it has not done is to make explicit what those benefits might be or how they might be achieved. The authors, with three others [2], are the directors of the ESRC-funded project Transforming Learn ing Cultures in Further Education (FE) (the TLCFE project). Among the aims of that project is the development of a lasting capacity among practitioners for enquiry into FE practice. To achieve this, the project team will first have to formulate a clear understanding of what educational practice is and, second, a view of the place of research in the support of that practice. This paper briefly describes the TLCFE project and then addresses three specific issues. Firstly, it distinguishes notions of educational practice. Secondly, it examines opportunities afforded by different approaches to researching educational practice. Thirdly, it returns to the central question concerning relationships between educational research, educational practice and professional, as distinct from technical, development. The paper argues that educational interests are best served by research in rather than simply on educational practice. Research in practice, properly construed and accomplished, offers practitioners a means of developing understandings of their practices and it is such understandings which are central to processes of achievement, enhancement and change in educational practice.     

Educational leadership and the Capabilities Approach: evidence from Ghana

School leaders play a central role in affecting the educational development of the young people for whom they have responsibility. This is especially the case where school leaders are operating in challenging low-income environments. This paper argues that a focus on Sen’s notions of individual agency and freedom are a necessary but not a sufficient factor in the conversion of capabilities into functionings for these school leaders. This is done through using the Capabilities Approach as a lens through which to carry out a retrospective analysis and evaluation of the activities of a group of primary school headteachers in Ghana involved in a UK Government-funded project focused on education quality. The paper argues that headteachers with the capability of initiating change in the education process in their schools are unlikely to act in this way unless they feel that they have permission to do so. It is also important that headteachers feel that they are working within a context and an environment where acting in ways which aim to improve pupil learning is seen as central to their role. This kind of supportive context for school leaders (and for other educational practitioners) cannot be divorced from a policy environment which sanctions such activities, and, hence, it is argued that such a context is crucial to policy developments which seek to establish and sustain the core capabilities which are at the heart of Nussbaum’s essentialist approach. The paper also brings to the foreground the tensions that exist between the notion of individuals being free to make choices about what they have reason to value, on the one hand, and the implications that these choices have for the freedoms of other individuals with whom they are connected to make such choices. Finally, it is argued in the paper that the action research approach used in the Leadership & Management Project in Ghana, allied to a positive policy context, provides both the sensitivity to context and a practice-oriented focus which can enable school leaders to bring about the conversion of their individual capabilities into functionings.     

Studying the flute and the orchestra: controlled vs. classroom research on computers

How do you study computers in education and what do you study about them? A theory is presented which distinguishes between cognitive effects with and of computer tools, the former constituting improved performance while an intellectual tool is available, the latter manifesting a subsequent cognitive residue as a result. Two studies are described, providing support for the theory. It is argued, however, that such analytic research fails to capture the multivariate rich classroom environments that the effective use of computers requires and brings about. A classroom history project is described as it evolves around tool use. It is suggested that another research approach — a systemic paradigm — is needed to study such rich and multivariate cases. The complementary relations between the analytic and systemic research approaches are examined.     

Three Epiphanic Fragments: Education and the essay in memory

Pádraig Hogan has argued for a powerful conception of education as epiphany that is illuminated by the work of Heidegger and Joyce. But what are we to make of Stephen Dedalus’ intention (pretension?) to ‘Remember your epiphanies’? Developing the phenomenological Erinnerungsversuch or ‘essay in memory’ of David Farrell Krell, I will examine three ‘epiphanic fragments’ from the literature of education. The problem of the temporality of the educational epiphany will be identified and a resolution will be attempted. I hope thus to extend an ontological account of memory into the educational experience, and also to develop the educational significance of the remembered or recollected epiphany. The article concludes with some emerging thoughts on the relation of education, literature and vocation.     

Spatializing critical education: progress and cautions

Recently critical scholars have shown a renewed interest in spatial relations in educational contexts. In this essay we use selections from Gulson and Symes's edited volume Spatial theories of education as a point of departure to examine what spatial analysis can contribute to the critical education traditions. We argue that, when done thoughtfully, spatial theory can shed new light on existing and taken-for-granted social relations in education, though we raise cautions regarding particular forms of its application. In the process we connect the more recent attempts to ‘spatialize’ critical education to the ways in which space has been dealt with in past moments of critical work. Finally, we conclude by advocating for the expansion of the types of methodological tools used by critical theorists of spatial relations and of critical projects more broadly.     

THE CONCEPT OF EVIDENCE IN EVIDENCE‐BASED PRACTICE

There exists a vast literature on evidence‐based practice (EBP) in education. The debate branches out in several directions, for example, what EBP entails for the nature of educational practice, what it entails for the teaching profession, what counts as use and abuse of evidence, and what educational research could or should contribute to a what works kind of practice. In this essay Tone Kvernbekk focuses on the fate of the concept of evidence in the debate, observing that the concept seems, by and large, to be missing from the debate. She argues that educational debates about EBP stand to gain in nuance and depth from employing philosophical insights about evidence. Kvernbekk develops this claim by discussing different conceptions of evidence and by inquiring into three aspects of the evidentiary relation: the meaning of “based,” underdetermination, and the relativization of evidence.     

From positivism to critical theory: school-community relations toward community equity literacy

In recent years, research on urban school–community relations has emerged with renewed vigor and a myriad of suggestions for how to best approach the topic. While most of these suggestions are anchored in positivist and interpretive epistemologies, a growing number of scholars are applying more critical approaches to school–community relations that center issues of equity and unequal power relations. However, these approaches are often perceived as being too impractical for educational leaders to implement. This article thus situates approaches to school–community relations across three epistemologies: positivism, interpretivism, and critical theory to make these ideas more accessible for educational leaders. With a focus on developing educational leaders to work equitably across school and community contexts, this article provides an operating framework for each approach that delineates assumptions, goals, views of families, strategies, and types of leadership. Finally, this article provides an epistemological grounding to propose that educational leaders develop what I call community equity literacy, and concludes with implications for future research.     

A safe place to stay sharp: action learning meets cooperative inquiry in the service of NHS OD capacity building

This is an account of practice. It explores the meeting point between action learning and action research, as a way of doing capacity building in organisational development (OD) in the NHS in the UK. The authors were part of a short cooperative inquiry (Heron, J. 1996. Co-operative Inquiry: Research into the Human Condition. London: Sage). The research found that it was vital in such challenging environments as the current NHS scene to have a ‘safe place to stay sharp.' They outline here what the qualities of such a space might be for themselves, and, following the notion of parallel process (what we experience may be symptomatic of the wider system), for other OD practitioners in the NHS.     

Putting Foucault to Work in Educational Research

This essay reviews three books that engage the writings of Michel Foucault. It examines to what extent and in what ways Foucault has been made to 'work' in educational practice and research. It suggests that Foucault has been narrowly appropriated in a way that is, ultimately, ironic—namely, as either liberating us from or entrapping us within our culture's structures and practices. This essay concludes by suggesting that Foucault's work was an attempt to avoid and subvert exactly such binaries.     

Response to Woods – When rewards and sanctions fail: a case study of a primary school rule‐breaker

This paper proposes a postmodernism and cultural studies influenced collorary to Cynthia Dillard's notion of "an endarkened feminist epistemology." The paper illustrates that Dillard has developed the notion principally as enabling of a project of recueillement : the articulation of a black feminist epistemology and research paradigm. What remains unaddressed in this project (albeit understandably), is the question of what difference difference makes within an endarkened epistemology. Illustrating that difference always compounds and complicates matters, the paper proceeds to draw on postmodernist and cultural studies theory to work with the ways in which race, gender, and sexual orientation interplay to produce an articulation that does not displace the notion of an endarkened feminist epistemology but rather runs parallel and acts as a corollary in the same dual project of contributing to both the "uriously belated" examination of race and racism in educational research in general, and the development of a black feminist epistemology and research paradigm in particular.     

Towards a framework for creative online collaboration: A research on challenges and context

The OnCreate project was initiated by ten universities with expertise in collaborative work in online-based learning environments and explores the specific challenges of implementing university courses in creative disciplines in such an environment. The first research phase comprises a literature search on creativity and its contextual factors in online collaboration in an educational setting. From this research a first set of possible key challenges and contextual key factors has been selected and applied to categorize the results of interviews and surveys on current good practice in creative online collaboration among experienced online teachers from the partner universities. From the key findings we formulate hypotheses to guide future research towards a framework for creative online collaboration. At the same time, the results can serve as inspiration for the educational practice. Notable observations of the good practice research among the partner universities are that they realise innovative collaboration concepts usually on mashed-up environments of state-of-the-art web services rather than on the omnipresent learning management systems (such as Moodle or Blackboard). Also, they show a paradigm shift from teaching to coaching and promotion of an open peer-review culture among the students.     

Psychology studies’ drive to educational reform in the last 20 years in China

In order to better understand the relationship between educational psychology research and educational reform, this essay reviews the development of educational psychology studies in the last 20 years in China. The study shows that: (1) Rapid development has been made in the areas of establishing discipline systems; (2) Research fields have been expanded and research directions have been localized; (3) The theoretical basis for quality education has been derived from education psychology studies; (4) The psychological foundation for curriculum reform and instruction has been implemented, and (5) China has committed to serve and expand current educational practices. __________ Translated from Psychological Science, 2005, 28(6)     

Changing literacies—people,place and objects: a review essay

In this review essay, I refer to two recently published scholarly works that explore the notions of transcultural, mobile and placed literacies: in Languages and literacies as mobile and placed resources edited by Sue Nichols and Collette Snowden, and Literacy lives in transcultural times edited by Rahat Zaidi and Jennifer Rowsell. Much research in the field of literacy education has recently acknowledged how literacies are continually changing due to globalisation and transmobility. People move, places change, and objects shift in and through these spaces. Researchers and educators are, therefore, grappling with how best to address these diversities and engage learners in such environments. Through a review of the books mentioned above, two key questions are explored: what are the appropriate pedagogies for literacy education? Where and how is literacy education research leading us into the future? This review takes a socio-cultural perspective of literacy by presenting the contemporary research that attempts to answer these questions.