Using discovery maps as a free-choice learning process can enhance the effectiveness of environmental education in a botanical garden

Botanical gardens (BGs) are important agencies that enhance human knowledge and attitude towards flora conservation. By following free-choice learning model, we developed a ‘Discovery map’ and distributed the map to visitors at the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden in Yunnan, China. Visitors, who did and did not receive discovery maps, were evaluated through a questionnaire and behavioural observations. The map-users scored significantly higher on knowledge than non-map-users. Map-users tended to spend more time and pay more attention to plants during tours than the non-map-users. The study provides evidence to indicate using discovery maps as a free-choice learning process can improve visitors’ engagement during the visit and may enhance the effectiveness of environmental education in botanical garden.     

Bazon Brock's Visitors’ School on Documenta in Kassel: Training for Reception of Contemporary Art

This article analyses the problem of reception and interpretation of contemporary art exhibition in the context of Besucherschule (Visitors’ School) invented by Bazon Brock: German philosopher, art historian and a follower of Theodor Adorno. He implemented this practice for the first time on documenta 4 in Kassel (1968) and organised such schools of reception until documenta 9 (1992). The aim of the Visitors’ School was to explain works of contemporary art on display to the public. Brock understood this process as ‘mediation’ in aesthetic education, arguing that dependence on theory was no less problematic for contemporary art perception than the lack of traditional art form. The main symbolic task of art – ‘claim for reality’, was demonstrated by Brock in two ideas: ‘new image‐war’ and ‘speaking image’.     

Refugees and online education: student perspectives on need and support in the context of (online) higher education

ABSTRACT

Online education and in particular Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are often regarded as a way to solve global educational challenges. In this article, we highlight the students’ uptake of such a ‘digital solution’. Presenting initial findings from a research project in Germany, we situate our investigation in the specific context of digital educational offers for refugees, using Kiron Open Higher Education as an example. Kiron has designed an innovative academic model, with MOOCs at its core, to ease refugees’ access into higher education. Drawing from student data of 1375 Kiron students we look at students’ actual usage of the offer and the accompanying support services as well as the difficulties refugee students face while navigating online higher education. Results show, amongst others, rather low completion rates in the online courses and point to a much more nuanced picture of how students make use of the offer – putting online education as an easy, straightforward formula to the integration of disadvantaged students into question.     

WhatsApp use among African international distance education (IDE) students: transferring,translating and transforming educational experiences

ABSTRACT

Much of the research on how social media is embedded into the educational practices of higher education students has a Western orientation. In concentrating on a case study of the varied ways in which African International Distance Education (IDE) students actively use social media to shape their learning experiences, we discuss an under-researched group. The paper draws on analysis of 1295 online questionnaires and 165 in-depth interviews with IDE students at UNISA, South Africa, one of the largest providers of IDE globally. WhatsApp emerges as ‘the’ key social media tool that opens up opportunities for IDE students to transfer, translate and transform their educational journey when studying ‘at a distance’. Although WhatsApp does provide a ‘space of opportunity’ for some students, this is framed through socio-technical marginalisation, itself a reflection of demographic legacies of inequality. Exploring social media practices though the case of African IDE students places these students centre stage and adds to the awareness of the multiple centres from which international education is practiced.     

Tweens' conceptions of privacy online: implications for educators

There is considerable debate about young people's concern for privacy today, given their frequent use of social media to share information and other content about themselves and others. While researchers have investigated the online privacy practices of teens and emerging adults, relatively little is known about the attitudes and behaviors of younger youth. Drawing on interviews with 42 middle school students, or ‘tweens’, we explore how youth in this age group think about and manage privacy issues online, as well as the messages they report hearing from educators about online privacy. Our findings suggest that most tweens value privacy, seek privacy from both strangers and known others online, and use a variety of strategies to protect their privacy online. Further, tweens' online privacy concerns are considerably broader than the ‘stranger danger’ messages they report hearing from teachers. We discuss the educational implications of these findings.     

Small data,online learning and assessment practices in higher education: a case study of failure?

In this paper, we present an in-depth case study of a single student who failed an online module which formed part of a master’s programme in Professional Education and Leadership. We use this case study to examine assessment practices in higher education in the online environment. In taking this approach, we go against the current predilection for Big Data which has given rise to ‘learning analytics’, a data-intensive approach to monitoring learning. In particular, we draw attention to the model of the learner produced by learning analytics and to issues of ‘dataveillance’ in online learning. We also use the case to examine assessment in higher education more broadly, exploring the tensions between the requirements for certification and the need for learning. We conclude that assessment practices in higher education may have more to do with ‘quality assurance’ and regulatory frameworks than with ‘enhancing the student experience’ and inculcating the qualities that mark out higher education as an ethical project.     

When rights are not enough: What is? Moving towards new pedagogy for inclusive education within UK universities

There is confusion surrounding ‘Inclusion’. The aims and drivers of inclusive education (IE) as experienced in the 1990s to early 2000s, in the UK and globally, emerged from a ‘successful’ disability rights movement with its depiction of the medical model as pejorative and promotion of the social model. In education, what we currently experience are messy attempts at IE alongside growing collective anxiety and confusion, as some governments take reactionary policy steps. This paper engages with the ubiquitous and complex question of ‘IE' in the UK with specific reference to the intersectionality of ‘disability’ and its location within the University. It will problematise the UK rights agenda of the 1980s–1990s, locate and reflect on the complexities and conflicts of Inclusion and consider the need for new pedagogic developments. Such developments, it will be argued, emerge when one applies a critical eye to the impact of hegemony and ‘silence’ on the experiences of those with ‘disability’. This approach has been developed in other areas of social justice and diversity, that is, class, gender and ‘race', and it is argued that such an approach is needed with regard to ‘disability’. It is proposed that post-rights pedagogic developments linked to this may provide a sturdier basis from which UK inclusionists, in particular university educators, can locate their future work.     

Responding to misrecognition from a (post)/colonial university

This article addresses the challenge of reclaiming higher education (HE) as a public good for building effective democracies. We use Bernstein’s model of pedagogic rights and Fraser’s model of social justice to develop a normative framework for discussing how universities in unequal societies might mitigate social injustice. Referring to recent student protests in South Africa, we show the extent of student anger and frustration at the misrecognition they experience due to the reproduction of colonial hierarchies at postcolonial universities. The article is an attempt to respond to students’ calls about ‘black pain’, ‘black debt’ and for the ‘decolonisation’ of South African universities. In particular, we focus on theories of recognition and how these are being played out in the current South African HE context. Our aim is not to critique student politics, but to understand the position and heed the cry of the subaltern student. We deliberate on what an adequate response, framed within a model of pedagogic rights, might be from those who teach in and manage universities. We note some impediments to implementing this response and conclude by asserting the importance of working with a politics of recognition and representation as well as redistribution.     

Historians of education and social media

Narrowing the focus of existing research on academics’ and historians’ use of digital technologies and social media, this paper considers historians of education and their use of online platforms. It combines a small-scale survey of the self-reflections of historians of education together with personal reflections gained from building the social media presence for the History of Education Society as the inaugural Peter Gosden Fellow. The paper suggests that whilst historians of education are increasingly willing to use social media for networking, sharing and promoting their work and that of others, most continue not to use online platforms in conducting and disseminating their work due to expectations in the academy of publication in traditional forms.     

Pedagogies for social justice: did Bernstein get it wrong?

This paper explores the often‐touted incompatibility between ‘intellectual rigour’ and ‘relevance’ as this has manifested in Australian debates over Queensland’s New Basics and ‘productive pedagogies’, and associated initiatives such as the New South Wales Quality Teaching Framework. This debate can be located in longer‐standing concerns about how best to meet the educational needs of students who experience social disadvantage. In particular, we focus on the way Bernstein’s concept of ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’ discourse has been used by him and others to argue against attempting to make academic knowledge more ‘relevant’ by introducing elements of students out of school lives into the classroom. Drawing on examples from the literature, we trouble Bernstein’s contention that academic and ‘everyday’ knowledge represent different, incompatible knowledge forms that cannot be successfully integrated. This troubling creates an opening for reconsidering the relationship between ‘intellectual rigour’ and ‘relevance’. We argue that we can and should pursue the bringing together of ‘intellectual rigour’ and ‘relevance’ as a means to engage better all students, but particularly those who experience social and educational disadvantage, and improve their learning outcomes. Accordingly, we call for challenging, at a theoretical, practical and policy level, the perception that learning cannot be made relevant without sacrificing intellectual rigour. We also call for more research on teachers already integrating ‘intellectual rigour’ and ‘relevance’, and for teacher professional development and scaffolding to achieve this and to moderate multiple student perspectives and claims to ‘relevance’.     

Perceptions of inequalities in access and usage of ICT in Islamic faith schools

Although the educational experiences of South Asian Muslim women have been studied, little is known regarding the role of technology and its effects on education in this population. This study explores the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in British Muslim girls’ schools and its effect on learning. It uses primary data from semi-structured interviews with 14–19-year-olds in three Islamic faith schools. Template analysis was used to identify emerging themes. Participants had access to a wide range of technologies and applications; however, access was often limited to classroom settings. Participants also used subject-specific resources available from learning platforms, although this was not consistent across schools and subjects. The participants felt that the range of resources was limited because of their gender and religion, and wanted greater access to ICT, and more online collaboration and social communication. A didactic approach to instruction was prevalent and for many, exacerbated a ‘digital disconnect’. Our findings suggest that Islamic faith schools reinforce lack of home ICT use. The current didactic approach highlights differences with the student-centred pedagogical techniques of early Qur’anic schools. This study encourages a discussion of the challenges of open access to information, religious freedoms and ensuring equality of learning.     

‘Hot’, ‘cold’ and ‘warm’ information and higher education decision-making

This paper draws on the notions of ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ knowledge in analysing the responses of students to the relevance of different information and sources of such information in university choice. Analysis of questionnaire and focus group data from prospective and first-year undergraduate students provides evidence that many students put most credence on ‘hot’ knowledge, from persons in their social grapevine. However, this is supplemented by ‘warm’ knowledge from fleeting acquaintances at university open days. University provided knowledge is often distrusted. We discuss the implications of this given the recent government emphasis in England on the role of information provision in helping students to make informed decisions, including the relevance to the ‘fair access’ agenda.     

(Re)theorising laddish masculinities in higher education

In the context of renewed debates and interest in this area, this paper reframes the theoretical agenda around laddish masculinities in UK higher education, and similar masculinities overseas. These can be contextualised within consumerist neoliberal rationalities, the neoconservative backlash against feminism and other social justice movements, and the postfeminist belief that women are winning the ‘battle of the sexes’. Contemporary discussions of ‘lad culture’ have rightly centred sexism and men's violence against women: however, we need a more intersectional analysis. In the UK a key intersecting category is social class, and there is evidence that while working-class articulations of laddism proceed from being dominated within alienating education systems, middle-class and elite versions are a reaction to feeling dominated due to a loss of gender, class and race privilege. These are important differences, and we need to know more about the conditions which shape and produce particular performances of laddism, in interaction with masculinities articulated by other social groups. It is perhaps unhelpful, therefore, to collapse these social positions and identities under the banner of ‘lad culture’, as has been done in the past.     

Balancing Cultural Diversity and Social Cohesion in Education: The Potential of Shared Education in Divided Contexts

This article considers how the education systems of divided societies have been shaped in response to the experience of ethnic and religious conflict. The analysis identifies two competing priorities in such contexts – the development of social cohesion and the protection of cultural, ethnic and religious identities – and explores how these may be reconciled through a model of ‘shared education’. Drawing on research evidence and recent experience of shared education in Northern Ireland, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Cyprus, we reflect on the advantages and challenges of this model in areas experiencing conflict and division.     

Unveiling the ‘logic’ of modern university in China: Historical,social and value perspectives

Abstract

This study concentrates on exploring the ‘logic’ of modern universities in China-a working concept that promotes a more in-depth discourse on the implicit illustrations of the ‘logic’ of universities in contemporary China. Drawing on the logic model, we explore the conceptualization of the ‘logic’ of university and examine how the concept of ‘logic’ of modern universities to be perceived, challenged and negotiated through the historical, social and value perspectives. The historical logics, social logics and value logics contribute on unveiling the ‘logic’ of modern university in contemporary China. We suggested that the ‘logic’ of university has important conceptual and practical implications for higher education, especially the importance of explicitness. The ‘logic’ of modern university in China is subject to offer a platform where expectations of university students are elaborated. In addition, the study also seeks to offer an insight into the conceptualization of the ‘logic’ of modern university in contemporary China.     

An interview with Professor Barbara Comber

As part of this special issue on ‘Literacy for social justice’, and at this moment of post-pandemic transitions in education, we invited Professor Barbara Comber to reflect on the needs for and trends in critical literacy education, both in her local context, in Australia, and internationally. In September 2022, we met with Barbara online to discuss her thoughts about what critical literacy educators need, how scholars and educators can work together to produce change, and where we can see hope in critical literacy and social justice education right now, as part of promising anti-racist, decolonizing, and intersectional literacy frameworks and practices.     

Performing mundane materiality: Actor-Network Theory,global student mobility and a re/formation of ‘social capital’

ABSTRACT

Social capital is a puzzling actor; made real by its allies. It has been ‘out-there’ in the form of scientific publications for decades. Although some characteristics are common to all elaborations of this theory (networks, trust, and norms), there remains confusion in determining a ‘coherent concept’ of social capital. In this paper, we make use of such ‘incoherence gap’ to open an experimental theoretical and, subsequently, analytical space. Based on empirical research with mobile students and assemblages of non-human actors, the paper offers two investigative gatherings. First, the Bourdieusian approach to ‘social capital’ is discussed, allowing relational ontologies to enter the scene. Second, consideration is given to issues of performativity and the relevance of materiality for empirical social capital investigations. Despite the degree of ontological security social capital has managed to achieve, we question the disregard for the performative role of non-human entities in the context of global student mobility.     

Paragogy and flipped assessment: experience of designing and running a MOOC on research methods

Abstract

This study draws on the authors’ first-hand experience of designing, developing and delivering (3Ds) a massive open online course (MOOC) entitled ‘Understanding Research Methods’ since 2014, largely but not exclusively for learners in the humanities and social sciences. The greatest challenge facing us was to design an assessment mechanism that was (i) rigorous yet practicable at scale, vis-à-vis over 60,000 students from highly diverse backgrounds; (ii) compatible with the pedagogical orientation of the MOOC provider; and (iii) meaningful to the nature of the course subject. Based on a network analysis of forum interactions and a qualitative analysis of a random sample of 116 research questions proposed by students, we explore how participants’ understanding of research methods developed through a series of carefully sequenced ‘e-tivities’ and ‘open peer assessments’ over the duration of the course. The aim of this study was to consider a model of ‘flipped’ assessment, drawn from elements of ‘paragogy’ and the IR Model that acknowledges and exploits peer learning opportunities that are not routinely captured by completion statistics.     

Environmentalization of the physical education curriculum in Brazilian universities: culturally comparative lessons from critical outdoor education in Australia

‘Environmentalizing’ curriculum in Brazil is a worthy goal of global educational reform for sustainability but is challenging given the limits to rational change thesis already argued in critical social science and post-structural deconstructionism. The federal government mandate to environmentalize undergraduate physical education programs poses the question of which aspects of physical education are conducive to change. ‘Nature’ sports, or outdoor/adventure activity education, is the most likely candidate. In Australia over the past three decades, the environmentalization of ‘old’ physical education outdoor activities has led to the development of ‘new’ discourse practices that integrate environmental studies and outdoor education and are designed for ecological responsibility and social sustainability. In this culturally comparative light about the possibilities for curriculum change in environmental, outdoor and physical education, we examine the potential for change in Brazilian approaches to physical and sport education by critiquing broader ‘environmentalizing’ issues as they have occurred historically within the Australian outdoor education context in the university and secondary schooling sectors.     

Keeping company: Educating for online friendship

The possibility of online Aristotelian virtue friendships via social network sites continues to be raised by philosophers, but as yet this has not been positioned within the realm of children or adolescents, who are known to be amongst the largest users of social media. Governmental agencies across the globe still struggle to define the boundaries of online usage for children, often depending on school-based curricula highlighting ‘safe-guarding’ online or some form of character education. This, however, often leaves the philosophical thinking behind virtual relationships as incompletely addressed in educational theory, policy and practice, despite there being some very real difficulties for children. Utilising the insights of Aristotle on friendship, I offer a view that may hold potential for a philosophically based policy. I outline three different ways this philosophical literature could have implications for education and indicate the types of policy that each might entail. I will contend that there are three distinct stakeholders here that can be identified as having a significant role to play in what we should do: the schools themselves, educational researchers and policy writers. Finally, I suggest ways in which research, policy and practice might link together.