Storytelling in troubled times: what is the role for educators in the deep crises of the 21st century?

This essay examines the role of educators in the tangled economic, social, environmental and technological crises of the present time. It argues that a central purpose of education in this period is to support students to imagine and make liveable futures on their own terms. To do this, the paper proposes that the colonizing, optimizing and catastrophic stories that dominate accounts of the relationship between education and the future should be replaced by a recognition of students and worlds as co‐emerging. It introduces resources from the fields of anticipation, temporality and decolonial studies that gesture towards a new educational practice. It concludes by arguing that supporting students to make, tell and listen to stories has a critical role to play in enabling students to identify and articulate desires, hopes, fears and dreams for the future and to engage with the rich complexities of the present.     

The role of the teaching headteacher: A question of support?

This article reports findings from a study of 100 headteachers of very small Scottish primary schools. The main aim of the research was to follow up a sample of those schools that had participated in a larger study of all small schools in Scotland in 1996 to explore the role of the teaching headteacher. Evidence for this follow up study was collected from a postal survey and from interviews in nine case study schools. The research found that although the dual role of the teaching headteacher remained largely unchanged, pressures have increased while the available support is still perceived to be inadequate.     

What should reading instructional research be the research of?

There have been recent arguments for expanding research on some basic beginning reading skills (i.e, phonemic awareness, word recognition) to the exclusion of other literacy competencies. Moreover, there have also been arguments that certain methodologies should be favored in reading research to the exclusion of others. The case is made in this article that these conceptualizations of reading research are too narrow. Rather, the case made here is that a number of issues in literacy development deserve support, issues that can be addressed well with diverse methodologies.     

Infusion or confusion: A meta–analysis of Environmental Education in the 21st century curriculum of Botswana

The purpose of this article is to examine the integration of environmental education (EE) in the secondary school curriculum of Botswana. In order to achieve effective environmental literacy, EE needs to be integrated into all aspects of students’ learning experience. The article draws on a variety of qualitative meta-analyses of Botswana government documents and journal articles, published between 2002 and 2012. Although EE is integrated primarily in social studies and science subjects, the findings suggested that it is in a state of confusion due to ineffective professional development of teachers and neglect of educational authorities. Teachers at the secondary level rarely include EE because students are not tested on it. The study suggested that teachers’ values towards EE, subject flexibility, integration and child-centred learning should be enhanced as strategies for halting the confusion of its infusion into the curriculum     

What to Do With Meaning? A Research Conundrum for the 21st Century

It is difficult to know what to do with meaning. Some kinesiologists, particularly those in the humanities, would argue that it should be given due attention—perhaps even priority attention. Others would argue that meaning is unimportant or simply impossible to study in any objective way. This conundrum can be solved by adopting a new research paradigm, one that places meaning on a level playing field with muscles, cells, genes, and other movement-related phenomena. I argue that we might be in the middle of a Kuhnian paradigm shift. This new way of conceptualizing reality has significant implications, not only for how we do research, but also for how we understand our field. I identify five implications of the new paradigm for kinesiology.     

What is the role of induction and deduction in reasoning and scientific inquiry?

A long‐standing and continuing controversy exists regarding the role of induction and deduction in reasoning and in scientific inquiry. Given the inherent difficulty in reconstructing reasoning patterns based on personal and historical accounts, evidence about the nature of human reasoning in scientific inquiry has been sought from a controlled experiment designed to identify the role played by enumerative induction and deduction in cognition as well as from the relatively new field of neural modeling. Both experimental results and the neurological models imply that induction across a limited set of observations plays no role in task performance and in reasoning. Therefore, support has been obtained for Popper's hypothesis that enumerative induction does not exist as a psychological process. Instead, people appear to process information in terms of increasingly abstract cycles of hypothetico‐deductive reasoning. Consequently, science instruction should provide students with opportunities to generate and test increasingly complex and abstract hypotheses and theories in a hypothetico‐deductive manner. In this way students can be expected to become increasingly conscious of their underlying hypothetico‐deductive thought processes, increasingly skilled in their application, and hence increasingly scientifically literate. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach     

University students’ emotions in virtual learning: a review of empirical research in the 21st century

This paper presents a systematic review of university students’ emotions in connection with virtual learning based on 91 articles published between 2002 and 2017 in four international journals that focus on virtual learning and educational technology or on learning in higher education. These journals were considered potential channels for research on emotions in virtual learning and higher education. The objective was to analyse the articles for concepts and theoretical background related to virtual learning and emotions, contextual focus, methodological choice, and/or results. The review showed that the most common emotion-related concept was “satisfaction.” The most common context for the articles was a complete non-physical learning environment (e.g. Second Life). Approximately 60% of the articles used quantitative methods. The most common design for studying emotions was an explanatory design. Students’ emotions were mainly studied through concepts related to emotion (e.g. “satisfaction”). Yet only a few of the studies focused on the fluctuation of emotions in the course of events, relying instead on post hoc data that treat students’ emotions as traits rather than states.     

What is the role of constructivist teachers within faculty communication networks?

Using the biology faculty of one high school (n = 9) and the mathematics faculty of another (n = 16), this study tested the hypothesis that constructivist teachers play an active role within teacher communication networks (the constructivist‐teacher hypothesis). This hypothesis contrasts with the view that constructivist teachers operate alone and largely severed from communications among colleagues. Two types of representations of communication patterns among faculty members (i.e., sociographs) were created and analyzed for each faculty. One type of sociograph plotted communications concerning content/pedagogical issues while the other type plotted social/informal communications. Trained raters assessed constructivist‐teaching practices using the Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP). Positive relationships were found between constructivist‐teaching practices and the frequency and significance of communications within both faculties—more so for content/pedagogical issues than for social/informal communications. Importantly, peers sought out constructivist teachers more often than they did traditional teachers, presumably seeking advice regarding teaching practice. Results support the constructivist‐teacher hypothesis and indicate that constructivist teachers are not isolated from their peers. Instead, they appear to play an active role, particularly when colleagues are discussing issues related to content and pedagogy. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 44: 490–505, 2007     

What is the use of theory? A psychoanalytic discussion

Freud asking whether psychoanalysis could be taught in the university, and then whether it could be learned, provides an occasion for asking about the emotional uses of theory. The paper draws from literature, clinical writing and pedagogy to build a psychoanalytic discussion of teaching and learning that takes seriously phantasies of knowledge made from the creation, conveyance and reception of theory. This learning complex involves symptoms in education: resistance to theory, fear of theory, fear of words, and writing inhibitions. Freud’s third model of psychoanalysis, ‘working through’, suggests a new approach to the use of theory in university.     

School Mapping Restructure in China: What role for the small rural school?

Despite significant progress over the past fifteen years associated with School Mapping Restructure (SMR) in Chinese rural schools, many small schools have been closed or have merged with larger primary schools. This has resulted, among other things, in difficulties for many students in rural areas who now have to travel longer distances to a central (primary) school and whose families generally have to bear greater expenses for schooling. This paper examines the role of small rural schools in the Chinese education system, looks at the context and impacts of SMR on these schools in terms of quality, cost and access indicators, and highlights some of the key difficulties faced by these schools in the restructured education system. We argue that small rural schools have a significant role to play in delivering education services in rural China and should therefore be retained, supported and equipped with the right levels of facilities and quality services for them to fulfill their role. The policy implications of these findings for education officials are discussed in the context of continuing SMR.     

What is the evidence for the impact of National Qualifications Frameworks?

Numerous countries are introducing National Qualifications Frameworks (NQFs), or preparing to introduce them, despite the limited empirical evidence for their effectiveness. This paper takes advantage of recent additions to the evidence base on NQFs in order to assess their impacts, focusing on comprehensive frameworks. It also presents analytical tools for studying these impacts, by distinguishing among different types of framework and among the different ‘change processes’ by which they try to achieve their objectives. The evidence, while still inconclusive, shows that the impacts of NQFs have been smaller than expected, have often taken many years to appear, have varied across frameworks and sub-frameworks and have been negative as well as positive. However, the most important conclusion is the variability of the impacts of NQFs and the complexity of the underlying causal processes.     

Civic education curriculum reform in Hong Kong: What should be the direction under Chinese sovereignty?

This article uses results from a cross-national analysis of the impact of varying approaches to civic education curriculum delivery on three learning outcomes, to draw conclusions about the value of a government-mandated compulsory, independent subject of civic education in the school curriculum. It starts from the context of Hong Kong, where there have been repeated calls for the government to reform civic education, and compares this context with that of England, where citizenship education was made a statutory subject in 2002. The article then examines from the cases of 25 societies whether a compulsory approach to and/or independent subject of civic education is associated with better learning of civic knowledge, knowledge of democracy, and patriotism. Finding that the impact of curricular approaches is somewhat negligible taking other factors into consideration, the article concludes that civic education reformers should consider the costs of limiting school autonomy in curriculum delivery.