Pragmatic radicalism: An autoethnographic perspective on pre-service teaching

How might a pre-service teacher ‘teach against the grain’ and challenge their pre-existing assumptions about the profession? By deconstructing and reconstructing my schooling experiences and the social and cultural discourses and practices that have shaped and defined me, I hope to interrupt my conditioning and avoid revisiting my unhappy school experiences upon future students [Miller, A. (2006). The teaching urge: and seeking amnesia. English in Australia, 41(1), 18–24., p. 18]. I am trying to break the cycle of social reproduction and domination and become the type of teacher who liberates rather than domesticates. In this article I use ‘autoethnography’ and ‘mystoriography’ to analyse my professional development and to imagine and enact a teaching identity based on Garth Boomer's ‘pragmatic–radical’ educator. Pragmatic radicalism provides a strategic means of surviving and undermining hegemonic school systems while revolutionising the politics of the classroom. Pre-service teachers can challenge the socialisation process and build teaching identities that break the traditional ‘authoritarian–transmission’ model. Critical reflection on identity construction and past school experiences is essential to this endeavour.     

Collaboration, creativity and the co-construction of oral and written texts

In this paper we explore how primary school children ‘learn to collaborate’ and ‘collaborate to learn’ on creative writing projects by using diverse cultural artefacts—including oracy, literacy and ICT. We begin by reviewing some key sociocultural concepts which serve as a theoretical framework for the research reported. Secondly, we describe the context in which the children talked and worked together to create their projects. This context is a ‘learning community’ developed as part of an innovative educational programme with the aim of promoting the social construction of knowledge among all participants. We then present microgenetic analyses of the quality of the interaction and dialogues taking place as peers worked together on their projects, and how these collaborative processes and uses of the mediational artefacts were taken up by the children. In order to exemplify these processes, our analyses centre on a selection of examples of dialogues, texts and multimedia products of stories created by groups of fourth grade (9-10 years old) children. Overall, the work reveals the dynamic functioning in educational settings of some central sociocultural concepts. These include: co-construction; intertextuality and intercontextuality amongst oracy, literacy and uses of ICT; collaborative creativity; development of dialogical and text production strategies and appropriation of diverse cultural artefacts for knowledge construction.     

唐代工匠与农民家庭规模比较

比较隋唐时期手工业生产者的家庭规模与农民的家庭规模 ,个体手工业工匠的家庭类型相对比较复杂 ,大致有五种情况 ,这主要是由工匠为了保持技艺不外漏以及工匠的不同工种决定的。工匠家庭和人口是当时家庭规模的一个重要变量 ,对其进行必要的讨论 ,对于研究农民家庭规模有一定裨益。     

Story constellations: A narrative approach to contextualizing teachers’ knowledge of school reform

This article traces the roots of narrative research in the social sciences and education, then centers on ‘story constellations,’ a version of narrative inquiry that uncovers teachers’ knowledge of school reform in context. A fluid form of investigation that unfolds in a three-dimensional inquiry space, story constellations consists of a flexible matrix of paired narratives that are broadened, burrowed, and restoried over time. The adaptability of this narrative inquiry approach is then made visible through introducing four story constellations separately, then laying sketches of the individual story constellations side-by-side. When analyzed in a conjoined fashion, these sketches illustrate how the particularities of place and human agency in the living of school reform played out differently in differing school contexts, despite the fact that the four school sites had one story of reform in common. In the end result, the illustrations demonstrate how the use of the malleable approach drew distinctive story constellations to the surface, spotlighting teachers’ knowledge of school reform as it developed in context over time. In this way, ‘story constellations’ as a method and as a form of inquiry is illuminated.     

Factors that prevent children from gaining access to schooling: A study of Delhi slum households

This paper examines the factors that prevent slum children aged 5–14 from gaining access to schooling in light of the worsening urban poverty and sizable increase in rural-to-urban migration. Bias against social disadvantage in terms of gender and caste is not clearly manifested in schooling, while migrated children are less likely to attend school. I argue that the lack of preparation for schooling in the pre-schooling ages and school admission procedures are the main obstacles for migrated children. The most important implication for universal elementary education in urban India is raising parental awareness and simplifying the admission procedures.     

Agents’ social imagination: The ‘invisible’ hand of neoliberalism in Taiwan's curriculum reform

Neoliberalism has become the most dominant ideology in current world and educational researchers thus may need to disclose the ways in which neoliberalism affects education and curriculum and propose new strategies to cope with them. Through literature review, however, the author argues that perhaps because of the social and theoretical scope in the West, the existing analytical strategy, which mainly focuses on the influence of government policies, seems unsuitable for some non-Western countries. This paper reviews the Grade 1-9 curriculum reform in Taiwan's education system, and suggests that one of the neoliberalism's influences in education might be more ‘invisible’ because it reflects the public's/agents’ social imagination of this neoliberal world. Furthermore, the hybrid cultural context in Taiwan, such as the examination culture, also seems to play an important role in the process of curriculum reform. Thus, the author argues that the analysis of neoliberalism in education should pay more attention to ‘agent’ and ‘culture’ aspects, but not just ‘structure’ aspect. It is also argued that ‘curriculum reform’ should be expanded into ‘social reform’ to some extent, since social imagination has such a heavy impact on curriculum reform.     

Queensland teachers’ conceptions of assessment: The impact of policy priorities on teacher attitudes

The conceptions Queensland teachers have about assessment purposes were surveyed in 2003 with an abridged version of the Teacher Conceptions of Assessment Inventory. Multi-group analysis found that a model with four factors, somewhat different in structure to previous studies, was statistically different between Queensland primary and (lower) secondary teachers. Primary teachers agreed more than secondary teachers that ‘assessment improves teaching and learning’, while the latter agreed more that it ‘makes students accountable’. The inter-correlation of ‘assessment is irrelevant’ to ‘makes students accountable’ was statistically stronger for primary teachers. Teacher beliefs reflected the differing practices of assessment by level of schooling.     

The inclusive practice project in Scotland: Teacher education for inclusive education

While differences in national contexts are associated with variations in how teachers are trained and school systems are organised, the conceptual and philosophical problems of equity and inclusion in schooling are shared concerns. This paper describes how the structure and content of an initial teacher education programme for primary and secondary teachers has been revised to ensure that social and educational inclusion is addressed within the core programme. A rationale is presented for the development of ‘inclusive practice’, followed by a discussion of the reforms and an outline of the effects that are expected in the classroom practices of teachers in schools.     

Children’s Voices: Providing Continuity in Transition Experiences in Singapore

The issue about when children should begin primary schooling continues to be an area for discussion amongst educators, parents, and children who indeed have some views about this. The compulsory entry age of children into formal schooling is different in many countries. It is not only the starting age that has invoked discussion, but also the types of practices that occur to facilitate transition and minimise stress in young children. In this regard the ‘ready school concept’ has grown in acceptance and provides for the needs of children of diverse backgrounds, knowledge and experiences. This paper examines what is happening in transition experiences in Singapore and presents the voices of a small sample of children who wanted primary school to be a place for both work and play.     

Reviews of research on rural schools and their communities in British and Nordic countries: Analytical perspectives and cultural meaning

This introduction presents the case, and sets the scene, for five reviews of research on rural schools and their communities, arguing that educational research in this field is relatively rare, and decreasingly visible despite the significant population of the world's children who live in rural communities and attend rural schools. After considering various interpretations of ‘rural’, of the purpose and function of rural schooling, and of the relationship between school and community, we present three basic research questions with relevance for researchers of schools and communities, rural and urban, the world over, and raise more specific questions which are addressed in the reviews themselves and pursued in the closing chapter. Finally we introduce the research reviews and justify our selection of British and Nordic countries, where, despite geographical proximity, there are wide thematic and methodological disparities in rural schools’ research.     

Does cram schooling matter? Who goes to cram schools? Evidence from Taiwan

Attendance at cram schools is an experience that the majority of Taiwanese have while growing up. However, the incidence and impact of cram schooling are still understudied and have yet received much attention. In this paper, I first illustrate the development of cram schools in Taiwan, and demonstrate the important changes on institutional factors and legitimacy of cram schools. Then I use data collected by Taiwan Education Panel Survey to investigate the net effect of cram schooling on students’ academic performance, and to test whether the opportunity of cram school participation reflects specific patterns of stratification.Empirical results indicate that cram schooling does matter: attending cram schools has a significantly positive effect on a student's analytical ability and mathematical performance. However, cram school participation does not reflect specific patterns of social stratification: the opportunity of going to a cram school for a male student is not significantly different from that of a female; the effects of family background on students’ cram school participation are not as critical as they were in the past.     

Discursively complex identities of New Zealand teachers of writing in times of contestation and change

Changes in political, social and educational curriculum policies over the past four decades have created discursive shifts in writing theory and practice for New Zealand primary teachers. While these policies have historically privileged a particular view of writing over others, very little is known as to how teachers engage with experienced discourses of writing.Three broad conceptual metaphors, taking a ‘writer’, ‘text’ and ‘social’ perspective, frame the writing theories and practices and provide a context for the development of heuristic markers used to analyse the teachers’ interviews. Discourse analysis revealed teachers’ complex identities and knowledge or lack of, available writing discourses.     

Some remarks on Navajo geometry and piagetian genetic theory

Abstract

Some of the basic findings of Piaget's study on spatial knowledge in Genevan children are contrasted to Navajo spatial knowledge: there is no unique spatial «primitive» in Navajo knowledge and each and every notion is constituted in a different way than its Genevan correlate. The total system of Navajo knowledge shows a structure of interrelated and codetermining notions which differs markedly from the unilinear logical-deductive structure in the Piagetian model. In the second half of the paper the investigation turns to education and schooling. Here a position is taken against the (Piaget-based) rationalistic education policy one finds in the New Math-movement. Instead, some of the principles of Freudenthal are explored in a non-western setting: children should reinvent geometry on their own, in the terms of their culture. To that end, a curriculum for geometry teaching in a Navajo bicultural school is presented, focusing on the schooling in geometric concepts within the Navajo language and with full respect for the Navajo spatial representations in pre-school children.     

Gender gap in maths test scores in South Korea and Hong Kong: Role of family background and single-sex schooling

In many industrialised societies, women remain underrepresented in the sciences, which can be predicted by the gender gap in math achievement at school. Using PISA 2006 data, we explore the role of family background and single-sex schooling in girls’ disadvantage in maths in South Korea and Hong Kong. This disadvantage is found to be associated with single-sex schooling, but not with family background. Attending a girls’ school confers a benefit only in South Korea, whereas the gendered curriculum counteracts the selectivity advantage of girls’ schools in Hong Kong. We find that a gendered social structure prevalent in both societies.     

School leadership and social justice: Evidence from Ghana and Tanzania

Headteachers working under conditions of severe hardship in Africa face tremendous challenges, often exacerbated by a sense of hopelessness and lack of agency to effect improvements within their school. This paper focuses on notions of leadership agency and ‘social justice’ within an African educational context, with a specific focus on the school level, and reports on a small-scale research project involving primary headteachers in Ghana and Tanzania engaging with action research in order to bring about changes which they feel will benefit the quality of pupil learning. The study presents some positive impacts generated by the headteachers’ actions and indicates ways in which these actions illustrate developments in areas of ‘social justice’ related to fairness, equity, recognition, and redistribution. The findings suggest that empowering headteachers through the use of action research can enable them to act creatively and positively to benefit the quality of education offered to the pupils within their schools.     

The social context of early schooling and children's school adjustment

The transition to elementary school is a major developmental milestone in the life of a child. It has been estimated that a significant number of children experience academic, social-emotional, or behavioral difficulties as they adapt to the challenges of formal schooling. Furthermore, these difficulties are compounded by poverty, often co-occur, and persist over time. This article explores the relation between the social context of early schooling; that is, features of the classroom and school environment and children's adjustment. A contextual understanding of early school adjustment fills an important gap in the literature and provides direction for future research.     

Great expectations: Teacher learning in a national professional development programme

This paper reports findings from an evaluation of a national continuing professional development (CPD) programme for teachers in England. Data showed that the localised implementation, opportunities for interactive learning, and ‘collective participation’ were positive factors. Research participants reported difficulties, however, in ‘cascading’ knowledge to colleagues and in sustaining and developing their learning. It is argued that these limitations were rooted in an inconsistent theory of learning that underpinned the programme and a failure to conceptualise teachers as ‘lead learners’ in schools. Wider implications for the design of teachers’ professional development are considered.     

Assessment for learning in the accountability era: Empirical evidence from Scotland

In many European languages, the words ‘assessment’ and ‘evaluation’ are synonymous, but in English the two terms are used differently. Educational ‘assessment’ is learner-focused and part of professional pedagogy, relating directly to the accountability of practitioners and schools to learners and their families. Educational ‘evaluation’ is understood to be a parallel and linked process, relating to the quality of national policy and of provision and practice in establishments, part of accountability to the wider public. In Scotland, assessment policy has been focused on aligning ‘assessment for learning’ and ‘assessment for accountability’ for nearly a decade and policy guidance has been based on the principle that formative and summative uses of information can apply as well to system evaluation as to school-based assessment. Self-evaluation has been increasingly emphasized, promoting better understanding of the role of continuous review in supporting and improving education. In theory, the two processes of assessment and evaluation should align without difficulty as ‘intelligent accountability’ and together should act as a powerful driver for improved educational outcomes. However, achieving alignment in practice, which requires good professional relationships and mutual trust in different communities of practice, as well as shared understanding and expectations, has proven to be very hard to achieve. This article will show the progress that has been made with alignment; indicate where there have been difficulties and why; and suggest that several important factors need to be acknowledged if alignment is to be achieved.     

儿童入学准备问题及其教育干预途径

相关研究发现,儿童早期的入学准备状况能够很好地预测儿童入学后的学校适应,那些在入学准备上存在风险的儿童,将在学校适应上面临更多的问题。因此,及时对学龄儿童采取相应的教育干预,可有效地提高其入学准备水平,为其顺利适应学校生活打下良好基础。文章在实证研究的基础上,结合我国儿童在入学准备方面存在的问题和不足。提出了儿童入学准备的三级教育干预模型：家庭环境的准备、学前教育环境的准备和学校环境的准备。