Yellow marigolds for Ochun: An experiment in feminist ethnographic fiction

The following text is an extract from Nightgowns from Cuba, a novel-in-progress. The novel is a mix of autobiography, ethnography, and fiction. It examines the lives of three generations of women in a Jewish-Cuban family as seen from the perspective of an Afro-Cuban woman who was employed by the family as a domestic worker in the years before the Cuban revolution of 1959. The extract focuses on the delicate relationship that developed between Regla, the maid, and her employer Naomi, a Jewish immigrant and socialist from Poland, as the two women encountered each other in a small rural town in Cuba in the late 1930s. In the last section, Regla comments on the return to Cuba, in the 1990s, of Fanny, the granddaughter of Naomi, who is in search of her family's history and believes that Regla has access to memories that no one in her own family can pass on to her. The theme of the narrative is the transcultural exchange of stories between women and how memory travels and is conserved in strange and unexpected ways. The religion of Santeria is the cosmological setting of the story and the deity of Olokun, who inhabits the depths of the ocean and cannot be represented in visual form, haunts the narrative, which ties together Jewish-Cuban and Afro-Cuban histories and desires.     

An ethnographic eye on religion in everyday life

There are many pitfalls associated with teaching about religions. One such pitfall entails the risk of presenting religions as stereotypical monolithic systems; that is, all who belong to a particular religious tradition think and act in the same way. I like to call this sort of stereotyping the ‘robotic tendency’ because it has a habit of reducing practitioners to robot-like beings that uniformly perform identical actions. This article concerns how the adoption of what I have termed an ‘ethnographic eye’ can help educators to avoid both unfortunate stereotypes and the robotic tendency when teaching about religions.     

Exploring the boundaries: A study of multiple classroom learning environments

The study of learning environments has developed into a productive field of research in science education. Initially, the design and application of classroom perceptual measures of particular dimensions of science classrooms attracted much attention. More recently, such instruments have been used alongside of qualitative techniques to provide a richer understanding of sub-environments. We continue this trend in the present interpretive study by exploring the nature of multiple environments within a middle school classroom from the different perspectives of teacher, student and participant observer. In particular, we examine the activity settings of lectures and group work, as well as the issues of learning and assessment. We conclude by arguing that teachers need to adopt procedures that enable them to identify and plan for multiple environments.     

Two decades of feminist thought - and beyond

This paper reflects on feminist achievements in adult education during the last twenty years. The 1980s was a crucial period, putting gender on the agenda. Research on women and post-school education was initiated, women's studies were established and the prevalence of structural discrimination was recognised. Some comparisons with the development of anti-racist education are made. In the 1990s feminists increasingly recognised women's ‘ways of knowing’ (as process and product) and the curricular implications of this. Again a comparison is made with anti-racist curriculum development. Finally, it is argued that both minority ethnic groups and women have developed ‘cultures of resistance’ which influence their construction of knowledge and seven characteristics associated with such ways of knowing are identified.     

Understanding classroom practice: ethnographic reflection as a methodological tool for professional development

To identify the possibilities for collaborative professional development; a research-driven model was adopted to assist an English First Additional Language teacher to appreciate how he could teach effectively by using an approach that takes into account the students' culture. Using critical observation and stimulated recall discussion, this study examined how his teaching addressed the requirements of the curriculum policy. Evidence points to a reluctance to consider this policy. The teacher's disposition posed challenges to the research process. We suggest that such research could be used effectively if policy were to clarify how a ‘new field’ could contribute to the public good and teachers' development of a ‘new habitus’. In conclusion, we explain how the envisaged outcomes of policy are underpinned by a notion of cultural harmony that has to inform teaching.     

Pushing the boundaries of self-directed learning: research findings from a study of u.lab participants in Scotland

ABSTRACT

This article reports on the research findings from a qualitative study of adult learners in Scotland taking part in a u.lab MOOC. As a new phenomenon in adult learning, u.lab has been extremely popular yet, at present, there exists little empirical data about either the process or outcomes of the learning experience. This study aims to provide a starting point for further study of u.lab and other emergent trends in adult learning. Here, the accounts of 12 women and men participating in u.lab were analysed using a grounded theory framework. The inductive nature of this approach allowed us to build up a picture of participant experience. Of significance in the findings were participants’ relationship to course content, experience of learning in community and engagement in shaping the learning experience. We draw on Illeris’ model of the learning field to deepen our understanding of participant experience and to illustrate how the particular constellation of content, incentive and interaction dimensions of learning in u.lab creates a learning space where the possibility for self-direction and self-organisation is extended beyond existing practice.     

Pushing the boundaries of interaction in videoconferencing: A dialogical approach

Building on experiences with a group of Masters students in 1994, videoconferencing was used the following year to enhance delivery to distance education students in Hong Kong. Following six weeks intensive study on‐campus in Brisbane, students returned to their base in Hong Kong and were connected to their fellow students in Brisbane via videoconference. Employing a dialogical approach, the lecturers used these sessions to push the boundaries of videoconferencing for interactive higher order discussions.     

An ethnographic study of norms of inclusion and cooperation in a multiethnic middle school

This study used ethnographic methods to examine cultural norms regarding inclusion and cooperation at Banner Middle School, in a western U.S. metropolitan area. Banner's students were predominantly working-class Caucasians and Chicanos. Much middle-school and multicultural educational literature calls for the inclusion of students of diverse abilities and race or ethnicity in school and classroom contexts, and for cooperative rather than competitive norms. There was generally powerful and consistent support at Banner for inclusive and cooperative norms at the sociocultural levels of the school as an institution, peer groups, and parents. Two factors stand out in explaining the high degree of inclusion and cooperation: the strong, effective leadership provided by the principal and the cultural congruity of these norms. This study supports the theoretical compatibility of middle-school and multicultural educational philosophy. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Atlanta, April 1992.     

Identification and subjectivity in a Year-3 classroom: using Lacan's mirror stage to analyse ethnographic data

This paper is a re-engagement with some ethnographic data, originally analysed using a sociocultural approach. It makes use of a recent proposal that Lacan's ‘mirror stage’ when applied to an analysis of classroom settings and interactions can offer a fruitful way of explaining and understanding classroom lives, identities and subjectivities. In this re-engagement, use is also made of Lacan's theory of subjectivity. An account is offered of the particular influence of the teacher in two learners' lives and the relationship of this to the learner identities, regulation, subjectivity and school achievement. The paper demonstrates and argues that psychoanalytic theory has a place in the analysis of ethnographic data, taking us beyond the rational, meaning-making teacher and learner to include the affective and emotional aspects of classroom life and their implication in identity and learning.     

区域教育史研究的本土化思考

区域教育史研究的本土化,相对于国家主义而言,以揭示区域教育发展的历史个性和历史内在脉络为使命。要实现这一目标,研究者应强化区域教育研究的本土意识,注重探讨本土问题,构建一个本土教育历史发展的解释系统。     

Music education for the improvement of coexistence in and beyond the classroom: a study based on the consultation of experts

This study examines theoretical principles and models of music education to promote interpersonal and social relations. It focuses on the primary and secondary stages of education in Spain. To this end, relevant national and international figures in education, music or critical thinking were consulted. Their responses to the consultation were treated qualitatively. The results highlight the need to promote participatory activity and to design alternative proposals for music learning that invite the student to gain positive musical experiences. This will help to recognise different musical identities, promote intercultural musical diversity and encourage positive coexistence in and beyond the music classroom.     

Project work in the graduate classroom: Teachers as students apply skills beyond the classroom

Abstract

Through the use of a long‐term project in a graduate teacher education course on the importance of play, students learned skills beyond those usually required in a graduate classroom. Students used their understanding and knowledge of play, constructive practice, and project work to develop a family play day at the university lab school. As part of the project, students helped to develop a play‐style instrument that served as a self‐study for their own classrooms as they observed the play among their own students. The project culminated with the students hosting the families of the lab school at a fun day and preparing a brochure that gave families information about the importance of play.     

Pushing the boundaries of cultural congruence pedagogy in science education towards a third space

This review explores Meyers and Crawford??s ??Teaching science as a cultural way of knowing: Merging authentic inquiry, nature of science, and multicultural strategies?? by examining how they combine the use of inquiry-based science instruction with multicultural strategies. In this conversation, I point to the need of specific discourse strategies to help teachers and students create hybrid spaces to push the boundaries of cultural congruence as described in this article. These strategies include a reflective component to the explicit instruction that encourages an integration of home and science discourses. My response to this work expands on their use of multicultural strategies to push toward a congruent Third space that asks not only what happens to the students who do not participate in science, but also what happens to science when a diverse group of people does not participate?