Risk‐taking abilities for everyone? Finnish entrepreneurship education and the enterprising selves imagined by pupils

This article examines the spread of the neo‐liberal educational policy in Finnish schools by considering entrepreneurship education. We examined the kinds of gendered and classed enterprising selves that were narrated in the Finnish writing competition Good Enterprise! written by pupils in the 9th grade of comprehensive school. In their narratives of enterprising selves, the pupils constructed the middle‐class version of the self, where the person was not contingent upon external effects but an autonomous self‐governing individual. Moreover, the possible selves of boys matched the culturally valued representations of the autonomous, risk‐taking entrepreneurial individual more closely than the self‐representations of girls did. However, it was especially the boys’ narratives of modest entrepreneurship with the traditional virtues of the respectable citizen that were successful in the competition. This finding is in conflict with the educational policies of the European Union, which call for risk‐taking abilities and competition as pre‐conditions for achieving progress.     

Len Barton,critical education and the problem of ‘decentered unities’

In the process of discussing the significant contributions that Len Barton has made to the sociology of education and to disability studies, I argue that a good deal of critical analyses of power and inequality in education are impoverished by some of their essentialist and reductive tendencies. I use an example taken from disability rights to show how parts of these tendencies can be overcome. I suggest that disability rights movements provide powerful possibilities for the interruption of capitalist ideological forms and their attendant ways of organising and controlling labour. They do this by challenging some of the most fundamental assumptions that underpin capitalist economies and ways of life. By strongly resisting the ways in which paid work and paid workers are treated, new relations are made possible. I connect this example to some of the insightful analyses of the place of affective equality in the struggle for social justice in both a politics of redistribution and a politics of recognition. Building on these arguments, I then argue for a broadened conception of critical research and critical action. I describe nine tasks in which the critical scholar/activists should engage if they are to be true to an enlarged conception of the ‘public intellectual’ and ‘public sociologist’.     

‘Being’ a critical multicultural pedagogue in the art education classroom

Art educators continuously struggle to understand what multiculturalism ‘looks like’ in the art classroom. This has resulted in multicultural art education becoming superficial, in which art teachers guide students through art projects like creating African masks, Native American dream catchers, Aboriginal totems, and sand paintings, all without communicating the context of the art. This type of multiculturalism essentializes cultures, and builds Western, myopic narratives about groups of people, specifically about their ‘Art’. Critical multiculturalism is a power-focused upgrade of multiculturalism that calls for a critique of power and demands recognition that racism and other discriminations are enmeshed in the fabric of our social order. Teaching through a critical multiculturalism framework helps teachers dismantle Western, normalized narratives and produce counter-hegemonic curriculum that contextualizes culture and reveals its fluidity. In this article, the author shares a teacher action research study in which she describes what critical multiculturalism looks like in her art education classroom. The study focuses on ‘being’ a critically multicultural educator versus ‘doing’ critical multiculturalism. Such a position counters the idea that critical multiculturalism is a thing to complete, but instead is an ongoing process that rests on specific ways of thinking and considering the classroom, curriculum, and students.     

Dystopia and disutopia: Hope and hopelessness in German pupils’ future narratives

Within the academic field of futures in education there has been concern that pupils’ negative and pessimistic future scenarios could be deleterious to their minds. Eckersley (Futures 31:73–90, 1999) argues that pessimism among young people can produce cynicism, mistrust, anger, apathy and an approach to life based on instant gratification. This article suggests that we need to discuss negative and pessimistic future visions in a more profound and complex way since these contain both hope and hopelessness. A pessimistic view of the future does not have to be negative in itself: it can also illustrate a critical awareness of contemporary social order. This article therefore aims to explore hope and hopelessness in young people’s dystopias about the future. Adopting dystopias may open up possibilities, whereas adopting disutopias will only lead one to believe that there are no alternatives to the current dominant model of global capitalism. Even a dystopia that predicts the end of the world as we know it might be the beginning of a world that we have not seen yet.     

Gathering,interpreting, and positioning children’s narratives in environmental education research

Cecilia Caiman and Iann Lundegård’s research highlights that an important goal of education is to equip younger generations with tools for innovation. This specifically applies in the realm of science education, as younger generations will likely require a unique preparation and skillset to tackle the environmental issues they will face in young adulthood and beyond. In their article, the authors position imagination as a tool for innovation and infinite possibility in this realm, and they capture moments of children actively imagining or “blending” their ideas to illustrate their worthiness in the cause of sustainability. In this research, I also realize the value of children’s creative narratives on the path toward building a more collective ethic of environmental care. However, I emphasize that positioning children’s imaginative narratives in an education toward sustainability calls for the study of children’s identities-in-progress, and thus, a rigorous theorization of the context in which these narratives/selves are created. This, in turn, necessitates the use of situated and deep methodological approaches to capture and interpret children’s self-expressions. Through my use of Holland’s figured world concept and an ethnographic case study methodology, this research unpacks narratives similar to those presented in Cecilia and Iann’s research to reveal the complexity of children’s imaginative utterances in a school garden context. I consider the myriad of factors that shape children’s experiences and corresponding expressions to complicate and situate children’s expressions within the larger context of self and care development. Revealing this individualized and layered nature of identity and care development in environmental education research allows for the creation or replication of educational experiences and spaces where innovation and care development can occur.     

Do classroom exemplars promote the application of principles in teacher education? A comparison of videos,animations, and narratives

Students learned about teaching principles with a multimedia program that either did not include a classroom exemplar illustrating how to apply the learned principles to the teaching practice (control group) or included a classroom exemplar in video, animation, or text format. Across two experiments, video and animation groups reported more favorable attitudes towards learning and were better able to apply the learned principles than the control group. Text and control groups did not differ in their learning or attitudes towards learning, suggesting that format is an important factor in determining the effectiveness of classroom exemplars as pedagogical tools for teacher education. Results encourage the use of visual classroom exemplars to promote the application of theory into practice.     

From the voice of a ‘socratic gadfly’: a call for more academic activism in the researching of disability in postsecondary education

Abstract

In this article, I use the lens of voices and silences to frame my review of research in the field of disability and postsecondary education. I argue that we need to view research in this field as a necessarily political act that seeks to turn voices of silence into voices of change. Researchers therefore need to rethink their role in order to understand how they can use and direct their political voices. In order to persuade researchers to heed my call for more academic activism, adopt the role of a ‘socratic gadfly’ to identify six political areas of research where I argue that voices and silences need more critical examination. In discussing these six areas, I hope to illuminate the implications for ‘genuinely investigative’ research in the future.     

Hearing-impaired pupils in mainstream education in Finland: teachers’ experiences of inclusion and support

Today, in Finland, the majority of hearing-impaired pupils attend regular schools. This is in line with inclusive policy. This study aims to investigate do these pupils receive support from teachers, what kind of support is given and how is inclusion functioning. A questionnaire was used with 109 Finnish teachers, with both closed- and open-ended questions. All teachers taught hearing-impaired pupils in mainstream education, at primary or at secondary stage. According to the results, the main support categories were pedagogical and technical support. However, 48% of teachers gave no support. Inclusion was successful according to teachers. Various forms of support and key areas of teaching are discussed.     

Towards a ‘critical cultural political economy’ account of the globalising of education

This paper outlines the basis of an alternative theoretical approach to the study of the globalisation of ‘education’ – a Critical, Cultural Political Economy of Education (CCPEE) approach. Our purpose here is to bring this body of concepts – critical, cultural, political, economy – into our interrogation of globalising projects and processes within what we will refer to as the ‘education ensemble’ as the topic of enquiry, whose authoritative, allocative, ideational and feeling structures, properties and practices, emerge from and play into global economic, political and cultural processes In the first half of the paper we introduce and develop the concepts that will underpin our approach. In the second half of the paper we explore the explanatory potential and epistemic gain of a CCPEE approach by examining the different manifestations of the relationship between globalisation as a political, cultural and economic project and an education ensemble. We conclude by reflecting on the possibilities this perspective offers.     

Creative accounting? The critical and creative voice of students

University accounting education typically develops the technical skills that students require to enter into the world of commerce. However, in the context of the rapidly changing socioeconomic environment, and a proliferation of corporate and financial collapses, there have been calls for educators to provide a more contextual appreciation of accounting practice. The changing nature of work has also generated calls for the development of generic skills in students, such as creativity and critical thinking. We outline our efforts to offer third-year university students the opportunity to use creativity in response to their major assessment task. This task required students to explore the ethical dimension of a recent corporate collapse and present their understanding in a modality of their choice. Our analysis of the creative experience of students suggests that such a creative approach to assessment opens up possibilities for a transformative educational experience. While this article focuses on accountancy students, this type of assessment has potential application for other disciplines.     

What works,for whom,and in what circumstances? Towards a critical realist understanding of learning in international and comparative education

The article explores the potential for a critical realist approach to researching learning in international and comparative education (ICE) with a particular focus on the emerging post-2015 education and development agenda. It provides a critique of existing empiricist and interpretivist approaches to researching learning. It is suggested that whilst both have strengths, they are based on an ontologically reductionist view of learning with implications for research, policy and practice. As a ‘third’ research approach critical realism has the potential to build on the strengths whilst avoiding the pitfalls of both empiricism and interpretivism. Such an approach it is argued needs to start from an ontologically inclusive and laminated view of learning. Further, it is suggested that comparative research should focus on the development of theories of learning that are able to explain the natural and social structures and causal mechanisms that give rise to and inhibit learning at different scales and levels and in different contexts. The development of theory ought to embrace epistemological pluralism drawing critically on, cross-cultural, inter-disciplinary and mixed methods enquiry and making use of abductive and retroductive forms of inference. In this way it is argued it becomes possible to move beyond the dominant ‘what works’ agenda favoured by empiricists to critically consider what works, for who and under what circumstances.     

Special education in Swedish and Finnish schools: seeing the forest or the trees?

The purpose of this research was to study the content of the work of two special education professions in Sweden, special teachers and special pedagogues. In addition, we compare their work to the work of Finnish special teachers. The Swedish participants were 74 special educators: 27 special teachers and 47 special pedagogues. The Finnish data were from an earlier study, involving 133 special teachers. Participants in both countries were approached via a questionnaire. The results show that Swedish special pedagogues do more consultative work and Swedish special teachers more direct work with pupils. However, there is plenty of overlap in the work profiles of Swedish special pedagogues and special teachers. Most of the work content is in line with the Finnish findings, except that Finnish special teachers had a minor consultative role. It seems that the work duties across the two professions, special pedagogues and special teachers, are somewhat similar. Their ways of working in practice are discussed.     

The role of parents in young people’s education—a critical review of the causal evidence

There is currently a considerable body of research suggesting that parental involvement is linked to young people’s attainment at school. It is also generally agreed that a number of factors such as parental background, attention, warmth and parenting style are associated with children’s later life outcomes. However, although widely assumed on the basis of these associations, the nature of this causal link has not yet been established. This paper summarises what would be needed to demonstrate that enhanced parental involvement produced better attainment and other outcomes, based on establishing an association, the correct sequence of events, sensitivity to intervention and an explanatory mechanism. It then reports on the findings of a systematic review of available and relevant studies, based on this approach. The search for evidence on the impact of attitudes, expectations and behaviour on attainment yielded 1,008 distinct reports. Of these, 77 were directly about the impact of parental involvement. These confirm that parental involvement and attainment are linked, and in the correct sequence for a causal model. There are several plausible mechanisms to explain why parental involvement might have an impact. And most crucially and unlike all other areas linking attitudes and behaviour to attainment, there is promising evidence that intervening to improve parental involvement could be effective.     

What does class origin and education mean for the capabilities of agency and voice?

This article investigates the relationship between class origin, educational attainment, and the capabilities of agency and voice. The main objectives are to investigate how class origin and educational attainment interact and to consider whether higher education reduces any structural inequalities in the social aspects of life. A longitudinal approach is applied, using a national survey of 1058 Swedish young people, controlling for baseline values of agency and voice. The empirical analysis reveals an association between class origin and agency and voice. University education proves to be of central importance for the capabilities of agency and voice; however, this varied for young people with different class origin. Young people from manual working-class backgrounds benefit from higher education, while no significant result was found for young people with white-collar parents. The results indicate that higher education reduces structural differences in capabilities central for social participation.     

From citizenship of God’s Kingdom to liberal individualism? A critical historical analysis of Finnish religious education

The aim of this paper is to explore the history of Finnish religious education (RE) from the perspective of civic education. The research is based on a historical and content analysis of the data, which consist of written pedagogical and curricular material on Lutheran RE from the last 150 years. The analysis, which employs the Foucauldian concept of governmentality to explore the changes in the relationship between citizenship and religion, morality and power, demonstrates that RE has been a powerful tool in shaping civic identities throughout its history. However, the justifications for RE have differed markedly according to the social conditions of the day. This study further claims that liberalisation and individualisation are the main ideological and moral concepts that describe the change in the notion of citizenship. The main contribution of this analysis is to address the importance of understanding how the formation of civic identity is always shaped by historical and ideological currents and particularly how the externally controlling power of the nation state has been replaced by less visible ways of governing the liberal subject.     

Effects of question stem on pupils’ online questioning,science learning,and critical thinking

The authors investigated the effects of differing question-stem designs (detailed stem, simple stem, and no stem) on elementary students regarding the quality of the posed questions by students, as well as their science reports, science achievements, and critical thinking ability. A quasi-experimental design was adopted. One hundred fifth-grade Taiwanese students were assigned to three groups: detailed stem (G1), simple stem (G2), and no stem (G3). Three pupils formed a team, with each group having 11 teams. The members of each team needed to collaborate for proceeding with an online questioning activity. The results showed that the detailed-stem group had a better questioning quality. For science reports, the detailed-stem group and simple-stem group had a significantly better effect than the no-stem group. Regarding science achievement, there was no significant difference among the three groups. And finally, for critical thinking, the detailed-stem group and no-stem group had a significantly better effect than the simple-stem group.     

Body_machine? Encounters of the human and the mechanical in education,industry and science

This paper unveils the body_machine as a key element of dynamic mental maps that have come to shape both educational praxis and research. It traces and analyses instances in which the human and the mechanical encountered each other in metaphorical, material and visual forms, thereby blurring to some extent the boundaries between them while capturing and mobilising specific forms of knowing and acting. The paper studies, first, how certain ‘orienting frames of reference’ and associated ‘experimental systems’ managed to materialise around the body_machine and penetrate theory and praxis; and, second, what visual and textual sources related to a vocational school may reveal about where and how the body_machine has come to operate in education, industry and science. The paper centres on early twentieth-century photographs and analyses these not only as media presenting, representing and interrogating common thought and practice but also as agents of meaning-making around the body_machine.