The limits of learning: homelessness and educating the employable self

Across national contexts, in the attempt to develop and buttress ‘knowledge economies’, increasing pressure is placed on the need for flexible lifelong learners capable of constant knowledge and skills renewal. In this paper, I explore the impact of this broader sociopolitical context on the policy approach to poverty and, in particular, homelessness in Australia. Examining the ways in which education and learning for adults are increasingly at the centre of public policies, I trace the uses of education and learning in homelessness policy. Contextualising this within a consideration of recent shift towards a ‘skills agenda’ in the adult education sector, I argue that the purported power of education in homelessness policy must be understood in light of structural inequalities in the labour market and in the society more broadly.     

Childhood homelessness,resilience, and adolescent mental health: A prospective,person-centered approach

School districts and other service providers are increasingly aware of the substantial mental health needs of students experiencing family homelessness. Past findings are mixed regarding whether homelessness conveys unique risk beyond the risks associated with extreme poverty. With prospective longitudinal data on homelessness experiences across childhood, we utilized latent profile analysis as a person-centered approach to conceptualizing mental health outcomes in adolescence for 3,778 youth. We considered literal family homelessness as well as families living doubled-up, and we employed propensity score matching to identify a comparison group of nonhomeless students balanced across a range of covariates to address systematic bias. Results indicated that students who experienced literal homelessness during childhood were significantly less likely to demonstrate profiles of resilience in mental health functioning. We considered our approach and findings in light of challenges and opportunities particularly relevant to the school context.     

学习型社会建设的理念、路径和对策

学习型社会是我国全面建设小康社会的奋斗目标之一。中国成人教育协会组织的＂学习型社会建设研究＂项目,是教育部人文社会科学研究专项任务,列入了全国教育科学＂十一五＂规划教育部重点课题。这项课题研究紧紧围绕＂建设＂的主题,沿着为什么建设学习型社会、什么是学习型社会和怎样建设学习型社会的内在逻辑与技术路线展开,力求反映学习型社会建设的时代特征、中国特色、建设特性,在阐明学习型社会建设的理论基础上,提出前瞻性思路和可供行动的对策。     

Unhomely spaces and deviant subjectivity: The sociohistorical homelessness of female juvenile offenders

The girls inhabiting the deviant subject position of female juvenile offenders have no home in normalized total social institutions. This paper wonders about and wanders through various historical and contemporary studies "about" female juvenile offenders and discusses the intersections of the unhomely spaces (Bhabha, 1994) that exclude and even abandon those in this subject position. The juvenile female offender seems to be "outside" of culture, existing in an impossibly homeless space. This is vital work to interrupt and complicate the assumptions that limit the spaces of being for the girls studied. Using critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1995) and deviant historiography (Terry, 1991) in a hybrid methodology, the discursive spaces of im/possible being will be highlighted. A recent report from the American Bar Association and the National Bar Association highlights the gaps and failures of the system when it comes to girls. By analyzing the intersections of historical discourses constructing the female juvenile offender as deviant, this paper highlights the im/possibility of "home", that is the "unhomely spaces" of the social institutions catering to these girls and the homelessness of the deviant girl within and against the hegemonic discourses - thus troubling what it means to research the "homeless".     

Reframing the practicum: Constructing performative space in initial teacher education

This paper points to a neglected dimension to Schön's work on the reflective practitioner: his distinctive characterisation of the practicum. We argue that Schön's understanding of the practicum is integrally related to his understanding of the reflective practitioner. The appropriation of the latter concept within programmes of initial teacher education has tended to go hand in hand with a different model of the practicum that regards this as being synonymous with practice in schools. We outline a number of ways in which the practicum, as described by Schön, is significantly different from this. We identify key aspects of Schön's characterisation of the practicum and describe one alternative approach to initial teacher education that uses microteaching as a practicum context. This is a significant issue because concern has been expressed both as regards the quality of new teachers’ reflection and the perceived inability of TEIs to change student–teachers’ preconceived notions of learning and teaching.Whilst research into student teachers’ perceptions of microteaching has generally viewed this process positively, we were interested to research whether this remained the case once students had made the transition to teaching. The voices of recently qualified practitioners who have been through this programme are drawn upon as illustrative of the key features of this process which they identify. The article is a contribution to the discourse upon reflective practice and initial teacher education and also makes a contribution to debate concerning the preferred location of initial teacher education.     

Imagining pedagogy in public space: visions of cultural policies and practices in a city in transformation

This paper reports on a research project completed with graduate students of the adult-education programme at the Leuven University in Flanders, Belgium. The research focused on cultural policies and practices in urban contexts that try to facilitate the learning of democratic citizenship in non-formal settings. In the first part we introduce some theoretical notions regarding the relationship between artistic practices in public spaces and pedagogy. The question here is how artistic interventions in urban environments can have an educative effect on people who participate in such experiences. In the second part we interpret some of the changes that take place in the urban context of a provincial city in Flanders and the related cultural policies and practices with the help of the theoretical concepts on public spaces and pedagogy.     

The place of cognition in explanations of teaching: A dialog of interpretive and cognitive approaches

This debate contrasts interpretive and cognitive approaches to explaining teachers' thoughts and actions, exploring epistemological and ontological assumptions that broadly underlie research on teaching. Fundamental to the discussion is whether cognition should be construed as individual mental processing of privately held information structures or as a social event in which thinking is situated, shared, intersubjective, and practical. Also addressed is whether an effective explanation of teaching can rest mainly on an account of a teacher's cognition or whether it must attend equally to an examination of the place in which the teaching occurs and, if the latter, how place exerts its influence.     

The new inset: a transformation scene

The work of Lawrence Stenhouse strongly promoted the view that curriculum development was dependent upon teacher development and as such, has had a great impact on the in‐service education of teachers. Such a teacher‐centred model is now called in question by recent DES moves in relation to the funding and control of INSET. By exploiting the mechanisms of categorical funding, as refined by the MSC, it seems likely that the Department will be able to impose a conception of ‘curriculum led staff development’, which originated in Further Education. Such a conception assumes that curriculum is a given and that the development needs of teachers may be deduced from it, thus increasingly restricting them to the business of execution and not of conception.     

Discussion, debate and dialog: changing minds about conceptual change research in science education

This paper provides a critical commentary on a suite of eight papers, which focus on conceptual change research in science education. Responses by Mercer, Smardon and Wells to a paper by Treagust and Duit are observed to reflect the backgrounds of the three authors with Wells focusing on issues of ontology and the affective domain. Mercer and Smardon focus on issues of identity and the role of dialog. Hewson’s, Vosniadou’s and Tiberghien’s responses to Roth, Lee and Hwang offer robust critique of what appear to be exploratory ideas. To what extent the authors of the response papers enter into dialog with the papers is discussed. How far research into learning in science has progressed since the 1980s is examined.

The faces of dignity: Rethinking the politics of homelessness and poverty in America

The conditions of homelessness and poverty in America are being criminalized and pathologized such that people who are poor or homeless are marginalized and paternalized to the point of corrupting the possibility of human dignity. In a radical revision of accepted charity models for dealing with homelessness, a group of homeless people have established their own tent community based in the concepts of democracy, community, and care. At Dignity Village, human compassion and self-governance are guiding homeless people into better lives. These street people have recognized and directly address their responsibilities to develop and practice a liberating pedagogy. In partnership with the author in a project at Washington State University, Vancouver, Village residents are involved in learning about technology and are engaged in other literacy efforts, while also playing an active role as teacher educators, providing a curriculum for understanding the living situations of students who are poor or homeless.     

High and wide,the exact and the vast: Emersonian Bildung in dialog with Humboldt and Dewey

Abstract

In this article, it will be my aim to outline the key features of Emerson’s original conception of Bildung, with special reference to the links, first, between the American essayist and Wilhelm von Humboldt, and second, Emerson and John Dewey. After introductory notes on how to map out Emersonian Bildung in relation to the available philosophical commentaries, I delineate some of the chief meanings of Bildung, showing how Emersonian self-culture aligns with Humboldtian Bildung. Second, I draw out concrete implications for educational practice from an Emersonian view of self-culture vis-à-vis comparisons with Dewey. In addition to Bildung qua self-culture, another basic sense of Emersonian Bildung is education, and Emerson often deals with educational themes in his treatments of self-culture. In the final section, I return to the specifics of Emerson’s sense of Bildung, saying a few words on the alleged elitism of the term, and in particular, its neglected religious overtones. This section serves the purpose of distinguishing Emerson’s view not only from related accounts of Bildung, but also from the secondary commentaries available.     

虫洞:穿越时间的隧道

这是未来的某一天,穿着隐形衣的人类驾驶着宇宙飞船尖叫着在"虫洞"间穿来穿去,身后是手持秘密武器的火星人。双方从一个星球进入另一个星球,上演着一场精彩的友情演习……这些科幻小说中描写的情景,真的能够实现吗?     

以文化视角分析转型期我国大学治理体系现代化的阻力

大学治理体系是现代大学制度的核心,是我国大学现代化的重要组成部分。在转型期的背景下,大学治理体系的建立面临着不同种类的阻力。本文从文化视角出发,论述了社会转型与大学治理体系现代化的关系,分析出大一统思想、官本位文化、等级制度等几个文化阻力,并寻求行之有效的改进策略。     

高精度三维空间直角坐标转换系统的研制

针对在三维空间直角坐标系进行高精度坐标系统转换的方法进行了研讨。介绍了基于三维空间直角坐标系高精度坐标转换系统的设计思路、系统的功能及特点等。通过利用测量工程中实例数据进行试算并对计算结果进行分析,证明了该系统软件运行结果是正确的,在实际测量工程中应用是可行的。     

Migrant worker children: Conceptions of homelessness and implications for education

In this paper the authors draw from interviews with young migrant workers to problematize the question "What is a home?" The argument is made that once we acknowledge alternative images of "home" and the values and priorities that follow, policies and services for migrant workers and their children might take different forms than are currently configured. Migrating, or becoming "homeless," is a choice these families make to maintain their family structure. For these people homed-homeless is not a dichotomy. Rather, the operative word is family. The structure of the family is analyzed as a lifeworld (Habermas, 1984, 1987), or system of values and experiences that defines choices and ways of acting. Importantly, migrant workers travel as families and often as extended families. The unit of the family is assumed. Tensions arise when an individual member of the family questions the assumption of everyone working together for the family unit. When the family decides to break the unit, for example by sending a child away so he/she can attend school, the unit suffers as well as the individual. The sense of power that many assume is located in the home - a particular physical space - is also located in the family and the relationships among persons the word family implies. Social policies and institutions often disregard this distinction. 1