The concept of the absent curriculum: the case of the Muslim contribution and the English National Curriculum for history

This paper introduces the concept of the absent curriculum on the premise that the study of curriculum has been prone to privileging curricular presence to the exclusion of curricular absence. In order to address this imbalance and to articulate a theory of absence in the curriculum, the paper applies ideas derived from the philosophy of critical realism—‘absence’ and ‘totality’—to curriculum theory to conceive of the absent curriculum. The paper outlines three components of the absent curriculum: the null curriculum at the level of national curricular policy, the unselected curriculum at the level of school curricular planning and the unenacted curriculum at the classroom level of teacher delivery. This conceptual framework is illustrated by a case example of how the absence of the history of Muslim contribution from the teaching of the National Curriculum for history in four English schools formed an absent curriculum which prompted some of the research sample of 295 British Muslim boys to disengage from their learning of history. The paper concludes that the absent curriculum is a hidden curriculum that suggests to groups whose histories are missing from the national curricula that they are relatively insignificant citizens in the community of the nation.     

Men engaging boys in healthy masculinity through school-based sexual health education

Young people’s sexual health is a significant concern to parents, educators, health professionals and policy makers in Canada. However, challenges exist with respect to the nature of school-based sexual health education content and mode of delivery. These include the lack of attention paid to the impact of gender ideologies on the development and expression of youth sexuality, and the tendency to exclude boys and young men by focusing primarily on the sexual and reproductive needs of girls and young women. This article discusses findings from a participant observation and focus group study conducted with the facilitators of WiseGuyz, a school-based sexual health and healthy relationship programme, which involves boys aged 13–15 years in Calgary, Alberta. Findings suggest that the process of facilitation is as important as curriculum content in securing positive outcomes for young men. Implications for school-based sexual health education and further research in this area are discussed.     

The reconstruction of Palestinian education: between history,policy politics andpolicy making

This paper reflects on the key actors in education policy making in Zimbabwe. It looks at the contextual complexities that characterized policy-making in this country to make sense of the contestations that the state had to confront and accommodate. The policy network approach is employed as an analytical framework to clarify how, in particular non-state actors, have had an impact (or not) on educational governance through influences on policy. Policy documents, research reports and the reactions of non-state actors to these aspects are examined to explore the impact of the latter on policy making. The significant roles of the various policy networks are also given attention to establish how they have affected the reconfiguration of the state. The argument developed is that in spite of the ostensibly strong state, education policy formulation has been a product of compromise between policy networks and the predilections of those in office. As a political and contested enterprise it had to accommodate both local and international concerns.     

试论大历史素质教育观的形成

把学习历史知识局限一隅的小历史教育观,是在特定历史条件下形成的,而当今中国社会特别是青少年人文精神缺失日益突出的现状催促我们必须树立大历史素质教育观,即历史教师的育人观、教育部门历史教学的质量观、学生的成才观和整个社会的知识观协调一致,素质教育才能落到实处。     

The sociology of education as the history of the present: fabrication,difference and abjection

The paper explores the fabrications of human kinds in pedagogical research. It examines the social and psychological sciences of education as producing independent spaces for the study of people in order to act on them and as a cultural thesis for people to act for themselves. Further, it explores the principles generated about who the child is and should be. It is argued that the making of human kinds embodies particular historically generated modes of representing the possibilities of life; and these modes function to divide, differentiate and abject particular qualities of people and populations into unlivable spaces. This comparativeness produces inequality as it strives for equality. The analysis engages educational studies in a conversation with history, philosophy, political and cultural studies that draw on particular European studies brought into the US to challenge its philosophical, analytical and social/psychological traditions.     

Quantitative sources for the history of education

This paper proposes a critical reflection on the use of quantitative sources for the historian of education. It identifies and discusses key promises and challenges related to the construction and interpretation of historical statistics in education, drawing on a number of British and some French historiographical examples. Ultimately, the article encourages, where possible and appropriate, a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods in order to identify trends and patterns in education and facilitate their contextualisation in terms of processes and meanings.     

School choice with education vouchers: an empirical case study from Hong Kong

This paper seeks to question what impact education vouchers have on the process of school choice. The context examined in the paper is the Pre-primary Education Voucher Scheme (‘Voucher Scheme’) introduced in 2007 in Hong Kong. Using a Straussian grounded theory method, data collected from 40 parent interviews are coded, analysed and developed into categories. The paper analytically situates the findings within a model, derived from the data, which is based on two properties: orientation and time. Orientation differentiates and emphasises the significance of choice factors in relation to the school versus the family, and time is related to focus on the present versus the future. The paper subsequently presents the data related to these properties and reflects on the intricate dynamic of parents’ school choice decisions under the Voucher Scheme.     

Malala: the story of a Muslim girl and a Muslim nation

ABSTRACT

In this article, we analyze the coverage of Malala in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal to explore how these influential media sources characterize Islam and Pakistan to tell Malala’s story. Our discourse analysis reveals how these newspapers construct Malala’s status as a global icon as an embodiment of her subject position as a girl. This media discourse mobilizes Malala’s agency in relation to her potential as an individual whereas her vulnerability as a young girl is presented in reference to her Muslim heritage and culture. Malala’s image as a global icon, thus, is produced through approaching her as an agent in a culture where girls are vulnerable victims of patriarchy. Through focusing on this media discourse, this article argues that Malala’s image as a global icon of girls’ education has become a site to reinsert, rather than challenge, the dominant images about Islam and Muslim societies.     

Agency in action: young Muslim women and negotiating higher education in Australia

This article draws on an analysis of the narratives of Australian young Muslim women to explore their higher education experiences and aspirations. The article aims to explore the notion of agency employed by Muslim female university students in relation to the ways they discover their own capabilities along their deployment of available financial, cultural and social resources under cultural and structural constrains. The women’s accounts suggest that pursuit of higher education is highly perceived as a key to girls’ success and economic independence in the present precarious neoliberal environment yet concerns over Islamophobia and gender and racial discrimination which may curtail employment opportunities are present. The research findings also suggest that educational outcomes entail complex forms of negotiation, bargaining and resistance, stressing the ways in which class, gender, ethnicity and religion interrelate.     

Barriers to higher education: commonalities and contrasts in the experiences of Hindu and Muslim young women in urban Bengaluru

Gender inequalities in educational attainment have attracted considerable attention and this article aims to contribute to our understanding of young women’s access to higher education. The article is based on our in-depth interviews with 26 Hindu and Muslim young women attending colleges in urban Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore), south India, and explores the barriers they confronted in fulfilling their aspirations. We highlight the similarities amongst the young women, as well as the distinctive experiences of the Hindu and Muslim interviewees. Financial constraints, lack of safety for women in public space, and gender bias, gossip and social control within the family and the local community affected Hindu and Muslim interviewees in substantially similar ways. For the Muslim interviewees, however, gender disadvantage was compounded by their minority status. This both underlines the importance of incorporating communal politics into our analysis and undermines popular discourses that stereotype Muslims in India as averse to girls’ and young women’s education.     

The impact of standards-based assessment on knowledge for history education in New Zealand

This paper examines how a standards-based form of assessment in operation in New Zealand has impacted upon the knowledge taught to secondary history students. The segmentation of history into assessable components along with assessment mechanisms which encourage the reduction in the number of standards being attempted has impacted upon both the breadth and range of historical content in history programmes. The reduction in knowledge is problematic as it diminishes learners’ opportunities to draw connections between inter-related historical concepts from a wider knowledge base. Social realists have raised concerns about the reduced focus on knowledge in education and its effects in restricting students’ development of conceptual knowledge which enables higher order, more abstract thinking. Experiences of standards-based assessment for history in New Zealand are indicative of this reductive phenomenon. In a culture of accountability, standards-based assessment, as enacted in New Zealand, may impede delivery of critical knowledge.     

Oral history in education: teacher's memory and teachers' history

This paper explores the educational experiences of a specific group of refugees, namely academic women refugees who were members of various branches of the International Federation of University Women, and who came to Britain under the auspices of the British Federation of University Women from 1933. As a result of voluntary or forced migration some 400 such women from Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Austria sought entry to Britain following Hitler’s accession to power in Germany in 1933. The help they received from the specially formed Emergency Refugee Committee of the British Federation of University Women, not only in gaining entry to the country but in refashioning their pre‐migration educational and academic achievements, is looked at in detail, and the extent to which the women were able to retrain, re‐qualify or complete training courses curtailed by political events and migration is considered.     

关于理工类学生科学史教育的几点思考

科学史在沟通人与科学、发扬科学本身蕴含的人精神、提高人素质等方面有着很重要的作用。然而在目前我国理工类大学的教学中,科学史尚未发挥出应有的作用。各院校应把科学史融入专业课教学之中。     

Understanding adult education in community contexts: A critical realist perspective

Third-sector community organisations are important sites for learning, especially for the most excluded groups in society. However, scant attention has been paid to the various factors shaping educational provision in community contexts, and how these interact to shape the provision available to marginalised populations. This article presents new evidence addressing this gap, through drawing on interview data from practitioners working in the UK homelessness sector. It identifies a range of factors shaping educational provision in these community contexts. These are: service user need and demand; staff roles and capacity; organisational purpose and structures; national policies; support from other adult education providers; non-governmental finance; and volunteers. With some modification, and placed within an overarching critical realist framework, it is argued that these findings are consistent with Boeren’s comprehensive lifelong learning participation model. The article concludes that so long as government policy and related funding continues to ignore and fails to support educational provision in these settings, it will remain piecemeal and highly contingent on the contribution of volunteers and short-term funding.     

Muslim schools in secular societies: persistence or resistance!

Muslim schools are a growing phenomenon across the world. Muslim diaspora resulting from multiple factors including political, religious and economic enhanced the need among Muslims to maintain and develop their faith identity. Marginalisation of Muslims, in whatever forms and for whatever reasons, particularly in Muslim minority and/or secular societies further energised affiliations with faith identity. In this context, the article will argue that Islamic schools are being seen by many Muslims as an option not only to provide opportunities for updated education in consonance with their perceptions of Muslim identity, but also to denote an agenda for resistance to challenge racism and existing power relations.     

沧州回族经堂教育概述

始于明末的沧州回族经堂教育,是带有回族特色的一种宗教教育体系,它的主要目的是培养宗教人才和普及宗教知识。沧州回族经堂教育作为回族民间教育的主流,它在伊斯兰文化的传承、回族人才的培养以及回族社会的进步与发展等方面发挥了巨大作用。     

在历史教育中提高学生人文素养

人文素养的培养已经成为当今世界各国普遍重视的问题。人文教育功能是历史教育的一个基本功能。重视和充分发挥历史教育在培养学生人文素养方面的作用 ,是本次历史课程改革的一个重点     

Contextual religious education and the actuality of religions

Contextual religious educators tend to view discrete religious traditions as artificially constructed systems disconnected from the ordinary experiences of children. This article sets out the case for the continued representation of religions as substantial social facts in religious education classrooms. Accepting Robert Jackson’s critique of essentialist readings of religion, it argues that the most appropriate alternative is not the nominal reduction of discrete religious traditions to the atomistic level of the individual spiritual lives of adherents, but a realistic identification of such traditions as actual socio‐cultural realities. It suggests two criteria for such identification: the collective intentionality of adherents and the presence of prototypical features within their lifeworlds.     

Mapping the discipline history of education

Inaugurated in 2013, this collective research programme aims to construct an international mapping of the history of education that accounts for recent developments in the field. Our goal is to create a current and retrospective assessment of the discipline’s institutional grounding and of the knowledge produced by its practitioners, stretching across national and cultural borders. Ultimately, the programme will help to increase interactions among scholars and facilitate the creation of collaborative research agendas, thereby augmenting the standing and visibility of the discipline.

This text will briefly introduce the programme’s conceptual basis, explaining the methodological steps taken to ensure the comparability of data gathered and the transnational and transcontinental character of the study’s design. In the second section, we will zoom in on doctoral students’ dissertations, which are the optimal way to study a discipline’s development and potential. Doctoral students and recent graduates are part of a tradition, a school of thought, and yet they constitute that tradition’s replacement and renewal. Therefore, as graduate students carry forth the disciplinary torch, they hold the future of the field in their hands.