Faith schools in the twenty‐first century

This article is intended as an initial investigation into the foundations of moral psychology. I primarily examine a recent work in moral education, Daniel Lapsley’s and Darcia Narvaez’s ‘Character education’, whose authors seem to assume at points that criteria for discerning moral actions and moral traits can be derived apart from ethics or moral philosophy. This assumption, which appears to stem from misconceptions about both the virtues traditionally understood and the non-empirical nature of moral-philosophical theorising, is problematic: (1) it courts moral relativism, which would preclude arguing for the superiority of any model of moral education, (2) deriving or validating a morality through empirical methods involves a self-undermining stance about the nature of empirical justification and (3) empirical criteria used to delineate morality are unavoidably arbitrary. After examining similarly problematic works by David Wong and Lawrence Kohlberg, I conclude that moral psychologists must wrestle with the problem of moral criteria through substantive engagement with moral philosophy.     

Effective and inclusive schools? Attention to diversity in highly effective schools in the Autonomous Region of the Basque Country

This paper forms part of a research project that aims to characterise best practices in highly effective schools in the Autonomous Region of the Basque Country (ARBC). The aim is for the best practices identified to serve as points of reference when designing improvement plans to be implemented in all schools in the ARBC, with the advice and support of the education inspectorate. Highly effective schools are identified through the results of the Diagnostic Assessments carried out by the Basque Institute for Research and Evaluation in Education (ISEI-IVEI) of all primary and secondary schools in the ARBC. Multilevel statistical modelling and Hierarchical Linear Models were used to select 32 highly effective schools, with highly effective being taken to mean any school with higher-than-expected student results after adjusting for the effect of contextual factors. Eighty-three interviews were conducted with management teams, educational advisors and inspectors at each of the selected schools. This paper presents the results obtained in relation to how attention to diversity is organised. The practices identified included, among others, inclusive actions such as support teaching in ordinary classrooms, the splitting up of classroom groups, the formation of heterogeneous groups and the conceptualisation of the support provided as a shared teaching responsibility.     

Can virtual schools thrive in the real world?

Despite the relatively large number of students enrolled in Ohio’s virtual schools, it is unclear how virtual schools compare to their traditional school counterparts on measures of student achievement. To provide some insight, we compared the school performance from 2007-2011 at Ohio’s virtual and traditional schools. The results suggest that Ohio’s virtual schools have grown rapidly, but also have experienced much lower levels of school performance than traditional schools. In light of these findings, we discuss factors that may be contributing to the large number of low-performing virtual schools in Ohio. Considering the lack of sufficient evidence that Ohio’s virtual schools are effective, we conclude that the relentless pursuit to expand virtual schools is problematic.     

Mass customization in schools: strategies Dutch secondary schools pursue to cope with the diversity–efficiency dilemma

Faced with the diversity–efficiency dilemma, private companies apply ‘mass customization’ strategies to add diversity without adding costs. As schools are urged to become more ‘customer oriented’ they also face a diversity–efficiency dilemma. This article asks how Dutch secondary schools cope with this dilemma and to what extent they apply ‘mass customization’ strategies. A careful selection procedure aimed at a maximum variety of school practices resulted in seventeen schools for which case studies were conducted. Data collection included written material, observations and interviews. Analysis of the combined data indicated six dimensions along which schools differentiate their educational offerings. On the basis of emerging patterns of differentiation, four categories of schools were distinguished. These categories appear to be closely linked to organizational strategies pursued by schools. The article concludes that practices adopted by schools to cope with the diversity–efficiency dilemma strongly resemble mass customization strategies applied by companies producing tangible goods. In the final section, the risks and inherent contradictions of these strategies are pointed out. For while government policies and schools seek to put the needs of individual students at the centre, the inevitable diversity–efficiency dilemma may cause many schools to adopt practices students never asked for.     

Is the liberal defense of public schools a fantasy?

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we offer a Leftist critique of standard liberal defenses of the public school. We suggest that the standard arguments employed by mainstream liberal defenders of the public school are generally inadequate because they fail to provide a credible representation of their historical object, let alone effective remedies to our current problems. Indeed, many of these narratives, in our view, are grounded in fantasies about what public schools, or teaching and learning, are or could be, as much as they are grounded in the historical realities of public schools or the realities of so-called privatization. We speculate whether the self-identification of the proponents of this cause as ‘progressive’ is not part of this ideological construction and if the underlying political agenda is not in fact more conservative.     

Wellbeing in schools: Examining the policy–practice nexus

National concern regarding the social and emotional wellbeing of children and young people is now strongly reflected in a wide range of Australian policy initiatives. A considerable number of these target schools and point firmly to the role education is perceived to play in promoting student wellbeing. Given that wellbeing can be difficult to define and complex to measure, closer attention needs to be paid to whether and how the current wellbeing policy environment provides conceptual clarity and intelligible implementation pathways. This article explores some of the current policy ambiguity by drawing on findings from a large-scale, mixed methods study exploring student wellbeing at school. These findings emerged from an extensive analysis of wellbeing-related policy, together with policy-related data from in-depth interviews with teachers and principals. They suggest that approaches to supporting student wellbeing are constrained by an ad hoc policy environment characterised by competing discourses and a consequential lack of clarity regarding how wellbeing is understood and best facilitated within the context of schools. The implications of these findings are discussed with particular attention to the interface between policy and practice with regard to student wellbeing in schools in Australia.     

Gang behavior in the schools: Reality or myth?

The purpose of this review is to explore the nature of gang behavior in U.S. schools, with a particular focus on the extent to which such behavior affects or exacerbates the larger issue of school violence. An unanticipated finding was the absence of strong empirical support for school gang violence. The evidence does show youth gangs have changed dramatically over the last several decades and have become more violent, largely due to drugs and weapons-carrying. One major impact of this violence on schools has been the dissolving of the school as the neutral zone, where gang activity ceased. Thus, it appears that the similar turf issues of the street gangs have infiltrated the schools. The review explores problems related to school gang violence definitions and literature, trends in school-related gang activity, reasons for gang membership, at-risk youth, and proposed strategies for ameliorating the problem.     

Children’s informal learning in the context of schools of the knowledge society

This paper builds on a key finding of a 5-year Danish research project con-cerning children in the 7 to 15 age group: children’s principal use of computers and the internet takes place in their spare time, and it is during their spare time that the majority of children really learn how to use interactive media. The project shows that in children’s spare-time use of ICT they employ informal forms of learning based to a large extent on their social interaction both in physical and virtual spaces. These informal learning forms can be identified as learning hierarchies, learning communities and learning networks; they are important contributions to the school of the knowledge society. The ICT in New Learning Environments project based on anthropologically inspired methods and social learning theories shows that students bring their informal forms of learning into the school context. This happens particularly when the school has undergone physical alterations and when its organisation of learning and teaching are also restructured, with project-based learning becoming an important part of the school work and with the media available in the learning environment. Using organisation theory, the school working with ICT and project-based learning is shown to simultaneously constitute a mixed mode between the school of the industrial and the knowledge society. The research shows that it is possible to tip the balance in the direction of the school of the knowledge society, and thus of the future, by comprehensively using ICT and project work in the day-to-day activities of the school, alongside and integrated with the traditional forms of learning, and not least by employing the informal learning processes children develop outside school. For teachers this will mean an extension of their function: no longer merely communicators of knowledge, they will have to become knowledge managers and overall leaders of projects, and this entails much more dialogue with the pupils.

Transnationalism at the border: students’ experiences in border schools

To understand the development of educational research traditions, it is essential to scrutinize the internal dynamics of the theoretical and methodological developments within the community of scholars working in the area as well as the social needs that are served by such research. The adoption of qualitative approaches to the study of learning and instruction thus mirrors a complex pattern of changes in the role and use of education as a social resource in modern society. On the Scandinavian scene, the past decades have seen a rapid increase in interest in qualitative research and in philosophical positions such as hermeneutics and phenomenology that imply a qualitative approach to studying phenomena. It is argued that qualitative research is now well established, and that it is essential to further demonstrate its value to shed light on education as a social activity.     

Kay‐Shuttleworth and the training of teachers for pauper schools

Abstract

Radical constructivism has had a major influence on present‐day education, especially in the teaching of science and mathematics. The article provides an epistemological profile of constructivism and considers its strengths and weaknesses from the standpoint of its educational implications. It is argued that there are two central problems with constructivism: anti‐realism and individualism which, in turn, lead to difficulties associated with idealism and relativism which, together, prove fatal for the theory.     

‘Shit shows’ or ‘like-minded schools’: charter schools and the neoliberal logic of Teach For America

Over the past three decades, two neoliberal educational reform efforts have emerged in tandem – the charter school movement and Teach For America (TFA). This paper critically examines the relationship between these entities through the lens of TFA corps members placed in charter schools, and explores two types of schools described by interviewees, namely, ‘shit shows,’ and ‘like-minded schools.’ Grounded in corps members’ teaching experiences, this paper argues that even at its best, the close partnership between TFA and charters can create a mutually reinforcing educational subculture that is isolated from broader educational discourses and practices. At its worst, this partnership can result in the ill-advised ‘propping up’ of under-funded, mismanaged, ill-equipped charters that might otherwise struggle to find adequate staffing and, consequently, close. This paper suggests that these two tendencies – toward corps members’ insularity and poor placement – have the potential to conflict with the charter movement’s and TFA’s stated purposes of improving the quality of schooling for disadvantaged and marginalized students.     

Mixed schools versus single-sex schools: are there differences in the academic results for boys and girls in Catalonia?

This study carries out a comparative analysis of achievement according to gender between mixed and single-sex schools in the region of Catalonia, Spain, for the subjects of Spanish, Catalan, English and Mathematics. After a brief contextualisation, a review of the main findings from international studies on differences in results for mixed schools and single-sex schools is then presented. We then outline our methodology and research-analysis plan. The study has been developed around a specific use of results obtained by students over the last year of primary school (12 years old) and over the last year of obligatory secondary education (16 years). For this comparison, the statistical technique of Propensity Score Matching was used. All segregated schools in Catalonia were chosen, representing a total of 15, of which 9 are girls-only and 6 are boys-only (with a total of 1503 students); additionally, a sample was used of 10 mixed schools, similar in terms of social make-up, that is, middle- and upper-class students (with a total of 1217 students). In general, the results corroborate international research. Results indicate that differences in achievement depending on gender in segregated or mixed schools are not related to factors of school organisation. We also come to conclusions with respect to the limitations arising from circumscribing school performance in curricular subjects, and to the need to consider further indicators within the teaching-and-learning process in terms of gender and emotional development; student attitudes and behaviour; self-concept and – most especially – teacher expectations, their teaching practices and the effects of these on self-concept and single-sex school performance.     

Exploring the relationship between supplementary schools and ‘cohesive communities’

The number of supplementary schools in England serving minority communities continues to grow. They are popular with the parents of such communities because they often feel their children are disadvantaged in mainstream schools and not afforded the opportunities or the learning environment that is conducive to their children achieving their full potential. Simultaneously, over the past 10 years or so there has been an increasing political focus on local communities and issues of cohesion; both of which were high priorities for the last government. Schools were viewed as key to helping the government deliver these political agendas. The current coalition government also foregrounds the role and responsibilities of communities as part of its ‘Big Society’ concept. This paper explores the positioning of supplementary schools in relation to notions of ‘cohesive communities’. It draws on findings from a study commissioned by the Department for Children, Schools and Families on supplementary schools, which aimed to establish their level and type of provision, impact, and to a lesser degree, their role in the community and the cohesion agenda.     

Knowledge outside the box – sustainable development education in Swedish schools

Background: Sustainable development, as an area of knowledge, appears in several different places in the curriculum and does not fit neatly within the scope of traditional subject areas. In many countries, including Sweden, it has long been upheld as an important tool for increasing understanding of, and dealing with, environmental problems. It is not clear, however, what role education can actually have in the making of a more sustainable future. Even though there are several potential ways for sustainable development to be involved in education, the concept raises many questions when transferred to the school context.

Purpose: This paper investigates how teachers deal with the difficulty of defining and approaching sustainable development as an area of knowledge in Swedish schools.

Sample: This article is based on semi-structured interviews with 40 teachers, 13 of whom were lower secondary school teachers (pupil age 12–15) and 27 were upper secondary school teachers (pupil age 15–18). The study involves teachers in all subjects where sustainable development is a goal in the syllabus. The study is also based on participant observation in one upper secondary class. A total of 17 different schools were involved, from a wide range of locations in Sweden.

Design and methods: The paper builds on qualitative data and the analysis of transcribed interviews and group interviews with teachers in Swedish lower and upper secondary schools. Group interviews, involving three or more people, were conducted on eight occasions. The pupils at an upper secondary school were also observed while they were working on a course called ‘policy and sustainable development’. Data were transcribed and analysed thematically.

Findings: The analysis suggests that, according to the teachers’ experiences, the demands of equivalence and measurability in school have increased and that this affects how sustainable development is approached in teaching and learning. Three main categories of knowledge were identified. The study also presents two representations that model how teachers may approach knowledge about sustainable development – metaphorically termed ‘the Accountant’ and ‘the Adventurer’ – and their different effects on knowledge.

Conclusions: There is a tendency for complex knowledge areas such as sustainable development, which do not fit seamlessly into traditional curriculum subjects, to become oversimplified when translated into teaching situations. According to the representations that we described metaphorically, the teacher, as an accountant, is characterised by ‘knowledge instrumentalism’, which means that teachers administer knowledge and the pupils consume it. In this transactional model, the accountant is also very dependent on external governance and control. Alternatively, the teacher, as an adventurer, is characterised by authority, knowledge and self-control. In this model, knowledge sometimes grows in an unpredictable way in the meeting between people who share common experiences. For adventurers, sustainable development is a matter of commitment and awareness, and it involves an explicit stance. The metaphors can be placed on a continuum which describes how teachers manage the demands of the school system in relation to the knowledge area of sustainable development.     

Reframing ‘well-being’ in schools: the potential of recognition

In Australia and internationally, the well-being of children and young people is a core focus of social policy, with a growing imperative to locate well-being within the sphere of education. However, the term ‘well-being’ remains ambiguous and the implementation of educational approaches to promote and improve it appears fragmented and ad hoc. In Australia, little is known about how well-being is understood and supported in schools, particularly from the perspective of students themselves. This article reports on key findings from an ambitious mixed-methods study funded by the Australian Research Council that investigated conceptualisations and practices around well-being in schools. Underpinned by theoretical interests linked to Childhood Studies and recognition theory, the research investigated policy, student and staff perspectives on well-being. The findings point to the key role of relationships, providing considerable scope for analysing the salience of Honneth’s modes of recognition for well-being in schools.     

Education and disadvantage: the role of community‐oriented schools

The proposed development of extended schools in England is part of an international movement towards community‐oriented schooling, particularly in areas of disadvantage. Although on the face of it this movement seems like a common‐sense approach to self‐evident needs, the evaluation evidence on such schools is inconclusive. In order to assess the likelihood that community‐oriented schooling will have a significant impact on disadvantage, therefore, this paper analyses the rationale on which this approach to schooling appears to be based. It argues that community‐oriented schools as currently conceptualised have a focus on ‘proximal’ rather than ‘distal’ factors in disadvantage, underpinned by a model of social in/exclusion which draws attention away from underlying causes. They are, therefore, likely to have only small‐scale, local impacts. The paper suggests that a more wide‐ranging strategy is needed in which educational reform is linked to other forms of social and economic reform and considers the conditions which would be necessary for the emergence of such a strategy.