Postgraduate taught students and preparedness for Master’s level study: polishing the facets of the Master’s diamond

Transitions are increasingly recognised as difficult, and less has been written about transitions to postgraduate taught programmes than about transitions into undergraduate or doctoral study. A Scotland-wide project found that new taught Post-graduate (PG), and staff teaching them, can be unclear about what is expected at Master’s level, and proposed a framework of seven facets that indicate how students are expected to engage with Master’s study. The facets and accompanying resources were designed to be discussion tools, to promote staff and student discussion of what is expected in their programme and subject. In a follow-up project at one university, a questionnaire was designed and distributed to postgraduate students asking them to rate their current level of ability against the skills and capabilities identified as facets for Master’s level study. The project found students felt ill-prepared for particular aspects of Master’s level study, with sub-group differences between disciplines. Master’s courses are intensive and fast-moving, so this has implications for students’ preparedness for successfully navigating through their programmes. Some suggestions on how students can be better briefed on what to expect are made.     

Reviews

In 2002, I wrote a critical account in this journal of the Performance and Innovation Unit’s analysis of workforce development and the policy which has since emanated from it. Lloyd and Payne, again in this journal, criticized that account for both claiming too much in terms of progress made and for saying too little about what policies are needed to usher in a demand‐led system. In this rejoinder, the areas of agreement and disagreement between us are explored and this exploration reveals that we are in favour of radically different routes out of the low skills equilibrium. What is at stake is not a routine argument between academics, but a genuine dispute about how the UK could become a high skills society.     

The sociology of Pierre Bourdieu and researching education policy

Bourdieu did not write anything explicitly about education policy. Despite this neglect, we agree with van Zanten that his theoretical concepts and methodological approaches can contribute to researching and understanding education policy in the context of globalisation and the economising of it. In applying Bourdieu’s theory and methodology to research in education policy, we focus on developing his work to understand what we call ‘cross‐field effects’ and for exploring the emergence of a ‘global education policy field’. These concepts are derived from some of our recent research concerning globalisation and mediatisation of education policy. The paper considers three separate issues. The first deals with Bourdieu’s primary ‘thinking tools’, namely practice, habitus, capitals and fields and their application to policy studies. The second and third sections consider two additions to Bourdieu’s thinking tools, as a way to reconceptualise the functioning of policy if considered as a social field. More specifically, the second section develops an argument around cross‐field effects, as a way to group together, research and describe policy effects. The third section develops an argument about an emergent global education policy field, and considers ways that such a field affects national education policy fields.     

What Does Wiki Reveal About the Knowledge Processing Strategies of School Pupils?

On the basis of one teaching project carried out in a school, this article discusses collaborative writing in wiki platforms. It aims to find out what wiki reveals about pupils’ knowledge construction, creation, and division and their collaborative writing skills. In this project, wiki is treated as a useful tool for analyzing these processes because it gives us the possibility of studying those elements and stages of educative writing that are normally hidden from the teacher or researcher’s eye. Also, it shows us the interaction between pupils. The theoretical background of the project lies in collaborative writing and writing research.     

ASPIRATIONS AND YOUNG PEOPLE’S CONSTRUCTIONS OF THEIR FUTURES: INVESTIGATING SOCIAL MOBILITY AND SOCIAL REPRODUCTION

The United Kingdom’s Coalition government has introduced an education policy that is focused on increasing the opportunities to promote and advance social mobility for all children within state education. Raising young people’s aspirations through school-based initiatives is a prominent theme within recent policy texts, which are focused on improving educational outcomes and thus advancing social mobility. This article draws on qualitative data from paired interviews with 32 students in two academies to first investigate if our participants’ aspirations indicate a desire for intragenerational social mobility and second, to explore our participants’ perceptions of the influences of their family background on their aspirations for the future. Analysis of our data highlights the mismatch between our participants’ aspirations for the future and the government’s constructions of what they should aspire to, as articulated in policy texts. By investigating aspirations, as part of a wider project to understand social mobility qualitatively, our data shows the important role of family in shaping our participants’ varied and diverse aspirations that are frequently at variance with government policy.     

Governing good,bad and ugly workplaces? Explaining the paradox of state-steered voluntarism in New Labour’s Skills Strategy

The post-compulsory education and training system in the UK has long been defined as an archetypical voluntarist model. Yet, with the election of a New Labour government in 1997, the relationship between the state as supply-side provider of skills and employers as the demanders of skills began to subtly change. An additional rhetoric emerged in skills policy that suggested a role for the state to shape higher skills demands. This instigated a move towards what is here defined by the oxymoron ‘state-steered voluntarism’; an approach to the governance of skills which aimed to deliver both a demand-led skills system and a system to lead demand. Drawing on policy documents and interviews with key policy-makers, this article offers an interpretive analysis of New Labour’s ideas about the nature of workplaces, and the role of the state and skills providers in response, that explains the existence of policy paradox. We find that New Labour articulated three distinct strategies for governing skills, depending on whether workplaces were perceived to have ‘good’, ‘bad’, or frankly ‘ugly’ skills aspirations. However, whilst this threefold skills strategy seemingly served the purpose of containing multiple policy objectives and creating a graded role for state action, it was also prone to being used selectively by those with vested interests in UK skills policy (i.e. the representatives of businesses and employers and the representatives of employees and learners).     

Skills inventory for early childhood personnel

Why is it that today's better trained, more observant, professionally-minded early childhood personnel are still subject to an age old dilemma? In spite of increased awareness of professional training and skills, early childhood personnel still see themselves as holding low status positions. When casual acquaintances ask what they work at, it is not unusual to hear the reply, “Ijust work with kids.” Perhaps it would serve us well, in fulfilling our roles, to acknowledge to ourselves and to others the wide range of skills possessed and displayed by providers of early childhood services.     

Rolling out ‘good’, ‘best’ and ‘excellent’ practice. What next? Perfect practice?

The identification and dissemination of ‘good practice’ has for years been a central part of the Government's strategy for radical change of the education system. ‘Good practice’, however, is no longer good enough, nor is ‘best practice’. The requirement now for post‐compulsory education and training (from which all our examples are taken) is nothing less than ‘excellent practice for all’. This article critically examines these highly significant shifts in the rhetoric of policy, finds them wanting and argues that we need to face up to the complexities involved in deciding not only what is ‘excellent practice’ but also in working through all the stages which would be needed to transmit it throughout the sector. In particular, recent documents from the Quality Improvement Agency and the Learning and Skills Council on the pursuit of excellence are critically appraised. The views of those practitioners who are part of the authors' project in the Economic and Social Research Council's Teaching and Learning Research Programme are also explained in relation to ‘good practice’. The authors attempt to explain the frenetic activity of politicians and policy makers in this sector, and end by moving from critique to construction by considering what can be rescued from the inherently contestable notion of ‘good practice’, and, in doing so, draw heavily on the work of Robin Alexander.     

Co-designing a civics curriculum: young people,democratic deficit and political renewal in the EU

Contemporary discussion of the ‘crisis in democracy’ displays a tendency to see young people as the problem because they are ‘apolitical’, ‘apathetic’ and ‘disengaged’, or point to deficiencies in institutions deemed responsible for civic education. This discussion normally comes as a prelude to calls for more civics education. This article points to a renewal of politics at the hands of young people relying on new media, and draws on evidence like survey research, case studies and action research projects. This political renewal is occurring largely in response to the assumption of political elites that a ‘politics-as-usual’ will suffice to address the major political challenges of our time. Against the assumption that teachers, curriculum experts and policy-makers already know what kinds of knowledge and skills students need to become good citizens, we make a case for co-designing a contemporary citizenship curriculum with young people to be used for the professional development of policy-makers. We argue that such an intervention is likely to have a salutary educational effect on policy-makers, influence how they see young people’s political engagement and how they set policy agendas. The article also canvasses the protocols such a project might observe.     

Should assessment reflect only pupils’ knowledge?

In order to realise increasingly complex objectives of compulsory education, it is necessary to have in place appropriate teaching concepts as well as assessment and testing guidelines. The question, however, is what should be assessed: levels of acquired knowledge, skills or attitudes? Should assessment be only a measure of the educational process outcomes, or should it also measure the process of knowledge acquisition itself? How should assessment be carried out in order to respect the principle of fairness and justice? In this paper, we will present results of a research project in which we were interested to find out what teachers would assess if it were up to them to decide. Our survey was conducted on a representative sample of primary school teachers in Slovenia. In spite of clear regulations prescribing that teachers should only assess pupils’ progress in relation to the defined objectives and knowledge standards, teachers underlined the necessity to also consider other aspects of children’s development.     

The art of teaching children the arts: music,dance and poetry with children aged 2–8 years old

In this article, the theoretical framework of developmental pedagogy is presented as a tool in studying and developing children’s knowing within the arts. The domains of art focused on are music, poetry and dance/aesthetic movement. Through empirical examples from a large‐scale research project, we illustrate the tools of developmental pedagogy and show how this perspective contributes to our understanding of children’s learning of music, dance and poetry. More specifically, we will analyse: (a) the important role of the teacher in children’s learning within the arts; (b) the importance of conversing when learning the arts; (c) what constitutes the knowledge, what we refer to as ‘learning objects’, to be appropriated within the three domains of art focused on; and (d) how to conceive of progression in children’s knowing within the arts.     

Doing teacher research: a qualitative analysis of purposes,processes and experiences

In this paper we draw upon 14 semi‐structured interviews with the participants in a teacher‐researcher project on the theme of ‘ensuring African Caribbean attainment’ with the aim of shedding light on the purposes, processes and lived experiences of teacher research in a difficult and contentious intellectual and practical domain. After briefly reviewing the history and policy background of teacher research in England, we introduce the project and the specific purposes and motivations of its various stakeholders. In the second half of the paper we analyse the challenges and the rewards of participating in the project, including the challenges of facilitating teacher research, and we review the key implications of the research for policy and practice. We conclude that, in trying to make teacher research happen in a way that is meaningful and productive for those involved (whether as facilitators or teacher researchers), three things have to be negotiated at once: new roles for academic facilitators, new dimensions of teacher roles, and a viable conception of research that is authentically teacher research. All of these things involve rethinking assumptions about what it means to be a teacher and an academic and what is meant by research. Drawing on the lessons of this project, we suggest that the central challenge of building successful teacher research is the creation of genuine partnerships, characterised by respectful and critical dialogue, between university staff and teacher researchers.     

FE and skills – is the ‘UK laboratory’ open for expansive policy learning?

ABSTRACT

This article builds on the previous articles in this special issue to explore two related concepts – a ‘UK policy laboratory’ and ‘expansive policy learning’, with a specific focus on further education (FE) and skills. We argue that the potential for a UK policy laboratory in this area is based primarily on a new balance between the forces of convergence and divergence across the four countries of the UK. In this ‘goldilocks zone’ lie opportunities for policy learning. The methodology of the UK FE and Skills Inquiry, on which this article draws, attempted to model the conditions of the UK policy laboratory by involving a rich mix of social partners and highlighting the importance of national contexts and how these can inform differing approaches to common challenges. The Inquiry also identified ‘interesting practice’ that may form the basis of an initial ‘common project’ across the different systems. However, its pursuit will require shifts towards the more collaborative approach to FE and skills that characterises the three smaller countries of the UK. In this variegated political environment, we conclude by speculating on the wider conditions for the permanent development of a UK policy laboratory (or laboratories) and expansive forms of policy learning.     

The policyscape of transgender equality and gender diversity in the Western Australian education system: a case study

ABSTRACT

In this paper, our purpose is to investigate policy informing texts and discourses referencing transgender equality and gender diversity in the Western Australian education system. Drawing on scholarship from transgender, queer and policy studies, we highlight the interplay of progressive and conservative forces affecting the Western Australian education system’s commitment to supporting transgender and gender non-binary students. Based on a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) project, the paper constructs a Western Australian case study, which threads together the critical examination of policy informing texts, qualitative interview data and media discourses surrounding public narratives, such as the Safe School Coalition Australia’s attempt to implement a school program, which builds awareness about gender and sexual diversity. Emerging through the material, discursive and spatial elements of locales and networks, our case study has the potential to deepen knowledge regarding the heuristic capacity of employing policyscape as an analytic category. In this vein, we draw attention to the possibilities and challenges for re-conceptualizing gender and providing trans-affirmative school spaces that promote equality.     

Remembering Peter Medway

Peter Medway was an exceptionally able teacher, researcher and thinker, and his work throws light on governments, inspectors and educators. In the early 1960s, Peter met a theory which ‘established language as a major means of constructing our realities’. Later, after teaching English in secondary schools for two decades, he reflected on why this theory had failed to make English more serious and more central. In his research, he looked into the history of English, its assumptions, practices and motivations. He also wrote about the significance of the students’ experiences, looking carefully (and critically) at what they produced in talk and writing. Persuaded that English needs to be about using language rather than studying it, he helped students find the right words. Starting with their own words, Peter focused on the business of making interventions without compromising students’ own agency. When he returned from Canada to take up a lectureship at King’s College, London, he was dismayed by the state of English in schools. His dissatisfaction with current English teaching led to a fully funded research project as well as a major publication that tells a story of the way teacher-led change transformed English in post-war London, English Teachers in a Postwar Democracy. Here we remember what was special about his contribution, his legacy and why we will miss him.     

Empowering children to speak up and act on social justice issues: The use of folktales and collaborative storytelling as tools of social imagination

Over the last decade, various organisations, scholars and educators across the globe have been arguing for the need to foster dialogue between and with children regarding the world they want to have, in terms of both justice and sustainability. Research has shown that stories and storytelling have a world-making and world-changing character that may trigger children’s social imagination on social justice issues and help them play a participatory role in society. In this context, the study presented here aimed to empower children to speak up for their beliefs and to become active agents of change in relation to social justice issues. To meet our research goals, we developed workshops around traditional folktales, which we implemented in four schools in Cyprus. During these workshops, we promoted critical dialogue for social justice issues through pertinent collaborative storytelling activities. Collaborative storytelling is a method that can involve participants in critical dialogue, enabling them to produce innovative and creative counter-stories. This can potentially deepen their perceptions about social justice, while also allowing them to communicate the knowledge they have built in engaging and accessible ways. Data collection included observations during workshops, as well as post-implementation interviews with a purposive sample of child participants. Our findings suggest that the children deployed either a ‘we are all different’ or a ‘we are all the same’ discourse to define social justice. Nonetheless, as the project progressed, they seemed to gradually turn to a ‘we need to see injustice to be able to act against it’ discourse. This project aims to contribute to academic discussions on promoting dialogue with children on social justice issues, and cultivating children’s metacognitive skills about societal injustices.     

The impact of diversity,prior academic achievement and goal orientation on learning performance in group capstone projects

ABSTRACT

Capstone projects are common in undergraduate programmes, providing students with a culminating educational experience designed to draw on the knowledge and skills accumulated over the course of their studies. While there are many benefits to capstone projects, they are not without challenges. In particular, when these projects are conducted in groups, forming groups to optimise the learning outcomes and managing group dynamics can be challenging. In this article, we report on the analysis of data collected from 346 undergraduate business students who completed capstone projects at a Hong Kong university. Measures included students’ learning goal (mastery and performance), satisfaction with their supervisor and group diversity in relation to gender, prior academic achievement, self-report nationality and programme of study. Analysis of this data in conjunction with student grades for the project was conducted to inform improvements in design and delivery of the capstone subject to improve students’ learning outcomes. The results showed that for groups consisting of three students, group diversity in respect to prior academic achievement as measured by grade point average (GPA) is positively related to the grade achieved in the capstone project. However, diversity in respect to the nationalities in the group was related to poorer performance. Furthermore, the more teacher-focused the group supervisor’s approach was, the worse the grade achieved for the project. The results suggest that groups made up of students of different nationalities tend to have lower grades compared to homogeneous groups. In contrast, having a group with a mix of GPAs can result in higher grades on the project. While these findings have informed our understanding of group performance on capstone projects, work is needed to fully understand what underlies the diversity effects identified which will be explored with future cohorts.     

Teacher education research and education policy-makers: an Australian perspective

As teacher educators, we want our research to be influential in contributing to educational policy and practice, but there remains little understanding about ways in which teacher educators might more productively engage with each other and policy-makers so as to maximise their research impact. Drawing on an empirical study and policy document analysis, this paper seeks to foster a generative ‘researcher-policy-maker dialogue’ by understanding more about policy-makers’ perspectives of what shapes their decision-making and the current role of research evidence in those decisions. Using a research utilisation theoretical framework and discourse analysis, data revealed various factors that served as barriers or enablers to using research in making education policy decisions. Results indicated that policy-makers largely position research as key to solving their policy problems. As such they sought better communication strategies to utilise research findings in a timely, free and publicly accessible, user-friendly manner. Overall, they called for a greater dialogue and engagement at all stages of the policy process and criticised what they perceived as a ‘fly in-fly out’ research approach. Recommendations suggest new collaborative approaches and genres are needed for the teacher education research community to have a greater impact in influencing policy.     

Towards decolonial praxis: reconfiguring the human and the curriculum

ABSTRACT

This theoretical inquiry applies threads of Sylvia Wynter’s intellectual project to scholarship in curriculum studies to consider how Wynter’s insights might urge new potential in educational theorising and practice. The central concern driving Wynter’s intellectual project is that our present understanding about what it means to be human is entrenched in epistemological legacies of colonialism that preserve a Western bourgeois genre of Man. This essay begins by detailing Sylvia Wynter’s rigorous and innovative intellectual project that reworks the category of the human. We argue that contemporary curriculum is based upon this Western genre of the human and explore the limits of multicultural curricula. Synthesising Wynter’s interrelated lines of thought – how the notion of being hybridly human calls forth a conceptualisation of humanness as a collective act – we argue that her revised category of the human is a necessary means to radically reimagine and decolonise curriculum.     

The impact of Skills for Life on adult basic skills in England: how should we interpret trends in participation and achievement?

The English Skills for Life strategy symbolises the prominent place that adult basic skills have claimed in education and training policy in England since the beginning of this century. The strategy aims to improve the skills of a large number of learners over a ten year period (2001–2010). This paper explores what we can learn about the impact of the strategy from an analysis of available statistical data. The paper presents trends in participation and achievement over the first four years of the strategy, which indicate a pattern of diminishing returns to numbers participating over time, and which may well reflect the growing difficulties the policy will face of engaging ‘hard to reach’ learners. Alongside this analysis, the paper raises a number of issues concerning the limitations of available statistical data in providing answers to questions such as the progress made by learners and their subsequent progression, both within and beyond adult basic skills provision. The paper goes on to argue that the strong emphasis on a numerical target related to qualification outcomes may serve to focus both practitioners’ and policy makers’ attention on this aspect alone. This, it is argued, may serve the interests of international benchmarking of skills levels in the population, but may do rather less in helping to improve learners’ lives and capabilities.