Disaster preparedness,adaptive politics and lifelong learning: a case of Japan

Preparedness for disaster scenarios is progressively becoming an educational agenda for governments because of diversifying risks and threats worldwide. In disaster-prone Japan, disaster preparedness has been a prioritised national agenda, and preparedness education has been undertaken in both formal schooling and lifelong learning settings. This article examines the politics behind one prevailing policy discourse in the field of disaster preparedness referred to as ‘the four forms of aid’ – ‘kojo [public aid]’, ‘jijo [self-help]’, ‘gojo/kyojo [mutual aid]’. The study looks at the Japanese case, however, the significance is global, given that neo-liberal governments are increasingly having to deal with a range of disaster situations whether floods or terrorism, while implementing austerity measures. Drawing on the theory of the adaptiveness of neo-liberalism, the article sheds light on the hybridity of the current Abe government’s politics: a ‘dominant’ neo-liberal economic approach – public aid and self-help – and a ‘subordinate’ moral conservative agenda – mutual aid. It is argued that the four forms of aid are an effective ‘balancing act’, and that kyojo in particular is a powerful legitimator in the hybrid politics. The article concludes that a lifelong and life-wide preparedness model could be developed in Japan which has taken a social approach to lifelong learning.     

Financing adult learning and education (ALE) now and in future

This article submits that while the world continues to view education as a human right, it also persists in depriving an important section of it – namely adult learning and education (ALE) – of adequate funding. Located within the lifelong learning domain, which facilitates both the resolution of challenges and adjustment to the vagaries of living throughout a lifetime, ALE is indispensable within the framework of the United Nations 2030 Agenda with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This article identifies four factors which are currently responsible for the poor funding of ALE. These factors are: (1) the world’s obsession with the provision of school education; (2) the lack of adequate instruments to work out ALE’s returns on investment; (3) the hope that employers will ultimately supply ALE; and (4) the assumption that an expansion of formal schooling will eventually lead to the establishment of literate societies free of inter-generational crises. Since ALE is generally framed as a broad literacy education project, the author undertakes a review of literacy education costing. This leads him to posit that quality literacy education can be supplied at a unit cost ranging between USD 150 and USD 250 annually within any Global Alliance for Literacy (GAL) country. Finally, the article offers four recommendations to increase ALE funding going forward.

     

Reform and reaction: creating new education and training structures in Italy

Despite concerns regarding Italy’s high levels of early school‐leaving, regional differences in educational outcomes and persistent inequalities, efforts to reform the country’s complex system of senior secondary schooling have been repeatedly frustrated. Regarded by the left as contributing to the reproduction of social inequalities, Italy’s dual‐track system of academic and vocational secondary schools has been the focus of many reform efforts, for the most part unsuccessful. Recent proposals for reform, initiated by the recently deposed right‐wing Government coalition, reflected a very different approach to change, reinforcing the division between the academic and the vocational in Italy’s schools and largely devolving responsibility for vocational education and training to the regions. This article examines the proposals and concludes that, like past initiatives, they were largely ideologically driven, focusing on the structures of schooling rather than teaching and learning. The article points to the need for the current Government to base change on a strong theoretical foundation and on focused research into the outcomes of schooling for different student groups.     

Learning for All? Interrogating children's experiences of primary schooling in Mauritius

Central to the efforts of primary school reform in developing nations is the need for pupils to become more active, critical and creative learners and for primary schooling to enable all children to develop to their full potential. The question `learning for all?’ asked in the title emphasises the concern that, in developing countries, schooling and education for all do not necessarily translate in learning opportunities for all. The article discusses this idea. It is based on the assumption that takes universal quality basic education as an investment and a right and posits the necessity of micro-data in order to monitor children's learning opportunities. Examples from Mauritius are used to put forward some of the reasons impeding learning opportunities and equity inside classrooms and to highlight some of the discrepancies between policy rhetoric and the `reality’ of school.     

Global cultural capital and global positional competition: international graduate students’ transnational occupational trajectories

International graduate students’ occupational trajectories have rarely been studied, although many studies exist on their learning experiences in foreign universities. Based on 80 qualitative interviews, this article aims to understand how, where, and why these students obtain jobs in academe and corporations. I focus particularly on Korean professionals who received graduate degrees from US universities and who later obtained jobs in Korea or the United States. The theoretical component of this work is based on two important concepts – global cultural capital and global positional competition – both of which are seen to be based on a global hierarchy of academic degrees and professional knowledge. This study empirically tests and elaborates Phillip Brown’s three rules of inclusion and exclusion in global positional competition. By looking at international students’ transnational occupational trajectories, this study aims to understand how global education, transnational job opportunities, and social inclusion and exclusion interact in diverse ways.     

Schooling as a positional good: the Brazilian metropolitan regions in recent decades

In this article, I aim to determine whether, in view of the trend of educational expansion in recent decades in Brazil, the role played by schooling in the labor market of Brazilian major metropolitan regions has changed, becoming positional rather than absolute. To this end, I analyze the influence of schooling on people’s income and occupational status. Based on data from the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD-IBGE) for years 1995, 2005 and 2015, I compare ordinary least squares models that use absolute and positional measures of schooling. The results show that the explanatory power is greater for positional measures than for absolute ones, and that this advantage has increased over recent decades. As a result, it is argued that although educational expansion possibly makes the chances of access to a certain absolute schooling level less unequal, it also ends up undermining the opportunity structure related to it.     

Sampling Memories: Using Hip-Hop Aesthetics To Learn From Urban Schooling Experiences

This article theorizes and charts the implementation of a learning activity designed from the hip-hop aesthetic of sampling. The purpose of this learning activity was to enable recent urban school graduates to reflect upon their previous schooling experiences as a platform for future learning in higher education. This article illustrates what these learning activities helped students learn from their urban schooling experiences, the epistemologies made available to students through sampling, and the concurrent barriers to learning that these activities also produced. These results contribute to the newest area of scholarship in hip-hop-based education with a focus on urban education.     

New learner subjects? Reforming the rural child for a modern India

This article discusses findings from an ethnographic study of schooling in India to reflect on the ways in which new learner subjects – the ideal citizens of the future – are constructed by education reforms in poor, rural communities. The concerns of the article are framed by the significant economic growth and social modernisation occurring in India, particularly for the expanding urban middle classes. The rural poor have been largely excluded from India's narrative of development and modernisation. This article asks, then, what kind of citizen-subject does schooling for the poor in India seek to produce? It focuses on the intentions and effects of child-centred pedagogic programmes in rural primary schools in the south Indian state of Karnataka. The analysis shows that in order for democratic and egalitarian education ideals to become more fully realised in these school contexts, teachers need to be supported to engage critically with the deep social stratifications in Indian society which continue to marginalise the rural poor.     

Democratization of secondary education in Malaysia: attitudes towards schooling and educational aspirations

As a consequence of the democratization of secondary education in Malaysia beginning in the 1990s, many students who do not have academic credentials are allowed to progress to upper secondary education. This study examines the attitudes of these students towards two important aspects of schooling – namely, learning and examinations, as well as their educational aspirations – to assess the extent to which they have fulfilled the aims of the democratization of secondary education, among which is to produce more highly trained and well-educated manpower. A questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews were conducted in five sampled schools to explore the issues from various perspectives. The attitudes of the students towards learning and examinations as well as their levels of educational aspirations were generally found to be wanting regardless of their background. This study has revealed the internal contradiction of the democratization of secondary education in Malaysia. The democratization of secondary education within the ambit of a highly academic and examination-oriented education system has not served the needs of academically weak students. This study has also revealed the lack of alternative educational opportunities available to these students. The lack of resolve among teachers to handle these students and enough counsellors to guide them through the schooling process further complicate their problems.     

Progression in school science curriculum: A rational prospect or a chimera?

Science in schooling has for the first time been recently considered as a verified whole for the 10 or 12 of its compulsory years, rather than for a limited sector of schooling or for a particular group of students. This has also been occurring as part of a wider review and plan for the whole curriculum of schooling. A framework has been provided consisting of a matrix of strands of intended content for learning across a number of levels approximating the years of schooling. There is a sense and expectation of continuous progression in the learning of science. Earlier notions of progression in science curricula are explored and compared with what has now appeared in the national curricula in England and Wales, New Zealand and Australia. The notions of curriculum opportunity and curriculum purpose for science education are introduced as factors that would lead to a shift in the sense of progression from a focus on Science itself to an emphasis on the learners' changing need of Science as they progress through the years of schooling. Specializations: science curriculum, environmental education, equity in education     

Languages,cultural capital and school choice: distinction and second-language immersion programmes

This paper argues that languages, increasingly marginalised in schools in English-speaking countries, are gaining ‘elitist’ ground as part of the ‘value-added’ marketisation of schools and parents’ desire for their children to gain ‘positional goods’ through schooling. In arguing our case, the paper draws on survey and other data derived from second-language immersion programmes in two Queensland secondary schools, where key learning areas such as mathematics and science are taught through the medium of another language. As a corollary, we also argue that some schools – in our case, government schools – are using their immersion programmes as markers of distinction in a period of post-comprehensive schooling and emerging school markets, which includes both government and non-government schools. There is also a global policy context to such programmes in respect of countries such as Spain, China and Germany supporting the teaching of their respective languages in nations around the world.     

Fee-free education,decentralisation and the politics of scale in Papua New Guinea

Policies aimed at both reducing the costs associated with schooling (particularly through fee-free education) and decentralising responsibility for education delivery have become a central part of international education doctrine. This article draws on the ‘politics of scale’ literature to highlight how these education reforms are contested at different scales, in turn leading to uneven administrative and material outcomes. It examines education policy reforms in Papua New Guinea, which have – contra international trends – sidelined non-state actors and strengthened the state’s role in managing education services. National fee-free education policy has been contested at different administrative scales. Church administrators have rallied (without much success) at national directives; subnational administrators and politicians have had greater success, rolling back some aspects of national policy; while local-level schools have employed their own tactics to resist national fee-free education policy. In turn, this case study highlights how fee-free educational policy shapes and is shaped by conflict at multiple administrative scales. The article’s findings have implications for debates about the relationship between fee-free education and decentralisation policies.     

The Table: Christian Education as Performative Art

Children and young people have the inalienable right to be part of a learning community. Nobody can learn on his/her own. Education is always a communal enterprise. In this article the concept of the “spiritual learning community” is developed as a contemporary answer to the socioeducational issues raised by Martin Buber and John Dewey in the 1930s. Cultural and religious diversity today stimulate education and schooling more than ever before to reconsider the narrative-communicative and spiritual dimension of every learning process. The spiritual dimension of the learning community relates to a specific habitus, namely of de-centration from the self and dedication to the other, and to a specific focus, namely on existential questions as content of the learning process. Insights from philosophy of education and from European religious education theory and concrete experiences of teacher education at the universities of Dortmund (Germany) and Wien (Austria) form the horizon for this reflection.     

‘Straitjacket’ or ‘springboard for sustainable learning’? The implications of formative assessment practices in vocational learning cultures

In contrast to theoretical and empirical insights from research into formative assessment in compulsory schooling, understanding the relationship between formative assessment, motivation and learning in vocational education has been a topic neglected by researchers. The Improving Formative Assessment project (IFA) addresses this gap, using a sociocultural approach to explore the relationship between formative assessment practices and ‘learning cultures’ in vocational education. This article explores the influence of learning cultures in vocational education on the practice of formative assessment and evaluates critically two closely related questions. Why do some learning cultures foster formative assessment that leads to instrumental learning while others develop deeper forms of learning? When is formative assessment a springboard for sustainable learning, and when does it remain an instrumental straitjacket?     

Globalisation and education: a review of conflicting perspectives and their effect on policy and professional practice in the UK

Many disparate groups have written about the effects of globalisation on education. Some have promoted its benefits; others have warned against its ill‐effects. This paper is an attempt at coalescing and juxtaposing the respective arguments as they relate to schooling policy and practice in the UK. The growing international pressures of globalisation affect practitioners in unpredictable and different ways, so the development of national policy is tied to the process of translating global trends to local contexts. The current political environment has enabled policy‐makers to drive education in large measure using economic imperatives and to devolve liability for ineffective schooling outcomes to a supplicant teaching profession. Whether or not these approaches are justified, there has been precious little debate around the core issues: what is the purpose of education, what is the role of schooling in safeguarding democracy and what obligation does the state have to the individual beyond encouraging economic well‐being? This paper seeks to illuminate the background to such a debate in a non‐judgmental way; to examine why the skirmishes between opposing factions have instead been had on the periphery – in areas like value‐added measurement and performance‐related pay – and why the teaching profession has so often been a spectator incapable of challenging or mediating the emerging hegemony.     

Reconsidering school politics: educational controversies in Sweden

School politics in Sweden has recently moved in a conservative direction, emphasising the importance of conventional school subjects, stronger teacher authority and more discipline in the classroom. At the same time, consensus on the utility of such measures is lacking in the school debate. The conservative approach is often criticised as misleading and behind the times in relation to contemporary knowledge demands. This article examines and discusses the relevance of this critique. The main argument is that the conservative approach has a better matching with a previous phase in the history of Swedish school politics and that conventional schooling is difficult to combine with two of the major goals of schooling today – the diffusion of democracy and multipurpose skills. From this perspective, the political notion of schooling seems decoupled from the broader domain of public demands on education. To alleviate this problem school politics should draw less on the pedagogical ideas of essentialism and more on the historical legacy of progressivism in the Swedish education system.     

‘If the child cannot come to the school,then the school must go to the child’: The railway station platform schools in Odisha,India

Despite its constitutional obligation of ensuring universal primary education, the Indian Government has not been able to find a way to educate its 18 million street children. It is widely accepted that the government lacks the capacity – financial, managerial and human resource – to provide meaningful education to those who are left out of the formal education system. Many civil society organisations across India are trying to bridge the gap by educating children living in high-risk settings. One such initiative, the Railway Platform School started by Ruchika, proves that quality bridge or condensed courses are an effective way of encouraging children to access the formal education system. This article argues that the government needs to appreciate and support this kind of innovative initiatives, and also government and other civil society actors needs to operate under a collaborative framework to ensure reach out to children, who have been left out of the Government schooling system.     

Time for inclusion?

This article examines the constraints of modern temporality which are antithetical to the careful consideration that working with diverse learners requires for the development of inclusive, democratic education. We take up the conceptual construct of time to explore how it mediates systemic practices that impact policy positions of inclusion in initial teacher education and schooling. Our analysis demonstrates that temporality shapes the possibilities of inclusive practice within which a dominant agenda of compliance frames classroom complexities – both in schooling and higher education environments – into fragmented and preconceived responses to challenging situations. Education systems position educators in risk discourses concentrated on compliance and performance, in part through an emphasis that is placed on the diagnosis of learner differences and subsequent compartmentalised responses. Through schisms in modern time, we demonstrate the ways in which inclusion, like other educational demands, may be supported through a diffraction in time rather than subjugated to it.     

Knowledge and Politics of Social Change: The implication of anti-racism

This article is a reflection on educational change in Euro-American contexts, undertaken as I conclude two extensive empirical studies on minority student disengagement and strategies of inclusive schooling in the Ontario public education system. Specifically, the discussion explores the implications of race, difference and power for schooling and educational change in North America. It is argued that contemporary education needs to take into account how social difference and questions of identity implicate schooling. The search for genuine educational options must be reframed in the pursuit of anti-racism praxis so that students can engage critical knowledge as a way to rupture the social order of things. In conclusion, the article suggests ways for critical educators to work collectively to ensure that learning and teaching about ourselves is transformative.     

Universalizing Nine-Year Compulsory Education For Poverty Reduction in Rural China

Lack of access to basic education leads to diminished individual and national capabilities, therewith furthering cycles of poverty. An equitable education system meeting basic learning needs represents not only a human right, but also a means for reducing poverty, promoting productivity, and sustaining development. The Government of China – the most populous developing nation, the majority of whose citizens live in rural areas – has been committed to universalizing nine-year compulsory education among school-aged children and eliminating illiteracy among youths and adults aged 15–45. This study examines lessons learned from China’s efforts in these areas. It also reports on current challenges and trends in a new national initiative for achieving high-quality universal basic education by the year 2007.