A cultural study of Chinese American women’s self-identification and education

Frontiers of Education in China - This qualitative research aims to investigate the process of how Chinese American women develop their identities while growing up in the United States as daughters...     

A ‘usable past’ of teacher education in England: history in JET’s anniversary issue

The recent JET Anniversary Virtual Special Issue, abbreviated here to JET@40, reproduced its very first editorial with selected articles from Britain and abroad published in subsequent decades. The journal first came into being as a response to damning criticism of the profession via government-sponsored reports and reviews but also to encourage informed debate with particular focus on notions of ‘good teaching’ and the ‘good teacher’. In this paper, we engage with selected contributions in JET@40 to tease out an historical map for teacher education. The task is to glean a sense of the past which resonates with our co-developed, research-informed teacher education programme, and gives insight to a lack of institutional and political support to encourage teacher research activity that interrogates the effects of poverty and cumulative multiple deprivation on disadvantaged students’ lives, learning and urban schooling experiences. Our argument is that JET@40 not only provides us with an indication of the best of what is known and practised but also a ‘usable past’ or history of specific professional insights to inform debate about possibilities and predicaments in our own teacher education programme.     

Literacy for self-reliance: A critical exploration of Nyerere’s legacy in Tanzanian education policies

International Review of Education - The global movement to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda rests on strengthening international...     

Scientific Inquiry Self-Efficacy and Computer Game Self-Efficacy as Predictors and Outcomes of Middle School Boys’ and Girls’ Performance in a Science Assessment in a Virtual Environment

Journal of Science Education and Technology - The primary aim of the study was to examine whether performance on a science assessment in an immersive virtual environment was associated with changes...     

A critical scholar’s journey in China: A brief Freirean analysis of insider–outsider tensions

As a full-time foreign faculty member in the Chinese Normal university system for the past five years, I analyze the contested terrain of being a critical, Freirean educator/researcher as an insider and outsider of Chinese and Western academic systems and societies overall. This autobiographical analysis is within the contexts of China’s academic focus on raising their global higher education rankings, along with self-reflectivity of my own multiple, often-conflicting identities and Western-centric Orientalism, theorized by Edward Said, in my legitimization of academic work. The following themes are analyzed through critical and Freirean frameworks: pursuit for top rankings coinciding and conflicting with scholarship breadth and depth, academic freedom, and politics of education; constructs of “harmony” that grounds teaching and research; and select pedagogical commonalities and differences between the East, the Global South, and the West. The article delves into preconceptions, including my own, on what is “worthy” academics from China, “the East”, “the West”, and the “Global South” with self-reflectivity of problematizing such terminology that covers such immense diversity in all aspects of contexts, including education which underscores the very problems with rankings, especially global rankings which are often Western-centric. All themes will be analyzed within my own, conflicting insider-ness and outsider-ness.     

A critical consideration of ‘mental health and wellbeing’ in education: Thinking about school aims in terms of wellbeing

This paper examines ideas about mental health, wellbeing and school education to illustrate important issues in the relationship between mental health and education. The Covid crisis has amplified the pre-existing mental health problems of children and young people in England and recognition of the opportunities in schools to address these. The paper gives an overview of child and adolescent mental health services and how they position the role of schools. It examines prominent concepts of mental health and their relationship to wellbeing, setting this in a discussion of ‘mentally healthy’ schools, mental health in special educational needs and whole-school approaches. This analysis shows how the relationship between mental health and wellbeing has not been adequately worked out, using this as the basis for arguing for the dual-factor mental health model which separates mental illness/disorder from wellbeing as two related dimensions. The paper then translates the dual-factor model into a two-dimensional framework that represents the distinctive but related aims of school education (wellbeing promotion) and mental health services (preventing, coping, helping mental health difficulties). This framework involves a complex conception of wellbeing, with schools playing an important role in promoting wellbeing (beyond emotional wellbeing), tiered models and establishing school-wide social emotional learning. It is about a whole-school curriculum approach that involves considering what is to be learned and how it is taught. It contributes to a more nuanced concept of wellbeing that has a place for meaningful learning and challenge.     

A critical feminist and race critique of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-first Century

Abstract

Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-first Century documents the foreboding nature of rising wealth inequality in the twenty-first century. In an effort to promote a more just and democratic global society and rein in the unfettered accumulation of wealth by the few, Piketty calls for a global progressive annual tax on corporate capital. Employing a critical feminist and race perspective on the political economy, this article examines Piketty’s historical understanding of inequality, and considers how his proposed solution to redistribute corporate profits through a global tax on corporate capital would impact the racialized, gendered, and geographically based inequalities experienced by marginalized girls and women, including access to education, employment, and other basic needs. The article argues that Piketty’s proposed solution would leave corporate strategies for accumulating wealth untouched, and would do little to transform the durable, deeply entrenched inequalities experienced by poor, racialized girls and women.     

Educating queer sexual citizens? A feminist exploration of bisexual and queer young women’s sex education in Tasmania,Australia

There is a well-documented absence of inclusive school-based sex and relationships education (SRE) for Australian lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth. Moreover, relatively few studies specifically examine how bisexual and queer-identifying young Australian women experience SRE. This qualitative study addresses the gap and contributes new perspectives by examining bisexual and queer young women’s experiences of school-based SRE in the state of Tasmania through the lens of sexual citizenship. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 15 Tasmanian bisexual and queer young women, we argue that biomedical, risk-based and heteronormative approaches to SRE reduce young women’s sexual health literacy. By framing SRE around the concept of ‘sexual citizenship’, this article provides important guidance on how SRE can more effectively provide bisexual and queer young women with the skills they need to be effective, engaged sexual citizens.     

Analyzing the use of history in mathematics education: issues and challenges around Balacheff’s cKȼ model

Part of the international reflection on the use of history in mathematics teaching consists in a quest of frameworks and models suitable for empirical studies. Following this demand, this paper explores the way Balacheff’s cK? model, a model taken from the didactics of mathematics, can be used in the analysis of learning at student level. In the first part of this paper, Balacheff’s cK? model (conceptions, knowledge, ?oncepts) is shortly presented, and in the second part, the relationship between the epistemological background of the model and the use of the history of mathematics is explored in order to show a possible suitableness. The third part addresses an example of a school activity (about ancient Indian geometry) in which the model is applied and the historical issues clarified. Questioning the role of problems both in the cK? model and in the use of history, the last part shows how a study at the students’ conception level enlightens the way in which historical elements can interact with contemporary mathematical learning.     

The transformation of China’s key science and technology universities in the move to mass higher education

China’s key science and technology universities are modelled on the French école Polytechnique. As such, they are utilitarian institutions, rooted in the concept of cultivating manpower for society’s economic progress, and tending to ignore the development of the individual. As China’s elite higher education system took in a rapidly increasing number of students in the recent massification process, China’s key science and technology universities underwent reform to become more comprehensive in curricular offerings and more research-oriented in function. The authors have uncovered an interesting phenomenon: Despite repeated discussion in academic circles, this transformation was never actually a conscious strategic choice for universities. Only when the Chinese government launched a program of higher education “massification” did universities develop their own unique reform strategies in a move to become more comprehensive and more research oriented. The authors have adopted a multi-stream analysis framework to describe and analyze three case study universities: University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), and Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University (NWAFU). It was found that Chinese universities already have quite a high level of autonomy, but that the government still has the power to make strategic decisions. Each university’s decision-making mechanism has been an independent process within the constraints of the political economic structure over this period, and policy-making has combined top-down and bottom-up processes.     

The World Bank’s position on early child education in Brazil: a critical assessment of contributions and shortcomings

In 2010, the World Bank published a policy study on early child education (ECE) developments in Brazil, entitled Early Child Education: Making Programs Work for Brazil’s Most Important Generation. Development. This paper analyses the report’s assessment of ECE policy in Brazil as well as the recommendations it provides. A critical analysis of ECE shows that the report’s insistence that financial constraints necessitate a trade-off between coverage and quality privileges the influence and position of the private sector and urges public–private partnerships as a cost-saving strategy. While it commends the Brazilian Government for its commitment to universal access to preschool, it argues for more targeted investment in quality rather than access. This paper argues that the quality-coverage debate should be set aside and overall investment in ECE should be increased. It also argues that issues excluded from the report such as disability, race and rural access to ECE must be considered in the development of sound social policy.     

Gender Gap in Mathematics and Physics in Chinese Middle Schools: A Case Study of a Beijing’s District

This study examines the gender gaps in mathematics and physics in Chinese middle schools. The data is from the Education Bureau management database which includes all middle school students who took high school entrance exam in a district of Beijing from 2006–2013. The ordinary least square model and quantile regression model are applied. This study consistently shows that the gender gap is unfavorable toward female students in mathematics and physics while favorable toward female students in Chinese and English. Gender gaps favoring males in math and physics become more noticeable among the students who receive the top tier scores in math and physics testing. However, females’ students’ advantage in Chinese and English decreases along the distribution from the bottom to the top percentiles. There are significant intersections between rural residency and gender. Rural students (regardless of gender) perform less well than urban students in all subjects and rural female student show the worst testing scores compared with the other subgroups in mathematics and physics.     

Contested womanhood: women’s education and (re)production of gendered norms in rural Pakistani Muslim communities

In a world marred by the fears of religious extremism, Muslim women have become subjects of various global projects that aim to modernize ‘traditional’ Muslim societies through women’s education and empowerment. Embedded in these discourses is an assumption that all educated Muslim women will empower themselves through challenging the ‘oppressive’ structures of their families and communities. This paper challenges these homogeneous narratives of education and empowerment through highlighting the complexities of educated women’s daily lives in rural Pakistan. We situate the lived experiences of rural educated Pakistani women in global mainstream as well as in local historical narratives regarding the role and purpose of education for women. Our analysis reveals how the educated women participants’ lives were shaped by a complex gendered hierarchy that facilitated educated women to take on new roles while simultaneously requiring them to maintain harmonious relationships with family and community members.     

Language and Identity Construction of China’s Rural-Urban Migrant Children: An Ethnographic Study in an Urban Public School

This article investigates the identity construction process of China’s rural-urban migrant children through analyses of their discourses and of their use of language. Rural children have relocated to the urban centers with their parents on a massive scale over the past decades as China has undergone rapid economic changes. Many migrant children are able to attend urban public schools, and their identity construction emerges as an important issue that attracts increasing public and scholarly attention. This study draws on ethnographic data and presents four examples to illustrate the complex process of migrant identity construction. The results show that the migrant children deploy a range of linguistic features and claim multiple identities; in order for their identities to be established in social reality, they have to go through negotiation processes in which their identities are evaluated, ratified, challenged, or denied. Language is at the center of such processes.     

Families,Schools, and Children’s School Achievement: A Study Based on Rural Regions in China Gansu Province

Abstract:

This paper focuses on the impact of school factors on student achievement due to differences in family backgrounds. Based on the principle of diminishing effects of school investment in children’s achievement, this study built a model that includes individual characteristics, family characteristics, and school characteristics. Family and school variables were incorporated into the model. The subjective effort in children’s individual study and family investment and effort in education were controlled. Using data on elementary school children from 20 counties in Gansu Province, this study found that parents’ level of education and family income and indices of school quality have a significant positive relationship to children’s achievement. However, an increase in school investment will shrink the score differences caused by differences in children’s family backgrounds. The policy implications are that increased educational investment in impoverished rural areas has an even more significant positive effect on the achievement of children from disadvantaged family backgrounds.