Human-material relationships in environmental and sustainability education – an empirical study of a school embroidery project

In recent discussions about the widening and opening up of anthropocentric perspectives in environmental and sustainability education (ESE) research, a recurrent issue has been what reasonably could be a subject of inquiry and an agent of knowledge. This article aims to showcase an empirical study of the relevance of human-material relationships in crafting learning processes by following an embroidery project with year 8 students in the Swedish craft subject of educational sloyd. How the human-material correspondence unfolds in the crafting learning process is analysed with the aid of Ingold’s practice of correspondence and Sørensen’s notion of participation, performance and imagination. Rather than assuming that materials contribute to certain environmental and sustainability aims, the analysis empirically demonstrates how the human-material correspondence unfolds. The analysis identifies three human-material relationships: attuning, troubling and tracing correspondence. Drawing on the findings, the human-material relevance for environmental and sustainability education and research is further discussed.     

Monitoring of education for sustainable development in Germany – insights from early childhood education,school and higher education

In Germany, the implementation of the UNESCO Global Action Programme (GAP) on Education for sustainable development (ESD) 2015–2019 aims to implement ESD more profoundly within the structures of Germany’s educational system. In this context, a national monitoring has been set up in order to analyze the extent and quality of ESD implementation in all educational areas. The paper contains the results of an indicator-based desk research comprising a content analysis of key documents in three areas of education: early childhood education, school education and higher education over a period of 5 years (2011–2016). Overall, the main results indicate that, at the level of key documents, the goal of a broad implementation of ESD is not yet achieved, while there are considerable differences among the federal states. ESD and related concepts can be found more frequently particularly in documents that are more recent. At the same time, ESD is increasingly predominating other educational concepts such as environmental education. The results are one component of a comprehensive monitoring process of ESD-implementation on the level of documents and offer important insights relevant for further (political) activities aiming at a mainstreaming of ESD.     

Fairness in education – a normative analysis of OECD policy documents

Educational policy depends on assumptions about fairness in education, whether they are made explicit or kept implicit. Without a view of fairness, one would be in the dark as to what should be done about the reproduction of social inequality through education, or whether or not anything should be done at all. The aim of this paper is to uncover the view of fairness in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) education policy. It is based on an analysis of the normative argumentation concerning educational fairness in a set of policy documents from the last seven years, with special emphasis on the association between social background and educational achievement. The main result of the analysis is that the OECD explicitly operate with a loose idea of equal opportunity, compatible with even a merely formal equality, but implicitly with a meritocratic variant of fair equality of opportunity. In the final section, I argue that the OECD approach to fairness suffers from a limitation in that it considers educational justice in isolation from social justice in general.     

Understanding families’ conceptions of school readiness in the United States: a qualitative metasynthesis

ABSTRACT

The call by policymakers, education stakeholders, and families for children to enter school ‘ready’ has led to numerous empirical studies that seek to identify how children and their families are or are not prepared for school. In the United States, this empirical work tends to identify particular children and their families ‘at-risk’ for school success and often seeks out ways to intervene so that such risks are addressed. Absent from this work is an understanding of how families conceptualise school readiness, and how those understandings influence their conceptions of whether or not their own children are ready for school. Such work could assist educators and other school personnel in supporting families and their children as they enter their programmes. This article examines this issue by presenting findings from a qualitative metasynthesis of studies that investigated how families conceptualised school readiness. Analysing, synthesising, and interpreting their conceptions of school readiness offers the chance to consider how early childhood stakeholders can be ready for families as they enter their programmes as well as support their efforts in readying their children for school.     

The vocational turn of adult education in Denmark – an analysis of adult education policy from the late 1990s

ABSTRACT

Denmark has a strong and versatile tradition of adult education. Over a long historical period, adult education for public enlightenment and leisure, for continuing study and for vocational and professional competence have been developed, been made part of state policy and been used by citizens. But in recent years the public and political presence of Danish adult education has changed. While education policy issues generally abound in public and political debates, adult education is given much less attention than earlier. In this article, we trace the causes of this and conclude that it reflects a turn towards focusing on vocational types of adult education and a relocation of adult education policy to networks linking the state and the social partners. Drawing on theories of policy streams, policy networks and the competition state, we provide a historical analysis of Danish adult education reforms during the past two decades and document how the vocational turn has manifested itself.     

Engineering education in Bangladesh – an indicator of economic development

Developing nations including Bangladesh are significantly lagging behind the millennium development target due to the lack of science, technology and engineering education. Bangladesh as a least developing country has only 44 engineers per million people. Its technological education and gross domestic product growth are not collinear. Although limited progress was made in humanities, basic sciences, agriculture and medical sciences, a vast gap is left in technical and engineering education. This paper describes the present condition of engineering education in the country and explores ways to improve engineering education in order to meet the national as well as global skills demand.     

Researching in school – creating a meaningful school/university alliance: a reflection

This paper reflects upon the experience of carrying out a piece of action research as a university academic, in partnership with a primary school. It considers roles and responsibilities, agendas, dynamics, ethical dilemmas and issues of voice. It contextualises the research within a field where educational research continues to be conceptualised as the ‘poor relation.’ In light of this, it explores the richness and value to be found in rejecting positivist tradition and re-imagining the research process as one of uniqueness and ‘dissensus’ whereby learning happens through collaborative shared-learning encounters. It concludes that research relationships such as these can illuminate new understandings in ways that are not only rich and enduring but often unforeseen.     

Cycles of expansion in higher education 1870 – 1985: an international comparison

This article analyses the expansion of higher education between 1870 and 1985 in five countries (Germany, Italy, France, US, Japan). Two hypotheses are tested to explain the expansion: human capital theories and the theory of individual status competition (Collins). The analysis concentrates on the interaction between the educational and the economic system, particularly during times of an economic crisis. Spectral analysis is used to explore the cyclical character of the expansion and the relationship between economic growth and the increasing enrollment rates in higher education. For most countries the data confirm the theory of status competition (perverse effects): universities expand particularly fast during times of an economic recession (e.g., Great Depression, 1890–1900; World Economic Crisis, 1929–1935). The human capital theory is not confirmed by this longitudinal analysis. The article demonstrates that spectral analysis is a powerful instrument to analyse the causal relationship between two or more social systems over a long period of time.

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Zusammenfassung In diesem Aufsatz wird die Bildungsexpansion an den Universitäten zwischen 1870 und 1985 in fünf Ländern analysiert (Deutschland, Italien, Frankreich, USA und Japan). Zwei Hypothesen, die das Wachstum erklären, werden getestet: die Humankapital-Theorie und die Theorie der individuellen Statuskonkurrenz (Collins). Die Analyse konzentriert sich auf die Interaktion zwischen dem Bildungssystem und dem Wirtschaftssystem, insbesondere während einer ökonomischen Krise. Die Spektralanalyse wird als statistisches Verfahren benutzt, um den zyklischen Charakter der Expansion und die Beziehung zwischen Wirtschaftswachstum und Bildungsexpansion zuntersuchen. Für die meisten Länder wird die Theorie der Statuskonkurrenz bestätigt: die Universitäten wachsen besonders schnell während einer ökonomischen Krise (z.B. Groe Depression, 1890–1900; Weltwirtschaftskrise, 1929–1935). Die Humankapital-Theorie wird durch die Längsschnitt-Untersuchung nicht bestätigt. Der Aufsatz zeigt, da die Spektralanalyse ein nützliches Instrument ist, um die kausale Beziehung zwischen zwei oder mehreren sozialen Systemen im Zeitablauf zu untersuchen.

     

Paragons of Virtue: teachers’ conceptual understanding of high ability in an egalitarian school system

Recent research suggests that teachers are useful in identifying high ability, provided they have some advance guidelines on how such identification should be operationalized and why. But how do teachers in an egalitarian school system, with neither specific knowledge nor guidelines, conceptualize and make provision for highly able pupils? A total of 232 teachers, representing all levels of the Swedish comprehensive school system, were questioned on different aspects of their conceptual understanding of talented pupils. Answers were given as brief written statements, and the data submitted to a content analysis which resulted in four cluster matrices. This showed that teachers can identify high ability fairly accurately with regard to cognitive attributes and personality characteristics, but fail to understand the socio‐emotional dynamics. Thus, highly able pupils appeared to have been regarded as ‘paragons of virtue’ possessing the social attributes of the teachers ‘ideal pupil’.     

Teacher education and family–school partnerships in different contexts: A cross country analysis of national teacher education frameworks across a range of European countries

Abstract

Collaboration with parents is widely regarded as important in the education of children and young people, yet teachers rarely feel sufficiently prepared for this task. Several studies indicate that initial teacher education (ITE) programmes struggle to address issues of family–school partnerships (FSP). Our purpose in this study was to assess whether national ITE frameworks in seven European countries enable or constrain effective FSP preparation for preservice teachers. Our data, drawn from document analysis and national surveys, suggests that, despite the importance officially attributed to FSP at both governmental and ITE institutional levels, no single country presents a satisfactory picture in terms of FSP provision within their ITE programmes or in the extent to which preservice teachers are prepared to deal with the issue. Regardless of the existence (or not) of a national curriculum and variations, both in terms of legally-required competences and the amount of attention given to FSP in ITE programmes, it appears that simply making FSP compulsory is not the solution. Nor do national frameworks, in themselves, really appear to shape and direct the provision offered. Essentially FSP preparation still seems to depend upon the proclivities and expertise of individual teacher educators.     

No more bullying: an analysis of primary school children’s drawings of school bullying

Bullying in schools is an international problem impacting negatively on children’s well-being. Children’s drawings can provide an insight into their emotional states. There is little published literature that uses children’s drawings to gain better understandings of the nature and impact of bullying. We report two studies using indicators of emotional distress to examine Australian primary school children’s drawings about bullying. In Study One, children’s drawings were examined using indicators of size, detail and line heaviness in terms of gender and developmental trends. The analysis showed no main differences for gender, however, there were clear developmental aspects to children’s depictions of school bullying. In Study Two, children’s self-reported victimisation was associated with the degree of detail and the relative distance between the protagonists represented in the drawings. The studies suggest that drawings could be used to counsel young people and help remediate the effects of bullying.     

Choice paths in the Swedish upper secondary education – a critical discourse analysis of recent reforms

Decentralisation policy in Sweden emphasises school capitation allowance, the local upper secondary schools’ decision‐making and pupils’ choices in contrast to previous bureaucratic governing. The aim of this article is to discuss how pupils’ educational choice paths are a part of the different kinds of integration and differentiation processes within upper secondary education. By doing so, the intention is to make a theoretical contribution to the ongoing discussion in this research field. In the light of Habermas’s theory of communicative action combined with Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis, educational choice paths have been studied as a process within three educational practices in a local quasi‐market in Sweden: (1) choice of upper secondary school, (2) choice of upper secondary programme, and (3) choice of courses and subjects within a programme. Some of the results demonstrate that pupils’ choice paths can be vocation‐oriented, career‐oriented and consumption‐oriented. It is argued that these different types of choice paths are related to a market discourse. Other results demonstrate that pupils’ group‐oriented, interest‐oriented and tradition‐oriented choice paths are built upon an active citizenship discourse, which is about creating meaning in terms of seeking knowledge and establishing social relations in upper secondary education. The analysis of these two paramount discourses indicates that pupils’ integration and differentiation processes are ambiguous.     

Sexual consent in K–12 sex education: an analysis of current health education standards in the United States

In the USA, universities have recently developed policies and programmes on sexual consent education. But waiting until students enroll in higher education may be too late to begin this work. To examine the extent that K–12 health education standards promote sexual consent education, we conducted a pilot study and found that only two of eighteen states explicitly mentioned sexual consent in their health education standards. Using a small sample (n = 4 states), we then identified four themes as making implicit reference to sexual consent: communication skills, decision making, personal space and interpersonal relationships. Finally, in a robust sample (n = 18 states), we conducted a content analysis of published standards regarding these themes related to sexual consent. Our analysis suggests that sexual consent is likely not discussed in sex education at K–12 schools. We recommend the more explicit inclusion of sexual consent in health education curricula via the identified themes that already exist in most or all standards, emphasising the importance of teaching young people about the nuances of sexual consent and its communication before they become sexually active.     

Guidance and education,an analysis of young peoples’ discontinuous school pathways: the guidance-oriented approach of educational institutions

International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance - This article presents results of an investigation that explored the school pathways of young Argentine unskilled workers without a...