Expert Witnesses: Voices Of Significance

Michael Fullan in 1991 made the comment that little was known about how students viewed educational change, as no one had thought to ask them. There is a small but growing literature seeking the views of students on a range of issues associated with schooling. This paper reports the findings of a study of students’ perceptions of top–down educational change, involving school amalgamations, closures and creation of middle schools. The policy process was purportedly to involve consultation with students. The study interviewed students to explore the nature and extent of their participation in the policy enactment and their views about the changes. Several meta level themes emerged from the students’ ‘voices,’ including issues associated with disempowerment, and competing social justice and economic discourses. The findings foreground the often messy and contradictory tensions evident in policy processes. The study found that despite the policy intent to include students, they continued to be the ‘objects’ of policy initiatives, submerged in what Freire labelled a ‘culture of silence.’ It was the macro level policy elite who exerted the most influence, using their power, privilege and status to propagate particular versions of schooling. The paper concludes that students are deeply impacted by educational change and they want to participate in restructuring agendas. Therefore policy makers at all levels need to make spaces for the active engagement of students in policy processes.     

Re-thinking support: the hidden school-to-work challenges for individuals with special needs

This paper examines the hidden challenges experienced by individuals with special needs during the transition years between school and work. An assessment framework is proposed that covers domains of difficulties, developmental tasks during the transition years, the matrix of support within the home-community-institutions ecosystems, and the individual’s personal profile of schooling experience, academic attainments, interests, aptitudes and sense of self-determination. The paper ends with a model for intervention addressing self-efficacy and the social cognitive environment of the individual.     

Korean Immigrant Mothers’ Perspectives: The Meanings of a Korean Heritage Language School for Their Children’s American Early Schooling Experiences

This study examines what a Korean heritage language school means to Korean immigrant families and their children, considering Korean immigrant mothers’ perspectives on American early schooling. As part of an ethnographic research project on Korean-American children’s peer culture in a heritage school, seven mothers, two guardians (grandmothers), and their young children were observed and interviewed during one academic year. The analysis showed that the heritage language school functions as a social and emotional support system, a buffer for reducing the detachment from parents, and a safety net for the Korean-American children’s challenging lives. The Korean immigrant mothers also showed that they felt burdened by different cultural views of their children’s behaviors, and described how their children were often considered problematic. The social and culture barriers caused by their immigrant status profoundly influenced their reasons for sending their children to a Korean heritage language school. This study suggests that teachers’ deep understanding of culturally different perspectives on children’s behaviors, along with systematic social and emotional support, can help these children attain psychological well-being.     

Teenage technological experts’ views of schooling

Utilising Pierre Bourdieu’s formula for studying social practice, this study explored the construction of technological expertise amongst a heterogenous group of New Zealand teenagers. The qualitative study employed observations and interviews with five boys and three girls aged 13–17, who considered themselves to be technological experts; their peers and/or their family also considered them to be technological experts. For seven of the eight participants, their primary site of leisure was their home computer use. This article gives some examples about how the participants’ understand schooling and its relevance to them. It engages with ideas concerning the performance of school, and argues that the participants’ practice in this field of home computer use for leisure tends to be misrecognised. The article concludes by discussing the implications this misrecognition has for the structures of formal schooling.     

Examining the Effects of High School Contexts on Postsecondary Enrollment

The present study is organized around the central hypothesis that the high school context affects students’ postsecondary outcomes. Drawing on a nationally representative sample of high school seniors from the Educational Longitudinal Survey (ELS:2002), this study broadens our empirical understanding of how students’ acquisition of human, social, and cultural capital at the individual and school level affects 2- and 4-year college attendance. Results highlight the normative role of high schools in promoting college enrollment, particularly the role of socioeconomics, academic preparation, and access to parent, peer, and college-linking networks. This study advances our understanding of the secondary-postsecondary nexus and has implications for policies and practices aimed at realizing the current administration’s promise of providing greater access to postsecondary education for all students.     

Social order perspective on raising student achievement

Despite significant and sustained gains recorded on the national secondary school leaving examinations between 1999–2004, South Africa’s large-scale secondary school reform has receive little international attention. Defenders of the reforms have argued that the ‘success’ in raising student achievement extended beyond gains in the percentage pass rates to include increased numbers of students completing secondary schooling, a growth in the number of students eligible for admissions to university and a decline in the number of ‘collapsed’ secondary schools in disadvantaged communities. Using a comprehensive dataset that includes national examination results for all candidates between 1996 and 2004, survey information from a group of ‘collapsed’ secondary schools located in disadvantaged communities, qualitative data from school ethnographies, as well as official and unofficial documentary sources, the paper locates student achievement within a framework of structural change in the post-apartheid social order. It shows how student achievement is embedded in complex shifts in the state, economy and civil society. Specifically, the paper examines how structural shifts are enacted at the levels of time-in-school, student expectations, school choice and student selectivity.

The role of ritual in preschool settings

Ritual is a fact of school life and is enacted by teachers in their everyday classroom activities. This paper explores the various forms of ritual as they are played out in preschool settings. A key finding is that rituals have both variant and invariant qualities. The invariant order of ritual provides the stable framework that has become part of the school system, whereas rituals with high levels of variance are responsible for a more personalized and flexible approach to teaching. Classroom rituals have the potential to act as a tool through which teachers structure a particular form of practice that carries a rational pedagogical purpose for teachers. In this study preschool denotes the noncompulsory year of schooling immediately before children enter formal schooling. Children in this setting turn 5 years of age between January and December. Formal schooling in Western Australia begins in the year the child turns 6 years of age (January to December). The Montessori Pre-School catered to children from 3–5 years in keeping with the founder’s philosophy of mixed age groups.     

Changing school loyalties and the middle class: A reflection on the developing fate of state comprehensive high schooling

Of all Australian secondary schools in the current period, the government comprehensive high school is in most difficulty. This article looks at the developing fate of this school in terms of middle class social practice in relation to changing schooling loyalties. The recent work of Michael Pusey, Stephen Ball, Janet McCalman, Richard Teese and Judith Brett on the middle class is reviewed to give the discussion an historical and contemporary sociological context. The main idea addressed is that the middle class is being ‘forced’ to leave public schools. Government policy on state aid since the (1960s is interpreted as encouraging the departure of the middle class from public schooling, though not evenly in all regions or different kinds of government school. The article analyses census data for New South Wales from (1976 to 2001, using the categories of family income, fathers’ occupation and labour force status as quantifiable indicators of changing school loyalties in the middle class. The article concludes that state comprehensive high schools face a difficult future. Increasingly these schools are seen as schools of ‘last resort’, or schools to which students are sent where active choices are not possible, or are not made by apparently neglectful parents. This occurs in a period in which ‘good citizenship’ is defined less in terms of responsibility to the welfare of broad collectivities in society, but in the informed strategic pursuit of private interest.     

The curriculum as a tool for inclusive participation: Students’ voices in a case study in a Portuguese multicultural school

Portuguese schools in urban areas became multicultural during the 90s. Some students are quite distanced from the school culture. Many repeat grades. The curriculum emerges as a means of (re)organizing school practice, so that it is designed to foster inclusion. It is a tool for social mediation between the culture and knowledge of teenagers, and academic ones. It shapes the interactions between participants, cultural tools and knowledge. The principles of inclusive schooling promote the respect for diversity, underlining the need to listen to all voices of a learning community. According to the sociocultural approach appropriating knowledge and developing competencies is a complex process. Interactive practices shape students’ academic performances. Collaborative project work has been used to promote students’ engagement. This action-research project developed an alternative curriculum in a class (grades 5 and 6) from a poor and multicultural school in Lisbon. A follow-up investigated the impact of the educational changes on the learners’ participation in school and in social practices, and on their future life. We aim at analyzing this alternative curriculum process by focussing on students’ narratives. Results highlight improvements in students’ academic and social competencies. Changing practices during compulsory education facilitated achievement and resulted in a better socialization.     

Looking at School from the House Window: Learning from Turkish-American Parents’ Experiences with Early Elementary Education in the United States

This retrospective study is an in-depth investigation of the perspectives of Turkish immigrant parents on their children’s early schooling in the United States (PreK-3). It specifically explores how these parents connect with or are disconnected from school culture, and how their socio-cultural understanding of education and teachers influence their relationships with schools. Using a qualitative research design, data were collected through in-depth interviews with 18 parents from 10 families. Findings suggest that Turkish parents negotiated the ways curriculum and instruction is constructed in American schools—such as their assumptions about the lack of academic rigor—while they also embraced sound pedagogies the teachers practiced. Through their experiences with schooling in the United States, Turkish parents reconsidered their sociocultural perspectives on the role of the teacher in their children’s lives based on their experiences with their children’s teachers. The parents also reported their challenges in understanding school culture and curriculum, and described how they negotiated their access to the school culture. The results indicate the need for a stronger partnership between home and school. Teachers could support parents in their struggle to access to the culture of schooling by establishing an eagerness for communication and a reciprocal personal connection with families, who already socioculturally assume the teacher’s role as part of family.     

Troubling the proletarianization of Mexican immigrant students in an era of neoliberal immigration

In response to Richardson Bruna’s “Mexican immigrant transnational social capital and class transformation: examining the role of peer mediation in insurgent science”, this paper draws on the author’s research on organizing, mobilization and knowledge production among adult im/migrant workers in Canada. While appreciative of the content and concerns of Richardson Bruna’s argument, the paper argues for a clearer position on tensions between agency and structure, and class and capitalist social relations in which to contextualize the schooling of immigrant children in today’s US classrooms. In addition, it explores some implications of Mignolo’s (2000) work on the geohistory of knowledge, notably his concept of ‘border thinking’ for teachers, teacher education, and curricula. Finally, the article suggests the potential of methodological frameworks and approaches of institutional ethnography (Smith 1987), political activist ethnography (Frampton et al. 2006) and global ethnography (Burawoy 2000) to inform research into this field.     

Pedagogy for Equity: Teaching in a Hispanic-Serving Institution

Three female tenure-track faculty members at a Hispanic-Serving Institution explored how their cultural backgrounds inform their pedagogical approaches toward equity. They drew upon Mills’s (1959) and Collins’s (1993) frameworks to examine how their personal biographies, local social contexts, and broader systemic institutions affect their teaching processes for diverse students. These teaching processes include limiting assumptions about students, encouraging students to consider their own personal biographies in relation to the social world, welcoming students’ multiple modes of expression, serving as role models, and challenging inequities in schooling. They conclude with recommendations for enhancing inclusivity in student learning and faculty development.     

Children talk about learning to draw

This study investigates four- to six-year-old children’s conceptions of learning, by applying the lexicometric method to their oral responses to questions about their learning of drawing, in an individual interview at school. Interviews were videotaped and fully transcribed. Subjects were 26 children from a middle-class background attending public schools in Argentina (in a four-year-old class, a five-year-old class and first grade in elementary school). Differences among groups are described on the basis of correspondence analysis and modal response procedures. Such differences are then systematised into several interrelated dimensions regarding changes in children’s conceptions of learning to draw, namely: learning agency as the internalisation of social mediation, nature of both learner’s and teacher’s actions and mental states, learning goals and temporal frame of reference. Thus, three main conceptions are identified: external agency, external/internal agency and internal agency conceptions, which are associated to the three different school grade groups studied.     

Legislation and Equality in Basic Education for All in China

In China, legislation exists which requires compulsory schooling for all students of school age. This article examines the functions of and the constraints on using law to institutionalize equality in basic education. It argues that, in China, law is a last resort, holding governments of various levels accountable. Law can be a device of social justice to promote equity in education by serving as an important mechanism to check and balance the state’s power regarding its obligations toward instituting basic education, redistributing public resources, reducing disparities, and promoting equality in compulsory schooling. However, the use of legislation to promote equity in basic education is constrained by economic conditions and other extra-legal factors. This article concludes by offering an explanation of the functions of and constraints on law in the quest for equality in basic education, as well as the implications of China’s experience for understanding law and change.     

Navigating a treacherous game: conceptualising parental engagement in contemporary Queensland schooling

Parent engagement in schooling has long been held as a vital component of the successful navigation of the schooling process and, consequently, governments often invite such engagement via policy implementation. However, at times, contestation arises about parent engagement, with some parents seemingly ‘crossing the line’ when attempting to be involved in their children's schooling. This paper investigates the possibility of parent engagement in schooling in Queensland, Australia, conceptualising it as a game of social and systemic practice. The author examines this notion using an example of contestation between parents at a regional government school and the education authority. Policy directives about parent engagement are explored, with the rhetoric of such policy applied to the example in question. The work of Bourdieu and Foucault is used to argue that the invitation to parents to engage is framed and thus often misrecognised, resulting in unintended conflictual relationships between parents and governing authorities.     

Affective Assessment and Mathematics Classroom Engagement: A Case Study

This paper reports a case study of one student’s pattern of engagement in an eighth-grade algebra class. The student, Bryan, was a participant in a yearlong study of mathematical communication in middle school classrooms. His case is interesting both because of the striking differences between his being engaged and disengaged in classroom work, and because of the reasons he gives for his pattern of engagement. Several current theories of engagement and motivation are discussed as we attempt to gain insight into his actions and explanations. All are successful in describing parts of Bryan’s behavior. However, we argue both empirically and theoretically that none serve to characterize what we feel is the core of Bryan’s decision about engagement: his affective assessment of mathematics. We provide an analysis based on Rychlak’s (1988, 1994)Logical Learning Theory to give insights into Bryan’s assessment of mathematics, and discuss what this approach adds to our understanding of this particular case. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Parent decision-making when selecting schools: The case of Nepal

This paper analyzes the parent decision-making processes underlying school selection in Nepal. The analysis is based on primary survey and focus group data collected from parent meetings in diverse local education markets in two districts of Nepal in 2011. It highlights three main arguments that are less frequently discussed in the context of school choice, including in developing countries. First, children who go to public schools play a significant role in their own decision-making on schooling; this complicates the currently predominant conceptualization that schooling decisions are primarily made by parents and school officials. Second, the gradual growth in private schools has led to significant sorting of students and created a stigma around public education. Finally, in contexts such as Nepal, that suffer from political conflict, and poor conditions for law and order, a school’s proximity to their home becomes a greater priority for students and families.     

Europ?isches Bewusstsein: Zur Definition Eines Vielschichtigen Begriffes und Seiner Bildungstheoretischen Bedeutung

EUROPEAN CONSCIOUSNESS: TOWARDS DEFINING A COMPLEX CONCEPT AND ITS EDUCATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE – The present study aims at a definition of ‘European consciousness’. In particular, it draws on Henri Tajfel’s theory of social identity as well as Roland Wakenhut’s and Jutta Gallenmüller’s moral determination of national consciousness. European consciousness is then defined as a sense of belonging which, depending on certain identification structures and social perspectives, can take such distinct forms of moral consciousness as ‘Eurocentrism’, ‘European patriotism’, or ‘reflective European consciousness’. Making reference to Wolfgang Klafki’s notion of general education, it is finally argued that the emancipatory contribution of schooling to greater European integration consists in mediating precisely this last way of thinking.     

Individuals and Leadership in an Australian Secondary Science Department: A Qualitative Study

In this article, we consider the complex and dynamic inter-relationships between individual science teachers, the social space of their work and their dispositions towards teacher leadership. Research into the representation of school science departments through individual science teachers is scarce. We explore the representations of four individual teachers to the assertions of teacher leadership proposed by Silva et al. (Teach Coll Rec, 102(4):779–804, 2000). These representations, expressed during regular science department meetings, occur in the social space of Bourdieu’s “field” and are a reflection of the “game” of science education being played within the department. This departmentally centred space suggests an important implication when considering the relationship between subject departments and their schools. The development of an individual’s representation of teacher leadership and the wider “field” of science education appears to shape the individual towards promoting their own sense of identity as a teacher of science, rather than as a teacher within a school. Our work suggests that for these individuals, the important “game” is science education, not school improvement. Consequently, the subject department may be a missing link between efforts to improve schools and current organizational practices.     

Cultural Misperceptions and Goals for Samoan Children’s Education in Hawai’i: Voices from School, Home, and Community

Research lauds the benefits of parent involvement in the schools, yet many schools and communities have not achieved desired levels of involvement. Underlying expectations and methods soliciting parent involvement may be rooted in cultural misperceptions. This study, based on Epstein’s (1987) Overlapping Spheres of Influence model, explored the ways and extent that community members, school staff, and Samoan families interact regarding a public middle school. Qualitative research methods (interviews and observations) involved parents, teachers, administrators, and community agency members and officials in participatory action research. Findings displayed a base of cultural differences regarding parent involvement: Samoan parents were expected to participate in school events and assist children with homework, yet Samoan culture has historically divided the parents’ responsibilities from the teachers’ responsibilities. Parents identified their responsibilities for children’s spirituality and discipline and viewed academic matters as solely the responsibility of teachers. The school’s new activities, parents’ shifting focus, and community members’ diverse actions are demonstrating a start of change. This research supports the need for school personnel to understand the cultural roots of minority families’ parent involvement practices. Marianna F. Valdez is a Ph.D. Candidate in Community and Cultural Psychology. She completed her M.A. degree at the University of Hawaii and B.A. degree at Tulane University. Her research interests involve the development, implementation, and evaluation of culturally appropriate community programs, especially related to the public school setting. She is most interested in understanding and representing emic perspectives to drive action research, informed by culturalist approaches and mixed methods. Peter W. Dowrick is Professor of Disability Studies and affiliate graduate faculty in Psychology at the University of Hawaii. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Auckland, ATCL at Trinity College London, M.Sc. at the University of Auckland, and B.Sc. at the Victoria University of Wellington. He has wide experience working with people marginalized by culture, disability, mental health, and other considerations. His consultation on prevention and intervention extends to 31 states and 21 countries. His overarching contribution has been in the concepts of feedforward and creating futures, applied in situations of personal safety, serious mental illness, social behavior, sports and recreation, daily living, literacy, academic skills, health, housing, management, and jobs, among others. Ashley E. Maynard is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Hawaii. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of California, Los Angeles, M.A. at the University of California, Los Angeles, and B.A. at the University of Virginia. She studies the interrelationships of culture, contexts of child development, and healthy cognitive and social development of children. Based on a socio-cultural paradigm, the theoretical question that lies at the heart of her research program is the ways in which a variety of culturally based activity settings influence adaptive pathways of development for children and families. She teaches courses in Developmental Psychology and Culture and Human Development.