Multicultural education,gender and social justice: liberal feminist misgivings

This chapter argues the need to acknowledge the limitations of multiculturalism in approaching social justice in South African education, in the face of the understandable post-apartheid enthusiasm for multiculturalism. Examining policy documents and public discourse about the concept and implementation of multiculturalism as well as the concept of culture itself, the authors raises a tension between multiculturalism, on the one hand, and the frequently proclaimed policy goals of promoting a non-sexist order and of teaching critical thinking in a culture of human rights, on the other. Indeed, it is suggested that an uncritical enthrallment to multiculturalism is more likely to prejudice the education of girls by preventing a critique of oppressive practices that undermine their interests and rights. While the political liberalism that preoccupies political philosophy in the West offers little guidance on dealing with difference to countries like South Africa, the emergence of a liberal universalist feminism offers greater scope for educational intervention against oppressive practices wrongly defended in the name of multiculturalism.     

Persistent discourses in physics education: gender neutrality and the gendering of competence

In her article, Karin Due presents us with a contradiction in physics: the construction of physics as a symbolically masculine discipline alongside a simultaneous discourse of the “gender-neutrality” of the discipline. Due’s article makes an important contribution to the study of the gendering of physics practices, particularly in group dynamics, and how this serves to simultaneously reinforce the two competing discourses of physics as a masculine discipline, and the discourse of physics as a gender neutral discipline. Due also suggests that an implication of this contradiction is a limited number of available positions for girls in physics compared to those available to boys. I wish to take up this observation and discuss how available positions for boys and girls in physics are related quite closely to two other concepts discussed in Due’s article: competence and recognition.     

Reading gender: a feminist,queer approach to children's literature and children's discursive agency

Children's literature helps young people make sense of gender. However, while books offer children the imaginative ability to create their own worlds, normative gender can manifest in characters and stories. The study described in this article draws upon ‘disruptive’ storytimes with 114 preschool children, interviews with 20 parents and staff, and observations at 20 preschools. Employing a feminist, queer approach, I develop two derivative books that switch a boy-hero for a girl and vice versa. These books are read to children in educational settings. This method interrogates gendered characters and stories’ attachments to such concepts as love, acceptance, bodily agency, and adventure. Results show how children interact with these characters and stories and how they use categorisation and narrative construction to make sense of gender. I focus on the gender discourses at play and moments of childhood discursive agency. Themes include literature, doing and being, positioning, bodies, and feminist tales.     

Calling for change: A feminist approach to women in art,politics, philosophy and education

Abstract

Michel Foucault showed by his genealogical method that history is random. It comprises sites of disarray and dispersal. In those sites, Simone de Beauvoir wrote philosophy through lived experience of woman as Other in relation to man as the Absolute. Here lies a fecund site for revisionist analysis of female cultural production and its relevance to a philosophy of education. The paper works with a feminist approach to the politics of knowledge, examining textual and political strategies in the recording of history and the ‘othering’ of women through dominant cultural discourses. Infusing this discussion is a feminist politics of interrogation on cultural change for women. The paper investigates contributions of women to fields of art, politics, education and philosophy, and to the ways their contributions have been considered, received, positioned. Different approaches to feminism become apparent in the different conditions of knowledge under discussion. This leads to a final consideration of feminist challenges in context of the politics of neoliberalism as it seeks to identify a feminist potential for ‘a cleansing fire’. The interventions in this paper trace political strategies and challenges for a philosophy of education to keep the momentum of feminist histories and issues to the forefront of scholarly enquiry and political/social action.     

A (TRANS)formative approach to gender-inclusive science education

The teaching of science in K-12 schools has long been criticized as a process that propagates oppression for students who do not conform to entrenched norms of gender, sex, and sexuality. Academic standards, curriculum, and textbooks are rife with rhetoric that reinforces any deviation from cisheterosexuality as aberrant, unusual, or abnormal. However, these often-over-simplified conceptions discount the historic social and scientific intricacies of gender and sexual diversity as well as students' own lived experiences. While there have been advancements in LGBTQ+ and gender-inclusive science education reform, these movements have been stymied by a lack of cohesive guidelines for pedagogy and practice, particularly for trans, nonbinary, and gender-creative youth. Situated within trans-created conceptual frameworks for critical education, this study explored the pedagogical practices of 10 transgender science teachers with the purpose of learning from their experiences creating gender inclusive curriculum. From the data (in-depth interviews, instructional materials samples, and reflective teaching statements) emerged the TRANS (Trans and Research-informed Approaches for Nonbinary and gender-inclusive Science education) Framework for gender inclusive science education pedagogy. This framework is anchored in three domains for teaching science through a trans-informed lens:interrogating and accessing power, resisting essentialism, and embracing experiential knowledge and personal epistemologies. The findings of this study contribute to our growing understanding of gender-inclusive science learning environments. Importantly, this study amplified the experiential knowledge of teachers whose voices are critically absent from research surrounding gender and LGBTQ+-inclusive science education practice. Moreover, the framework derived from teachers' experiences can be used to guide educators in making their science classrooms safer and more gender inclusive.     

A microworld-based role-playing game development approach to engaging students in interactive,enjoyable, and effective mathematics learning

In traditional teacher-centered mathematics instruction, students might show low learning motivation owing to the lack of applied contexts. Game-based learning has been recognized as a potential approach to addressing this issue; however, without proper alignment between the gaming and math-applied contexts, the benefits of game-based learning could be limited. Therefore, this study aims to develop a microworld-based educational game, which provides simulated contexts encouraging students to explore, discover, and solve practical problems using the mathematics knowledge gained in the class. A quasi-experimental design was implemented in the learning activity of the “Speedy World” unit in an elementary school mathematics course to examine the effectiveness of the proposed approach. A total of 107 sixth graders participated in the experiment. The experimental results showed that the students who learned with the microworld-based gaming approach had better learning achievement and motivation in the mathematics course than those who learned with the conventional technology-enhanced learning approach. In addition, the students also showed that they highly accepted the microworld-based game for learning mathematics. The findings of this study provide good evidence for the importance and necessity of associating authentic applied contexts with gaming contexts in developing computer educational games for mathematics.     

Beyond Plumbing and Prevention: feminist approaches to sex education

This article offers a feminist critique of existing sex education policies and programmes in Canada, as well as examining common right‐wing arguments against more progressive approaches. Two major forces shaping adolescent girls’ developing sexuality—male sexual violence and compulsory heterosexuality—are discussed, and recent initiatives in Ontario to introduce these issues into sex education programmes evaluated. Toronto Board of Education's new policy on sexual orientation and the Ontario Ministry of Education AIDS Education Curriculum are assessed and strategies for anti‐sexist, anti‐heterosexist sex education developed.     

The International Education Index: A global approach to education policy analysis,performance and sustainable development

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the world struggled to address growing educational inequalities and fulfil the commitment to Sustainable Development Goal 4, which seeks to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. The pandemic has exacerbated these inequalities and changed how education functions, moving to online and hybrid methods. The challenges in global education highlighted and worsened by the pandemic make it necessary to re-evaluate education systems and the policies in place to support access, quality and equal opportunity. This article focuses on analysing education policies at a national level. It tests a pilot policy analysis tool, the International Education Index (IEI), developed as a starting point to begin this reconsideration and create an accessible and comprehensive way to evaluate national education systems to inform decision-making and policies in the new context. This research uses Ireland and Northern Ireland to test the IEI pilot tool. The IEI consists of 54 questions across nine indicators, including institutional frameworks, education strategies, digital skills and infrastructure, twenty-first century skills, access to basic social services, adherence to international standards, legal frameworks, data gathering and availability and international partnerships. Countries can score 108 points to be categorised as having developed, emerging or nascent national education systems. Ireland scored 94 and Northern Ireland 81, indicating that they have developed national education systems.     

Usual suspects: experience,reflection and the (en) gendering of knowledge

Much attention in adult learning theory rests on the distinction between ‘experience’ and ‘reflection’, with experience treated as the raw material for learning and reflection as a highly cognitive processing stage in which the learning actually takes place. The distinction thus valorizes emotional detachment, physical distance and rationality, thereby imposing an epistemological hierarchy that is deeply complicitous with power differentials of gender, class and race. This article locates the concept of reflection within the gendered dualisms of Western philosophy and their historically produced understandings of the relationship between experience and thought. I first examine how our notions of reflection deploy theories of knowledge and the state that took shape during the Enlightenment and, second, situate them within a politics of vision closely related to the rise of the middle class. In exploring this necessarily truncated history, I suggest that our notions of reflection internalize relationships of ruling. Some parts of the self, such as emotion and the body, are portrayed as unreliable and dangerous; reason's task is therefore both interrogatory and managerial, reproducing implicit matrices of sovereignty and control.     

Basic needs: New approach to development — But new approach to education?

The article is an examination of what has been called the basic needs approach to development and the implications of adopting such an approach for education.The authors trace briefly the sequence by which the basic needs approach reached the corridors of international development policy. This sequence, together with an analysis of some of the conceptual underpinnings of the basic needs approach, suggest that the approach may be biased toward the experience of the Western industrial nations, and some aspects may be inappropriate for the social realities found in developing countries.The authors take up the question of how education relates to the basic needs philosophy. They look at attempts to fashion a conception of education for basic needs and how such conceptions compare to the prevailing notions of basic education. Finally, the authors identify some key issues where, conceivably, education for basic needs could emerge as distinct from basic education and become consistent with the aspirations of the basic needs approach taken as a whole.

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Zusammenfassung In diesem Artikel werden der sogenannte Grundbedarfsansatz zur Entwicklung und die Implikationen seiner Übernahme auf das Bildungswesen untersucht.Die Verfasser zeigen kurz den Weg auf, auf dem der Grundbedarfsansatz in die Korridore der internationalen Entwicklungspolitik eindrang. Dieser Weg sowie eine Analyse der konzeptuellen Untermauerungen des Ansatzes deuten darauf hin, daß er vorrangig auf die in den westlichen Industriestaaten gemachten Erfahrungen ausgerichtet ist, und daß einige seiner Aspekte für die soziale Wirklichkeit in Entwicklungsländern ungeeignet sein dürften.Dann greifen die Autoren die Frage auf, wie sich das Bildungswesen zur Grundbedarfs-Philosophie verhält. Versuche, eine Konzeption der Erziehung für Grundbedürfnisse zu erarbeiten, werden besprochen und Vergleiche solcher Konzeptionen mit den bestehenden Vorstellungen von Grunderziehung angestellt. Schließlich identifizieren die Verfasser einige Schlüsselgebiete, auf denen sich möglicherweise die Erziehung für Grundbedürfnisse als unterschiedlich von der Grunderziehung erweisen und mit den Bestrebungen des Grundbedarfsansatzes als Ganzem übereinstimmen könnte.

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Résumé Les auteurs de cet article examinent ce qu'il est convenu d'appeler l'approche du développement sous l'angle des besoins essentiels ainsi que les répercussions que pourrait avoir l'adoption de cette approche sur l'éducation.Ils relatent brièvement comment l'étude des besoins essentiels en arriva, par des étapes successives, à déboucher sur la voie de la conception du développement international. Ce cheminement et l'analyse de quelques uns des fondements conceptuels de l'abord des besoins essentiels, amènent à penser que l'approche pourrait être prédisposée en faveur de l'expérience des nations industrialisées de l'Occident et que certains aspects ne sont peut-être pas appropriés aux réalités sociales des pays en développement.Les auteurs envisagent la question des relations entre l'éducation et la philosophie des besoins essentiels. Ils considèrent les tentatives d'élaboration d'une conception de l'éducation réondant aux besoins essentiels et la confrontation de cette conception avec les notions prédominantes de l'éducation de base. Enfin, ils identifient quelques points clefs où, d'une façon concevable, l'éducation répondant aux besoins essentiels pourrait se dégager de l'éducation de base, devenir distincte et compatible avec les aspirations de l'approche des besoins essentiels que l'on envisagerait alors comme un tout.

     

A posthumanist approach to environmental education in South Africa: implications for teachers,teacher development,and teacher training programs

As we enter the sixth great mass extinction event, an event that points to humanity’s exploitative attitude towards nature, posthumanist ethics offers a different way of engaging with the world, a way which has clear and extensive implications for the way environmental education is taught in South African schools. However, given the official curriculum and assessment practices currently in use in South Africa, can a posthumanist approach to environmental education actually work within the current educational framework of discrete discipline/subject areas and specializations? The paper diffractively engages with the Department of Basic Education National Curriculum Statement: Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement: Foundation Phase Grades R-3: Life Skills for South Africa (the phase where environmental education is most likely to take place), and superpositions this text with a research study on environmental education undertaken in Canada and key posthumanist notions as they relate to environmental education. The paper concludes with a section on the implications for teachers, teacher development, and teacher training programs (not solely in South Africa) of using such an approach in the teaching of environmental studies.     

A critical review on studies of relationship education in the gender equity education of Taiwan: 10 years and beyond

With discourse analyses, this paper attempts to review the research development of relationship education in Taiwan for nearly a decade after the Gender Equity Education Act was announced in 2004, including the research topics generated, the knowledge accumulated, and the results achieved. This paper focuses not only on how the power and impacts of the academic institutions evolves through the production process of knowledge from the research, but also on how the gender perspectives are placed or filled into the discourses. Tracking and reflecting on the discourses and the development of relationship education researches in Taiwan, this paper aims to examine the interwoven effects and influences that social cultures, structures, and institutional power play on the knowledge production and research development of relationship education. The trajectory of Taiwanese experience illustrates a good example for policy making and legislative initiatives in legislative procedures in regard to certain gender knowledge and subjects. It is essential to utilize and coordinate the national resources and academic institutions with further awareness for the direction and promotion of gender knowledge in order for the education and research to root, grow, and prosper.     

From degendering to (re)gendering the self: Chinese youth negotiating modern womanhood

China has seen dramatic transformations in ideals of femininity since the 1970s. This article explores what it entails for young women of the only-child generation to construct ‘modern’ womanhood within a context of multiple and conflicting gender discourses. Based on life history interviews in Beijing, the article shows that both a ‘degendering’ and ‘(re)gendering’ of the female self ensued as the participants positioned themselves simultaneously as the ‘autonomous modern female’ and the ‘dependent modern female’. It is suggested that despite some commonalities with the western middle-class neoliberal girlhood, this reflects a particular Chinese ‘dual’ approach to modernity that defies a standard/western notion of modern girlhood.     

A gifted approach to the development of a social studies unit

The authors describe an enrichment program for gifted students that focuses on a specific culture to accomplish learning in depth, research, and broad, general concepts.     

A sustainability education academic development framework (SEAD)

Academic development is one means of reorientating education within higher education (HE) to include sustainability principles. This paper identifies the requirements of academic development programmes that will provide educators with the skills to engage students in the ideas of sustainability and sustainable development. In order to determine what an ideal academic development programme for sustainability education might look like, a theoretical framework for sustainable education and academic development (SEAD framework) was constructed. This was based on an analysis of the literature in the areas of sustainability education, academic development and organisational change in HE. The aim of this paper was to present and analyse the theoretical SEAD framework against three international academic development programmes in sustainability education for HE, which utilised different approaches and delivery modes. From this analysis, it is possible to determine the elements of academic development that would most likely result in a change in educational development and delivery.