When ‘research ethics’ become ‘everyday ethics’: the intersection of inquiry and practice in practitioner research

The act of engaging in sound and ethical practitioner research, regardless of context, encourages and indeed demands an alignment between the ethical framework employed in the research enterprise and the ‘everyday ethics’ of practice. This paper explores the ethical dimensions of what Cochran-Smith and Lytle have termed the dialectic of practitioner inquiry. The paper argues that the reflexive nature of the theory/practice dynamic means that, in the context of sustained practitioner inquiry, the ethics of research and the ethics of practice both hold the potential to be shaped by and to shape the other. Elsewhere in discussions of the issue of quality in practitioner and other practice-based research, Groundwater-Smith and Mockler have argued that ethical professionalism can and does work as a platform for quality, pushing practitioner inquiry ‘beyond celebration’. This paper builds on these ideas and, in exploring the intersection of inquiry and practice in practitioner research, examines the implications of issues relating to: informed consent; ‘voice’ and ownership; transparency and negotiation; confidentiality, anonymity and trust; and deliberative action in the context of both practitioner inquiry and classroom practice.     

The ‘subject of ethics’ and educational research OR Ethics or politics? Yes please!

This paper outlines a theoretical context for research into ‘the subject of ethics’ in terms of how students come to see themselves as self-reflective actors. I maintain that the ‘subject of ethics’, or ethical subjectivity, has been overlooked as a necessary aspect of creating politically transformative spaces in education. At the heart of egalitarian politics lies a fundamental tension between the equality of voices (or ways of being) and the notion that one way of being or one voice may be deemed more legitimate than another; which in turn puts the equality of beings into question. Building from Michel Foucault’s work regarding ethics and subjectivity, I suggest that a ‘subject of ethics’ can be viewed, in part, as a series of relations of self that form the horizon upon which a subject comes to work on themselves relative to moral codes and power relations. Ethical relations of self can be a useful concept for those interested in educational research that furthers social and ecological justice. In the conclusion of this paper I also discuss the limitations of locating ethics entirely within a constituted human subject.     

Ethical issues in cross-cultural research

The gap between theoretical expectations of research ethics as outlined in the bureaucratic processes associated with University Ethics Committees and the situated realities of students undertaking studies within their own sociocultural contexts is explored in this paper. In particular, the authors investigate differences in ethical norms and practices by providing ‘subaltern’ voices from the field, as three of the authors narrate their experiences during their doctoral field work that led them to challenge the validity of ethics review processes in institutions at the Centre when undertaking research at the periphery. The field work experiences produced unavoidable tensions as the students attempted to construct the hybridity required when working within transnational contexts of higher education. The paper concludes with some advice to students and advisors and members of Ethics Review Committees to encourage the destabilization of essentialist assumptions often made in Eurocentric research designs.     

Spinoza,Deep Ecology and Education Informed by a (Post)human Sensibility

Abstract

This article explores the influence of Spinozism on the deep ecology movement (DEM) and on new materialism. It questions the stance of supporters of the DEM because their ecosophies unwittingly anthropomorphise the more-than-human-world. It suggests that instead of humanising the ‘natural’ world, morality should be naturalised, that is, that the object of human expression of ethics should be the more-than-human world. Moreover, the article discusses Deleuze’s Spinozism that informs new materialism and argues that stripping the human of its ontological privilege does not deprive the human animal from its ethico-normative distinctiveness. Implications of the discussion for an education aimed at cultivating (post)human sensibilities are explored.     

高校学术道德教育现状分析——以云南省为例

高校未开展学术道德教育是当前社会学术道德水平不高的一个重要原因,这种教育上的失误,使研究人员“先天”不足。为积极推进我国高校,尤其是云南高校实施学术道德教育,提升全社会学术道德水平,需要充分认识学术道德教育的现状。     

Inclusive education and intellectual disability: a sociological engagement with Martha Nussbaum

As a result of exclusionary tactics, social, cultural or economic disadvantage or disability, vast numbers of pupils have poor educational experiences and are either marginalised or demonised due to ‘difficult differences’. In the context of Martha Nussbaum's capabilities approach, where she suggests that we ought to be who we want to be, this paper addresses intellectual disability, inclusion and inclusive education. It proposes that care, compassion, creativity and ethics are critical in understanding the education for all children and young people, rather than necessarily pedagogical process. In addition, it suggests that learning should take place within and through relationships and that these relationships are important in developing a healthy sense of self. Therefore politically, rather than following a path of blame whether it is the dysfunctional family, the deficit child or the economically deprived nation, this paper says that we require socially just practices, compassion and care as fundamental to human development, social inclusion and inclusive education. Ultimately, education is failing a large sum of children and young people and therefore needs to be radically reconsidered.     

Confronting inclusive education in Africa since Salamanca

ABSTRACT

The move towards Inclusive Education in Africa since Salamanca (1994) has been slow, despite the reduction in enrolment gaps for vulnerable children due to universal primary education in many countries. This article centres on conceptions of Inclusive Education, which have rested primarily on increasing numbers of children with disabilities and special needs in mainstream schools. The article shares some of the key challenges across countries that have limited progress towards Inclusive Education and some achievements, including local thinking towards a broader view of inclusion within a social model and attention to barriers within contexts. It looks specifically at notions of ‘inclusion’ within the African context and the focus on access for the most marginalised which remain problematic in the face of struggling economies and variants of authoritarianism replacing colonial power. Ironically, links to colonial powers are maintained with a continued reliance on international aid and support to move policy agendas forward and to support local communities. The article looks at this tension in the development of policies and practices moving forward and the tension in relation to the African struggle for freedom and ‘ubuntu’, a shared collective humanness and social ethics against oppression to maintain group cohesion.     

Faculty ethics in China: From a historical perspective

Abstract

This study examines Chinese faculty ethical philosophy from a historical perspective. Historical perspective on Chinese faculty ethical philosophy embraces three major periods, including Chinese ancient faculty ethics, Chinese modern faculty ethics and Chinese contemporary faculty ethics. Different historical perspectives offer different viewpoints on the progress of shaping faculty ethical philosophy in contemporary higher education regime. The conclusion and remarks have been drawn through retrospectively reviewing the development and evolution of Chinese faculty’s ethics.     

Educational Technology Along with the Uncritical Mass Versus Ethics

Abstract

This paper considers the ethics of educational technology in terms of whether or not selected media and methods are beneficial to the teacher and student, or whether other motives and criteria determine the selection. Communications media have proven themselves to be powerful and efficient tools, used like ‘dynamite’ for getting the most out of a ‘quarry’, but the vast scope of their applicability and flexibility may notoriously neglect the unprecedented risks to the user of current online methods – as one of the areas in which ethical issues arise. Having mentioned en passant any potential benefits of all communications media, their harmful potential is also noted, and, based on this introductory notification, ethical responsibilities of all parties involved in educational media have been examined. The authors’ main objective is to centralise the concept of the ‘uncritical mass’ representing the educationally uninformed general public whose selections of communication technologies can lead to their adoption as educational tools regardless of their educational value.     

Connected and entangled histories: writing histories of education in the Indian context

This article examines contestations and recent trend-setting approaches in the historiography of education in India in the post-1800 period. British colonialism created a huge rupture in South Asian society as regards the provision of education. Historians of education have asked what sorts of indigenous educational institutions and methods were present in pre-colonial India: in this context, the article discusses the work of historians who researched indigenous Indian village schools, key to educational transmission until the early nineteenth century. The educational work of the nationalist leader M.K. Gandhi inflected the work of such educational historians. The article devotes some attention to ways in which twentieth-century ‘new education’ reinvented aspects of pre-colonial South Asian education. Marxist, feminist, Dalit and Subaltern historians of education have analysed the differential and hierarchised spread of ‘western’ education in South Asia. Nonetheless, this article shows how the educational agency of Dalits, women, peasants and working people has been analysed by scholars. The article then examines recent scholarship which views the origins and growth of ‘western’ education in South Asia in the framework of transcultural transactions. It ends from the vantage point of connected and entangled histories of education, looking beyond the unit of the nation state.     

Disrupting metaphors of coloniality to mediate social inclusion in the global South

ABSTRACT

New voices emerging in the global South are contesting the academy’s elitist and exclusionary ethos by disrupting the normalcy of coloniality. Concerns raised by the student protests of 2015 and 2016 have challenged the higher education sector to rethink its traditional teaching, learning, and assessment practices in response to student calls for decolonised and transformative curricula. This paper explores the ‘voice’ of the marginalised, who dare to ‘speak’ in authentic and provocative ways to call the university to action. We pose the questions: are alternative voices enough to inspire institutional change if traditional hierarchies of power remain intact? What does this mean for the collective project of re-imagining a university that carries a promise of social inclusion and social justice? What are the implications for academic development (AD) work, which finds itself on the margins, in service of mainstream (and dominant) epistemic and pedagogic practices? Using reflective narratives, and drawing on decolonial scholarship, this study explores a group process involved in curriculum change work at a university in South Africa. It raises challenges for AD and its role in the current context of change.     

Ethics and engineering education

In the US, Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) recommends the study of ethics so that students acquire ‘an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility’. For the most part, teaching of the subject relies upon the use of scenarios – both hypothetical and ‘real’– and open discussion framed by the codes. These scenarios and this framing are seriously deficient – lacking in their attention to the complexities of context, almost solely focused on individual agency, while reflecting too narrow and simplistic a view of the responsibilities of the practicing engineer. A critique of several exemplary scenarios, and consideration of the demands placed upon today's professional, prompt reflection on the need for, not just a more expansive reading of the codes of ethics re what it might mean to be ‘responsible’, but a substantial reform of undergraduate engineering education across the board.     

教育政策伦理研究:教育公平问题解决的理论途径

教育公平已成为我国社会热点问题,教育公平问题产生于教育政策,要解决教育公平问题,应从教育政策入手。公平问题属伦理学范畴,对教育政策进行分析、研究理应运用伦理学的理论与方法。由于应用伦理学的迅猛发展,采用应用伦理学的研究方法对教育政策进行伦理分析研究是现实的需要;另外,教育政策本身蕴涵着伦理性(最重要的是公平性),教育政策研究也应该注重其伦理性的重要一面。只有这样,才能从理论上解决教育公平问题。     

Digital neocolonialism and massive open online courses (MOOCs): colonial pasts and neoliberal futures

ABSTRACT

Through evaluating dominant MOOC platforms created by Western universities, I argue that MOOCs on such platforms tend to embed Western-centric epistemologies and propagate this without questioning their global relevance. Consequently, such MOOCs can be detrimental when educating diverse and complex participants as they erode local and indigenous knowledge systems. Arguing that the digital divide is an exacerbation of historical inequalities, I draw parallels between colonial education, specifically across Sub-Saharan Africa, and ‘digital neocolonialism’ through Western MOOC platforms. I analyse similarities in ideology, assumptions, and methods of control. Highlighting evolving forms of coloniality, I include contemporary problems created by neoliberal techno-capitalist agendas, such as the commodification of education. Balance is needed between the opportunities offered through MOOCs and the harms they cause through overshadowing marginalised knowledges and framing disruptive technologies as the saviour. While recommending solutions for inclusion of marginalised voices, further problems such as adverse incorporation are raised.     

From ‘Closing the Gap’ to an Ethics of Affirmation. Reconceptualising the Role of Early Childhood Services in Times of Uncertainty

In this article, I offer a critical enquiry into the landscape of European and international policy approaches and strategies towards young children, their families and communities in a rapidly changing global context. Early childhood has attracted unprecedented attention among policy makers and international bodies in the last two decades. The apparent consensus about the ‘need to increase participation in early childhood education and care’ has been framed mainly by a ‘human capital’ discourse that promises high returns on investment in early intervention, and social cohesion through increased educational achievement. While members of the early childhood research and practice community have welcomed (or actively contributed to) this argument in order to raise visibility and support, questions arise whether policies and practices grounded in this logic are appropriate and make a difference in the lives of children and families, especially those from marginalised backgrounds. Drawing on experiences from recent European and international research projects, this article argues that early childhood policies that aim at ‘closing the gap’ between children from marginalised and dominant groups in society are grounded in a logic of integration and assimilation into an assumed normality that no longer exists. Instead, marginalisation, hyper-diversity, inequality and fragmentation have become the defining feature of all societies. Against this background, the article explores possibilities and strategies for developing ‘competent systems’ for all children, families and communities that are based on democratic practices, recognition and affirmation.     

Integrative ethical education: Narvaez’s project and Xunzi’s insight

In the early 2000s, some scholars suggested integrative ethical education as an approach to reconcile the gap between cognitive-development education, based on rule ethics, and traditional character-ethics education, inspired by character ethics in Western ethical education. Darcia Narvaez also tried to establish a comprehensive and systematic model. Nonetheless, she has indicated four questions that need further research. This paper aims to respond to Narvaez’s project and its questions from the angle of Xunzi’s ritual education. It argues that Xunzi’s thought may provide some insights for Narvaez’s approach. To present this, it begins its discussion with an introduction of the main ideas of Xunzi’s thought. Later, it tries to show the insights from certain notions and elements, such as Junzi, reasoned judgment, of Xunzi’s ritual education for Narvaez’s project of integrative ethical education. Some relevant questions are also discussed.     

Towards an understanding of the place of ethics in school-based action research in the United Kingdom

As school-based action research has taken a higher profile in UK schools, the place of ethics warrants particular attention. This paper draws on evidence from a taught online Master of Education course collated via chat room discussion where 53 researching teachers were asked to explore policy within their own institution regarding school-based action research ethics. None of these teachers identified the existence of any such policies but described instead current practices. We analysed their reported school-based action research practices and discovered three major categories of response: the unexamined use of gatekeepers; the unsupported use of existing ethics guidelines (such as those of the British Educational Research Association); and the conflation of legal and ethical demands by schools. We raise questions relating to the relationship between ethics and education and call for all those involved in school-based action research to take part in developing action research ethical policy in school.     

科学共同体的伦理之维

“科学共同体”是“共同体”的一种特殊形式,它既具有“共同体”的一般特点,又具有自身的特殊性。在当今科技异化的现实背景下,科学共同体已日益与伦理相联系,具有伦理的特性和功能。从伦理学的视角来看,科学共同体是一种伦理实体,其伦理性的品质特征是伦理精神,它既包括又超越于作为其成员的科学家个体的道德精神,实现了“单一物与普遍物的统一”,即个体与共体的统一。坚持科学共同体的伦理性对解决当前的科技异化问题具有关键性意义。     

How engineers perceive the importance of ethics in Finland

Success in complex and holistic engineering practices requires more than problem-solving abilities and technical competencies. Engineering education must offer proficient technical competences and also train engineers to think and act ethically. A technical ‘engineering-like’ focus and demand have made educators and students overlook the importance of ethical awareness and transversal competences. Using two Finnish surveys, conducted in 2014 and 2016, we examine how engineers perceive working life needs regarding ethics. The data consider different age groups. We research whether an engineer’s age affects their perception of the importance of ethics in their work and if there are differences between young experts and young managers in their use of ethics within work. The results indicate that practising engineers do not consider ethical issues important in their work. This especially applies to younger engineers; the older an engineer, the more important they consider ethics. No statistically significant difference was found between young engineering experts and managers.     

Inclusive Education in India: International concept,national interpretation

This article examines education of children belonging to marginalised groups, with particular reference to children with disabilities, within the Indian context. Based on an analysis of post‐independence Government documents, various educational provisions made available for children with disabilities are discussed. It explores the Indian Government’s focus on the development of special schools, its efforts towards integration, and the more recent emphasis on inclusive education. Furthermore, it attempts to elucidate “inclusive education” as understood in various official documents. The article concludes by arguing for a need to develop a contextual understanding of inclusive education that is reflective of current educational concerns in India.