Action,Freedom, and Education: Refugees and a “New Beginning”

In the mid-2000s, large numbers of refugees from North Africa and the Middle East sought to reach Europe to escape persecution, war, and famine. Images of children, women, and men in inhumane conditions attempting to reach the mainland began to circulate worldwide. This phenomenon culminated in 2015 with the worst immigration crisis in Europe since the end of World War II. In this study, Vasco d'Agnese draws on Hannah Arendt's work to demonstrate that refugees, in embarking on their often excruciating journeys, represent the paradigm of acting, natality, and a “new beginning,” features that, for Arendt, characterize the human experience. Starting from this premise, d'Agnese presents two refugee stories and attempts to foreground their intrinsically educational nature with two aims. The first is that engaging with these stories may help transform the traditional view of refugees as vulnerable, suffering, and needy, and instead promote a view that acknowledges refugees' actions, their agency, and that does justice to the strength, determination, and resiliency they demonstrate in taking the actions they do. The second aim is to show how the renewal of natality represented by such stories serves as a foundation for a different engagement with education. If, as Arendt argues, education is first and foremost about preserving natality, the renewal of natality seen in these refugee stories is one of the best educational examples we may find. In refugee stories, the natality of education is, in a profound sense, actualized.     

Toward a Social Ontology for Science Education: Introducing Deleuze and Guattari’s assemblages

This essay’s main objective is to develop a theoretical, ontological basis for critical, social justice-oriented science education. Using Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of assemblages, rhizomes, and arborescent structures, this article challenges authoritarian institutional practices, as well as the subject of these practices, and offers a way for critical-social justice-oriented science educators and students to connect with sociopolitical contexts. Through diagramming institutional and community relationships using DG’s theory of assemblages, we envision new ontological spaces that bridge social and material entities. A conceptualization of science education through DG’s philosophy of rhizomes and assemblages allows educators to merge critical, post-foundational perspectives with questions of ontology: not just what exists, but what could exist in terms of human social organizations (governments and community groups), inorganic matter, microorganisms, and plant/animal populations.     

Toward a “thoughtful lightness”: Education in viral times

PROSPECTS - The Covid-19 pandemic has changed our way of life temporarily and perhaps forever. As such, how educators respond to the contemporary situation is not without consequence. Inspired by...     

Equity for Māori and Pasifika Students: The Objectives and Characteristics of Equity Committees in a New Zealand University

Approaches to achieving and managing equity for Māori ¹ 1. Indigenous people of Aotearoa/New Zealand. and Pasifika ² 2. Used collectively to refer to the people or students from the islands of the Pacific who have identified as coming from, or having their ethnicity originate from, there; used in Statistics New Zealand Census reports. tertiary students differ among the eight universities in Aotearoa ³ 3. Māori word for New Zealand. /New Zealand. Achieving equity in educational attainment for Māori and Pasifika tertiary students is stated as a key objective in nearly all of the universities’ mission statements or charters, and equity committees have been set up to ensure equitable outcomes. These committees are generally made up of junior academic or administrative staff members. In contrast, managing the university's equity plan is the role of those in senior academic positions within the university. This article investigates the perspectives of six equity leaders at an urban university in one of the country's largest cities on the objectives and characteristics of equity committees and the influence of the dominant paradigm in achieving equity.     

A National Investigation of Teachers’ Environmental Literacy as a Reference for Promoting Environmental Education in Taiwan

Taiwan's government enacted the Environmental Education Act in June 2011. In the beginning of the implementation of the Act, a national assessment of schoolteachers’ environmental literacy was performed in order to establish the baseline for evaluating the effectiveness of environmental education policy. This large-scale assessment involved a large sample size of in-service teachers across schools at all levels and regions in Taiwan using the stratified random sampling method. Data showed that the teachers have satisfactory levels of environmental knowledge and attitudes, but presented low degrees of environmental action. Differing from previous research results, elementary teachers performed better than high school teachers on this assessment, which may be attributed to their teacher training experiences. Results from this study may provide implications for teacher professional development programs and school environmental education policy.     

Equity and Advocacy Expectations of Culturally Diverse Families’ Participation in Special Education

The authors contend that the equity and advocacy expectations imbedded in the legal mandate for parent participation in the special education decision-making process directly contradict the hierarchy of professional status and knowledge on which the positivist paradigm of professionalism is based, and are also in conflict with the values held by many families from culturally diverse backgrounds, contributing to low levels of participation and advocacy. They argue the need for professional education to incorporate opportunities for professionals to identify the cultural assumptions imbedded in the field of special education towards more balanced and effective collaboration.     

Capturing Parents’ Individual and Institutional Interest Toward Involvement in Science Education

Parents are generally less involved in their children’s science education (as compared to reading and mathematics) due to low self-efficacy and a lack of home-school communication. This study examined parental interest and attitudes in science as well as the nature of parent-to-child questioning during an interactive home, school, and community collaboration in the southeastern United States. Study results, compiled from observations, exit surveys, and interviews revealed largely positive family interactions and attitudes about science learning and increased parental interest toward involvement in elementary science. Parents frequently used productive questioning techniques during activities. These results imply that successful home, school, and community partnerships may elevate levels of parental participation in their children’s science education and the parents’ perception of themselves as being competent in assisting in science.     

Constructing CoRes—a Strategy for Building PCK in Pre-service Science Teacher Education

This paper presents findings from an exploratory study into a science teacher education initiative that seeks to build the foundations on which novice teachers can begin developing their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). The initiative involved the use of Content Representations (CoRes), which were originally developed as part of a strategy for exploring and gaining insights into the PCK of expert science teachers. As the student teachers explored existing CoRes the course lecturer saw potential for more effectively developing their PCK through engaging them in constructing their own CoRes for new topics. When given the opportunity, student teachers found the task challenging and their lack of classroom experience and experimentation proved to be a limiting factor. However, the contribution such a task could make to their future PCK development remained a distinct possibility in the lecturer’s view. In the following year she carefully scaffolded the learning prior to CoRe construction such that the student teachers could more readily access relevant knowledge when attempting such a task. Their resultant CoRes and comments indicate that with appropriate and timely scaffolding the process of CoRe construction does have the potential for PCK development for novice teachers.     

Language and Thought——The Inspiration for Kindergarten Education

Based on the four famous theories of the relationship between language and thought,the author will endeavor to find out the nature between them and apply it to the kindergarten education in the dissertation,aiming at the concrete help to all nursery teachers.     

Museum Experience — a Resource for Science Teacher Education

In this study, the researcher included an extensive science museum experience for the pre-service secondary science teachers within a teaching methods course to enhance their learning to teach science. The extensive museum experience covered four aspects: the visit, discussion with museum educators, the development of lesson plans, and practising teaching in the science museum. Twenty-one pre-service science teachers attended this course. Qualitative methods were used for data collection and analysis. The data sources included field notes, reports, diaries, and interviews. The findings show that this course connecting museum resources and context had created a novel situation for pre-service science teachers to learn how to teach science. The discourses with the museum educators also provided them with innovations in education beyond the gains from traditional teacher education. Through developing and practising teaching activities, they improved their understanding of the meanings and effective ways to use museum resources in science teaching. Pre-service science teachers reported that getting feedback from peers and observing modeling teaching was helpful. This course provided an alternative way to view how scientific activities were developed for junior high students. In general, the use of museum settings provides a new profile of learning and teaching course for pre-service science teachers in Taiwan. Based on the findings, this study makes suggestions for those science teacher educators who would like to use science museum resources and contexts to nurture prospective science teachers.     

Toward “Good Enough Methods” for Autoethnography in a Graduate Education Course: Trying to Resist the Matrix with Another Promising Red Pill

Educational research suggests that the response biases of educators can negatively influence student performance and aptitude (Blanchett 2006 Blanchett, Wanda. 2006. “Disproportionate Representation of African American Students in Special Education: Acknowledging the Role of White Privilege and Racism.”. Educational Researcher, 35: 24–28. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Bloom 2001 Bloom, Leslie. 2001. “I'm Poor, I'm Single, I'm a Mom and Deserve Respect: Advocating Schools as and With Mothers in Poverty.”. Educational Studies, 32: 30–316.  [Google Scholar]; Darity et al. 2001 Darity, William, Castellino, Domini and Tyson, Karolyn. 2001. Report on Increasing Opportunity to Learn via Access to Rigorous Courses and Programs: One Strategy for Closing the Achievement Gap for At-risk and Ethnic Minority Students, Raleigh, NC: North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.  [Google Scholar]; Gordon 2005 Gordon, Jenny. 2005. “Inadvertent Complicity: Colorblindness in Teacher Education.”. Educational Studies, 38: 135–152. October[Taylor &; Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]; and Skiba et al. 2000 Skiba, Russell J., Robert, S. Michael, Abra, C. Nardo and Peterson, Reece. 2000. The Color of Discipline: Sources of Racial and Gender Disproportionality in School Punishment (Report #SRS1), Bloomington: Indiana Education Policy Center.  [Google Scholar]). This article introduces “good enough methods” for autoethnography as an alternative approach to this problem. Luttrell (2000 Luttrell, Wendy. 2000. “Good Enough Methods for Ethnographic Research.”. Harvard Educational Review, 70: 499–523. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 13) conceptualizes “good enough methods” researchers as those seeking to understand and appreciate difference and accept errors often made because of their blind spots and intense involvement. Evidence of this approach via autoethnography is provided here from cases of graduate student-practitioners and their Intergroup/Intercultural Education professor. Moreover, the article highlights (a) a connection of autoethnography to research in Education, (b) five key decisions of a “good enough methods” approach to autoethnography, and (c) how this approach can be applied to expose and address educator biases relating to “the matrix” (Hill-Collins 1990 Hill-Collins, Patricia. 1990. “Black Feminist Thought in the Matrix of Domination.”. In Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, 221–238. London: HarperCollins. Patricia Hill–Collins [Google Scholar]) of race, class, and gender.     

Education for global citizenship in a divided society? Young people's views and experiences

Global citizenship education has been suggested as a means of overcoming the limitations of national citizenship in an increasingly globalised world. In divided societies, global citizenship education is especially relevant and problematic as it offers the opportunity to explore identities and conflict in a wider context. This paper therefore explores young people's understandings of global citizenship in Northern Ireland, a divided society emerging from conflict. Results from focus groups with primary and post-primary pupils reflect some theoretical conceptualisations of global citizenship, including an awareness of global issues, understandings of environmental interdependence and global responsibility, though other elements appear to be less well understood. We argue that global citizenship education will fail to overcome engrained cultural divisions locally and may perpetuate cultural stereotypes globally, unless local and global controversial issues are acknowledged and issues of identity and interdependence critically examined at both levels.     

A School—University Collaborative Journey Toward Relevance and Meaning in an Urban High School Physical Education Program

The promise and potential for collaborative teams of school and university colleagues to address substantive issues in physical education were the focus of an international conference and a series of high-profile articles in the late 80s and early 90s. However, school-university partnerships have seldom focused on school reform. Few scholars address secondary school physical education, save for the occasional article describing its eminent demise. Successful implementation of innovative practices, such as curricular and instructional revisions, requires significant investments in teacher development. This paper details a specific collaborative effort in physical education that makes a case for systematic long-term commitments to improve young people's physical education experiences. Stories from a 4-year collaborative highlight the complexities and challenges faced by any subdisciplinary group that commits to connecting professional preparation and practice for the benefit of our respective constituencies.     

Education in England – a testbed for network governance?

Abstract

Since devolution in the late 1990s, education policy in England has diverged further from that in Scotland and also from policy in Wales and Northern Ireland. In this paper we review the roots and trajectory of the English education reforms over the past two decades. Our focus is the schools sector, though we also touch on adjoining reforms to early years and further and higher education. In so doing, we engage with various themes, including marketisation, institutional autonomy and accountability. Changes in governance arrangements for schools have been a defining feature of education reforms since devolution. This has been set against an evolution in national performance indicators that has put government priorities into ever sharper relief. In theorising the changes, we pay particular attention to the suggestion that the English education system now epitomises the concept of ‘network governance’, which has also been applied to education in a global context. We question the extent to which policies have in practice moved beyond the well-established mechanisms of ‘steering at a distance’ and undermined the very notion of an education system in England. We conclude by considering possible futures for education policy and how they may position England in relation to other parts of the UK and the wider world.     

Freethinkers’ Proposal for a Teaching Plan in Moral Education in Finland

Abstract

The paper which follows gives the historical and contemporary background to the present on‐going attempt of the Union of Freethinkers in Finland to gain acceptance for a new syllabus in moral education in the curriculum of Finnish schools. An outline is given of their linguistic approach to moral education which draws on many insights from thinkers and practitioners world‐wide and attempts to promote a positive identity among non‐believers. The proposal is offered as a possible model for other non‐doctrinaire teaching plans and the author would welcome any observations on its relevance and potential use in other countries of the world.     

Democratic Communities and Business/Education “Partnerships” in Secondary Education

Democratic ideals of equality, freedom, and common problem-solving help ensure that schools are governed as communities, in Dewey's sense of the term, wherein all members share in defining the purposes and processes of the group. In this paper, qualitative case study data of a business–public school partnership is examined in order to describe, analyze, and evaluate this partnership based upon democratic criteria established by Deweyan pragmatism. The analysis of the business/education partnership enables educators to better understand the potential for, and inhibitors of, the kind of genuine social growth among school and corporate partners that can serve public agendas rather than private profits.     

National Education and ‘Active Citizenship’: Implications for Citizenship and Citizenship Education in Singapore

Citizenship and values education in one form or other has existed in Singapore since it acquired self‐government in 1959. Much has been written about the different forms that this education has taken over the years. In recent years, there have been efforts at describing and analyzing aspects of National Education, which was introduced in 1997. At the same time, a number of books and papers have been written examining the concept of citizenship in Singapore, which cover the period between the late 1980s to the mid 1990s. In the last five years leading to the millennium, there have been two major sets of changes in Singapore that have had implications for the conception of citizenship and for citizenship education. The first is to do with the introduction of National Education; the second, with the notion of active citizenship. This article describes these recent changes, and discuss their implications for the concept of citizenship and for citizenship education in Singapore.     

Bangladeshi Science Teachers’ Perceived Importance and Perceived Current Practices in Promoting Science Education Through a Context-Based,Socio-scientific Framework

Science & Education - The paper reports a study that seeks to develop an instrument so as to explore Bangladeshi science teachers’ perceived importance and perceived current practices,...