Qualitative Methoden der Bildinterpretation

Zusammenfassung Die erheblichen Fortschritte der qualitativen Methoden in den vergangenen zwanzig Jahren sind eng mit dem „linguistic turn“ verbunden. Dessen Konsequenzen ebenso wie die für die empirische Sozialforschung ganz allgemein gültige Pr?misse, dass Protokolls?tze, also Texte, die nicht mehr hintergehbaren Grunddaten der (sozial-)wissenschaftlichen Analyse darstellen, haben zu einer Dominanz textinterpretativer Verfahren und zu einer ‘Textfixierung’ qualitativer Methodologien geführt. Insbesondere — und dies ist gerade für die Erziehungswissenschaft besonders folgenschwer — wurde in der qualitativen Forschung nicht unterschieden zwischen einer (textf?rmigen) Verst?ndigung über das Bild und einer (textunabh?ngigen) Verst?ndigung durch das Bild, d.h. im Medium des Bildes. Den methodischen Zugang zur letzteren Ebene, derjenigen einer vorbegrifflichen oder ‘atheoretischen’ Verst?ndigung im Medium des Bildes, haben in den 1920er-Jahren bereits Erwin Panofsky mit seiner Ikonologie und sein Zeitgenosse Karl Mannheim mit der dokumentarischen Methode er?ffnet. Zwischen diesen Methodologien und denjenigen der Semiotik zeigen sich wesentliche Korrespondenzen. Aus der Einsicht, dass die lkonizit?t in ihrer Eigenlogik der Sprache nicht in ad?quater Weise zug?nglich ist, l?sst sich mit Bezug auf die genannten Autoren sowie u.a. Barthes, Foucault und Imdahl die methodologische Konsequenz ziehen, dass wir unsere Konnotationen, unser sprachvermitteltes ikonographisches Vorwissen, soweit wie m?glich ‘einklammern’, also suspendieren müssen, wenn wir der Eigenart des Bildes gerecht werden wollen. Dabei führt der methodische Weg zur Rekonstruktion der Eigensinnigkeit des Bildes über dessen Formalstruktur — insbesondere über die planimetrische Struktur.

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Summary Qualitative methods of interpreting pictures The considerable progress in qualitative methods during the last twenty years is essentially connected with the „linguistic turn“. Its consequences as well as the presumption that textual records are the basic data of all scientific research are responsible for the predominance of methods of text-interpretation and for the particular ‘fixation’ on texts in qualitative methodologies. Especially, there is a lack of differentiation between a communication about pictures and a communication through pictures, i.e. a text-independent understanding via the medium of pictures. The methodical access to a pre-conceptual or ‘atheoretic’ understanding was opened up by Erwin Panofsky in the 1920s with his iconology and by his contemporary Karl Mannheim with his documentary method. Important correspondences between these methodologies and those in the field of semiotics can be demonstrated. From the insight that the iconic character in its obstinacy is not accessible to language in an adequate way, we can — with reference to the mentioned authors as well as to Barthes, Foucault and Imdahl — draw the conclusion that to approach the peculiarities of a picture means to suspend our connotations of language-mediated iconographic (pre-)knowledge as far as possible, to put them „in brackets“. Methodologically, the iconic character can only be reconstructed by describing the formal, especially the planimetric, structure of a picture.

     

New Teachers, High-Stakes Diversity, and the Performance-Based Conundrum

This article explores the impact of high-stakes gate-keeping assessments (of both K-12 students and new teachers) on teacher development of equitable teaching practices. Drawing from two studies of field experiences in Washington State—one of teacher interns and one of cooperating teachers—findings include that state level policies in response to NCLB may actually be decreasing teacher attention to closing the achievement gap. Further, the article explores how even progressive performance-based standards—when administered “globalistically”—are generally ineffective. After discussing university complicity in exacerbating the problem, the paper concludes with ways policymakers may shift their attention from creating complicated rubrics to promoting relationships that support pedagogical change.Jason Margolis is an Assistant Professor in Teacher Education and Professional Development Partnerships, Washington State University.     

Silents Please

Conclusions It is quite evident that the auditory aspects of the film used in the study superseded the visual ones. Since both sensory modalities can reinforce each other in many films, those films can be used to educational advantage. Behavioral science films, however—placing most importance not on the habit of looking, but on the power to observe with care—should be produced and selected with caution. Such films should present only material that is visually and auditorily congruent. Lacking this congruency, the films may teach what is said, not what is seen, a procedure that defeats the very purpose of the film. This kind of film teaching may further authoritarianism and armchair “philosophy, ” and may weaken the habit of accurate observation, essential both to scientific methodology and to successful everyday living. It is difficult to compare the results of this study directly with the results of other studies, since—as Allen has pointed out (1)—there is a dearth of experimental research involving “flat” pictures. Hartman, however, recently commenting on the interference and facilitation between pictorial and verbal channels, pointed out that it is dangerous to assume a mutual strengthening (3). Results of the experiment reported here suggest again that the viewer when presented “equivocal” material gives precedence to audition. By thus accepting and remembering only the narrator’s point of view, he may narrow his own judgment and inquisitiveness. In such cases, silents please!     

The contribution of epistemology to curriculum construction in the sciences

Summary The paper focuses upon curriculum planning in the scientific disciplines at university level, although it is claimed the argument may be of wider applicability. Drawing upon the writings of philosophers of education from several decades ago (notably Schwab and Scheffler) whose work is too often overlooked in contemporary debates about the curriculum, and using illustrative examples from the author’s own experience, it is argued that too often the focus of science curriculum planning is the “rhetoric of conclusions” or the “substantive structure” — the current state of knowledge at the forefront of the respective disciplines — to the neglect of what Schwab called the “syntactical structure” of the sciences (which roughly approximates their epistemology). This aspect of these disciplines is essential for the general student trying to become familiar with the nature of science as a broad field of knowledge, for prospective teachers, and — contra Scheffler’s view — for students who aim at careers as researchers.

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Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag der Epistemologie zur Curriuculumkonstruktion in den Naturwissenschaften Der Aufsatz fokussiert auf die Curriculumplanung für den naturwissenschaftlichen Unterricht in der universit?ren Lehrerausbildung, wenngleich behauptet wird, dass dieses Argument weitreichendere Anwendbarkeit besitzt. Der Text knüpft an erziehungswissenschaftlichen Schriften (insbesondere von Schwab und Scheffler) an, deren Ver?ffentlichung zwar einige Dekaden zurückliegt, deren Beitrag in den aktuellen Debatten aber oft übersehen wird. Darüber hinaus werden einige illustrative Beispiele aus dem Erfahrungsschatz des Autors genutzt, um zu zeigen, dass der Fokus der Curriculumplanung für die Naturwissenschaften — dem augenblicklichen Wissensstand der zu berücksichtigenden Disziplinen zufolge — zu oft in einer „Rhetorik der Schlussfolgerung“ oder „substantivischen Struktur“ besteht, was dazu führt, dass das, was Schwab die „syntaktische Struktur“ der Naturwissenschaften nennt (und ihrer Epistemologie ziemlich nahe kommt), vernachl?ssigt wird. Dieser Aspekt jener Disziplinen ist besonders wichtig für Studierende, die allgemeinbildend vertraut werden m?chten mit den Naturwissenschaften, für angehende Lehrer und — entgegen Schefflers Ansicht — für Studenten, die eine Karriere als Forscher anstreben.

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“When walking in quicksand country, carry a stout pole — it will help you get out should you need to. As soon as you start to sink, lay the pole on the surface of the quicksand. Flop onto your back on top of the pole. Work the pole to a new position: under your hips and at right angles to your spine. Take the shortest route to firmer ground, moving slowly.” Piven/Borgenicht 1999, p. 18

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This paper was presented at the conference Silence Between the Disciplines, Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, Berlin, October 2002.     

Towards a research training curriculum: What, Why, How, Who?

Our purpose in this paper is to investigate the ways in which the work of research higher degree supervision is being reshaped from within and outside universities. Our interest is in the means by which new ‘content’ and ‘process’ knowledge — and thus a new set of pedagogical tasks and relationships — are being configured in the field of higher degree research. The outcomes of research training have traditionally been products of a one-on-one supervisory relationship, that is, academic apprentice-to-disciplinary mentor. This is especially the case in the fields of arts/humanities. Any ‘curriculum’ necessary to such a model has been both implicit and at the discretion of the disciplinary ‘master’.     

Snippets of physics

The gravitational field of a massive, spherical, body like the Sun is described in general relativity by a solution to Einstein’s equations called the Schwarzschild soution. Here is an elementary persepective on this solution, which — though far from a rigourous derivation — raises intriguing questions. T Padmanabhan works at IUCAA, Pune and is interested in all areas of theoretical physics, especially those which have something to do with gravity. This is based on an article originally published by the author in Physics Education, Vol. 23, No.1, p.47, 2006.     

Interprofessional Activity in the ��Space of Reasons��: Thinking, Communicating and Acting

The paper analyses a form of interprofessional working and learning (IPWL)—the fleeting spatial and temporal constitution of project teams with little prior history of working together—that is an increasing feature of work in the global economy. The paper argues firstly: (i) this form of working and learning is relatively under-researched in professional, vocational and workplace learning (PVWL); and, (ii) the research traditions—Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and Cultural Anthropology/Symbolic Interactionist (CA/SI)—that some researchers in PVWL have drawn on to investigate IPWL do not allow them to capture the cognitive and symbolic complexity of this activity. Secondly, it is possible to reveal the nature of this complexity when the concepts and methods associated with CHAT and CA-SI-based approaches are supplemented with the concepts of ‘inference’, ‘space of reasons’, ‘restructuring and ‘recontextualisation’ (Guile, 2010). The paper demonstrates this claim by reinterpreting a classic study of the aforementioned form of working and learning undertaken by Hall, Stevens and Torolba that drew on concepts and methods from CA and SI (2002).     

How children learn to read and why they fail

The present article considers the contrast between conceptions of reading as a natural and as an unnatural act, relying on the simple view of reading as a theoretical framework (Gough and Tunmer 1986). According to the simple view, reading comprehension is a product of both listening comprehension and decoding. Here it is argued that the comprehension aspect of reading depends on those same—natural—forces that govern acquisition of spoken language, whereas decoding depends on explicit tutelage, with little evidence that children will induce the cipher from simple exposure to written words and their pronunciations (sight-word instruction). Rejecting both sight-word and phonics instruction as inadequate in and of themselves, evidence is reviewed suggesting that successful readers require explicit awareness of the phonological structure of spoken words, which can and should be taught in kindergarten, prior to formal reading instruction. Beyond this point, reading success depends on a modicum of phonics instruction together with extensive practice with reading itself.     

Secondary school students’ perceptions of, and the factors influencing their decision-making in relation to, VET in schools

This paper addresses the issue of Vocational Education and Training in Schools — an issue that has recently attracted significant political attention particularly in light of current national skills shortage in Australia. Specifically, it investigates secondary school students’ perceptions of VET in Schools [VETiS]. It also explores the factors influencing their decision-making in relation to VETiS — that is, why one might choose, or choose not, to enrol in a VETiS course of study. In view of the findings presented, the paper argues that VET, and more particularly VETiS, is experiencing an “image problem” — one underscored by the need for curriculum design and delivery reform — and suggests that there is much work still to be done on the VET agenda.     

The Interplay between Habitus,Social Variables and Occupational Preferences

European researchers have recently introduced Bourdieu’s habitus theory and research methods into the research field of career development. The advantage of Bourdieu’s theory is to overcome the theoretical problems that in this field have resulted from overemphasis on individual aspects of career development at the expense of social aspects. The habitus concept allows for the dichotomy between the individual and the social dimensions to be overcome. The research reported here looks at the interplay between habitus, social variables and career preferences but in a younger age group than has previously been studied. It also wonders whether habitus groups exist in the relatively homogenous population of Iceland at a relatively young age, i.e., before divergence in the educational system. Analyses resulted in five habitus groups being formed on the basis of endorsement of cultural and leisure activities. Furthermore, the five groups differed both in terms of sex composition and — importantly — of preferred future occupations. It was concluded that habitus groups form readily and have important implications for research and practice within the field of career counselling. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

On the sovereignty of school rhetoric: Representations of science among scientists and guidance counsellors

This article sheds light on views held by actors who enjoy a certain degree of institutional legitimacy for “talking about science,” either as practitioners in the field of science or as guidance counsellors working with youths interested in having a science-related career. One hundred and seven scientists and technologists who worked either in a university or industrial research centre and 182 guidance counsellors working in high school settings participated in our survey; the main instrument for data collection was a questionnaire developed using the bank of items from “VOSTS.” Excepting a few aspects of the production of scientific knowledge, the predominant tendency suggests that both professional groups share a relatively similar discursive outlook on science—an outlook which presents a “family resemblance” with the usual school rhetoric on the exceptional status of science.     

Labour perspectives on the new politics of skill and competency formation: International reflections

Skill/competency approaches to workplace-based policy seek to assess and train for discrete individual competencies with the goal of increasing employability and productivity. These approaches have become increasingly prominent across a range of advanced capitalist countries. A substantial critique has emerged over this same period regarding issues of instrumentality and social control, as well as the failure of skill/compentancy approaches to articulate a meaningful understanding of human learning capacities. In this article, these critical perspectives are clarified further by a review of contributions to understanding the skill/competence question emerging from sociology of work literature. Building from these critiques, this article outlines recent experiences with and perspectives on skill/competency frameworks amongst different national labour movements. Included in this outline is a more detailed, comparative analysis of Norway and Canada; here we see the lofty ‘new’, ‘knowledge economy’ rhetoric — in two countries where one might expect to see it blossom in application — brought down to earth by the realities of industrial relations, employer intransigence and intra-labour movement differences. ‘Skill/competence’ proves to be a floating signifier that, amongst both employers and labour, stands as a proxy for ‘power/control’ struggles. Degenerating in this way, from a labour perspective, the new politics of skill/competency formation is seen to have spiraled toward irrelevance in Norway and Canada; awaiting, in both countries, a re-invigoration through attention to changes in the participatory structure of the labour process itself.     

Web-based education: A reality check

Conclusion Developing an easy-to-use, complete, practical, reliable, and cost-effective solution for delivering training and education on the Internet has required considerable research and development. We have found that off-the-shelf technologies offer only partial solutions, at best. Even when the software problems were solved, however, we found that our work was just beginning. An effective solution requires software technology, but expertise in instructional design has been equally important. The learning environments our clients create on the Internet have the potential for both “high tech” and “high touch.” These clients are finding ways to reach beyond the physical limitations of the classroom, but—perhaps more significantly—they are using the system to reach beyond the limiting assumptions of the classroom as well. As they—and we—do so, we will begin to understand the ways in which the Net really is a new medium.     

中小学"数学情境与提出问题"教学的实验研究

This research tends to make the experimental study on the mathematics teaching model of “situated creation and problem-based instruction” (SCPBI), namely, the teaching process of “creating situations—posing problems—solving problems—applying mathematics”. It is aimed at changing the situation where students generally lack problem-based learning experience and problem awareness. Result shows that this teaching model plays a vital role in arousing students’ interest in mathematics, improving their ability to pose problems and upgrading their mathematics learning ability as well.      

Blended university teaching using virtual learning environments: conceptions and approaches

This paper reports findings from a phenomenographic investigation into blended university teaching using virtual learning environments (VLEs). Interviews with 25 Computer Science teachers in Greek universities illuminated a spectrum of teachers’ conceptions and approaches from ‘teacher-focused and content-oriented’, through ‘student-focused and content-oriented’, to ‘student-focused and process-oriented’. Using VLEs was described as a means of supporting: A—information transfer; B—application and clarification of concepts; C—exchange and development of ideas, and resource exploration and sharing; D—collaborative knowledge-creation, and development of process awareness and skills. The study suggests that pedagogical beliefs and circumstances underpinning face-to-face teaching are more influential in shaping approaches to blended VLE use than VLE system features. The authors propose that the findings could be used to inform educational enhancement initiatives and that there is a need for further discipline-focused research on blended teaching.     

Letter names and sounds: their implications for the phonetisation process

Our aim was to analyse the impact of the characteristics of words used in spelling programmes and the nature of instructional guidelines on the evolution from grapho-perceptive writing to phonetic writing in preschool children. The participants were 50 5-year-old children, divided in five equivalent groups in intelligence, phonological skills and spelling. All the children knew the vowels and the consonants B, D, P, R, T, V, F, M and C, but didn’t use them on spelling. Their spelling was evaluated in a pre and post-test with 36 words beginning with the consonants known. In-between they underwent a writing programme designed to lead them to use the letters P and T to represent the initial phonemes of words. The groups differed on the kind of words used on training (words whose initial syllable matches the name of the initial letter—Exp. G1 and Exp. G2—versus words whose initial syllable is similar to the sound of the initial letter—Exp. G3 and Exp. G4). They also differed on the instruction used in order to lead them to think about the relations between the initial phoneme of words and the initial consonant (instructions designed to make the children think about letter names—Exp. G1 and Exp. G3—versus instructions designed to make the children think about letter sounds—Exp. G2 and Exp. G4). The 5th was a control group. All the children evolved to syllabic phonetisations spellings. There are no differences between groups at the number of total phonetisations but we found some differences between groups at the quality of the phonetisations.     

A Cross-Analysis of the Mathematics Teacher’s Activity. An Example in a French 10th-Grade Class

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate about how to tackle the issue of ‘the teacher in the teaching/learning process’, and to propose a methodology for analysing the teacher’s activity in the classroom, based on concepts used in the fields of the didactics of mathematics as well as in cognitive ergonomics. This methodology studies the mathematical activity the teacher organises for students during classroom sessions and the way he manages¹ the relationship between students and mathematical tasks in two approaches: a didactical one [Robert, A., Recherches en Didactique des Mathématiques 21(1/2), 2001, 7–56] and a psychological one [Rogalski, J., Recherches en Didactique des Mathématiques 23(3), 2003, 343–388]. Articulating the two perspectives permits a twofold analysis of the classroom session dynamics: the “cognitive route” students are engaged in—through teacher’s decisions—and the mediation of the teacher for controlling students’ involvement in the process of acquiring the mathematical concepts being taught. The authors present an example of this cross-analysis of mathematics teachers’ activity, based on the observation of a lesson composed of exercises given to 10th grade students in a French ‘ordinary’ classroom. Each author made an analysis from her viewpoint, the results are confronted and two types of inferences are made: one on potential students’ learning and another on the freedom of action the teacher may have to modify his activity. The paper also places this study in the context of previous contributions made by others in the same field.     

Young women’s dismissal of the influence of gender upon their future life trajectory as played out in ‘New Times’

This paper investigates the ways in which young women come to view gender as being an influence upon their future lives—their aspirations and expectations for the future. In doing so, it draws upon 327 surveys completed by year 12 female students, typically 17 years of age, in a range of schools across the State of Queensland, Australia. The paper details key features of the young women’s survey responses—the dominant storylines evident in the data—as a means of illustrating how they have come to dismiss gender as an influence. Further, the paper illuminates the power and pervasiveness of neoliberal discourse in ‘New Times’, the ways in which the young women surveyed embrace neoliberalism and its imperative of individualisation and do so in ways that locate gender as irrelevant in their imagining and enacting of their life biographies. Finally, the paper explores the implications of such research findings for these—and other—young women.     

Useless suffering: Learning from the unintelligible and the re-formation of community

This paper draws on the philosophical works of Emmanuel Levinas — namely, his notion of “useless suffering” — in order to open up questions of learning and community beyond typical configurations that structure (and sometimes limit) social attachments according to a requisite degree of commonality. It is argued that while discourses of knowledge and emotion enable a sense of understanding and feeling with others, they nonetheless cast differences in a universalized discourse of enlightenment, wherein the other is reduced to a version of the same. Turning to the Levinasian notion of “useless suffering,” I consider instead the conditions of possibility opened up paradoxically because the other cannot be rendered in pre-given terms. In so doing, I hope to contribute to on-going discussions in the context of feminism and education interested in theorizing the conditions of possibility for coming together across differences, neither consuming the other as an object of information, nor reducing her or his experience to a version of the self. My argument is structured around Lourdes Portillo’s (2001) most recent film,Missing Young Women, which documents the disappearance, rape, and murder of over 200 women working in Juarez, Mexico. One scene in particular is referenced as a way to underscore how the Levinasian notion of “uselessness” might orient a mode of attentiveness that renders one responsible before understanding, concerned before feeling. Constituted asa prior responsibility for the other, it is suggested that “useless suffering” shifts the dominant terms of education and feminism away from the formation of common bonds (in knowledge and emotion) to underscore the conditions of possibility that might lie beyond meaning and being itself.