Do ‘global citizens’ need the parochial cultural other? Discourse of immersion in study abroad and learning-by-doing

The discourse of immersion is prevalent but little analysed in the field of study abroad. Linked generally to learning-by-doing, this discourse has significance for ‘intercultural education’. Based on text analyses of three guidebooks on study abroad, this article suggests four effects of the discourse of immersion: It justifies study abroad as different from, if not better than, classroom learning and tourism. It emphasises the difference between students’ home and host cultures and constructs each society as internally homogeneous. It constructs study-abroad students’ home societies as globalised and their host societies as immobile and parochial, creating a hierarchy when globalisation is valorized. Finally, it exoticises the learning-by-doing ‘teachers’ – the host people – by portraying them as parochial ‘cultural others’. This article suggests an uneven process where the call for production of ‘global citizens’ through study abroad constructs host societies as parochial and risks reproducing a colonialist hierarchy of exoticism through intercultural learning-by-doing.     

Rethinking the pattern of external policy referencing: media discourses over the ‘Asian Tigers’’ PISA success in Australia,Germany and South Korea

The article compares how the success of the ‘Asian Tiger’ countries in PISA, especially PISA 2009, was depicted in the media discussion in Australia, Germany and South Korea. It argues that even in the times of today's ‘globalised education policy field’, local factors are important in determining whether or not a country becomes a reference society for educational reform. The article aims to uncover some of these factors, identifying the globally disseminated stereotypes about Asian education, economic relations and the sense of ‘crisis’ induced through the relative position and change of position in PISA league tables in the countries in question.     

Reform first and ask questions later? The implications of (fast) schooling policy and ‘silver bullet’ solutions

This article explores the uptake of so-called fast policy solutions to problems in different education policy contexts and highlights the potential impacts that can arise from such policymaking approaches. We draw upon recent literature and theorising around notions of fast policy and evidence-informed policymaking, which suggests that, in an increasingly connected, globalised and temporally compressed social world, policymaking has become ‘speeded up’. This means that policymaking is now largely predicated upon looking around to foreign reference societies to borrow ‘ideas that work’, thereby encouraging particular forms of evidence, expertise and influence to dominate. We focus on three different examples of fast policy schooling documents – namely the OECD’s PISA for Schools report, the edu-business Pearson’s The Learning Curve and an Australian state (New South Wales) education department report entitled What Works Best – to show how all three documents promote an overly simplified, decontextualised and ‘one-size-fits-all’ understanding of schooling policy. This reflects what we describe as a ‘convergence of policy method’ across vastly different policy contexts (an IGO, global edu-business and government department), in which similarly fast policies, and methods of promoting such policies, appear to dominate over potentially more considered and contextually aware policymaking approaches.     

Interrogating discourses of intercultural education: from indigenous Amazon community to global policy forum

This article investigates discourses of intercultural education, taking as its starting point two ‘encounters’ in 2010 with contrasting aims and expectations of intercultural education. One is the launch of the 2010 Global Monitoring Report, where intercultural education is viewed as a means of overcoming marginalisation and promoting inclusion, and the other is in a rural Amazonian community context, where intercultural education serves to actively compound processes of exclusion. The article examines these discourses of intercultural education, locating them socially, culturally, politically and historically, and draws distinctions between educational analyses of diversity that emphasise identity and difference and those that prioritise interculturalism. It exposes complex and intersecting dynamics of social change and political contestation in the Amazonian ‘encounter’, which question the viability of globalised (technical-adaptive) strategies for inclusion of people whose intercultural lives are characterised by abjection and marginalisation.     

Humanising Writing centre Practice: Peer tutor Reflections at a University of Technology

Abstract

Traditionally, universities of technology (UoTs) have focussed on education to prepare students for the workplace. The Durban University of Technology (DUT) is currently undergoing a pedagogical transformation with the inclusion of a general education curriculum that aims to prepare students for an increasingly complex globalised work environment. This critical paradigm shift in curriculum design foregrounds new ways of teaching, thinking and learning based broadly on humanistic principles. Writing centres in universities are positioned to sustain a teaching and learning environment in which students grow as critical citizens. This article reports on research that explored – through the thematic analysis of tutor reflections – how a humanising pedagogy underpins a responsive writing centre practice within the changing South African context. Thematic analysis of the tutors’ reflections revealed their self-awareness of the significance of communities of practice in their work. These communities of practice could be seen to cultivate a humanising pedagogy within writing centre work, which might contribute to the aesthetic, socio-political and cultural environments in which students live and work.     

The other voices of international higher education: an empirical study of students' perceptions of British university education in China

Against a backdrop of globalised higher education (HE) – one in which a number of British universities are setting up campuses overseas – China represents a vast and lucrative market. This paper presents data on the perceptions and experiences of 20 Chinese students who are currently studying at a British university's campus located in China. Drawing upon theoretical and empirical linkages between the expansion of British HE into overseas markets and neo-colonial (or imperialist) activities, this paper discovers that sociocultural perceptions and ideological constructs such as ‘creativity’ and ‘value’ form a vital basis for the exchange of knowledge in transnational HE.     

World culture with Chinese characteristics: when global models go native

Just as the world has increasingly been compressed over recent decades through transnationally engaged actors or ‘carriers’ such as mobile experts, international organisations, and seemingly globalised bodies of knowledge, so have China's politicians and academics increasingly ‘gone global’ in various fields of social action, including education. China's Open Door policy since the late 1970s is, historically, not the country's first opening to the world but is preceded by earlier phases of opening and closing. Each of these ‘global’ phases is witness to two interrelated phenomena: the reconstruction of the local through the global; and the reconceptualisation of the global through the local.

The article seeks to illustrate this dialectic process both in theory and in practice. The first part unpacks dimensions and paradoxes of the global–local nexus in comparative education, discussing both fruitfulness and shortcomings of the ‘world culture theory’ and complementary approaches. Based on the insights from this discussion, the second part showcases the local embeddedness of seemingly global paths by revealing how the Chinese educational field dealt with – and appropriated – ‘world culture’. I will exemplify this by looking at two different time periods: firstly, I will show how, in the Republican China of the 1920s, the idea of ‘vocational education’ was taken up, transformed, and meshed with socio-culturally grounded, both traditional and contemporaneous notions of how the individual should be socialised into working life. Secondly, I will trace how the idea of ‘neo-liberalism’ has been taken up by Chinese educationists since the 1990s and how it has been sinicised to justify – or oppose – equality in education. The insights from these two historical snapshots are two-fold: firstly, the development of Chinese education is not as nationally determined as is suggested by various actors and researchers but emerges at the interface of globally migrating ideas and nationally designed strategies; secondly, ‘world culture’ – or an educational ideology spreading worldwide – is not as uniform as is suggested by its apparent global ubiquity but is remade by local, if transnationally active agents and networks.     

Shakespeare,adaptation and ‘matters of trust’

This article describes an empirical study of the ways in which one group of adaptors transformed the plays of William Shakespeare into the medium of the comic book for use in school classrooms. It explores the choices, dilemmas, processes and responsibilities they experienced in doing so. These adaptors had to tackle the burden of ‘Shakespeare’ – what he has come to mean in world literature, the popular imagination, and education – as well as attempting to make the text both appealing and understandable to their intended readers – teenagers studying the plays in school. It is argued that they viewed this task as a pedagogic one and saw the notion of ‘trust’ as central to it. The article therefore has a second aim, which is to use these empirical findings to explore the concept of ‘trust’ and, in particular to outline its relevance for educational research. Using the work of the philosopher Katharine Hawley and the literary theorist Umberto Eco, it is shown that the relational concept of trust is a helpful way of articulating the process of adapting Shakespeare’s work. In the conclusion the ways in which the concept might illuminate broader educational issues related to knowledge, assessment and learning are highlighted.     

Inclusive education in Georgia: current trends and challenges

This article presents the first comprehensive study of the Georgian inclusive education system launched nationwide in 2006. An internationally recognised tool, the ‘Pathway to Inclusion – Barometer of Inclusive Education’, was applied within the country to highlight the current position of inclusive education in Georgia. The collected data were analysed against results from other countries. The comparison shows that Georgia has made progress towards inclusion; however, considerable work is still required to address drawbacks in policy and its implementation. The development of a monitoring system is advised as an effective means of advancement towards increased inclusion in the education system.     

The art of self-making: identity and citizenship education in late-modernity

Taking the English National Curriculum as its main example, this article argues that an overly nationalistic, normative and ‘fact-based’ citizenship education curriculum is failing to engage the dimensions of young people’s identities which they experience as deeply meaningful. There is thus a chasm – albeit a false one – between official discourses and pedagogies of citizenship and what young people consider to be their ‘real’ selves. I argue that citizenship education must develop a more sophisticated understanding of the complexities of how identities are formed and performed, especially in light of globalisation and increasing migration. I also make a somewhat unorthodox argument for conceptualising ‘relating-to-otherness’ in the same way that we think of music consumption. This has implications for how we experience, interpret, value and create ‘others’. The article also makes some recommendations for how these ideas can begin to be implemented in educational settings.     

Problem‐based learning and action research in postgraduate teaching: the interdisciplinary core

Rapid changes in the world due to the emergence of an information society, scientific and technological developments, and a growing capitalist global economy have made intercultural and inter-ethnic contacts a fairly ordinary phenomenon. However, paradoxically, cultural diversity has had to cope with powerful homogenising instruments of a globalised planet; consequently, cultural issues cannot be considered apart from power relations. In education, a recent phenomenon – the teacher research movement – has tried to fight against conservative and dominant forms of teaching and teacher education. In this article, it is argued that teacher research, as an international movement, has the potential to become a counter-hegemonic strategy to construct critical teacher education approaches in a globalised world.     

Education and the working-class girl of the 1970s: reconstructing the theoretical field of Carolyn Steedman’s The Tidy House

This article asks historians of education to think about the influences that we bring to bear on our work. It uses, as an example, Carolyn Steedman’s book The Tidy House: Little Girls Writing (1982). The Tidy House set out to interpret a short story written by three primary school girls in Britain in 1976. Steedman contextualised this source against the backdrop of modern children’s writing and childhood experience in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain. Viewing the book itself as a source, this article explores the intellectual background (the ‘theoretical field’) that gave its ideas meaning. This involves looking at the historiographical surroundings of the author, such as Marxism and feminism, in a wider lens. It also entails a consideration of how The Tidy House relates to educational thought today – as well as to key issues tackled by some of the most celebrated historians of education in the last 40 years.     

Pedagogies for the ‘Dis‐engaged’: Diverse Experiences of the Young People’s Arts Award Programme

Art education is often praised for its engaging programmes and inclusive pedagogies, with many initiatives created with the intention of widening access for those who are deemed to be lacking. This article investigates one such programme – the young people’s Arts Award, which is a nationally recognised qualification for young people aged 11–25. I call upon a range of pedagogies in order to critique the Arts Award within the context of informal and alternative education settings in the United Kingdom. Drawing on a 12‐month ethnographic study, the research was conducted across five diverse programmes which included youth work projects and alternative provision. I present two cases – ‘learning to be an artist’ and ‘learning to behave’ – which demonstrate a hierarchy of pedagogy in the application of this programme across these particular contexts. Artists’ Signature Pedagogies are used as an analytical framework to explore the affordances of working with artists through the programme. Further, I engage with the Pedagogy of Poverty to demonstrate that young people who were classified as ‘dis‐engaged’ were more likely to receive lower quality programmes, low‐level work and over‐regulated teaching. I argue that despite changes to the ways that young people access art education, there continues to be unequal opportunities. This finding is significant for not only creative practitioners and youth arts workers, but also arts education policy makers and programmers.     

Disaster preparedness,adaptive politics and lifelong learning: a case of Japan

Preparedness for disaster scenarios is progressively becoming an educational agenda for governments because of diversifying risks and threats worldwide. In disaster-prone Japan, disaster preparedness has been a prioritised national agenda, and preparedness education has been undertaken in both formal schooling and lifelong learning settings. This article examines the politics behind one prevailing policy discourse in the field of disaster preparedness referred to as ‘the four forms of aid’ – ‘kojo [public aid]’, ‘jijo [self-help]’, ‘gojo/kyojo [mutual aid]’. The study looks at the Japanese case, however, the significance is global, given that neo-liberal governments are increasingly having to deal with a range of disaster situations whether floods or terrorism, while implementing austerity measures. Drawing on the theory of the adaptiveness of neo-liberalism, the article sheds light on the hybridity of the current Abe government’s politics: a ‘dominant’ neo-liberal economic approach – public aid and self-help – and a ‘subordinate’ moral conservative agenda – mutual aid. It is argued that the four forms of aid are an effective ‘balancing act’, and that kyojo in particular is a powerful legitimator in the hybrid politics. The article concludes that a lifelong and life-wide preparedness model could be developed in Japan which has taken a social approach to lifelong learning.     

The hollowed-out university? A critical analysis of changing institutional and academic norms in UK higher education

This article argues that UK universities are at risk from a process of ‘hollowing out’ – that is, of becoming institutions with no distinctive social role and no ethical raison d'etre – and that this is a process which undermines the possibilities for meaningful institutional and academic identities. It begins with a condensed, and necessarily partial, review of recent UK higher education policy trends to indicate the historical context and direction of change and to highlight the growing separation of management and academic agendas and the linked rise in gloss and spin compared to academic substance. In the remainder of this article we focus on the normative dimension of these changes and unpack their implications for the nature of the university and of academic work. In so doing, we illustrate the breadth and depth of the threat posed by ‘hollowed-out’ universities, indicate alternative, more positive currents and call for a ‘re-valuation’ of the UK university.     

Global economies of fear: affect,politics and pedagogical implications

This article seeks to explore the importance of the affective politics of fear in education and to discuss the implications for educational policy, theory and practice. The aim is to explore how discourses of fear work in some educational contexts and draw significant boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’ through the structuring of curriculum and pedagogy. This analysis is done through argumentation and research evidence from the author's ethnographic work in the United States and Cyprus. Based on this analysis, the author draws out pedagogical openings that emerge from such efforts, and extends the space in which pedagogues might move to induce a critical interrogation of the affective politics of fear. It is argued that if educators are committed to inspire individual and social change – a change that would eventually problematise the symbolic violence exerted by the affective politics of fear – then much work needs to be done at the affective level.     

Diffraction or reflection? Sketching the contours of two methodologies in educational research

Internationally, an interest is emerging in a growing body of work on what has become known as ‘diffractive methodologies’ drawing attention to ontological aspects of research. Diffractive methodologies have largely been developed in response to a dissatisfaction with practices of ‘reflexivity’, which are seen to be grounded in a representational paradigm and the epistemological aspects of research. While work on ‘reflexivity’ and ‘critical reflection’ has over the years become predominant in educational and social science research methodology literature, our reading indicates that there is still important conceptual work to be done putting these two practices – reflection and diffraction – in conversation with each other and exploring their continuities and breaks as well as examining the consequences for research methodologies in education. This article raises important questions about how the concepts of diffraction and reflection are defined and understood and discusses the methodological implications for educational research.     

College re-culturing,marketisation and knowledge: the meaning of incorporation

The further education (FE) sector in England has experienced two decades of marketisation. This article takes as its focus the first five years of incorporation (1993–1998) for one case study college in a city (‘Coppleton’) in the West Midlands of England, five years that were dominated by a contract dispute. Data from interviews with trade unionists active in Coppleton College (anonymised name) and from a trade union archive are set against selected official College documents in a genealogical enquiry into the college's corporate identity as an educational institution and employer during this time. This article looks behind the ‘legibility’ of the incorporated college and its knowledge production practices and focuses on excluded narratives, specifically the experiences of union activists caught up in a new era of industrial relations. In analysing the data, theories of New Public Management and marketisation reveal that Coppleton College has features that make it culturally distinct from its unincorporated forebear. The corporation as an institutional model – it is argued – brought with it features including institutional self-interest, an authoritarian culture, the erosion of trust, and the stifling of dissent as part of an incorporated view of knowledge production that worked against staff and the public interest.