Introducing a symbolic interactionist approach on teaching mathematics: the case of revoicing as an interactional strategy in the teaching of probability

This study examines an interactional view on teaching mathematics, whereby meaning is co-produced with the students through a process of negotiation. Further, teaching is viewed from a symbolic interactionism perspective, allowing the analysis to focus on the teacher’s role in the negotiation of meaning. Using methods inspired by grounded theory, patterns of teachers’ interaction are categorized. The results show how teachers’ actions, interpretations and intentions form interactional strategies that guide the negotiation of meaning in the classroom. The theoretical case of revoicing as a teacher action, together with interpretations of mathematical objects from probability theory, is used to exemplify conclusions from the proposed perspective. Data are generated from a lesson sequence with two teachers working with known and unknown constant sample spaces with their classes. In the lessons presented in this article, the focus is on negotiations of the meaning of chance. The analysis revealed how the teachers indicate their interpretations of mathematical objects and intentions to the students to different degrees and, by doing so, create opportunities for the students to ascribe meaning to these objects. The discussion contrasts the findings with possible interpretations from other perspectives on teaching.     

The erosion of university independence: Recent Australian experience

This article is concerned with the issue of institutional independence in the Australian university context. It considers why institutional independence is important, maps how independence has been reduced since the late 1960s, discusses factors leading to this erosion of independence, and explores possible university responses. It argues that, while recent cases of government interference give cause for disquiet, there is probably more reason to be troubled about where recent developments might lead and about the ability of universities to withstand and contest further encroachment.     

Winners and Losers' in the Development of Home-School Literacy Partnerships: An Analysis of Discourses of Power

In the past decade, family literacy has been the focus of considerable research. This work has suggested multiple understandings of involvement, and that many schools tend to work within a definition of parent involvement that does little more than seek to conform parents and their children to the literacy practices of schools. This paper reports research that has considered how parents take strategic action on their own and their children's behalf to increase their educational opportunities. It looks closely at the ways relationships between families and schools are constructed, and presents two ‘telling cases’ of families' responses to school literacy practices assigned for work at home. In doing so, it attempts to bring voices from Australia to the dialogue on ways of viewing parental involvement. It does this from a community centred perspective with the focus on the process of constructing shared meanings and understandings. The research examines the specific literacy practices that are honoured and dishonoured in the name of ‘parent involvement’. In doing so, the paper attempts to make visible the potential ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ in the development of home-school literacy partnerships.     

Discovery and innovation in the undergraduate learning experience

This article argues that an overhaul of undergraduate education in Ireland is needed. It asserts that at present most students leave university short-changed, never having been exposed to the riches of discovery and research. A framework founded on research and inquiry is designed to stimulate learning and innovation through action. It is argued that a coherent institutional mission is essential, with exploration, creativity and practice as the core of the undergraduate experience. An approach based on inter-disciplinarity, collaborative learning, identity and place as guiding features is developed along with a discussion of how this might be implemented so graduates are prepared for living and working in a knowledge-driven sustainable society.     

Neoliberalism,new public management and the sustainable development agenda of higher education: history,contradictions and synergies

This paper explores the ideological and the practical relationship between neoliberalism and New Public Management (NPM) and the sustainable development agenda of western higher education. Using the United Kingdom and specifically English universities as an example, it investigates the contradictions and the synergies between neoliberal and NPM ideologies and the pursuit and practice of the sustainability agenda, focusing in particular on education for sustainable development (ESD) and ESD research. This paper reveals a range of challenges and opportunities in respect of advancing sustainability in higher education, within the prevailing neoliberal context. It illustrates using examples how neoliberal and managerialist control mechanisms, which govern institutional, departmental and individual academic, as well as student behaviour, are working conversely to both drive and limit the sustainability education agenda. The case is made for further exploration of how ‘nudging’ and ‘steering’ mechanisms within English HE might provide further leverage for ESD developments in the near future, and the implications of this for sustainability educators.     

Inquiry as stance: practitioner research for the next generation

This paper is a reflexive account of the use of critical social theory within my practice as an action researcher. It is set within the ongoing debates between pragmatist and critical tendencies within action research. The paper discusses how a selective deployment of key constructs from the work of Jurgen Habermas has supported my work as a second-order action researcher. It demonstrates how these constructs can help deal with the practical and theoretical tensions faced when supporting groups of action researchers. It focuses on one of the key issues faced by any external agent trying to work within such groups: how to avoid imposing their own agendas and interpretations. It does this by discussing three foundational points within the process of action research – the nature of practitioners’ practical reasoning and the bases of critical self-reflection and collective action.     

Student and Faculty Member Engagement in Undergraduate Research

Undergraduate research (UR) is a valued co-curricular activity that has involved an increasing number of students and faculty members in recent years. While there is a growing body of research on student participation in UR, there is less research available examining faculty perceptions of, participation in UR, and how those factors influence student participation in UR. This study examined approximately 110,000 responses to the National Survey of Student Engagement and 40,000 responses to the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement at over 450 four-year institutions. Findings revealed that individual and institutional characteristics predicted student and faculty member involvement and that the majority of faculty members perceived UR to be of importance. Implications for fostering faculty involvement, student success, and viewing UR as an institutional asset are discussed.     

服务·学习·研究:高校科研管理的三个维度

近年来,高校哲学社会科学已形成了较强的学科优势和研究实力,国家对哲学社会科学的高度重视以及我国各领域的改革成就,为高校哲学社会科学带来了空前发展的大好机遇。然而,高校的科研管理如何适应这个新的发展和挑战是高校发展中迫切需要解决的问题。本文站在院系科研管理者的角度,通过对自身科研管理工作的回顾,梳理了笔者自90年代以来对高校院系科研管理工作的认知和实践,提出了高校科研管理的三个维度——服务、学习、研究,并从与科学研究的“本能结合”、“本义结合”提升为“本质结合”。     

Reflexive deliberation in international research collaboration: minimising risk and maximising opportunity

International research collaboration raises questions about how groups from different national and institutional contexts can work together for common ends. This paper uses issues that have arisen in carrying out the first stage of an international research project to discuss a framework designed to map different kinds of multi-national research collaboration in terms of increasing complexity and increasing time to research outputs. The paper explores factors that enable and that constrain progress in carrying out collaborative research. The paper highlights the complex interplay within research practice of factors that derive from institutional structures and those that appertain to individuals as agents. It uses the personal and collective reflexive deliberations of the authors, to demonstrate that as the complexity of the research interface increases, and as the time to research outputs increases, so structural risk increasingly develops into agentic risk, and that structural risk becomes increasingly required to be managed through agentic action.     

Placing math reform: locating Latino English learners in math classrooms and communities

This article explores how place matters in public school reform efforts intended to promote more equitable opportunities and outcomes. Qualitative case studies of three California middle schools’ eighth grade math reforms and the resulting opportunities for Latino English learners are presented, using the conceptual frameworks of critical human geography to situate math reform processes within local and regional social, political, economic, institutional and spatial dynamics. The cases reveal relationships between local efforts to transform or maintain racially and ethnically segregated housing and school attendance patterns, decision-making about math programmes and resource allocation, and resulting student learning opportunities. Together they suggest that (1) efforts to foster more equitable student outcomes must account for the mutually constitutive nature of schools and their localities; (2) mobilization, and educational leaders’ responses to it, matter; and (3) place-sensitive education research demands place-sensitive conceptual frameworks and interdisciplinary, qualitative research methods.     

T4 MAP™: A Scholar‐Practitioner Model for Performance Improvement

The world of work is changing and we must adapt how we apply human performance technology (HPT) expertise to address our 21st century challenges. This is a formidable challenge. The scholar‐practitioner model seems ideally suited to this high‐speed world by combining the ability to apply theory and rigorous processes to solve practical problems. The T⁴ MAP (T⁴) models a new action research process grounded in human and organizational development (HOD) theory. It incorporates quantitative and qualitative data and so equips scholar‐practitioners and practitioners to address workplace problems and advance theory by enabling a deeper contextual understanding of people in the organization. A T⁴ pilot demonstrated the ability to generate salient data that helped teams identify performance improvement opportunities and enabled participants to take accountability for implementation. It offered a basis for grounded theory and presented opportunities for future research.     

Institutional habitus in context: implementation,development and impacts in two compulsory secondary schools in Barcelona

This article aims to revisit the relationship between school-level variables and students’ educational opportunities through the lens of institutional habitus. This approach is particularly well suited to explore the notion of school culture because it brings to the forefront the impact of social context, avoiding some of the limitations typically associated with the long-dominant perspective of school effectiveness research. Drawing on an ethnographic approach, the article explores how institutional habitus unfolds in two urban public secondary schools in the city of Barcelona. Breaking the notion down into three main components (educational status, organizational practices and expressive order), the analysis identifies two main types of institutional habitus – one based on action and inclusion, and another based on reaction and expulsion. Ultimately, these results give insight into the complex interplay of these three components, as well as on their combined impact on students’ educational opportunities.     

Notes on writing subjects of action research

In this article, the author playfully represents his role as reader and interpreter of an article sent to him for review by editors of the journal Educational Action Research. By representing the specificity of his reader responses, the author shows how literacy practices function to create the identities of readers and writers. It is argued that a post-structural view of reading and interpretation helps those engaged in action research projects to understand that knowledge and identities are co–specified. Reports of action research, then, are not merely reports of what is learned through shared inquiry; they also reveal traces of how the subjects involved in action research are affected by their work.     

What Can Institutional Research do to Help Colleges Meet the Workforce Needs of States and Nations?

Institutions of higher education are looked to by society as the training grounds and gatekeepers for college-trained workers. However, despite a long history of being viewed by many as unresponsive to labor force needs, the academy has not found ways of effectively meeting these demands, nor articulating why it is that they have difficulty doing so. This paper discusses how institutional researchers can help explain to campus administrators and others the role that institutions play in training individuals for the workplace, and why they cannot always quickly respond to and solve shortages of college-trained workers. The first section outlines what economic theory and research has to say regarding labor markets, how labor market shortages arise, and how students make decisions about which major to pursue. The last section describes problems institutional researchers face when using their skills with data to identify solutions to this problem. Using data from the state of New Hampshire, it will be shown that the data available to institutional decisionmakers can be out of date, inaccurate, and not particularly useful for designing policies that would enable an institution to respond to the labor needs of the economy.     

Reports on Books

OfSTED's criteria for inspection are published and available to all. However, it is quite possible that there will be a mismatch between schools' interpretations of what OfSTED means by good practice in primary mathematics and those of the inspectors who come to inspect them. The research reported here focuses on the responses of a small set of primary schools to the inspection of their mathematics: their anticipation of issues, their expectations of what would be found and their views of how the inspection would contribute to the development of good practice. Inspectors' reports seemed frequently to match the expectations of the schools. Interpretations appeared to coincide, but in some cases there appeared to be mismatch and disagreement which raised questions about expertise or interpretations of both inspector and mathematics co-ordinator and might, in turn, affect the development of mathematics following inspection.     

Action research,pedagogy, and activity theory: Tools facilitating two instructors' interpretations of the professional development of four preservice teachers

This paper explores the value of action research in the understanding of the professional development of 4 preservice secondary school mathematics (PSSM) teachers and their instructors in a teacher education program. It draws upon data collected from multiple cycles in a research project (2007–2010). The goal of the long term project was to explore how PSSM teachers combined knowledge from their content area and pedagogy courses with the action research course. This paper represents how activity theory facilitated the instructors' interpretations and understandings of the benefits and challenges of using action research as a professional development strategy with PSSM teachers.     

‘The balancing act’ – Irish part-time undergraduate students in higher education

While the numbers of part-time students has increased in higher education in Ireland, little is known about these students or about how they balance their study and other commitments. Drawing on a larger study on Irish students’ experiences in higher education, this article attempts to address this gap in research and reports on Irish part-time undergraduate students’ socio-demographic and institutional characteristics. It further explores the balance between part-time students’ academic study and their life situations. The article proposes some recommendations with regard to policy concerning part-time students, particularly in the area of financial support available to part-time learners. It also calls for expanding opportunities for participation in part-time study in the light of changing demography and provision of resources to facilitate students’ participation in higher education. Although the findings of this article broadly agree with those of international studies, more research is needed into the experiences of part-time students in higher education.     

Political assumptions underlying pedagogies of national education: The case of student teachers teaching ‘British values’ in England

Teacher education in England now requires that student teachers follow practices that do not undermine “fundamental British values” where these practices are assessed against a set of ethics and behaviour standards. This paper examines the political assumptions underlying pedagogical interpretations about the education of national identities through documenting how a group of student teachers uphold the institutional demand of promoting fundamental British Values in relation to their discursive constructions of Britishness. Empirical data exemplifies potential political understandings guiding educational practices. Analysis suggests that pedagogies of national education are mediated by (i) educators’ understandings of the nation as an essential entity or a social construct and (ii) their understanding of national identities as being open or closed to competing interpretations. The paper concludes by examining implications of different political and pedagogical positions for practice and research.     

Motivating and/or de-motivating environments to do action research: the case of teachers of English as a foreign language in Ethiopian universities

This study intended to investigate the motivating and/or de-motivating environments for teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) to conduct action research. Data were generated through a questionnaire, interviews, and focus group discussions. The results showed that there were both motivating and de-motivating factors. The motivating factors were more extrinsic and insignificant, and emanated from impediments which, with the scantily available opportunities, triggered few EFL teachers to be vigilant of their professional practices. On the other hand, the de-motivating factors were pervasive, stemmed from different sources, and ranged from policy to practice, from internal to external, and from individual to institutional – requiring empowerment of EFL teachers and shortening of bureaucratic journeys for endorsing research fund requests. The teachers should also bear proper attitude and commitment, and take initiatives to enhance their practical skills and to deliberate with pertinent stakeholders on creating a favorable environment to conduct action research for the betterment of themselves and their practices.