What Is Educational about Education? The Distinctiveness of Education

This article explores two questions: (1) Is education a unique and distinct discipline? (2) Is education anything other than the achievement of noneducational aims or objectives? In it, Trevor Norris examines how these two questions are interconnected, specifically analyzing how what we think about education as a distinct field of study informs what we ask of it as a practice. When we study education, we should be educational about it, because if we render education as the object of study, it is never endowed with agency or distinctiveness. Norris inquires into the distinctiveness of education as a way of thinking and a way of impacting the world, asking what are the conditions that make it possible for us to identify something as “educational”? To investigate this question, Norris draws from Hannah Arendt's account of politics, and he concludes by describing a case study assignment that requires educational foundations students to draw from philosophy of education in order to show what exactly is educational about education by contrasting education with business and psychology.     

Music Education for Pupils with Severe or Profound and Multiple Difficulties — Current Provision and Future Need

There is a general agreement about the important role that music can play in the education and daily lives of children with severe or profound and multiple learning difficulties. But what are the distinctions and relationships between music education, music therapy and music as a vehicle for other forms of learning, occupation, development or engagement? To what extent are professionals in schools aware of these issues and prepared to explore them from an informed perspective? In this article, Dr Adam Ockelford, Deputy Director of Education and Employment for the Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB), Sally Zimmermann, Music Education and Employment Advisor (RNIB); and Professor Graham Welch, Chair of Music Education and Head of the School of Arts and Humanities, Institute of Education, University of London, present and expand on the key findings from their recent research project, 'PROMISE', which examined the Provision of Music in Special Education and specifically in schools for pupils with severe or profound and multiple difficulties. The authors conclude their paper with an acknowledgement that a great deal of significant work takes place in these contexts at present but that further research, leading to the provision of new resources for curriculum and staff development, is crucial to the realisation of music's full potential in the lives of pupils with severe and profound and multiple learning difficulties.     

Self-Injurious Behaviour: A Unitary Phenomenon or a Set of Diverse Behaviours?

The author is head of the department for children with specific behaviour and communication difficulties, Whitefield School, London Borough of Waltham Forest. He is course tutor on the M.Sc. course in special education (autism) jointly run by the school and the Cranfield Institute of Technology. This account of an original research project is based on his thesis for the M.Ed. degree in special education at Manchester University.     

美国幼儿教育项目有效性的评价及启示:基于LPI研究报告

2019年1月,美国LPI发布了《幼儿教育有效性的实证性依据:对政策制定者的启示》,该报告分析了美国近期开展的21个幼儿教育项目及其评估报告,系统评价了不同幼儿教育项目的有效性。发现,高质量幼儿教育项目支持幼儿的有效性学习,其对幼儿参与者的影响具有持续性、多维性,并能带来一定的社会经济收益,但幼儿教育项目在实施过程中也存在研究对象不确定、其他因素对幼儿参与者的影响不明确等问题。借鉴LPI的研究成果,我国幼儿教育质量评价应从实际出发,改进幼儿教育质量评级政策,关注幼儿教育质量评级标准与工具的有效性,建立幼儿教育项目评价长效机制,不断提升我国幼儿教育质量评价的有效性。     

Training with a School Focus

A new one-term course which has its focus on the school, local education authorities and practical projects chosen by course members is described by Dr Brahm Norwich, lecturer in special needs, London University Institute of Education, and Elizabeth Cowne, tutor to the course for teachers of children with special educational needs in the ordinary school.     

Factors involved with qualitative syntheses: A new focus for research in science education

This article describes the nature of qualitative syntheses and reports such efforts as a new focus for research in science education. It uses Project Synthesis as conceived by Norris Harms as an example of a Qualitative Synthesis. It identifies four features for such research efforts: (1) They involve research teams structured to provide a variety of perspectives and viewpoints. (2) They involve a wide variety of data sources, including massive sets of data from a variety of sources and perspectives. Much of these data are qualitative and often gathered initially for a variety of purposes. (3) They include at least one conceptual scheme for accomplishing a synthesis. Most include a set of goals as one organizer and a set of critical incidents as another. Studies involving more than two such dimensions provide even more meaningful and useful synthesis. (4) They conclude with an analysis of meaning, a formulation of an overarching scheme, and a new model to be used for further thinking, research, and analysis. Such synthesis efforts also end with a set of recommendations for action and/or hypotheses to be tested.     

Collaboration as a catalyst for critical thinking in undergraduate research

Critical thinking and working together are key skills for lifelong learning, but current assessment practices do not necessarily support their acquisition, given the instrumental attitudes to learning of many higher education students. A small‐scale action research project was undertaken within the context of tutoring on a research module of an undergraduate early childhood studies course. This research module offered a fruitful context for an examination of the potential for collaboration to act as a catalyst for the development of critical thinking. The data are explored principally through the theoretical framework of critical thinking dispositions devised by Norris and Ennis (1989).     

Learning and schooling of Basarwa (Bushmen) children in Botswana

Conclusion This article highlights the inadequacy of the current model of schooling delivered to Basarwa children in Botswana, and contends that their education should be reevaluated from a cultural viewpoint. Children and teachers are enmeshed in a dynamic, cultural, social and political web, and there are serious language and cultural barriers to learning. These barriers underscore the need for a bilingual, multicultural model of education to affirm and strengthen the culture of the child. The high mobility of the Basarwa demands a flexible, less formal model of schooling and training of teachers from within the Basarwa culture. An innovative curriculum is needed, building on traditional Basarwa pedagogy and world view to develop skills needed to gain greater equity. The approach to health education known as Child-to-Child has considerable potential for curriculum development. Until a more relevant educational model is available Basarwa children will continue to be disadvantaged. A lecturer in education and development at the University of London Institute of Education, where she is responsible for advanced diploma and masters courses in health education and promotion. She is a qualified school-teacher and nutritionist, with more than ten years' experience in higher education and in community development for health in West and East Africa. She is conducting research in health through schooling, and will complete her Ph.D. thesis on ‘Children as health educators’ in 1995. She has a special interest in participatory research methods and gender issues, and is married with four children.     

School placement and conductive education: the experiences of education administrators

A placement at the National Institute of Conductive Education (NICE) in Birmingham for children with motor disorders is strongly preferred over mainstream or special schools by some parents, but it has been noted that this is usually refused following the current statementing process. Although funding constraints have been articulated, Angela Morgan, a Research Fellow at the Wolverhampton University Policy Research Institute, and Kevin Hogan, also at the University of Wolverhampton, contend in this article that other explanations are possible, as variability remains in placement decisions. The experiences of education administrators working within the special educational needs departments of local education authorities who make the ultimate decision regarding school placement have hitherto been unexplored. This study offers findings from an exploratory qualitative study, which suggests that administrators are working from disparate understandings of conductive education within an arena fraught with conflict. Recommendations derived from the study include further in-service training for education administrators and prior training for individuals seeking a career in education administration to enhance collaborative working partnerships between administrators and parents.     

校所合作办学:培养古生物学专业本科生的探索与实践

本文介绍了南京大学与中国科学院南京地质古生物研究所及北京古脊椎动物与古人类研究所三方实质性合作办学,培养"地质学"国家理科基地古生物学专业方向本科生的探索与实践。培养方案的制订、专业教育与创新能力与意识的培养是校所合作办学的3个关键方面。实践结果表明,校所合作办学不仅是提高国家理科基地学生培养质量与效率的有效途径,而且也是高等学校和专业研究机构两者"双赢"的一种办学模式。     

Facilitating communication between education and health services: the provision for children with speech and language needs

In this article, James Law, Marie Gascoigne and Nina Soloff, of the Department of Language and Communication Science at City University, London; Geoff Lindsay and Sue Band, of the Institute of Education, University of Warwick; and Nick Peacey and Julie Radford, of the Institute of Education, University of London, explore provision for children with speech and language needs. The authors report the outcomes of Government-funded research into the provision of speech and language therapy services and identify 13 key themes which emerge from a review of these findings. They proceed to make a series of important and challenging recommendations, many of which focus on the need for enhanced collaboration at a range of levels.     

How we started: the family literacy programme in Slovenia

Different research on literacy demonstrates that the family has an important impact on literacy in general and it seems that there may be an inter‐generational transfer of literacy level and reading habits within families. In order to compensate for lack of encouragement of reading at home, different initiatives have been developed involving work with children and adults, because of their stronger influence on the whole family. The more effective methods are those that include members of the same family, especially parents and children. The Slovenian Institute for Adult Education has developed a family literacy programme for parents and their children called ‘Read and Write Together’. This is aimed at parents with a low standard of education who have children in the initial years of elementary school. At that time, parents are very motivated to help their children to succeed at school, but their own basic skills need some refreshment before they are able to help their children. The school programme involves two teachers, 50 hours of organised schoolwork and 25 hours of planned homework.     

THE RANGE OF AN AGENDA

The Central Institute for Higher Education of Berlin is introduced and a short history of the institution is given. Founded in 1982, it is an example of a centralized national centre for research on higher education, having had responsibility for higher education research in the whole of the former German Democratic Republic. In order for the Institute to survive in the new, reunited Germany, it has had to change its strategies and the scope of its investigations which will now be arranged around four major fields of investigation. Having acquired great expertise in the study of higher education in the former German Democratic Republic and also having done work on the higher education systems of the other European socialist countries, the Institute is currently well suited to continue its specialization in eastern European higher education affairs and to make very positive contributions in the future.     

The home instruction program for preschool youngsters: An alternative for early intervention

The Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) is a home-based program in which paraprofessionals from the community teach parents how to use structured educational materials to enrich the education of their four- and five-year-old children. HIPPY was developed in 1969 by Dr. Avima Lombard of the National Council of Jewish Women Research Institute at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It has since become a national program in Israel for disadvantaged families and their preschool children.Arlene Brett is Associate Professor in the School of Education, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL     

People and Perspectives

Books reviewed:
Red Rose Chain/Alpha Films, Four Carrier Bags and a Buggy
Alison Closs, The Education of Children with Medical Conditions
Ralph L. Klicker, A Student Dies, A School Mourns     

Participatory creativities: developing a research design for children’s pastoral encounters with the natural world

ABSTRACT

In this paper, the author discusses the interrelationship between creativity, children’s experiences of the natural world and pastoral education. Based on a research design developed whilst undertaking a professional doctorate in education (EdD), and grounded in a theoretical framework of children’s rights, the author explores the creative uncertainties of collaboratively researching children’s educational experiences with nature. The paper considers the ways in which the research design supports a pastoral care agenda, whilst encouraging the emergence of ‘creative artefacts’, alongside the extent to which the focus of the research, encounters with the natural world, might be deemed pastorally minded in its own right. The children who have participated in the research then draw the paper to a close, sharing what their involvement in the project has meant to them. Images and excerpts of children’s own creative reflections are offered as illustration of the powerful confluence of the Creative and the Pastoral.     

Education for sustainability within early childhood studies: collaboration and inquiry through projects with children

This paper considers an Action Research project which was implemented to establish a shared understanding of the term ‘Education for Sustainable development’ within the context of an Early Childhood Studies degree. Students engaged in projects with children and local early years’ providers, and the research aligns with previous work undertaken by Siraj-Blatchford, Smith, and Samuelsson (2010. Education for Sustainable Development in the Early Years. Organisation Mondiale Pour ?Education Prescolaire (OMEP)), which explored the role of education for sustainability in the field of Early Childhood Education. With the lingering and persistent preoccupation with testing, results and outcomes in early childhood education, compulsory school education and higher education the research aimed to capture the idea of the student as a change agent with opportunities to work with children as agents of change. The main findings lean towards participatory action research as an emancipatory reminder that research does not need to be a technical activity and the voices and actions of children, students and early childhood educators can be foregrounded in a way that validates authentic involvement by all participants.     

Why Teach? Motives for Teaching Revisited

The 1960s saw a rapid expansion of teacher education in Singapore. This was followed by an attempt to ensure quality teacher education, beginning with the establishment of the Institute of Education in 1973. The Institute was established to take over the responsibilities of teacher preparation and educational research, functions which were performed by the Teachers' Training College, the School of Education of the University of Singapore and the Research Unit of the Ministry of Education. Since its establishment, the Institute has provided pre-service training for some 6000 teachers, both non-graduates and graduates. In addition to these, some fifteen thousand teachers have gone through in-service courses of one kind or another at the Institute over the past decade (Lun and Chan, 1983). The above facts show the concern with and effort dedicated to the improvement of teacher quality in Singapore.     

专注高品质师资培育:多伦多大学MT项目探析

教学硕士(MT)项目是多伦多大学安大略教育研究院教师教育硕士项目,旨在培养杰出的中小学教师及教育行业的卓越领导者。MT项目构建运行非常具有特色,结合了教学硕士学位与中小学教师认证,社群协作的学习模式,满足未来教学需要的特色课程,穿插模块式的教学实习,原创性小规模的课题研究。安大略教育研究院的MT项目与我国教育硕士专业学位研究生培养有很多相似之处,探讨MT项目运行情况,可以为我国完善教育硕士专业学位研究生培养获得一些思考与借鉴。