A Review of Critical,Person‐centred and Clinical Approaches to Reminiscence Work for People with Intellectual Disabilities

The present article reviews reminiscence research with regard to people with intellectual disabilities. Although the term “reminiscence” is not often used in intellectual disability research, the concept offers a useful framework for charting the different approaches in literature, thanks to its multidisciplinary character and eclectic theoretical background. Three main perspectives are identified: a critical approach, in which reminiscence is stimulated to let people with intellectual disabilities become critically aware of their past; a person‐centred approach, in which reminiscence serves informational and social purposes; and a clinical approach, in which reminiscence is presented as an alternative diagnostic instrument and/or a “low‐threshold” narrative counselling method for people with intellectual disabilities. The three approaches differ in language use, aims, and backgrounds, but there is congruency amongst the approaches in that reminiscence work can strengthen the identity of people with intellectual disabilities, raise self‐esteem, and enhance social contacts. The review concludes that a more balanced view of reminiscence, better methodological procedures, and more evaluation studies on the effect and process of reminiscence work are needed in future research.     

COLLEGE STUDENTS’ REACTIONS TOWARDS KEY FACETS OF CLASSROOM TESTING

The major aim of the present study is to assess college students’ attitudes, perceptions, emotional reactions and affective dispositions with respect to various critical dimensions of course achievement testing and assessment, including: “papers” vs. “exams”, “essay” vs. “multiple choice” type formats, “open book” vs. “closed book” exams, “free choice” among items vs. “no free choice” among items, and “oral” vs. “written” modes of test administration. A further aim is to delineate the construction, properties, and potential classroom uses and applications of a selected sample of examinee feedback inventories designed to gauge students’ test attitudes and dispositions. The use of each examinee feedback inventory is demonstrated and exemplified in the context of an empirical study. This paper discusses the assumptions underlying the use of feedback systems in college achievement evaluation; their importance for assessing the face validity of classroom tests; some possible future applications of feedback inventories for research and applied purposes in college; and some guidelines for future research. A mapping sentence specifying the universe of content of test attitude and examinee feedback research is suggested as a heuristic device for guiding future research.     

The Practicality of Principled Practical Knowledge: A Response to Janssen,Westbroek, and Doyle

“Practicality Studies” (Janssen, Westbroek, & Doyle, 2015/this issue) starts with a critical commentary on “Principled Practical Knowledge: Not a Bridge but a Ladder” (Bereiter, 2014) but consists in the main of an essay on what the authors consider to be really practical knowledge for teachers. The gist of their criticism is that “Bereiter and with him a large part of the design research community in the learning sciences underestimate the magnitude of … usability issues and in fact believe that much of the task of usability is already solved by design research in the learning sciences” (p. 177). The authors argue persuasively for giving “practicality studies” a place in learning sciences research, but their subtitle—“How to Move From What Works in Principle to What Works in Practice”—claims too much and makes an invidious distinction.     

Teacher educators’ collaboration in subject departments: collaborative activities and social relations

Teacher educators’ collaboration plays an important role in the improvement of teacher education. Many studies in educational research focus on collaboration from 1 particular perspective. A focus on 2 perspectives, a qualitative (focusing on collaborative activities) as well as a quantitative (focusing on relations) perspective, and relating both perspectives, can add to our knowledge. Data were collected in 3 subject departments of a teacher education institute. Findings indicated that educators’ collaborative networks inside the departments could gain from more coherent and dense relations, and that key players were important to support and sustain collaboration. Both perspectives were mildly related, correlations were found for “degree” and “information” (r = .31, p < .05), “degree” and “joint work” (r = .38, p < .01), and “reciprocity” and “joint work” (r = .33, p < .05), no correlations were found for “degree” or “reciprocity” and “discussing”. At the department level, only mathematics showed significant correlations. Results indicated that, in further research, qualitative aspects as well as quantitative aspects should be included.     

Towards Greater Collaboration in Educational Neuroscience: Perspectives From the 2018 Earli‐SIG22 Conference

The special issue resulting from the 2018 Earli‐SIG22 conference reflects the current state of the field, the diversity of methods, the persevering limitations and promising directions towards solutions. About half of the empirical papers in this special issue that consist of three parts, uses behavioral, self‐report or qualitative measures to understand the “mind” level of Mind, Brain, and Education. The other half investigates the “brain” level, using neuroimaging but also genetics or eye‐tracking to gain access to the wider range of biological substrates of learning and cognition. These biological studies mostly have added value by refining psychological theories, such that these inspire new hypotheses to test in the field, to ultimately better inform teaching. Importantly, the special issue presents several approaches to more intensive, bi‐directional and systematic practice‐research collaborations to better connect the “mind” and “brain” levels to education, and to equip researchers to realize such collaborations successfully in the future.     

The uses of (digital) literacy

This article shares research facilitated by a multinational technology provider, converging mobile networked technology (tablets) used across school and home, a technology enhanced community ‘third space’ providing workshops for students aged 6–9 with their parents/carers. The approach taken avoids the instrumental measurement of functional digital literacy competences, but instead seeks to negotiate a more nuanced and complex understanding of the ‘uses of literacy’ [from Hoggart, R. 1957. The Uses of Literacy. London: Pelican] in digital contexts and in a deeply situated, specific local setting. Working with our findings, we later put Amartya Sen’s concept of capability [Sen, A. K. 2005. “Human Rights and Capabilities.” Journal of Human Development 6 (2): 151–166; Sen, A. K. 2008. “Capability and Well-Being.” In The Philosophy of Economics, edited by D. M. Hausman, 3rd ed., 270–293. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press] to work on our data in order to provide a discussion on how the digital literacy community might distinguish digital competences as functionings from the ‘uses’ of such competences for a broader range of capabilities.     

朱自清先生《南京》的修辞艺术

《南京》是朱自清先生众多散文中较为著名的一篇游记散文。朱自清先生在文中通过炼音、炼词、炼句等修辞方式,抒发了对南京的怀古与赞美之情。现从修辞艺术的角度,归纳出《南京》一文中最主要的修辞规律,了解修辞方法和技巧,更好地欣赏原著,并在写作中得以借鉴。     

国际虚拟现实教育应用演进趋势与启示

为厘清国外虚拟现实教育应用研究演进趋势,以 “Virtualreality”和“Education”为中心关键词,利用CiteSpace对Web of Science核心合集2004-2019年间收录的658篇文献进行可视化分析。结果发现,国外虚拟现实教育研究演进趋势呈现局部到整体、整体再到局部的发展态势。 由此提出我国虚拟现实教育应用研究发展方向应集中于3个方面：①深化虚拟学习,通过在线虚拟仿真教育打造校际间深度学习共同体;②优化学习空间,构建多功能化虚拟学习环境以实现特殊教育与基础教育的有机融合;③落实教育理念,利用跨学科虚拟学习资源促进教育个性化、多样化和开放性发展。     

Neoliberal common sense and race-neutral discourses: a critique of “evidence-based” policy-making in school policing

The author of this paper uses critical discourse analysis and draws on critical social theory and policy studies to analyze the interdiscursivity between neoliberal common sense discourses around crime and safety and race-neutral discourses, “evidence-based” policy, and the research that supports school policing programs. The author offers a macro-sociological analysis of how neoliberal common sense and race-neutral discourses shape crime policy. Next, the author discusses the rise of “evidence-based” policy formation. She argues that evidence-based policy serves to narrow the scope of what constitutes “scientific” research and delegitimize research that uses race as an analytical lens. Then, through textual analysis of samples of the “evidence” supporting school policing, the author illustrates the ways in which neoliberal common sense discourses around crime and safety and race-neutral discourses become the ideological starting point for the research and internalized within research documents. The result is the creation of a hegemonic “evidence-loop” that privileges ideologically driven research that assumes a “scientific” stance and obscures racial bias while it excludes the critical research on the school policing.     

D.RA.MA: An Extended Conceptualization of Student Anxiety in Criminal Justice Research Methods Courses

The challenges of teaching research methods and statistics to students majoring in criminology and criminal justice are well known. The professor has to deal with an array of obstacles among students, including Disinterest, Relevance Argumentation (viewing statistical skills as detached from the “real world”) and Math Anxiety (D.RA.MA). This paper presents the development of an assessment scale to measure the levels of “D.RA.MA” experienced by students enrolled in research methods or statistics courses. The literature is vast on “math anxiety scales.” However, trepidation on the part of criminal justice students who are anticipating their research methods and statistics courses may extend beyond math anxiety. Therefore, the traditional math anxiety scale was extended to include attempts at measuring Disinterest and Relevance Argumentation. Readers are provided with the D.RA.MA scale instrument and data from an assessment of 80 students in criminal justice courses. Assessing this broader student apprehension may serve as an important first step in making the necessary efforts to reduce student apprehension towards these classes.     

A critique of neo-Hahnian outdoor education theory. Part two: “The fundamental attribution error” in contemporary outdoor education discourse

Abstract

In the first of a two part series of articles I argued that “character building” in outdoor adventure education (OAE) is a flawed concept. This, the second article, examines the persistence of the idea of character building in OAE in the face of strong evidence that outdoor experiences cannot change personal traits. I examine how the “fundamental attribution error” can explain the paradox of (a) a shortage of evidence that adventure education “works” and (b) a widespread belief that it does “work”. I review the place of character building in research, and develop a critical reading of a representative adventure education text. I show how unchallenged dispositionist assumptions emerge in neo-Hahnian discourse. I explain how discarding the intuitively appealing but fallacious foundations of neo-Hahnism can clear the way for situationist approaches to outdoor education that bring much needed sensitivity to cultural, regional, historical, and social contexts.     

The Service of the Association∗

This article begins with an acknowledgment of the complexities of religion's position in the English school system that open it to diverse interpretations. It uses research in a variety of schools to illustrate three different approaches to religion: doxological, sacramental, and instrumental, founded, respectively, on certain faith in God, on openness to the possibility of God, and on a default scepticism. The contested nature of religion's place in schooling is acknowledged and, in response, both secular and religious reasons are given for hearing religious voices in the educational sphere. The argument is made that an equitable religious-and-secular settlement is dependent on “religiously understood” religion being allowed into the conversation. The relationship between penultimate and ultimate is used to analyze each of the three approaches for their engagement with “religiously understood” religion and their contributions to religious and secular understanding.     

Pedagogies of Hauntology in History Education: Learning to Live with the Ghosts of Disappeared Victims of War and Dictatorship

Michalinos Zembylas examines how history education can be reconceived in terms of Jacques Derrida's notion of “hauntology,” that is, as an ongoing conversation with the “ghost” — in the case of this essay, the ghosts of disappeared victims of war and dictatorship. Here, Zembylas uses hauntology as both metaphor and pedagogical methodology for deconstructing the orthodoxies of academic history thinking and learning about “the disappeared.” As metaphor, hauntology evokes the figure of the ghost in order both to trouble the hegemonic status of representational modes of knowledge in remembrance practices and to undermine their ontological frames and ideological histories. As pedagogical methodology, hauntology reframes histories of loss and absence and uses them as points of departure to acknowledge the complexities and contradictions that emerge from haunting. Pedagogies of hauntology are constituted as responses to “spectacle pedagogy” in teaching about the disappeared, that is, a ubiquitous form of representation that manifests the ghosts in a sensationalized and ideological manner.     

Curriculum Inequality And School Reform

This article is the second part of a two‐part series called “Keeping Track“ published in the September and October 1986 Phi Delta Kappan The first part was titled “The Policy and Practice of Curricular Inequality”; this second part is reprinted by permission.     

The Flipped Classroom: Primary and Secondary Teachers’ Views on an Educational Movement in Schools in Sweden Today

The aim of this study is to contribute to an increased understanding of the flipped classroom movement. A total of 7 teachers working in school years 4–9 and who both actively flipped their classrooms and had been early adopters in this movement were interviewed. Two research questions were posed: “What characterizes flipped classroom instruction according to the teachers?” and “What objectives do the flipped classroom meet according to the teachers?” Regarding the first research question, a characteristic of a flipped classroom was “the flip,” a task to be accomplished outside the classroom before class. In relation to the second research question we found three objectives: Student activity in class; Educational change; Being part of a digital learning community.     

闽南俗语图像语境的现实意义--以惠女阿芳画说闽南为个案研究

随着闽南文化大力发展的需求,对于如何有效的保护与传播闽南文化,已经成为当下研究的重点,本文通过对闽南俗语推广的研究,以近年出现的惠女阿芳画说闽南为个案研究,围绕其“闽南俗语”这一艺术创新语境而展开,其内容的通俗、生动与时代感气息,充满了浓郁的人性生活与艺术特色,吸引了广大读者的视觉感知,这恰好是当下保护与传播闽南文化必要的传递形式。以图像诠释文化的现实意义,无疑是值得我们研究的重点。     

Voice,post-structural representation and the subjectivity of ‘included’ students

Aligned with the broader movement from structuralism to the post-structuralisms [Lather, P. 2013. “Methodology-21: What Do We Do in the Afterward?” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 26 (6): 634–645; St. Pierre, E. A. 2009. “Afterword: Decentering Voice in Qualitative Inquiry.” In Voice in Qualitative Inquiry: Challenging Conventional, Interpretive, and Critical Conceptions in Qualitative Research, edited by A. Y. Jackson and L. A. Mazzei, 221–236. London: Routledge; St. Pierre, E. A. 2013. “The Posts Continue: Becoming.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 26 (6): 646–657], research in disability studies for the past two decades has found ‘the potholes’ [Miller, L., J. B. Whalley, and I. Stronach. 2012. “From Structuralism to Poststructuralism.” In Research Methods in the Social Sciences, edited by B. Somekh and C. Lewin. London: SAGE] of disability rights scholarship. In this paper, I offer a critical research framework in the field of disability studies in education that is theoretical, political and personal. Concentrating on the positioning of disability, I draw on the methodological tools of post-structural representation, subjectivity and constructivist grounded theory to study how discursive practices within (and around) secondary schools shape ‘included’ disabled subjects. In the paper I develop this framework and then demonstrate its application in ongoing research that critically counters the conventions that marginalize particular students in schools.     

Given to theatrics: how to agree with your critic on the qualities of qualitative research

Editor's note:An article by Kathleen Gershman, “Surviving Through Time: A Life History of a High‐School Drama Production,” was published in volume 1, number 3 of QSE.The article was responded to in the next issue by John Bengston, an educational psychologist with an interest in drama and qualitative research. In his article, “What makes a study qualitative?,” Bengston draws a connection between the rigors demanded by theater productions and the demands of qualitative research. In the following article Gershman responds.     

Ethnography at a distance: globally mobile parents choosing international schools

The research we report on was conducted from our computer desktops. We have not met the people we have studied; they are part of what Eichhorn described as a “textual community”, gathered around the threads of online conversations associated with a website servicing the needs of English-language speakers in Germany. The thread in question started in 2008 with a query from someone about to move to Berlin, seeking advice about the best international school in which to enrol her three children. The ensuing conversations are revealing, not only because of the schools canvassed and the manner in which they are discussed, but also because of the schools that are not charted into the discussion. This paper raises questions about qualitative research methodologies in online settings, particularly in relation to studies of the global middle-class. It examines claims about an emerging commitment to “nonlocal ethnography” and the surmising one can make about research subjects one never meets, but who remain comprehensible because of the broader cultural context in which they are situated. The research carries the promise of “rich enough” ethnography, reflecting a commitment to understanding what people do, documenting and analysing the intricate realities influencing and shaping individual choices people make, the complexities they face and the realities they help create. The fact that it was done “at a distance”, in so-called virtual spaces, does not undermine its ethnographic authenticity.