The silent politics of educational disadvantage and the National Anti-poverty Strategy

Educational disadvantage is an essentially contested, political concept. At the same time there is a ‘phoney consensus’ surrounding the issue, i.e., policy debates on the topic often fail to reflect this contestation. This lack of awareness of the political context to the debate is evident in relation to the targets and measures set for addressing educational disadvantage. While Lynch has pointed out the political undertones of ‘comparative’ targets and measures, the conservative political position inherent in the ‘outputs-led’ model has not properly been explored. Indeed, the apparently technical and value-free nature of targets and measures has enabled this conservative political perspective to become embedded in public educational policy without debate.     

Historical construction and Australian Catholic education: accounting for school funding policy from the cultural politics of Australian education

This paper seeks to explain why the policy history of school funding in regard to Australian Catholic Education looks and sounds the way it does today through the production of a genealogy of the subject. The questions addressed are, first, why has the funding of Catholic schools in Australia become an occluded historical site since the 1970s, despite the controversy in which popular accounts of the funding of Australian schools is mired, and when its prevalence so completely dominated the discourses of Australian education in the prior century? Second, has funding policy discourse been defined and contained and what basis is there for contesting such discourse in light of events since that period of time? Third, which or whose policy version triumphs and becomes the accepted policy process and which other policy approaches are obliterated in this process? The theoretical perspective adopted in this paper draws from both postmodern critiques and cultural theories of historical construction, as framed within Foucauldian Studies.     

Educational reform and the educational psychologist: Another perspective

In responding to the work of Benton and Hoyt, Kowalski argues that an adequate analysis of reform efforts is incomplete without an examination of underlying purposes. Questions are raised regarding the motives of those who promote extended teacher education programs and the Carnegie Forum proposal for national certification. The author suggests that educational psychologists can contribute to reform efforts by helping to explore values, beliefs, motivations, and needs as they relate to change proposals in teacher education.     

The politics of mourning in Cyprus and Israel: educational implications

This paper suggests the need for a critical analysis of the nationalization of mourning and its educational implications, especially in conflict‐ridden areas. Our thoughts are grounded in a comparative study on mourning that has been conducted as part of our long‐standing ethnographic research in schools in Cyprus and Israel during the last 10 years. Through this study on mourning, we highlight two ideas. First, we want to show how a comparison of our studies in Cyprus and Israel highlights the difficulties for alternative interpretations to be translated into educational policies and teacher practices in the absence of changes in political structures. Second, we want to show that despite the forces that nationalize mourning, there are educational openings for alternative interpretations about mourning and the encouragement of reconciliation pedagogies. To this end, the education literature on teaching controversial issues and examples of pedagogies for reconciliation might be relevant to provide concrete ideas for education theory, policy and practice on issues of mourning.     

古代中日教育文化交流对日本熟语的影响

中日两国的教育交流历史悠久,它深刻地影响了日本的文化以及作为文化载体的语言文字。儒家思想和古汉语是日本文化和语言词汇的重要渊源之一,分析作为民族智慧结晶的熟语,就可以看出日本语的许多典故、谚语来自于中国的经典、寓言故事和成语。比较中日熟语的渊源和相互影响,对于学习语言和反思祖国传统文化有着重要意义。     

文化传统对教育信息化的影响

化传统对教育信息化有着重大的影响，表现在物质、制度、观念三个层面，且三个层面对教育信息化的影响叶递增关系。     

文化传统对教育信息化的影响

化传统对教育信息化有着重大的影响，表现在物质、制度、观念三个层面，且三个层面对教育信息的影响呈递增关系。物质层面对教育信息化的影响最弱，制度层面处于中间，观念层面对教育信息化的影响最强，未来的教育信息化只能是“传统的教育化 教育信息化”的一种整合形式。     

从教育心理学视角探析高校思想政治理论课

随着信息社会的发展,大学生思想意识发生了深刻变化。高校思想政治理论课教学需运用教育心理学理论进行创新,通过认知教学法、情感教学法、实践教学法,提高教学的实效性。     

The problem of cultural fit—what can we learn from borrowing the German Dual System?

Culture impedes educational transactions between developed countries, and is often an area of tension when developing countries try to borrow models, or have models imposed upon them. This article uses the German Dual System as a case for examining issues surrounding the adaptation of borrowed models. Since attempts at borrowing models can fail for cultural as well as non‐cultural reasons, a contention here is that culture needs to be unpacked and laid bare, to avoid it becoming the too easy answer for failure. Borrowed models have a greater chance of taking hold, if the conditions that forged them are understood, and if conditions of the receiving country are likewise internalized. Limits imposed by culture have to be recognized. Four approaches to cultural borrowing that conceivably can reduce the tensions are proposed namely, partial borrowing, pilot borrowing, customization and conceptual borrowing.     

引导支持服务--浅论教学管理改革与素质教育的实施

实施素质教育是我国教育的战略决策。学校教学管理部门应重新审视自己的职能定位,开拓新的工作思路。其中,引导教师转换角色、更新观念;支持教学目标系统的创新改造;拓展教学管理工作的职能,尝试进行服务式管理等三个问题构成了教管部门新的改革课题。     

家庭经济和文化资本对子女教育机会获得的影响

根据国家统计局2000年的城镇住户调查数据,运用对应分析方法,建立相关计量模型,分析经济资本和文化资本对子女高等教育和中等教育机会获得的影响程度;并在此基础上,比较不同职业阶层子女教育机会获得的差别。研究结果表明:家庭文化资本和经济资本占有量位居前列的优势社会阶层,其子女接受的教育层次主要为高等教育;而文化资本和经济资本占有量均处劣势的社会阶层的子女接受的主要是中等教育和初等教育。另外,家庭文化资本对子女高等教育机会获得的影响明显大于家庭经济资本,而家庭文化资本对子女中等教育机会获得的影响略大于家庭经济资本。     

Children’s conversion of cultural capital into educational success: the symbolic and skill-generating functions of cultural capital

Abstract

A prominent explanation of intergenerational educational inequality is Bourdieu’s cultural reproduction theory. Indeed, previous studies have frequently shown that children’s cultural capital relates to academic outcomes. However, it remains unclear how children convert their cultural capital into achievement. While Bourdieu argued that cultural capital influences academic outcomes primarily by biasing teachers’ grades, other researchers have proposed the alternative explanation that children’s cultural capital absorption directly translates into academic skills. Using survey data on 2975 fifth graders from the German National Educational Panel Study, we disentangle these two mechanisms of children’s cultural capital conversion; and argue that the main conversion mechanism depends on the cultural capital dimension examined. The results of our structural equation model suggest that both mechanisms are at work and that the main conversion mechanism depends on the dimension of cultural capital examined.     

Policy,practice, and reconversion in Spanish educational reform: teaching and teacher education in physical education

Abstract

Since the late 1980s, reform of the Spanish education system has been justified by reformists as a response to the social and economic changes that have occurred in Spanish society since the democratic transition in the 1970s. Consolidation of democracy, development of technology and economic convergence with the advanced nations of Europe have been seen as the major challenges for educational reform. Restructuring and legitimation processes derived from the requirements of the new reform have been conceptualized as a policy of reconversion, the main purpose of which is to maintain, or achieve, a strong competitive position in the international market. In this paper, conceptualizing educational reform as a reconversion process will allow us to link aspects of the new curriculum (content, pedagogy and assessment), school organization, teaching and teacher education in physical education with wider economic, social and cultural influences and explore the tensions and conflicts between policy and practice in PE in schools. The paper will argue that there is a widening gap between the interests of progressive educationalists and the direction of market‐driven education reform.     

The refugee crisis,non-citizens,border politics and education

In the midst of the most serious refugee crisis since WWII, nation states are buttressing their borders. This paper explores the border politics of the nation state in response to the refugee crisis. Drawing on the work of Susan Sontag, Judith Butler and Imogen Tyler it considers the ways in which the imagery of the pain and suffering of Others is deployed to bolster concerns surrounding the sovereignty and safety of the nation state. I suggest the proliferation of ‘non-citizen spaces’, such as refugee detention camps, indicate the need to re-examine the border practices of the nation state amidst contemporary globalisation, and re-consider the limits of popular – and often taken for granted – notions of ‘global citizenship’ in education research and practice. This involves, I contend, understanding concepts and practices of migration, transition and the global as mediated in and through the fortification of nation state borders.     

Field theory in cultural capital studies of educational attainment

This article argues that there is a double problem in international research in cultural capital and educational attainment: an empirical problem, since few new insights have been gained within recent years; and a theoretical problem, since cultural capital is seen as a simple hypothesis about certain isolated individual resources, disregarding the structural vision and important related concepts such as field in Bourdieu’s sociology. We (re-)emphasize the role of field theory in cultural capital research in education, taking into consideration current concerns in international quantitative research.     

Reconsidering school politics: educational controversies in Sweden

School politics in Sweden has recently moved in a conservative direction, emphasising the importance of conventional school subjects, stronger teacher authority and more discipline in the classroom. At the same time, consensus on the utility of such measures is lacking in the school debate. The conservative approach is often criticised as misleading and behind the times in relation to contemporary knowledge demands. This article examines and discusses the relevance of this critique. The main argument is that the conservative approach has a better matching with a previous phase in the history of Swedish school politics and that conventional schooling is difficult to combine with two of the major goals of schooling today – the diffusion of democracy and multipurpose skills. From this perspective, the political notion of schooling seems decoupled from the broader domain of public demands on education. To alleviate this problem school politics should draw less on the pedagogical ideas of essentialism and more on the historical legacy of progressivism in the Swedish education system.     

生本教育改革实验的行动研究

为使澳门的教育改革能适应21世纪的教育发展,教育必须改革,探索适合于本校教育教学发展之路。生本教育为我们开启了一扇改革之门。本文旨在阐述我校实施生本教育的情况,分析生本教育实验取得初步成效的原因,探讨实施过程中所遇到的困难和问题,并提出建议、今后努力之方向。     

Educational reform: Implications for educational psychologists

The Holmes Group report, titled Tomorrow's Teachers (1986), and the report of the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, titled A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century (1986), contain major reform proposals that have implications for educational psychologists. To understand the nature of these proposals, we performed a content analysis of the Holmes and Carnegie documents and constructed a 149-item survey instrument. Three separate mailings were conducted to solicit volunteer respondents from the initial Holmes Group, Division 15 of APA, and the Teacher Education Council of State Colleges and Universities (TECSCU). A principal components analysis with varimax rotation was performed on data collected from 1039 respondents, and three factors were found to underlie the survey instrument: Incremental Changes, Sweeping Changes, and Financial Changes. A multivariate analysis of variance on the three factor scores revealed that the Holmes Group more strongly supported Incremental and Sweeping Changes than did TECSCU respondents, and that Division 15 members more strongly endorsed Sweeping Changes than did TECSCU. Recommendations are made for involving educational psychologists in the reform process.     

Analysis and implications of educational reform proposals for educational psychologists: A comment on Benton and Hoyt

The design of Benton and Hoyt's study is discussed, as well as their data analysis. The limitations of the study, including the possible bias toward economic issues of the items and of data interpretation and nonrandom sampling of the subjects, are noted. Benton and Hoyt's discussion of how educational psychologists are affected by the educational reform movement is considered within the larger framework of the shift in educational research from a static normative to a dynamic interactionist approach. This shift has not only affected specific reform proposals, but also shows promise of resolving perceived conflicts in the proposals between excellence and equity and educational psychologists and teacher educators.     

Educational reforms,cultural clashes and classroom practices

This article presents an ongoing study of educational policy enactment in Singapore lower primary English classrooms. It explores how teachers react to and interpret educational reforms in their classroom practices against a backdrop of traditional cultural values. Using a prescribed coding scheme, the article presents the instructional organisational patterns and participation structures of the lessons. Through a systematic analysis of the enacted curricula, the paper examines classroom practices as well as teaching and learning activities in Primary 1 (7–8 years) and Primary 2 (8–9 years) English lessons in Singapore. The results suggest that there are cultural clashes between major educational reforms which emphasise independent/critical thinking and ‘Asian values’ which promote respect for authority and conformity.