‘In’ or ‘For’ the Learning Society?

The Dearing Report on higher education in the UK places itself in the context of 'he learning society' It notes a world of change and unpredictability and looks to higher education to assist in the development of the 'nation's people' so as 'to sustain a competitive economy'. To this end, the Report places significance upon 'learning'and the need for learners to be 'enthused' However, the Report also places a heavy emphasis on the need to develop a range of 'skills' thereby falling back onto assumptions of stability – of situations and human responses – which an unpredictable world denies. The Report offers a view of higher education 'in' a learning society, responding to given and understood parameters of change. It could, instead, have offered a vision of higher education developing human dispositions capable of creatively helping to generate an uncertain but reflexive world. That would have been a higher education 'or'a learning society.     

What does ‘inclusion’ mean for pupils on the autistic spectrum in mainstream secondary schools?

The last decade has seen a groundswell of developments in educational policy in the UK relating to inclusive education for students with special educational needs (SEN). However, whether government policy has been fully implemented in schools remains a concern. The experience of students with autistic spectrum disorders (ASDs) provides an excellent case in point. An increasing number of such students are now educated in mainstream schools, but the limited research in this area has indicated that their experience of school is often marked by bullying, social isolation and anxiety. In light of this, the aim of the current study was to examine the extent to which inclusive educational policy was actually reflected in the practices of four mainstream secondary schools. An exploratory case study approach was adopted, utilising interviews with pupils, teachers, other school staff (e.g., senior managers, learning support assistants) and parents, observations of lessons and other contexts (e.g., lunch time), and document analysis. Our findings highlighted a number of school practices which acted as facilitators or barriers to students’ learning and participation, some of which were generic to SEN provision, and some of which appeared to be specific to those on the autistic spectrum. A discussion of these is presented to enable further understanding of, and inform practice relating to, the inclusion process for students with ASDs.     

Crossing ‘other cultures’? Reading Tatamkhulu Afrika's ‘Nothing's Changed’ in the NEAB Anthology

In 1998 the Northern Examination and Assessment Board selected the poem ‘Nothing's Changed’ by the South African writer Tatamkhulu Afrika as the last of its ten Poems from Other Cultures and Traditions. Published in the NEAB Anthology (1998), ‘Nothing's Changed’ became a favourite at GCSE for its vivid depiction of apartheid and its effects. This article revisits Tatamkhulu Afrika's poem, situating it in the context of educational policy, the creation of the NEAB Anthology, the poem's initial use by Devon Curriculum Services in the 1990s, and its emergence as an object of national study in Britain. It examines how the poem was read under the conditions of its anthologisation and the pressures of examination, highlighting how specific reading practices typically stumbled on the problems of history, cultural representativeness, and literature's capacity to offer a transparent window onto experience.     

‘Building Schools for the Future’: ‘transformation’ for social justice or expensive blunder?

This article is based on research undertaken between 2009 and 2012 into the former Labour government's extremely ambitious ‘Building Schools for the Future’ (BSF) Programme and its withdrawal by the Coalition government. The project, which utilises analysis of policy documents, case studies in six local authorities (LA) and semi‐structured interviews with national and local policy actors, is being funded by Roehampton's Centre for Educational Research in Equalities, Policy and Pedagogy and the British Academy (SG100363). The focus of this article is the implications for social justice of BSF and its subsequent withdrawal. The structure of the article comprises an introduction to BSF and a summary of some of the main issues arising from it. We then move on to explore the social justice dimension of BSF as it is expressed in LA documents and in relation to the social policy aspirations of the former Labour government. In July 2010 the Coalition government discontinued the BSF programme and we track events and policy from that time, particularly focussing on the radical shift away from Labour's transformational and communitarian agenda in favour of criteria based on efficiency and value‐for‐money. We present data from our interviews with local actors on the equality and social justice impacts of this re‐orientation of policy. We conclude by arguing against the view that Labour abandoned social justice suggesting that BSF was one of a number of policies through which equality was pursued, albeit by stealth.     

I agree to sit next to you. Does that mean I like you? Measuring using the wrong tapeline – the lack of ‘Social Distance’ measures for inclusive school development and research – a review of the literature

This review provides an overview of definitions and measurements of ‘Social Distance’ and attitudes children without disabilities carry towards children with disabilities. Measures include explicit and implicit approaches but clearly, the ‘Bogardus Social Distance Scale’ (A Social Distance Scale, 1933, 14 May 2014) is the most used scale in research, yet it is outdated. For a deeper look into what impacts children's ‘Social Distance’ in inclusive school settings and in order to find measurable constructs, relevant attitude questionnaires are discussed. To bring long‐used measures and attitudes together, a comprehensive model of ‘Social distance’ is introduced. This model integrates the classical view on ‘Social Distance’ as interaction willingness with feelings associated with this interaction and includes attitudes children carry towards individuals and towards the group the interaction partner is believed to belong to. In summary, this paper shows the need for a more comprehensive and precise measure on how school children really engage with one another.     

‘Why single me out?’ Peer mentoring,autism and inclusion in mainstream secondary schools

The past decade has seen an increase in the number of students with autism attending mainstream educational provision. Improving outcomes for this group is a complex issue given the deficit of evidence‐based practice. A new peer mentoring programme developed for students with autism in mainstream secondary schools was evaluated using a combination of quantitative and qualitative measures. Twelve students with autism and 36 students without autism participated in the programme across five schools in the south‐east of England. Students with autism were assessed using the Harter Self‐Esteem Questionnaire, Loneliness and Social Dissatisfaction Scale and the Anti‐Bullying Alliance survey. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted to record their views and experiences of the programme. Significant gains in self‐esteem, social satisfaction and a reduction in bullying were seen over the course of the programme. These findings have wider implications for the ways in which educational approaches, strategies and interventions are developed and delivered in schools.     

An ‘at‐risk’ curriculum for ‘at‐risk’ students? Special educational needs and disability in the new Australian Curriculum

The number of students who are ‘at risk’ including those with special education needs and or disabilities is increasing rapidly worldwide in all schools. This has prompted widespread debate regarding the impact of initiatives in Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting for this group of students. Teachers, parents and administrators need to have further information to enable them to contribute to the development of content, assessment and reporting processes in the curriculum that are inclusive, relevant, reliable and valid. This paper explores some of the issues and dilemmas raised by recent policy discussions regarding the inception of a first national Australian Curriculum. It draws purposively on literature relating to developments in England and Wales, where national curriculum provision has existed for over 25 years, as well as the responses of a group of stakeholders (teachers and leaders) from both England/Wales and Australian schools and settings. These data highlight both tension and opportunity in this area of work.     

‘Where are You?’ Giving Voice to the Teacher by Reclaiming the Private/Public Distinction

In a time of cultural pluralism and legitimation crisis (Habermas), there is an increasing uncertainty among teachers in Sweden about with what right they are fostering other people's children. What does it mean to teach ‘common values’ to the coming generation? How do teachers find legitimacy and authority for this endeavour, not as family members or as politicians, but as teachers? To respond to this uncertainty, the paper takes the public/private distinction as a starting‐point for rethinking the place of the school. Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt and of Jan Masschelein and Maarten Simons, it argues that the school is an in‐between place—a place that transforms values into ‘common goods’ and turns fostering into a teaching matter. The overall purpose of the paper is to sketch out the consequences of this ‘in‐betweenness’ for what it means to find one's voice as a teacher in fostering the coming generation.     

Desire for Increased Autonomy and Adolescents’ Perceptions of Peer Autonomy: “Everyone Else Can; Why Can’t I?”

Two studies examined adolescents' personal autonomy beliefs and their perceptions of peer autonomy. Study 1 sampled 527 adolescents (M = 15.40 years) and found that adolescents desired increased autonomy most over personal and multifaceted issues and least over moral and conventional issues. Younger adolescents and girls desired increased autonomy more than did older adolescents and boys, respectively. Overestimation of peer autonomy was moderate but stable. Finally, results indicated that adolescents who perceived their friends as having more autonomy than they did were more likely to desire increased autonomy over multifaceted and prudential issues. Study 2 sampled 170 early adolescents (M = 13.39 years) and used a longitudinal design to further support the conclusion that adolescents utilize peers as metrics to gauge the appropriate pacing of behavioral autonomy development.     

Born Again or ‘Dumbing Down’? Cultural Trends in the 1990s

A person who everyday looks upon a beautiful picture, reads a page from some good book, and hears a beautiful piece of music will soon become a transformed person – one born again [Labour, 1997]. Across the world, music audiences are being eroded by an array of domestic electronic attractions. Habitual concertgoers fear to venture into the inner city after dark, or get deterred by traffic jams and parking restrictions. A new generation raised on television soundbites and instant hamburgers has been jaggedly desensitised to the stately magniloquence of an hour-long symphony. The sharing of music within families has been blighted by the decline of the nuclear family. Music teaching, insofar as it is still provided in public school systems, has been rendered almost worthless by a politically correct tendency to treat all musics as equal – the primitive with the refined, the commercial with the spiritual [Lebrecht, 1996].     

Massive Open Online Change? Exploring the Discursive Construction of the ‘MOOC’ in Newspapers

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been a prominent topic of recent educational discussion and debate. MOOCs are, in essence, university‐affiliated courses offered to large groups of online learners for little or no cost and are seen by many as a bellwether for change and reform across higher education systems. This study uses content and discourse analysis methods to examine how understandings of MOOC‐related ‘change’ were presented in US, UK and Australian newspapers. Drawing on detailed analysis of 457 newspaper articles published between 2011 and 2013, the findings point to a predominant portrayal of MOOCs in relation to the massification, marketization and monetization of higher education, rather than engaging in debate of either ‘technological’ or ‘educational’ issues such as online learning and pedagogy, instructional design or student experience. The article then considers the reasons underpinning this restricted framing of what many commentators have touted as a radical educational form—not least the apparently close association between MOOCs and the economics of higher education.     

‘Do I have to spell it out?’ Dyslexia,Lexism, and an object of comparison

In this article I mount an attack on the problematic conceptions of literacy that lie behind the Standards and Testing Agency's 2015 Interim Teacher Assessment Frameworks at the End of Key Stage 2 and the Key Stage 2 English Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling Tests. I employ an object of comparison (a philosophical method), for attitudes towards literacy and dyslexics. I challenge current conceptions of the Othering of, and discrimination against, dyslexics. I argue for the concept of ‘Lexism’ as an alternative explanatory account for the existence of dyslexics.     

‘How Can We Know the Dancer from the Dance?’ Personal Concern and Sexual Desire in the Educational Relationship

Drawing on both philosophical and imaginative sources, this article explores the profile of concern and caring in the teacher–learner relationship. Following a defence of the role of narrative in educational theory, the nature of the teacher–learner relationship and the role of concern in the relationship are addressed. The main part of the essay draws on the autobiographical fiction The Pupil: A Memory of Love by Irish author Monk Gibbon to demonstrate the process whereby shared passion for literature can become—on the part of the teacher—an obsessive sexual desire for the learner. Eschewing virtue‐signalling and moral grandstanding, the third and concluding part of the essay endeavours to explain the inappropriateness of the erotic in the teacher–learner relationship.     

Teachers ‘liking’ their work? Exploring the realities of teacher Facebook groups

Social media are now an important aspect of the professional lives of school teachers. This paper explores the growing use of mass ‘teacher groups’ and ‘teacher communities’ on social media platforms such as Facebook. While these online communities are often welcomed as a means of professional learning and support, the paper considers the extent to which Facebook groups also expose teachers to some of the less beneficial aspects of social media, such as various forms of ‘digital labour’, commercialisation of exchanges and predominance of individualised reputation‐driven behaviours. Drawing on a detailed examination of a Swedish teacher Facebook group of over 13,000 members, the paper first addresses aspects of the online community that could be seen as professionally beneficial and/or valuable—particularly in terms of information exchange and social support. Yet while perceived by participants as a relatively beneficial and uncontroversial aspect of their working lives, the research also points to characteristics of the Facebook group that constituted disadvantaging, exploitative and/or disempowering forms of technological engagement. In these terms, the paper highlights tensions between what appears to ‘work’ for individual teachers in the short term and likely longer‐term implications that these practices might have for diminished professionalism and expertise of teachers.     

‘What can I do to help?’: Postsecondary students with learning disabilities' perceptions of instructors' classroom accommodations

This qualitative research report adopts a critical pedagogy perspective to examine the provision of classroom accommodations for postsecondary students with learning disabilities. Although instructors in the United States are bound to abide by disability rights laws, we also believe instructors can act in ways that allow students to feel comfortable in disclosing their disabilities and in requesting and accessing accommodations for these disabilities. We engaged the voices of 10 university students living with learning disabilities through a series of semi‐structured interviews. These students offered a variety of statements on the ways that their disabilities were accommodated or not by their instructors. We classified these perceptions into three kinds of accommodation perceived by university students with learning disabilities: non‐accommodation, formal accommodation and accommodation for all students. We discuss the implications that these types of accommodations have for pedagogy and offer recommendations for effective techniques for accommodating for all. We hope the voices of these students will serve to enhance communication between students with learning disabilities and their professors.     

Transformation of text in the English classroom: does ‘context’ really matter?

This paper investigates the language demands of creating texts in the English classroom, which involve transformations in context. In particular, it focuses on the tensions inherent in tasks which require more traditional textual analysis to be presented in ways other than traditional ‘essay’ format. These tasks are interpreted differently by students and can result in texts which vary in terms of their choice of ‘written‐like’ or ‘spoken‐like’ styles. This paper uses data from year nine English students presenting speeches to an imagined jury arguing for Shakespeare's Macbeth's guilt or innocence and explores the implications of shifts along the mode continuum evident in the students' language. It raises the question of the relative importance of transformations of language and context and the extent to which control of mode is valued. Language analysis of student responses focusing on genre, periodicity, use of vocatives and endophoric reference suggests the imagined context required by the task is less important than the literary context in assessing student responses and can act as a distraction. Findings have implications for alignment of teaching and assessment practices in English classrooms.     

‘Career and Money Aside,What's the Point of University?’ A Comparison of Students’ Non‐economic Entry Motives in Three European Countries

This paper explores students’ non‐economic motives for attending university. Drawing on the results of a tri‐national survey involving online questionnaires and email interviews with education students at English, German and Portuguese universities, it compares and discusses the extent to which the participants are motivated by a number of extrinsic and intrinsic factors. In contrast to certain other studies, the findings reveal a strong consensus across all three settings in relation to certain motivational elements—strong intrinsic desires for self‐improvement and low motivations driven by social pressures or seeing university as a default option. More pronounced national differences emerge, however, regarding motives to contribute to society and the appeal of the social dimension of university life. The paper interprets the similarities and differences revealed and considers a number of conclusions.     

Role models,school improvement and the ‘gender gap’—do men bring out the best in boys and women the best in girls?1

A number of countries are running role model recruitment drives under the assumption that like is good for like: ethnic minority teachers should teach ethnic minority children, women should teach girls, and so on. The empirical basis for this would appear to be case study and personal reflection. This article will examine quantitative data to test the hypothesis that male teachers produce more positive attitudes amongst boys and female teachers amongst girls. Using data from the Performance Indicators in Primary Schools (PIPS) Project, information from 413 separate classes for 11 year‐olds (in England) was examined. One hundred and thirteen were taught by males and 300 by females. All the pupils completed questionnaires that were designed to measure attitude to school, reading, mathematics and science. In addition, background data on those pupils were collected, including cognitive measures, attainment scores, ability measures and home background measures. The data were examined to look at attitudes using multilevel models controlling for background factors. The analysis concentrated on interaction effects between the gender of the teacher and the gender of the pupil and the results gave little support for those who advocate recruitment drives with role models in mind.     

Are statisticians cold‐blooded bosses? a new perspective on the ‘old’ concept of statistical population

Spurred by recent writings regarding statistical pragmatism, we propose a simple, practical approach to introducing students to a new style of statistical thinking that models nature through the lens of data‐generating processes, not populations.