The Changing Role of the Superintendency in Restructuring Districts in Kentucky 1

Since the mid‐1980s, major efforts to reform education throughout the world have been unfolding under the banner of school restructuring. Central to this agenda for reform are alterations in the roles of all educational stakeholders. While a good deal of conceptual work, and some empirical analyses, have been devoted to the topic of role changes for teachers, administrators, parents, community members, and students at the school level, considerably less is known about the effects of restructuring on the role of central office administrators.

By analyzing the perceptions of 74 chief executive officers about how restructuring is shaping the superintendency in Kentucky, the study reported herein helps address this gap in the knowledge base. Three themes emerge from the analysis: (1) an enhanced role for superintendents in developing community; (2) a redefinition of the type of leadership needed to administer empowered schools; and (3) a mighty struggle to help individual schools deal with the process of systemic change.

     

The Teacher Education Reform Process in Ethiopia: Some consequences on educators and its implications

With the emergence of the discourse of TESO, teacher education in Ethiopia has been struggling to change rhetoric and practice by reaffirming a managerially driven reform performance. The terrain is now characterized by fresh, but globally dominant rhetoric. Salient in the emerging discourse is reform mottos and agendas such as ‘active learning’, ‘competence’, ‘participatory’, ‘paradigm shift’ and ‘system overhaul’. However, the process pursued by the ‘reform’ task performers is noticeably and evidently characterized as a managerial approach which sidesteps pedagogues and pedagogy in favor of fulfilling instrumental, central and market‐oriented agendas. The process has so far signaled a ‘reform’ process which I typically refer to as peripheralization of pedagogical practitioners. Conspicuously absent in the process is a critical vision of learning to teach and a structural continuum that connects faculty and school. The process has so far clung to the reinscribing of traditional modes of doing teacher education which has fallen far short of fulfilling what is in the high sounding rhetoric.     

We Talk About It,But Do They Get It?

This article reports on the last of a series of iterative research studies involving students with learning disabilities in reform mathematics classrooms at the intermediate grade levels. This study reports the findings from a larger, year‐long case study that focused on ways to include students with learning disabilities and other students who are at risk for special education services in classwide discussions of problem solving. The data reported in this article detail the changes in teacher and student discourse over a nine‐week period in one classroom. Sources of data for this study included videotapes, audiotapes, and informal interviews with the teacher, a paraprofessional, and students. A quantitative analysis of the results indicates clear patterns of change in teacher and student discourse. Nonetheless, intentional efforts to include target students in the whole‐class discussions yielded instructional dilemmas that are underdescribed in the mathematics reform literature. Findings from this study have implications for special educators interested in mathematical problem solving, as well as math reformers who value the role of classroom discourse in daily instruction.     

信息结构理论观照下的二语写作

着眼于篇章建构的视角越来越成为近年来写作教学改革的明显趋势。语篇不仅是一个简单的语法单位,也是发话者（写作者）向读者（接收者）传递信息的语义单位。而语篇生成过程中信息度的处理成为语篇连贯、衔接和结构优化的关键手段之一。信息结构和信息度的合理安排也直接关系到语篇能否达到最大的＂可及性＂。在写作教学过程中强调信息结构的处理有助于改善目前英语写作篇章质量普遍薄弱的现状。     

A Scientific Discourse on Education in the Crisis: sociology of education in the Federal Republic of Germany

The discourse on German education in sociology and economics is investigated as an intertwined process of politico‐educational events, adoption of problems by social scientists, reactions to general ideological topics and redefinitions within a changing spectrum of theoretical contexts. It is argued that the present crisis of educational reform and crisis of the scientific discourse on education have their roots in the nature of the reconstruction of. the German society after the Nazi‐period. The former common ideological basis of the discourse is factionised and a new theoretical foundation is out of sight.     

Welfare and education in British colonial Africa and South Africa during the 1930s and 1940s

Contemporary educational policy discourse in South Africa that seeks to serve the poor and address equity issues needs to engage with the roots of twentieth‐century social reform debates if it is meet its goals. One of the weaknesses of the templates for reform at the present time is that they often fail to engage with progressive traditions which have a long history. Present‐day reforms look to agency recommendations or comparative examples of “successful” emergent economies, but often fail to recognize the value and significance of previous initiatives which sought to address these issues. The long debate over the need for social welfare and educational reform in British colonial Africa has some significance in this regard. The period between 1930 and 1950 marked a key turning point in such policy in colonial Africa, and significant reform initiatives in South Africa from the early years of the Second World War provide the benchmarks for such investigations. The social welfare policies and the educational policy initiatives of the United Party government during the 1940s provide important signposts for such policies. This article attempts to investigate that legacy.     

Living with Children with an Intellectual Disability: Parents Construct their Reality

This paper reports a study that adopted an interpretivist paradigm as a basis for parents and researchers to co‐create a discourse that outlines life experiences as they relate to parenting a child with an intellectual disability. Repertory grid methodology was employed to inform the process of discourse development. A model of the five interrelated systems of events or issues that impinge upon the perceptions of parents of children with an intellectual disability is proposed. In addition, details about the group's perceptions of those environmental events or issues that are pertinent to living with and caring for a child with an intellectual disability are reported.     

‘Conceptual change’ as both revolutionary and evolutionary process

Our argument concerning the debate around the process of ‘conceptual change’ is that it is both an evolutionary learning process and a revolutionary paradigm change. To gain a deeper understanding of the process, the article focuses on the discourse of educational facilitators participating in a community of learners. Applying the methodology of ‘Semiotic Evolution,’ the micro‐process of learning within the group was traced. Analysis of the interaction between individual learning and group learning within the discourse enabled us to postulate a hypothetical three‐stage model of the process. The model indicates that conceptual change is an experiential change rather than a cognitive one, an intentional change of identity, a change of the person's relationship with the world.     

A story of reform: Math,Science, Technology Investigations (MSI) in Room 34 at Bay Street Community School

This paper explores one school's implementation of a locally developed curriculum reform known as ‘Math‐Science Investigations’. At one level, it offers an account of a reform told from the perspective of a classroom teacher and her 3rd‐ and 4th‐graders. At another level, it reconstructs their experience to explore the understandings of the general process of change developed from this situation: the critical role relationship plays in the process of reform; the recognition of the value of time as a component in change; and the necessary respect for continuity of experience of individuals in considering growth. At yet another level, it considers ways in which a story, such as ‘Math‐Science Investigations’, exhibits characteristics of metaphor.     

Assessment discourse and constructions of social reality in infant classrooms

The 1968 structural reform of the education system in Israel was part both of a global process of democratization of education launched after the Second World War and of a larger modernization project in which the social sciences played a crucial role. This dynamic was an expression of a conjunction of interests, in which political forces used research on educational matters in order to advance their socio‐political agendas, while researchers used the state's interest in their work and in the ‘social problems’ they elaborated in order to receive public funding and to obtain state recognition of their scientific contribution. This article traces the reformist discourse structuration—the process of institutionalization of the different social science discourses in state institutions, such as universities and national institutes—in order to disclose the social sciences/politics linkage in Israel. It also puts forward the argument that in order to understand discourse structuration at a national level, it is essential to consider an additional factor: global education networks. Global networks adopted a discourse inspired by the American school model that tended to be adopted by scholars in different countries. The article focuses on the processes in Israel whereby knowledge producers elaborated the ‘inequality of opportunity’ and ‘ethnic gap’ social problems, and proffered the 1968 structural reform as the solution.     

What parents say about children’s inequality of opportunities: a study in Mauritius

Longitudinal studies showing the beneficial impact of early childhood education on later academic achievement have contributed to persuading policy-makers and academia that early childhood is the best time to address inequalities. However, the voice of parents is often absent from these debates. We investigated the perspectives of parents on children’s inequalities of opportunities and on the role of education and early childhood care in equalising life chances. The study specifically explored the views of 26 parents in the sub-Saharan African country of Mauritius through focus group discussions. Findings of the study suggested that parents tend to adhere to the discourse of parental responsibility as a key factor in children’s inequalities. Yet they also showed that parents have potential to criticise and deconstruct this narrative, as they experience structural circumstances, such as poverty or discrimination, shaping their life opportunities and those of their children.     

Participatory pedagogy for empowerment: a critical discourse analysis of teacher–parents’ interactions in a family literacy course in London

This paper revisits and discusses some of Paulo Freire’s theoretical tenets for participatory education suggested as part of a critical approach to the education of adults. Through data collected during a family literacy programme, the author analyses her discursive interactions as an adult education tutor with parents as learners. These discourse practices are analysed using critical discourse analysis and are discussed against Freire’s principles for participatory pedagogy. The author’s decision to insert the analysis and discussion of her classroom practices within these theoretical frameworks lies on their focus on language and their alleged commitment to the transformation of discursive practices that reinforce unequal power relations in society. The findings of the study indicate the presence of authoritarian discourse that does little to change the power relations within the classroom. The author posits that despite managing to give rise to a discussion of themes related to parents’ advocacy and language awareness in their interactions within their children’s school, a deeper realisation and discussion of these issues was hindered by her failure to challenge the order of discourses present in her interactions with parents. The author concludes by suggesting that there is a need for teachers to closely re‐evaluate the features of their own discourse practices if immigrant parents attending family literacy courses are to be given a voice within the classroom as a first step towards raising their prospects of advocacy and empowerment in wider social contexts.     

Secret Transmissions: Modelling cross‐cultural relations in classroom discourses

It is often assumed in education that we have left the deficit model behind, but this paper suggests that policies and programs continue to position Indigenous students within a discourse of progress and enlightenment. Through this discourse, they are positioned between an image of what they once were as disadvantaged and what they are supposed to become in the process of studying at school and university. This paper examines some of the messages that are secretly transmitted both inside and outside the classroom when Indigenous students are constituted in discourse as behind or below and having to catch‐up to the non‐Indigenous students. It suggests other ways in which teachers could address the production of cross‐cultural relations through classroom discourses to avoid positioning Indigenous people in a deficit relation to non‐Indigenous people.     

Media/ting change: the print media's role in mediating education policy in a period of radical reform in Victoria,Australia

This paper draws upon critical discourse analysis, cultural studies and communication theory, studies on media and educational reform, and the work of Bernstein, Bourdieu and Luhmann in particular, to explore how the print and media ‘mediated’ a period of educational change marked by moves to self‐management in schools in Victoria, Australia. It considers how the media was mobilized by various education stakeholders, and in turn informed relations between schools and government, through policy discourses and texts. It considers why and how particular themes became media ‘issues’, how schools and teachers responded to these issues, and how the media was used by various stakeholders in education to shape policy debates. It is based on a year‐long qualitative study that explored critical incidents and representations about education in the print media over a year in the daily press. It illustrates the ways in which a neo‐liberal Victorian government mobilized the media to gain strategic advantage to promote radical education reform policies, considers the media effects of this media/tion process on schools and teachers, and conceptualizes how school and system performance is fed from and into media representations, public perceptions and community understandings of schools and teachers' work.     

Additional learning needs policy in the devolved polities of the UK: a systems perspective

Using a systems approach, this paper explores the impact of devolution on additional learning needs (ALN) policy in compulsory phase education. Focus is placed on ALN/SEN Codes of Practice, the schools curriculum, teacher training, and the work of education inspectorates and tribunals. Analysis reveals that the move to quasi‐federalism in the UK has led to a raft of territorially specific policies and resulted in contrasting legal rights for pupils and parents. The prevailing policy discourse is one of equality, inclusion and informed choice. Against this background, and with a number of reforms ongoing, there is evidence of progress in embedding measures to address ALN in the respective education systems. Notwithstanding this, analysis of the first decade of devolved policy and practice also reveals a number of shortcomings and challenges, including limitations in data‐gathering and staff training – as well as questions about the level of cohesion between the three elements of education provision identified by systems analysis.     

Troubling the discourse of teacher centrality: a comparative perspective

The belief in the central role of the teacher has a long and comparative history. This article aims to critically analyse the discourse of the centrality of the teacher by both historicising and problematising the ideas and practices associated with this discourse. First, the article describes the discourse as it was taken up during the twenty‐first century when the teacher was viewed as the linchpin to building universal education systems. The idea that the ‘master makes the school’ is examined and the policies that stemmed from this thinking (e.g., the establishment of formal teacher training, teacher testing and certification) are outlined. The contemporary manifestations of this discourse are then described to show how the pervasive belief in the central role of the teacher has influenced education policy reforms, which like teacher policy reforms in the nineteenth century operate to shape and regulate the profession. Further discursive effects are analysed including the de‐contextualisation of educational reform and the de‐professionalisation and de‐politicisation of teachers and their work. The relationship between effective schools research and the centrality of the teacher discourse is also considered within the contemporary moment. This comparative study refers to the discourse of the centrality of the teacher in Australasia, Europe, Great Britain and North America, and suggests that our collective focus on the teacher has had some serious, unexpected effects on teachers and the work they do.     

CHILD REARING IN THE “RISK” SOCIETY: ON THE DISCOURSE OF RIGHTS AND THE “BEST INTERESTS OF A CHILD”

Due to a number of radical changes in society, the role of parents in the upbringing of their children has been redefined. In this essay, Paul Smeyers argues that “risk” thinking, and the technologization that goes with it in the context of child rearing, naturally leads to the rights discourse, but that thinking about the relation between parents and children in terms of rights confronts one with a number of insurmountable problems. The concept of the “best interests of a child” that is often invoked is, to say the least, not at all clear. Smeyers contends that while the discourse of rights is clearly important and relevant insofar as the relation between parents and the state are discussed, it impoverishes our understanding of relations of family members when used as an all‐inclusive framework in that context. Therefore, he concludes that we must surpass the totalizing tendency of the transformation of the social realm into a system, of defining the relation between parents and children in technical terms, and of holding parents liable for their children's upbringing.     

Building and destroying students’ ‘academic identities’: the power of discourse in a two‐way immersion classroom

Two‐way immersion is a model for bilingual education designed to help language‐minority students develop additive bilingualism while at the same time offering language‐majority students a chance to learn a second language. There is a great deal of rhetoric around two‐way immersion that claims these programs aim to improve overall equity among diverse groups of learners. The article begins with a brief review of the available research on two‐way immersion education. Then, using Bakhtin’s concept of dialogue and Bourdieu’s and Gee’s ideas of discourse/Discourse, this article takes a close‐up look at the discourse patterns in one second‐grade two‐way immersion classroom in Northern California, with an eye to uncovering how the teacher deliberately attempts to expose students to ‘alternative’ discourses and to lead language‐minority students to construct positive identities as learners. The ultimate question the article attempts to address is whether and to what extent any classroom program can create lasting change in the larger society through exposing students to ‘alternatives’ to mainstream dominant discourses within the context of classroom norms and activities.     

Narrative and counternarrative in print‐mediated coverage of Milwaukee alderman Michael Mcgee

This essay mounts a counternarrative to address the mainstream print‐mediated coverage of Milwaukee alderman Michael McGee. In analyzing racialized discourse in Milwaukee, the essay highlights the importance of focusing on rhetoric marginalized in or outside of the public sphere. A clash in rhetorical style can subvert the substance of public discourse with deleterious social consequences. We contend that a true dialogue on race relations will not occur until whites assume the responsibility for engaging in and sustaining this dialogue. The essay also establishes a rationale for why it is critically important to the discipline and to our respective communities to focus on local discourse and discursive communities. Finally, we offer a number of suggestions concerning rhetorical critical practices and the roles that critics can play in bringing about social change.     

The dangerous discourse of invisibility: A critique of the National Research Council's national science education standards

In this critical review essay, I argue that the National Research Council's (NRC) 1996 National science education standards uses a discourse of invisibility to lay out its massive reform for science education in the United States. This invisibility discourse dangerously compromises the well-intended goals of the NRC by not directly addressing the ethnic, socioeconomic, gender, and theoretical issues which influence the teaching and learning of science in today's schools. Herein I propose that the Standards ought to provide strong arguments and evidence in support of the reasons why equity should be a guiding principle in science education reform. In the same manner, the Standards must articulate the theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence on which the numerous recommendations for change are based. Only then would the Standards provide the conceptual guidance necessary to encourage teachers, administrators, parents, and politicians to spring into action and take the necessary risks associated with radically transforming schools. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 34 : 19–37, 1997.