The use of citations in educational research: the instance of the concept of ‘situated learning’

This article provides a citation analysis of Lave and Wenger’s work on ‘communities of practice’ and ‘situated learning’ over the period 1991–2001. The data relate to educational research in the UK, although comparisons are made with the USA. The findings indicate that although the text was incorporated and heavily used within educational research over the period of the study there were very few citations that could be identified as cumulative. The discussion considers the value of using citations as an indicator of quality within any research excellence framework and argues the case for taking a broader, more qualitative approach to assessing research quality in the social sciences.     

Exploring the relational efforts making up a curriculum concept—an Actor-network theory analysis of the curriculum concept of children’s interests

This paper undertakes an investigation of the ‘life’ of the curriculum concept of children’s interests in a preschool practice. The concept of children’s interests plays a vital role in the Swedish preschool curriculum text and in the preschool field. Strongly inspired by Actor-network theory readings, the paper aims at producing accounts making visible the making of the concept of children’s interests through relations among children, carpets, Minecraft figures, boxes, teachers and schedules in a preschool practice. The paper engages in ethnographic materials generated at a Stockholm preschool over a period of 10 months.     

Singapore’s educational policy through the prism of student voice: recasting students as co-agents of educational change and ‘disrupting’ the status quo?

This paper examines the implementation of Singapore’s landmark policy, ‘Thinking Schools, learning Nation’ (TSLN), in developing ‘thinking students’ through the prism of student voice. In the context of twenty-first century education and the growing importance of student voice in education, this paper argues that the time might be right to ‘disrupt’ Singapore’s education status quo and incorporate meaningful student voice in education policies. Instead of perceiving students as mere subjects of educational policy enactment, and seeing policy as something that is done to them, it should be reconceptualised as something which is done with them; importantly, students should be recast as key co-agents of educational change, consistent with TSLN’s reconceptualization of learners as ‘thinking students’. Basing its arguments on findings from a qualitative case study of students’ perceptions and schooling experiences of critical thinking in TSLN, this paper considers the case for the inclusion of significant student voice in Singapore’s educational policy reforms. It fills gaps in research on student voices in Singapore’s educational reforms and TSLN’s research from students’ perspective. The paper suggests that the inclusion of student voice in educational reform might be the next landmark step in ‘disrupting’ its educational landscape after the ‘big bang’ of TSLN.     

Linking ‘The Book of Nature’ and ‘The Book of Science’: Using Circular Motion as an Exemplar beyond the Textbook

Bacon exhorted the natural philosophers of his day to read and interpret the book of nature by clever and cunning experimentation. The increasing scientific activity after Bacon and Galileo, however, quickly produced a second book. This was a book of interpretations of nature, namely the the book of science. Newton went beyond Bacon and Galileo and developedan ongoing dialogue between these two books, a repeated give and takebetween mathematical construct and physical reality. Unfortunately, thephysics textbook, the book of science the students read, does not acquaintthem with this style of reasoning. As an example of high-grade scientificthinking this paper discusses Newton's long struggle with the concepts ofinertia and especially of centrifugal force. In his quest to understand thedynamics of circular motion Newton clearly progressed through four levelsof conceptualizations, leading to progressively less severe discrepancies, inhis ascent to a full understanding of centripetal acceleration. While it is notpossible or desirable to expect teachers or students to recapitulate high-gradescientific thinking, partial retelling of the intellectual struggle that was involved in establishing important scientific concepts must be seen as important. This kind of pedagogy, however, requires that physics teachers have a good understanding of the history of scientific ideas as well as the findings of cognitive science.     

Envisioned and enacted practices: educational policies and the ‘politics of use’ in schools

ABSTRACT

It is widely known that there is a discrepancy between educational policy on the one side, and teaching and learning practices on the other. Most studies have been focusing on the sociocultural and micropolitical frames that shape teachers’ understandings and enactments of teaching, and that cause the vast diversity of classroom practices around the world. This article wants to draw attention to the ‘politics of use’ in teachers’ work: how teachers mobilize larger political narratives when implementing curriculum reform. Arguably, these narratives provide a shortcut between the central government and street-level actors, thus circumventing the logics of these actors’ immediate institutional environments.

In order to showcase the politics of use, the article uses the case of education for creativity as it is designed for and practiced at Chinese schools. The case reveals how education for creativity is compromised by requirements emanating from larger political programs when implemented in Chinese classrooms. The article challenges the view that educational policy necessarily moves through a trickle-down process, from higher to medium to lower-level actors. In cases of strong ideological alignment between street-level actors and central state actors, educational policy may in fact sidestep and hence neutralize important institutional actors.     

‘Talking up and talking down’: the presentation of educational need in an age of inclusive education policy reforms

This article draws on data from an ethnographic study that begins with the experiences of educational professionals doing the ‘work’ of educationally supporting students with long-term health conditions in a paediatric health-care setting in Victoria, Australia. The study was conducted over the same period of time but separately from the Keeping Connected project, although it utilises some selected research data produced as part of that larger-scale project. Investigations concerning the inclusion of students with disabilities – including those with long-term health conditions – within mainstream schools continue to indicate that not only do they often have specific educational needs but also that significant structural barriers exist within education for young people and families. I argue that intersecting discourses of child development and child-centred education, along with education reforms promoting social inclusion, construct particular understandings of capability and needs which do not fully account for the complexities facing teachers, students and families.     

Toward a theory of the educational encounter: Gert Biesta’s educational theory and the right to the city

This paper outlines a theory of the educational encounter, the space of, and the right to that encounter. Situated in response to neoliberal educational reforms, this theory is developed through a reading and synthesis of the educational theory of Gert Biesta, the architectural component of his theory, and literature on the right to the city. The author argues that the notion of the encounter is latent yet central in Biesta’s work and that it can be further cultivated and more precisely attended to by turning to theoretical work on the right to the city, which is engaged here primarily through the lens of the encounter. Several themes are drawn out from the literature that can help in formulating a theory of the educational encounter such as the habitat/inhabit dialectic, the use/use-value/exchange-value framework of space, and the role of struggle in the production and maintenance of space.     

An exploration of Naquib al-Attas’ theory of Islamic education as ta’dīb as an ‘indigenous’ educational philosophy

Abstract

This paper explores the ‘indigenous’ philosophy of education of Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, a Malay-Muslim scholar who’s theoretical work culminated in the establishment of a counter-colonial higher education institution. Through presenting al-Attas’ life and philosophy and by exploring the arguments of his critics, I aim to shed light on the challenges and paradoxes faced by indigenous academics working at the interface of philosophy and education.     

Privatization and ‘destatization’: school autonomy as the ‘Anglo neoliberalization’ of Irish education policy

Symbolic of the rise of neoliberal principles in Irish education policy, there is now a move towards advancing school autonomy and decentralizing decision-making to individual schools, possibly emulating the academy model that has become widespread in England. Increasing the freedom and independence of schools may involve using private actors to provide what has traditionally been the service of the state, but it will most definitely involve schools behaving more like private sector organizations. While some of the new powers that would be devolved to schools might seem attractive, especially in how they are presented at an official level, this paper highlights how features of autonomous schools that may initially seem appealing are, in practice, likely to be unsuited to the Irish context. In this regard, this paper advises that school autonomy should not be advanced in Ireland.     

Is ‘gender-sensitive education’ a useful concept for educational policy?

This article responds to Astrid Sinnes and Marianne Løken’s article ‘Gendered education in a gendered world: Looking beyond cosmetic solutions to the gender gap in science’ by exploring the idea of ‘gender-sensitive’ education and its usefulness in educational policy. It draws on theoretical discussions of the concept of gender and of difference to consider ways in which ‘gender-sensitive’ education might serve the task of promoting equality and justice.     

Crossing boundaries: Exploring the theory,practice and possibility of a ‘Future 3’ curriculum

In this article, we examine a case of innovation in curriculum and pedagogy at a new school in the UK. We begin by outlining the 3 Futures model, which we use as a methodological heuristic in the case study of the school that appears to be both knowledge-led and learner-engaged; characteristics of the Future 3 scenario. In considering the school's curriculum, we also draw on a number of concepts from the work of Basil Bernstein: classification, framing and the idea of open schools, and a curriculum integration model developed by us to consider the degree of epistemic emphasis in the school's predominantly interdisciplinary curriculum. Together, these concepts provide the means to examine the organising principles of practice operating in the school, as links are drawn between the 3 Futures model, Bernstein's concepts and the data. We theorise this as a form of ‘opening up’, suggesting that even within the context of an interdisciplinary curriculum, access to powerful knowledge may be maintained in a whole-school approach where the demands of both knowledge and knowers are brought into balance. The school's approach and the theorisation we offer may provide insights for other schools embarking on a futures model for education and for twenty-first-century educational discourses more generally.     

Digital competence – an emergent boundary concept for policy and educational research

Digital competence is an evolving concept related to the development of digital technology and the political aims and expectations of citizenship in a knowledge society. It is regarded as a core competence in policy papers; in educational research it is not yet a standardized concept. We suggest that it is a useful boundary concept, which can be used in various contexts. For this study, we analysed 76 educational research articles in which digital competence, described by different terms, was investigated. As a result, we found that digital competence consists of a variety of skills and competences, and its scope is wide, as is its background: from media studies and computer science to library and literacy studies. In the article review, we found a total of 34 terms that had used to describe the digital technology related skills and competences; the most often used terms were digital literacy, new literacies, multiliteracy and media literacy, each with somewhat different focus. We suggest that digital competence is defined as consisting of (1) technical competence, (2) the ability to use digital technologies in a meaningful way for working, studying and in everyday life, (3) the ability to evaluate digital technologies critically, and (4) motivation to participate and commit in the digital culture.     

Making policy with ‘good ideas’: policy networks and the ‘intellectuals’ of New Labour

The educational reforms being enacted in Singapore can be considered exceptional in that they are being undertaken within a highly effective system. We explore these reforms using Brown and Lauder's ideal-typical analysis of ‘neo-Fordist’ and ‘post-Fordist’ models of national economic development. Singapore's reforms have been extensive, ranging from changes to early childhood education through to tertiary education. We examine the nature of state-market relations in education within the context of Singapore's ‘soft authoritarian’ political culture and assess the chances of success of the reforms.     

Using the curriculum emphasis concept to investigate teachers’ curricular beliefs in the context of educational reform

This paper reports a study on teachers’ domain‐specific beliefs about the chemistry curriculum for upper‐secondary education in The Netherlands. Teachers’ beliefs were investigated using a questionnaire focused on the goals of the chemistry curriculum. The design of the questionnaire was based on three curriculum emphases: ‘fundamental chemistry’, ‘chemistry, technology and society’, and ‘knowledge development in chemistry’. The questionnaire was administered to a sample of Dutch chemistry teachers. The results indicate that, on the whole, the curriculum emphasis ‘fundamental chemistry’ received the strongest support. This is in accordance with the content and the tradition of the Dutch chemistry curriculum. When the two types of upper‐secondary education were compared, it appeared that ‘chemistry, technology and society’ was almost equally valued for both types of education. However, the curriculum emphasis, ‘knowledge development in chemistry’, was considered much more important for pre‐university education than for senior general secondary education.     

Emotionally‐vulnerable subjects and new inequalities: the educational implications of an ‘epistemology of the emotions’

Motivated by very different goals, various interest groups argue that the British government should address problems with citizens’ emotional well‐being. Concerns about emotional vulnerability and poor emotional well‐being amongst growing numbers of children, young people and adults produce ideas and approaches from different branches of psychology and psychoanalysis. These compete for legitimacy throughout the education system. In part, such developments can be seen as the latest manifestation of a long‐running tendency to psychologise intractable educational and social problems. The roots of the psychologisation of emotional vulnerability also lie in a deeper philosophical and political disenchantment with an externally‐seeking, autonomous human subject and forms of curriculum knowledge that support it. One effect of these related trends is an epistemology of the emotion that privileges an emotionally vulnerable identity as integral to contemporary human subjectivity. One outcome is to offer emotionally‐focused pedagogy and knowledge, particularly for those deemed to be educationally and socially disadvantaged. The paper argues that, despite being highly unfashionable in sociological, political and philosophical theory, a humanist view of subjectivity challenges the new inequalities and diminished forms of pedagogy and knowledge this epistemology offers.     

Reading Schwab’s the ‘Practical’ as an invitation to a curriculum enquiry

In this retrospective essay reviewing the implications of Joseph Schwab’s essay, ‘The practical: A language for education’ (2013 [1970]), 40?+?years after its first publication, I identify two ‘practicals’. The first is a comprehensive ‘Practical 1.1’ embracing ends, subject matter, problem source and methods. This ‘practical’ has radical implications for curriculum studies, and for educational theory and research more generally. However, these implications have not been recognized. On the other hand, Schwab’s deliberation-centred interpretation of the ‘practical’, the ‘Practical 1.2’, has been widely discussed but has not captured the field of curriculum studies because it fails to map onto the structures of most school systems.     

Educational expertise: the concept of ‘mind frames’ as an integrative model for professionalisation in teaching

Professionalisation in teaching has been the topic of extensive research in recent years, following in general two different approaches: the ‘competence-based approach’ and the ‘critical reflection approach’. With large-scale comparative studies such as PISA, TIMMS and PIRLS at the beginning of the 21st century, the former approach came to dominate the field and—especially in Germany—a specific model of professionalisation advanced to the status of a paradigm. However, this model does not seem unproblematic when one considers its roots. In this article I begin by inquiring into the concept and methodology behind the status quo in order to reveal its limitations. As a means of developing this concept further, I then introduce a model of educational expertise that takes as its theoretical foundation the didactic triangle, which has a rigid systematic structure for critical and reflective thinking about teaching and is backed up by empirical findings. At the core of this model of educational expertise are mind frames, a concept established by John Hattie. They may be seen as a theoretically founded and systematically structured interaction between competencies and attitudes backed up by empirical findings. Thus, they stand for an integrative model for professionalisation in teaching. Finally, I use this model to provide an outlook on university teacher education.     

Reimagining gender through policy development: the case of a ‘single-sex’ educational organisation

In 2005, a feminist educational organisation in the USA for young women, ages 14–21, adopted a policy in order to clarify their target constituency of girls and young women. The policy defined ‘girls and young women’ not as a designation associated with fixed biological sex, but instead as a self-determined identity label creating an explicit policy of inclusion to gender non-conforming students, including transgender youth, who self-identified as ‘girls’ or ‘young women’. This article traces the series of influences that prompted the development of the policy, as well as the learning curves for this feminist educational all-girls’ community, and the discussions that led to both the unanimous adoption of the policy and a subsequent larger cultural shift within the organisation. This analysis seeks to add to an understanding and exploration of policies that address the de facto exclusion of gender non-conforming, intersex, and transgender youth from gender-based educational settings.     

The curriculum as a site of counter politics: theorising the ‘domain of the sayable’

Whilst there has been increasing focus on the impact of neoliberal education policy on the curriculum covered in schools, as well as on teacher and student subjectivities, less research has been done on the possibility, or otherwise, for teachers to challenge curriculum constraints. Arguing that these curriculum constraints are not simply imposed by an external censor, this article takes up Judith Butler’s concept of the ‘domain of the sayable’ to theorise what it is possible to imagine teaching in the primary school classroom in the first place. I draw on two different ethnographic data episodes to explore the parameters of the domain of the sayable in the space of the classroom in which I taught, mapping the silences and sudden swerving away from topics that seem to be straying close to what is impossible to say or hear. This process offers new insight into how we might conceptualise teacher resistance and counter politics within the current educational policy milieu in the United Kingdom.