‘Being responsible’: students’ perspectives on trust,risk and work-based learning

Taking on responsibilities associated with a professional role is an important aspect of experiential learning for undergraduate students on work-based placements. However, responsibility is a complex concept that is connected to issues of trust and risk in the placement context. This paper presents students’ perspectives that illustrate that being given and taking responsibility can be empowering; conversely, being denied responsibility is disempowering. Through an exploration of the students’ experiences, the relationship between responsibility, opportunity, risk and trust is explored. The paper points to a strong indication that the extent to which students are allowed responsibility in the workplace appears to have a fundamental impact on their perceptions of personal efficacy and professional development.     

Limitless provocations of the ‘safe’, ‘secure’ and ‘healthy’ child

This paper arose amongst the making and showing of a film and questions whether there are possibilities for interrupting powerful discursive frames that work at producing ‘the normal child’. Traditionally there has been a lack of interest in the use and critique of visual culture in educational research. Perhaps this lack of interest provides fertile opportunities to know something of the structure of education as a discipline, the rules that structure it and its deep grammar; it may also open up opportunities for disciplinary boundary-crossings where fields that embrace visual culture, such as photography and filmmaking, can bring their playfulness across binaries, including notions of certainty/ambivalence, to qualitative research in education. By turning to art theory, our aims are to interfere with our utopian longings that steadfastly cling to educational notions of the child.     

Scientific ‘Laws’, ‘Hypotheses’ and ‘Theories’

Some commonly held erroneous notions about the terms laws, hypotheses and theories are pointed out with specific examples from different branches of science.     

Typology of trust relationships: profiles of teachers’ trust in principal and their implications

This exploratory study is based on a multidimensional perspective of trust relationships proposed in the literature to classify the profiles of teachers’ trust in the principal. The main purpose of the present study was to examine the type and frequency of profiles of teachers’ trust in principal, and the implications of these profiles for teachers’ relational wellbeing and their organisational citizenship behaviours (OCB). Cluster analysis of a field survey data of 654 public primary school teachers in Israel was used to identify the profiles of teachers’ trust in the principal and the prevalence of various profiles. Analyses of variance show differences in teachers’ wellbeing and OCB as a function of trust profile. The findings and their implications are discussed.     

Understanding: ‘Knowledge’, ‘Belief’ and ‘Understanding’

The following paper is intended as an exercise in friendly criticism of one of Harvey Siegel's and Mike Smith's (Knowing, Believing and Understanding, this volume). I'm in substantial sympathy with the general thrust of their paper and my remarks merely provide some criticism of their discussion's conceptual coherence and clarity and a correspondingly slightly adjusted version of what they have to say. My focus is limited to the conceptions of knowledge, belief and understanding and their inter-relationships in terms of which they offer suggestions to science educators.     

‘Beauties’, ‘geeks’ and ‘men-john’: the possibilities and costs of girls' performances of gender in Antiguan schools

Whilst it is known that Caribbean girls academically outperform boys, much less is known about their experiences of school. This paper, based on qualitative research in Antiguan secondary schools, is concerned with who girls can ‘be’ in their school contexts and the consequences of positioning oneself (or being positioned) within different discourses. Drawing on interview narratives and classroom observations, this paper discusses the stories of six girls to illuminate three broad types of gender performances that were observed: ‘beauties’, ‘geeks’ and ‘men-john’. Using Francis' concepts of gender ‘monoglossia’ and ‘heteroglossia’, the extent to which these girls were able to resist the normative gender–sexual order and the consequences of conformity/non-conformity are examined.     

‘Hot’, ‘cold’ and ‘warm’ information and higher education decision-making

This paper draws on the notions of ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ knowledge in analysing the responses of students to the relevance of different information and sources of such information in university choice. Analysis of questionnaire and focus group data from prospective and first-year undergraduate students provides evidence that many students put most credence on ‘hot’ knowledge, from persons in their social grapevine. However, this is supplemented by ‘warm’ knowledge from fleeting acquaintances at university open days. University provided knowledge is often distrusted. We discuss the implications of this given the recent government emphasis in England on the role of information provision in helping students to make informed decisions, including the relevance to the ‘fair access’ agenda.     

Bureaucratic constructions of sexual diversity: ‘sensitive’, ‘controversial’ and silencing

National research illustrates the high degree of discrimination that prevails against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) students resulting in diminished educational outcomes, both academic and social. This phenomenon is influenced by the prevalence of whole-school silences around LGBTQ topics in many Australian schools. This paper presents an analysis of the New South Wales (NSW) homophobia in schools policy, as well as both NSW state and Australian federal curriculum and syllabus documents in the health and physical education key learning area. This analysis illustrates how contradictory framing and messages; silences and omission; and various discursive constructions of the LGBTQ subject together produce silencing technologies that have critical implications for the implementation of education, both in this key learning area and across the schooling sector.     

The origin of counting: A study of the early meaning of ‘one’, ‘two’ and ‘three’ among Basque- and Spanish-speaking children

This study examines the beginning of the conceptual understanding of the first number-words and what role language can play in developing the notion of numbers. To that end, 2?- and 3?-year-old Basque and Spanish monolingual children's (N = 131) basic numeracy skills are analysed by means of two different experimental procedures: Give-N (in which children are requested to gather sets of objects) and How-Many (based on the ability to count collections). The paper accounts for differences as regards the performance in the Give-N procedure between children with different linguistic backgrounds. In accordance with previous research, this finding can be related to the dissimilar ways by which languages (Basque and Spanish, in this case) express grammatical number, supporting the idea that language plays a definite role in the emergence of the earliest set-size meanings of ‘one,’ ‘two,’ and ‘three’ number-words. Eventually, the work attempts to contribute to the growing body of evidence that shows that the meaning of the count-list appears from mapping numerals onto numerical cognitive representations produced by early core systems of numbers.     

The Glamour of Shakespeare’s Falstaff

Falstaff is a famous comic character of Shakespeare’s historical plays in Henry IV and The Merry Wives of Windsor. He is a figure with many-sides character, and contradiction and romanticism can be emb...     

Portrayals of science and scientists,and ‘science for citizenship’

There are increasing calls in the science education community for ‘science for citizenship’ as an important goal for the school science curriculum of the 21st century. The potential influence of portrayals of science and scientists in popular culture on the achievement of this goal is explored in this paper through a review of the literature. We develop a framework of important questions citizens ask in considering personal and social decision making in relation to science and technology issues, and how portrayals of science and scientists might contribute to this decision making process.     

The Comparison of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 and Baima’s Your Beauty

Shakespeare is one of the most brilliant playwrights and poets in the Middle Ages. Shakespeare’s sonnets created during 1592 to 1598 is not only one of the greatest achievements of his, but also a great leap forward to sonnet itself. With the development of sonnets, Chinese poets begin to learn from western traditional sonnets. Among these poets, Bai Ma is a typical representative. This thesis aims to make a comparison between western traditional sonnets and Chinese sonnets to find out their similarities and dissimilarities through studying Shakespeare’s and Bai Ma’s respective magnum opuses, and to further promote the literary communication of the East-West.     

The Comparison of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 and Baima’s Your Beauty

Shakespeare is one of the most brilliant playwrights and poets in the Middle Ages. Shakespeare ’s sonnets created dur?ing 1592 to 1598 is not only one of the greatest achievements of his, but also a gr...     

‘Supportive’, ‘real’, and ‘low-cost’: implicit comparisons and universal assumptions in the construction of the prospective college-based HE student

This paper first argues for the importance of continued analysis of marketising discourses in Higher Education (HE), both despite and because of their ubiquity. Secondly, the paper looks specifically at college-based HE provision in English Further Education (FE). Using the ‘possible selves’ concept alongside critical discourse analysis, the paper analyses the representations of prospective students on marketing web pages for HE provision in FE colleges. Arguing that the web pages reveal more than just the limited language of HE marketing strategy, the paper highlights common representations of the college-based HE student across policy, research and marketing sources. By exploring both the celebratory and the limiting nature of these representations, the paper therefore asks what the pages’ projections of future or prospective students can tell us about current understandings of English college-based HE.     

Theorising policy and practice in refugee education: Conceptualising ‘safety’, ‘belonging’, ‘success’ and ‘participatory parity’ in England and Sweden

Across the world, children are forced to leave their homes for far-flung destinations. This global phenomenon has particular impact in Europe, where there are now more child refugees than since World War II. Education plays an important role for children with extraordinary experiences seeking to build meaningful lives in their new context. This article offers a new theoretical approach to underpin reforms to educational policy and practice for refugees in schools in resettlement contexts in Europe. The new conceptual framing is grounded in empirical work in England and Sweden, and brings two theories together: ‘participatory parity’ (Fraser) and ‘resumption of an ordinary life’ (Kohli). Kohli’s concepts of ‘safety’, ‘belonging’ and ‘success’ have resonance with practitioners from Sweden and England as they work to meet the needs of their new arrivals. Fraser’s conceptual lenses of redistribution, recognition and representation highlight the barriers to achieving the right to inclusive education for refugee children in each context. The interdependence of both theories shapes a new framework. The theoretical understandings offered in this article have been developed with practitioners and add to the field by offering a robust moral and operational approach to shaping pedagogical principles for policymakers and educators working in resettlement communities.