‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’: The Great Gatsby in the 1980s

This essay illustrates the application of reception study, the subfield of literary history that emphasises the historical experiences of readers, to pedagogical contexts by investigating the teaching of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) in American high schools during the 1980s. Focusing on the episode in which Jay Gatsby leads Nick and Daisy on a tour of his mansion, the analysis draws on published lesson plans and other primary source documents and reimagines the contemporary cultural contexts to reconsider the novel’s lessons about social class during a decade that saw escalating wealth disparity, mirroring Fitzgerald’s 1920s and anticipating our present.     

Against ‘teaching excellence’: ideology,commodification, and enabling the neoliberalization of postsecondary education

ABSTRACT

In this article, the notion of excellence in relation to teaching is removed from its privileged place in order to render it, and its implications, for analysis. We argue that teaching excellence needs to be understood in the larger context of the neoliberal university in which competition is taken for granted, and therefore, metrics for comparison are evermore necessary. Following this argument, we explore excellence as an instrument of neoliberal ideology in higher education. We explore different manifestations of teaching excellence enacted in policies that that are illustrative of five different countries. Implications for further analysis, and for resistance to the expansion of neoliberal ideology through teaching excellence, are presented.     

Education,digital literacy and democracy: the case of Britain’s proposed ‘exit’ from the European Union (Brexit)

Asia Pacific Education Review - There has been a long tradition of demonstrating formal education’s direct relationship with many dimensions of development, including increased productivity,...     

The Health and Welfare of University Students in Britain, 1920–1939

Throughout the interwar period, there was considerable discussion concerning the health and welfare of university students in Britain, involving university officials, student organizations and government departments. In the light of these debates, there was a significant expansion of amenities for students, which included halls of residence, playing fields, student union buildings, and the beginnings of medical examination and health facilities. This paper outlines these debates and some of the leading practical responses, particularly regarding the provision of health services. The extension of these arrangements for students raised important questions regarding the changing nature of the student population between the wars, the responsibilities of universities towards them and the increasingly significant role that students were beginning to take in national life.     

‘Little prisoners of city streets’: London elementary schools and the School Journey Movement, 1918–1939

This article examines the experience of the ‘school journey’, an educational fieldtrip of a fortnight’s duration, as practised in London’s interwar elementary schools. Established historical debates over perceptions of the countryside in interwar Britain have previously failed to discuss the messages promoted in schools. This article demonstrates that an idyllic notion of the rural countryside often influenced school practice, but that there was little attempt to link this explicitly to a wider ideological message around national identity or patriotism. Although exposure to the countryside was seen as undoubtedly beneficial, school journeys were not uncritical of rural life. They also encompassed a much wider range of purposes, being an opportunity to study different industries and local heritage, or foster contact with local people. Furthermore, they provided an unequalled opportunity for increased supervision by teachers, and thus a valuable chance to counter the perceived moral ill-effects of a child’s usual working-class environment.     

“I was my war; my war was I”: Vera Brittain,autobiography and university fiction during the Great War

Abstract

Applying the critical lenses of feminism, autographical theory and literary analysis, this essay performs a triple reading of Vera Brittain’s multi-genre writings about gender, war,and university education. Focusing specifically on The Dark Tide (1923), Testament of Youth (1933) and The Women of Oxford (1960), the essay argues that Brittain (de)constructs competing views of academic work and war work in order to reveal and critique competing definitions of women’s duty in wartime. Over the course of her life and writings, Brittain’s attitudes toward academe changed from euphoric feminist possibility to anti-spinsterish paranoia. Ultimately, Brittain was unable to reconcile these conflicting perspectives and instead chose a new, modern path in pacifism. Looking at a diverse body of her work reveals how much gender, education and the war impacted on Brittain’s perceptions of her self, her work and her writing.     

‘A Taste for Country Life’: the policy and practice of bias in English rural education, 1918–1939

Abstract

This paper examines the common assumptions that a Local Education Authority's failure to reorganise rural schools in the 1920s and 1930s necessarily meant it was negligent, parsimonious and without conviction or direction, and that schools themselves ridiculously outmoded in buildings, curriculum and teaching methods. It uses Hertfordshire as a case study and in challenging the assumptions identifies this LEA's not‐so‐hidden agenda – the more than tacit alliance of education and agriculture to ensure the former supported the latter at a time of falling prices and rural depopulation. It argues that, as a result, largely traditional attitudes and highly vocational policies were paramount after 1918, but camouflaged by the promotion of modern teaching methods and by the fashionable aesthetic movement dedicated to the study, enjoyment and regeneration of the countryside. Absolute economy in public expenditure was not the LEA's main priority, but rather the preservation of village schools, the promotion of an intensive rural bias in their curriculum, the isolation of their pupils from urban influences and the creation of a group of teachers specially trained to work in these schools. This policy withstood many vicissitudes, and incurred praise and obloquy in equal degree, and yet overall it became stronger rather than weaker with the passage of time. The paper argues that a major reason for its strength and success was its basic kinship with government policy, which itself owed much to the enduring links between the Board of Education and Ministry of Agriculture.     

Entanglement and transnational transfer in the history of infant schools in Great Britain and salles d’asile in France, 1816–1881

The historical developments of infant schools in Great Britain and salles d’asile in France – both precursors of present-day preschools – were interconnected. However, historians have not yet analysed specifically how transnational exchange influenced the growth and nature of these institutions. Drawing on archival data and secondary sources, and using a combined comparative and transnational approach, this study aims to remedy this omission. It traces the evolution of British infant schools and French salles d’asile from their beginnings to their affiliation with the education systems in their respective countries – i.e. from 1816, when Robert Owen founded the first infant school in Britain, to 1881, when the salle d’asile was incorporated as an integral part of the French education system (renamed école maternelle). The study also shows how ideas about infant education and the motives and experiences of educators and social reformers spread across British borders and influenced the development of salles d’asile.     

Between patriotism and nationalism: Johan Hendrik Swildens and the ‘pedagogy of the patriotic virtues’ in the United Dutch Provinces during the 1780s and 1790s

The dominant influences that forged curriculum policy in relation to the literacy curriculum in New Zealand during the 1930s can be seen to be enmeshed in the politics of the wider context of what de Castell and Luke have identified as the ‘literacy ideologies of the British Empire’. ^{1 1} See de Castell, Suzanne and Allan Luke. “Literacy Instruction: Technology and Technique.” American Journal of Education 95, no. 3 (1987): 413–440. It was these literacy ideologies and concerns over the cultural authority of ‘standard English’ that were to spark a growing public and professional concern during the 1930s over New Zealanders’ speech and the growing ‘insidious’ influence of American‐derived popular culture. These tensions led to debates that would eventually highlight the need for New Zealanders to develop their own national and cultural identity. They would also bring into question the role of Maori language and culture in New Zealand primary school education, and herald the first challenges to the cultural dominance of the English language in New Zealand’s Native schools in the late 1930s.     

‘To hold the subject’s territory’: the Swedish Association of Biology Teachers and two curricular reforms, 1960–1965

The aim of this article is to investigate and analyse the cultural boundaries of school biology, and to a certain extent the natural science subjects in general, in two Swedish curriculum reforms, from the viewpoint of the Swedish Association of Biology Teachers (ABT). Thomas Gieryn’s concept of boundary‐work is thus used in analysing how the ABT acted to ‘hold the subject’s territory’. The ABT had substantial influence on the content of the new biology curricula, although this was sometimes achieved after internal conflict and required support from other actors, especially university biologists. Upper secondary biology had the highest status and was seen as a science, related to modern biological research and curriculum development, particularly in the USA. Despite the efforts of the ABT boundary‐work was unsuccessful in respect of the timetable; the natural science subjects were reduced both at the lower and upper secondary level, in contrast to what happened in many other Western countries.     

Miss Joyce Lang,Kidbrooke and ‘The Great Comprehensives Debate’: 1965–2005

In 1964–65 a teacher at London’s Kidbrooke School gave a speech that appeared critical of the Labour government’s nascent comprehensivization policy. A Times editorial based on her comments influenced the tone and content of the crucial parliamentary debate of January 1965, which continues to have implications for the organization of schools in Britain.     

Comparisons of ‘Education Reform’ in Britain and the USA: a new era?

ABSTRACT

This paper compares and contrasts the origins, objectives and outcomes of the New Right education reform movements in Britain and the USA. It considers whether the education reforms will create a new era for schools, in terms of diversity of public and private provision and social, sexual and racial differentiation. This is despite the emphasis on quality or excellence in education as opposed to equality of educational opportunity. The origins of the reform movements are to be found in both the politics and economic developments of the ‘social democratic’ or ‘liberal’ bipartisan political consensus. The objectives of the reforms are to deal with declining international competitiveness and the raising of educational standards through consumer or parental choice. The outcomes are likely not to be a general raising of standards but rather a bifurcation in terms of a complex mix of class, race and gender.     

Children’s Self‐documentation and Understanding of the Concepts ‘Healthy’ and ‘Unhealthy’

The present paper describes a study in which 13 children aged 9–11 years, of diverse ethnic, linguistic, and socio‐economic backgrounds, were asked to use a digital camera and small notebook to document the range of things they consider to be healthy and unhealthy. Using open‐ended interview questions, the children were then asked to explain each item, including what it was, why they chose it, and why they thought it was either healthy or unhealthy. The range of definitions of ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ invoked by the children was surprisingly broad, encompassing not only illness and proper nutrition, but also environmental health, mental health, cleanliness, and other meanings. Findings across all 13 children are displayed, and a case study of one child serves as a detailed example of the types of meanings children ascribe to the words ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’, as well as the kinds of analyses being employed on these data. The theoretical implications of these results for research on children’s ideas about health, as well as implications for the design of health interventions, are discussed.     

‘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.     

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.     

‘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.     

Tomorrow’s a mystery: constructions of the future and ‘un/becoming’ amongst ‘early’ and ‘late’ career academics

Abstract

Constructing a secure sense of a professional future has become increasingly difficult for early career researchers, whilst concerns about present and future job in/security have also been expressed in relation to already-established academics. In this paper, we draw on qualitative data from a U.K. study to explore everyday conceptualisations of the future for both ‘early career’ and ‘late career’ academics, in the context of increased fears and actualities of occupational precarity. We utilise theories of the social construction of time, as well as a conception of precarity and ‘precarization’ utilised by Butler (2009a, 2009b) and Lorey (2015), relating to ‘politically induced’ forms of insecurity that are a direct product of neoliberalism. The research reveals a variety of forms and levels of concern and anxiety by both groups for their own futures, and for the future of the academy as a whole.