How and Why to Support Common Schooling and Educational Choice at the Same Time

The common school ideal is the source of one of the oldest educational debates in liberal democratic societies. The movement in favour of greater educational choice is the source of one of the most recent. Each has been the cause of major and enduring controversy, not only within philosophical thought but also within political, legal and social arenas. Echoing conclusions reached by Terry McLaughlin, but taking the historical and legal context of the United States as my backdrop, I argue that the ideal of common schooling and the existence of separate schools, which is to say, the existence of educational choice, are not merely compatible but necessarily co-exist in a liberal democratic society. In other words, we need both common schooling and educational choice. The essay proceeds in four parts. First, I explain why we need to understand something about pluralism in order to understand common schooling and school choice. In the second and third parts, I explore the normative significance of pluralism for common schooling and educational choice, respectively. In the fourth part, I show how the two can be reconciled, given a certain understanding of what pluralism demands.     

20世纪20-30年代中国留学教育问题的争论

20世纪20年代至30年代,中国教育界有过一场关于留学教育问题的争论。争论由弹劾清华学制对留学美国学生的遴选公平问题引起。争论的焦点是:中国是否应该继续派送留学生及留学教育的国别选择问题。争论的实质是:留学教育是中国教育发展的助力还是阻力?造成留学教育问题的原因是社会的还是个人的?争论目的是:探索中国留学教育的方向与道路。争论的结果是:留学教育的宗旨、方向和政策发生了变化,留学教育因此得以改进。争论提供的历史借鉴是:留学教育与国内教育的关系问题以及留学生归国的教育价值与教育服务问题,这些问题其实也是当代留学教育研究的重大命题,需要我们做出时代的回答。     

A laboratory for education reform or a battlefield of donor intervention? : Local debates on primary education and the New Study Programmes in Benin

This article deals with the politics of aid partnerships in the education sector of Benin following an anthropological policy research approach based on empirical data. I present local debates on primary education and the New Study Programmes, the latest education reform introduced nationwide in 1999. The different perceptions of the reform content, its implementation process and its outcomes, articulated by education experts, policy makers, donors, intellectual critics, teachers and parents, illustrate the complexity of educational policy making and, implicitly, of state-building in transnationalised arenas.     

Debates in the Literature on Islamic Schools

Contemporary global events, such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the unresolved conflict in the Middle East, and the pessimistic relationships with Muslim countries, pose challenges for Muslims living in the United States in all walks of life. In addition, Muslims encounter daily struggles to live within a society that follows considerably dissimilar beliefs, norms, and way of life. Therefore, Islamic schools and other organizations emerged in response to those challenges. There are several debates in the literature about Islamic schools; among those debates is whether Islamic schools segregate Muslim students, inspire religious intolerance, and rejection of social pluralism's ideals. In addition, there are debates of whether Islamic schools are capable of developing a strong Muslim identity skilled to tackle future challenges. Discussing these debates is considered the first step to critically tackling the challenges meeting Islamic schools, their relevance, and their continuity in a way that benefits Muslim generations and the American society. Furthermore, such debates draw attention to the impediments facing the success of these schools and the possible strategies to resolve problematic issues. This article explores each of these debates in detail.     

How to support and engage students in alternative forms of education and training? A qualitative study of school staff members in Flanders

This study focuses on how students, who for a variety of reasons struggle in mainstream secondary schools, can be supported and engaged by alternative forms of education and training to attain a (formal) qualification. Interviews and focus groups are carried out with school staff members of distinct types of alternative learning arenas in Flanders (northern part of Belgium): second chance secondary education, part-time apprenticeship track and part-time work-based vocational education. Our analyses reveal that, due to the selectiveness of mainstream secondary education, staff members in alternative learning arenas mainly struggle with the ways to develop inclusive curricula/practices and with the actual content of the curricula of their educational training or programme they are supposed to teach. Staff members struggle with putting into practice the fundamental aim to prepare socially vulnerable students for their future lives. Debates within the school team focus upon the relative importance of transferrable, specialist and social skills and competences. Results of this study are discussed to further enhance the professionalisation of school teams, and can be seen as the starting point to specify and develop the curriculum taught in both alternative learning arenas and mainstream secondary education.     

美国社区学院社会角色之争述评

20世纪60年代以来社区学院的社会角色之争,一直是美国高等教育界辩论的一大议题,并引发了高等教育界对社区学院社会角色的深刻反思.本文从结构功能主义、冲突主义、人力资本三大理论派别对社区学院社会角色的相关研究进行了述评.     

绿色政治与西方经济增长理论变革

20世纪60年代西方绿色政治理论的产生和发展,不仅引起了人们对生态环境的广泛关注,而且也对传统经济增长理论产生了重要的影响。面对日趋加重的生态环境危机,以牺牲资源环境为代价的传统经济增长方式受到社会各界专家学者的质疑和挑战。与此同时,一系列以生态环境与经济发展相互关系为研究基础的反增长、零增长以及稳增长理论应运而生,逐渐步入西方社会政治经济舞台并引起广泛的争论。     

Social Use of the School Library: the colonisation and regulation of educational space

The existing literature on school libraries has been dominated by a view of them as ‘learning laboratories’ which should allow students opportunities for reading and conducting research into small scale projects. From this perspective, resource issues and helping students become knowledgeable users of library facilities are the major problems facing school librarians. This study breaks from the traditional research by focusing on the social use of the school library. Data are used from two case‐studies of school libraries to analyse student colonisation and teacher regulation of library space, and the processes by which students come to associate or dissociate themselves from using the library during the school day. The paper concludes by arguing that social factors form, an integral part of the context in which school libraries stand or fall as arenas which facilitate student learning, and that the spatial dimensions of social interaction should become central to analyses of educational differentiation.     

The role of the 1976 televised presidential debates in the political socialization of adolescents

On the day immediately following their viewing of the first Carter‐Ford televised debate, 156 junior‐high‐school students were interviewed to determine the role of interpersonal communication, media exposure patterns, and family and social environments in the prediction of perceptions of victory and learning about the candidates by adolescents. It was found that parents' social class was the best predictor of adolescents' perceptions of the importance of the debates, whereas the best predictor of the. students' ability to attribute victory to one of the candidates was interpersonal communication prior to and immediately following the telecast. Results are discussed in terms of previous findings, which reflect low importance of the debates in political socialization.     

Scales of political action and social movements in education: the case of the Brazilian Black Movement and Law 10.639

This paper examines social coordination by the Brazilian Black Movement in the area of Brazilian education. It explains how these developments relate to the construction of race-based public education policies in the country. Focus goes to the process of creation and implementation of law 10.639 in Brazilian Basic education. Using the concept ‘diffuse governance’, the argument is made that at present it are the multiple actions by the Brazilian Black Movement, in diverse arenas of dispute, and interacting with a range of actors, that enable us to understand the social coordination/regulation in the process of constructing and implementing Law 10.639.     

人际语用学研究的社会认知路径

从传统范式到现阶段范式,不同礼貌研究路径在两大争论焦点上持有不同立场:其一,礼貌研究的视角;其二,礼貌现象的解释层面。作为前沿研究成果之一,Long(2016)面向关系工作提出的社会认知路径尝试解决上述争论。该路径侧重交际中人际关系的探讨,对于礼貌研究两大争议的解决具有借鉴意义,但受自身研究背景的局限,未能对人际交往与社会认知过程提出完整的解释。因此,更为完善的人际交往社会认知路径还有待进一步探讨。     

Teaching Social Welfare History and Social Welfare Policy From a Conflict Perspective

In schools of social work, policy courses are frequently taught assuming debates occur along a liberal–conservative ideological continuum in which liberals favor equitable distribution of societal benefits and burdens, whereas conservatives emphasize individual political and property rights and personal responsibility. This dichotomous approach often results in conflict being situated primarily outside the classroom and profession while ignoring contentious debates that have occurred within social work. The authors argue for reconceptualizing policy courses to provide an historical conflict-based approach and include specific suggestions for course design. This approach will better train students with critical skills and prepare them for future practice.     

Lifelong Learning: Ideas and achievements at the threshold of the twenty-first century

Taking a historical perspective and focusing on Low and Medium Human Development countries, the paper starts with a quotation from a nineteenth-century Scot proposing universal empowerment through education for all citizens and ends with the recognition that at the end of the twentieth century his social justice challenge has not yet been met. The concept of lifelong learning and associated ideas are unpacked and particular applications highlighted, including human rights, literacy and gender. New arenas for lifelong learning are noted, but the general imbalance between the High Human Development countries and the rest of the world is under scored. At the same time, lessons in learning from the majority world for the High Development countries are suggested, including development-related learning and popular participation.     

Ethical dilemmas on social media: Swedish secondary teachers’ boundary management on Facebook

With the aim of contributing to the research about the educational use of social media, the paper explores teachers’ experiences of ethical dilemmas on Facebook. The paper draws upon focus group interviews with Swedish secondary teachers. Two main categories of ethical dilemmas, related to the border between private and professional, are detected. The dilemmas concern (1) teachers’ moral responsibility for pupils’ actions and (2) how teachers appear on social media. Different boundary work practices created and used by teachers are identified. The main conclusion is that, by having contact with pupils in a virtual social arena originally intended for private use, teachers’ use of social media brings to fore and intensifies deep-rooted ethical questions about what the teacher role is and should be. Teachers’ participation on social media such as Facebook compels them to reflect upon and position their preferred teacher role in these new social arenas.     

ePortfolios: The Method of Choice for Validation

Community colleges have long been institutions of higher education in the arenas of technical education and training, as well as preparing students for transfer to universities. While students are engaged in their student learning outcomes, projects, research, and community service, how have these students validated their work? One method of validation is the design and development of the personal and professional ePortfolio. This article chronicles the process of how ePortfolios offer validation of a student’s learning experiences to meet workforce expectations as part of an individual’s holistic social media footprint (e.g., ePortfolios [workforce] and social media [interpersonal]).     

浅议我国社会保障立法模式选择

在分析世界上现行社会保障立法模式的基础上,从我国的现实国情和社会保障立法状况出发,并在有关学者研究和争论的前提下,得出我国现行社会保障立法应该采取“多法并立平行”模式的结论。     

The Teaching of Writing in Social Work Education:

Though social work educators at the graduate and undergraduate level require their students to write much and often, the quality of writing of many recent graduates appears to be inadequate for meeting the contemporary demands of everyday practice in social work settings or interdicsiplinary arenas. In order to prepare more fully social work students for addressing contemporary social issues and for serving their clients, social work educators in the 1990s could draw upon the expertise of those composition teachers who have devised approaches to the teaching of writing that take into account the special demands of a given profession or discipline. The authors reflect on their application of such an approach in three social work programs - two at the graduate level and one at the undergraduate level.     

Deep Breaths on Paper

Abstract

Calls for more attention to social work student writing have gone largely unanswered in the literature and, it can be assumed, in the classroom. An emphasis on writing skills will help prepare students for active and effective advocacy in their practices and in policy arenas. To assure social work instructors that writing instruction, like writing, is no mysterious and impossible chore, this article introduces three key concepts of composition theory: writing to learn, writing as process, and writing as social act. To demonstrate the interrelated applications of these concepts, various uses of classroom journals are presented. Further, instructors are encouraged to require multiple drafts of papers and to provide written assignment guides. Some suggestions for useful commenting on drafts are provided.     

高考“替人受过”:现象及其本质

随着高考弊端的越发显现,引发的争议也越发激烈.许多人除诟病高考自身弊端外,还情绪化地将诸多与高考无关的教育和社会弊端也"追根溯源"到其处,高考因此承受着不公正对待.高考之所以"替人受过",乃因其具有重要的社会功能和重大的社会影响,并因此备受关注.而高考受关注的背后,则折射出深厚的历史与文化影响,以及复杂的社会矛盾.     

The contribution of the ontological turn in education: Some methodological and political implications

This paper follows recent debates on the ontological turn in the social sciences and humanities to exemplify how this turn creates important openings of methodological and political potential in education. In particular, the paper makes an attempt to show two things: first, the new questions and possibilities that are opened from explicitly acknowledging the methodological and political consequences of the ontological turn in education—e.g. concerning agency, transformation, materiality and relations; and second, the importance of being clear about how educators and educational researchers conceptualize ontology and engage with debates on the ontological turn in related disciplines. The paper sketches some of the methodological and political implications of the ontological turn for education, focusing in particular on the concept of learning.