Supporting collaborative reflection in teacher education: a case study

The aim of this paper is to understand how certain educational supports promote preservice teachers’ learning to reflect in collaborative settings. To address this issue, we present a case study on collaborative reflection among 14 preservice teachers and one teacher educator over the course of five weekly consecutive sessions. The results suggest that collaborative reflection can be supported by organizing the process according to a twofold dynamic: from analysis to synthesis, and from open facilitation to directive facilitation. Six different types of assistance related to this dynamic, and provided by the teacher educator, are identified and qualitatively described: framing, oppositional voice, counterpoising alternatives, asking for the dilemma, problematizing, and modelling.     

卡塔尔新世纪基础教育政策内容分析

为了构建一种国际水平的新教育制度,培养青少年充分参与国家经济、政治和社会生活的能力,2002年卡塔尔政府发布了《面向新时代的教育》政策,内容包括教育质量政策、教育体制政策、教师政策和教育经费政策。四项教育政策构成了一个完整的国家教育政策体系,这对我国基础教育改革具有重要的启示。     

Becoming a female leader in higher education: investigations from a regional university

Issues of gender imbalance in leadership have long been a significant issue in universities, as is the case across most industries. This paper explores the experiences of seven females who have successfully achieved senior leadership positions at a regional university in Australia. While the experiences of these women differ in many ways, there are certainly similarities in the challenges and adversities that they have faced, and their perceptions of what has allowed them to experience success in their leadership roles. This paper provides a number of recommendations for women aspiring to be leaders in higher education, such as committing to ongoing development, taking opportunities when presented, developing resilience, developing a track record, and seeking support, and also recommendations for institutions.     

Constructivism as a framework for literacy teacher education courses: the cases of six literacy teacher educators

This paper presents findings from the large-scale study Literacy Teacher Educators: Their Backgrounds, Visions, and Practices that includes 28 literacy/English teacher educators (LTEs) from four countries. The participants were interviewed three times and shared their course outlines. Six pre-service LTEs who use a constructivist approach are presented. The six LTEs speak English as their mother tongue. Three aspects of constructivism are discussed: knowledge is constructed by learners; knowledge is experience based; and a strong class community is essential. They have adopted a constructivist approach because they conceptualised the teaching/learning process as a partnership. Constructivism is a flexible and fluid framework so individual LTEs can shape their work for their context and draw on their strengths; however, it is demanding because courses have to be somewhat organic in order to create space for discussion of issues as they arise.     

Characteristics of Nordic research on special education in preschool: a review with special focus on Swedish conditions

ABSTRACT

The article identifies and reviews current Nordic research on special education in preschool. The research question was: What characterises Nordic research on special education in preschool between the years 2006 and 2014? The analysis that was applied was configurational and the procedure included a content analysis. The results of the present review indicate that the included studies are characterised by intimacy and depth in relation to preschool practice, with predominantly qualitative data created through interviews and with a variety of theories. Teachers’ voices dominate, while special educators, and parents’ voices are heard to some degree. Children's voices are rarely heard and then only through video recordings in which the adult interprets the child.     

教育界与近代边疆教育——以参与边疆教育事业的轨迹为中心

20世纪上半叶是新式教育在中国取得长足发展的重要时期.作为推动新式教育发展的重要力量,我国教育界广大人士在致力于城市教育和乡村教育改革的同时,也在祖国辽阔的边疆民族地区留下了他们活动的深深印记.教育界人士的这些实践活动,为近代边疆教育事业的初步转型做出了一定贡献;他们对边疆教育的研究成果以及在办学过程中积累的宝贵经验和教训,迄今仍然具有重要的启迪意义.     

Ambivalence and the politics of knowledge: The struggle for change in German higher education

This article argues (a) that universities are profoundly ambivalent institutions; (b) that this ambivalence explains a great deal about their behavior that would otherwise remain inexplicable; (c) that one of the most striking manifestations of this ambivalence can be found in universities’ attitudes towards change; and (d) that this ambivalence has its roots in a fundamental tension in modern society about the university’s purposes. There is good reason to believe that this set of observations holds true for universities everywhere, albeit to different degrees and in different ways. As a case in point, this article focuses on the process of change (and non-change) in German higher education over the past ten years.     

Illuminating the (in)visibility of female scholars: a gendered analysis of publishing rates within educational technology journals from 2004 to 2015

This research study utilized bibliometric methods to analyze publication rates among female and male lead authors in six prominent, peer-reviewed journals in Educational Technology (ET) fields over the past 12 years. The aim of the inquiry was to determine if differences or trends exist in the number of articles published by each gender. Data analysis revealed notable differences in publication rates between genders, and key findings indicate that while women overall published less than half of the articles from all journals sampled, two journals with a focus on primary and secondary (P-12) educational contexts have consistently published more articles written by female lead authors than male authors. The findings of this study hold practical relevance in terms of addressing the (in)visibility of female scholars in ET fields and may be used to promote discussions and actions related to the intersections between gender, equity, and the culture of scholarly publishing.     

The spectacle of global tests in the Arabian Gulf: a comparison of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates*

Although scholars have examined the effects of global tests on national and regional educational governance, few researchers have studied their impact on education in the Arabian Gulf. This research fills the knowledge gap by studying the international spectacle of PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS results in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – two small rich states at the periphery of knowledge production processes. I argue that an analysis of these narratives reveals how global accountability discourses are translated into the Arabian Gulf context as truth claims that performance in league tables is an accurate and objective representation of educational quality. Four themes emerge from the analysis: integration of test results into national visions; measurement of educational progress based on test results; ranking of student performance; and policy changes to improve test results. In conclusion, I suggest that the over-dependence on global tests in defining educational quality in Qatar and the UAE erodes educational sovereignty and restricts the capacity of small states to develop and nurture alternative, indigenous and localised solutions for guiding educational reforms.     

Virtuous mess and wicked clarity: struggle in higher education research

This article considers the value of clarity – of theory, method and purposes – in educational research. It draws upon the work of early critical theorist, Theodor Adorno, and particularly his notion of negative dialectics and his challenge to the traditional dichotomy of theory and practice. Using the notions of virtuous mess and wicked clarity, I argue that we need to accept the messy, contingent nature of the social world we research. I further suggest that it then follows that such research can and should influence and change that world. The researcher is necessarily part of the world she researches and, once one accepts that, it is hard to sustain ethical or political isolation; it is hard to ignore the struggle.     

Eternal vigilance: politics,race, and the struggle for educational equity in a Central Texas Community

Abstract

This article documents the emergence of a Mexican-American political consciousness in a Central Texas Community and the efforts to dismantle decades of inequitable, exclusionary educational policies and practices. We take readers into a community on the verge of profound change by exploring primary historical data and situating the voices of community leaders in a historical context. We employ a theory of change framework (RASPPA) to chronicle a community’s response to macro-level societal changes. To understand the need for Mexican-American activism in Central Texas, we providing a survey of literature that chronicles Mexican-American experience in Texas. This is a story about a community realizing its political capacity and leveraging its own agency for change. We take a walk-through history and use place, race, identity and courage to inform a new vision for educational equity.     

A thousand words are worth a picture: a snapshot of trans* postsecondary educators in higher education

Abstract

Trans* is becoming a buzzword and trans* celebrities have become increasingly visible. On college campuses, trans* students have also become more visible and advocacy for them continues to be extremely important. To support these claims, some literature has emerged regarding trans* college students’ identity development and experiences on campuses, including their perceptions of campus climate. However, higher education scholars and professionals know virtually nothing about the lived experiences of trans* educators working in colleges and universities. Extending on the importance of scholarship regarding trans* college students, trans* educators’ experiences are important because these educators are in positions of influence as mentors, advisors, and role-models to students and colleagues, and perhaps knowing their journey and how they can better be supported will allow their contributions on campuses to become more visible. Additionally, these educators are in positions of power in the university and encourage all people invested in higher education environments to advocate for increased notions of gender and inclusion in their offices, departments, units and the university as a whole. Through the use of portraiture methodology, with semi-structured interviews and a participant-observation as methods the purpose of this study was to help make more visible the lives and experiences of trans* postsecondary educators, while expanding notions of gender in higher education.     

Para‐teacher scheme and quality education for all in India: policy perspectives and challenges for school effectiveness

This paper argues that the concepts, beliefs and understandings of local and non‐local teacher educators in a Hong Kong university are grounded in their own cultural cognition and antecedents. It presents the viewpoint that contemporary notions of good practice were compromised when applied to a context that is strongly influenced by the tenets of Confucianism. Thus the conclusion is that the contingencies of teaching and learning contexts are sufficiently different to compromise the goal of having pre‐constructed notions of good teaching. The alternative is that university tutors and future researchers re‐conceptualise good teaching practices within a context that gives it meaning and purpose.     

Case studies in history education: thinking action research through an epistemological framework

ABSTRACT

Key studies in history education (from France and the USA) are discussed and compared in order to explore their methodological issues in terms of the types of knowledge they can generate about teaching and learning. An epistemological framework that relates the history of historians as an inquiry to that of the classroom provides the criteria for this comparative analysis, which is inscribed in Abbott’s epistemologico-institutional social sciences analysis through the identification of two basic debates that structure history education research, namely subject-matter knowledge vs pedagogical practices, and teaching and learning rules of methods vs habits of thinking. This analysis points out the conditions for the development of a formative school history inquiry (to have students work on their own explanations, to put into play their set of beliefs about history), which determine the modalities of a specific action research. These modalities are detailed by the example of an action research on the case of the teaching of the French Revolution in the last grade of primary school: the sharing of pedagogical (by the professor) and academic (by the researchers) decisions, the collective production of data throughout the process.     

History of education and the struggle for intellectual liberation in post-Soviet Baltic space after the fall of the Berlin Wall

This study on a “new” history of education is written from the perspective of a participant in the process of discarding Soviet intellectual and physical boundaries. The fall of the Berlin Wall has, over the past two decades, become a continuous process in post-Soviet societies, when the now liberated historians of education were faced with a new challenge, namely integration into the newly opened world. The only allowed theory, Marxism-Leninism, reduced historians of education to superficial methodology and its trivialisation. However, the collapse of the USSR did not immediately result in new theoretical concepts, because historians were busy discovering fresh facts in newly accessed archives and libraries. Soon, topics on the history of education were being addressed by social scientists, who had succeeded in learning the latest theories, enabling them to present historic material to the general public in a global context. “Acts-and-facts history” slowly lost its place in university courses. Similar to the Revisionists of the 1960s in the West, today historians of education in the Baltics look to the common narratives and borrow theories from the social sciences. Current research in Latvia focuses on the Soviet legacy, internationalisation of education and the stories of those “whose voices have not yet been heard”.     

Changing aims of computing education: a historical survey

Computing education has been an important and sometimes contentious issue ever since the advent of modern computing. Debates about computing education have closely followed job markets, technological development, academic interests, societal concerns, and changes in the perception of computing. The themes in computing education debates can be characterized by emergence and formation, standardization and organization, accommodation to change, and divergence. The focus of computing education has expanded outward from the computer to programming, algorithms, and information, as well as to the organizational, social, and cultural environment of computer systems.

This survey gives computing education researchers an overview of some of the central issues and disputes in computing education over the brief history of modern computing. The survey highlights the emergence of educational initiatives, concepts, joint efforts, and institutions of computing education, and outlines the relatively short history of computing education research. The survey is structured around four overlapping themes: computing education as technological training, as training for software development, as a central element for the field’s academic recognition, and as training for computational problem-solving in any domain of knowledge. Each theme has played a role throughout the history of modern computing, but their relative emphases have changed over the years.     

From dictatorship to democracy: history of education in Spain

In a book published in 1995 providing an overview on the state of the art in European educational historiography in Europe, Marie-Madeleine Compère referring to post-Franco Spain, emphasised the “dynamism” and “the capacity to mobilise” that had arisen among Spanish researchers by “any collective initiative.” Moving on, this article intends to clarify: a) to what extent Compère is right; and b) what caused the changes in the Spanish educational historiography during the last four decades. It also deals with some of the prevailing trends and issues facing this academic and scientific field today.     

Male teachers in Shanghai public kindergartens: a phenomenological study

Using theories on gendered organizations and masculinities as a conceptual framework, this study explores the experiences of men who teach kindergarten in China. The findings illuminate the simultaneous struggles and privilege the men experience as well as the challenges of deconstructing gendered roles associated with social and professional expectations. Such deconstruction requires both a shared awareness of the need for change and the desire to make these changes. In societies where gendered roles are deeply embedded in social norms, change will likely be slow to emerge.