Stories of Smartness and Whiteness in School Pictures and Yearbooks

This article explores the way that discourses of smartness and whiteness are produced and reproduced in schooling. Using an approach grounded in narrative research, I explore the convergences and contradictions between my own educational autobiography and the representations of schooling found in my school pictures and yearbooks. In my analysis, I argue that white supremacy played an important role in the construction of my own story of smartness throughout my primary and secondary schooling experiences. I also argue that yearbooks form powerful “artifacts of smartness” (Hatt, 2011 Hatt, B. (2011). Smartness as a cultural practice in schools. American Educational Research Journal, 49(3), 438–460. doi: 10.3102/0002831211415661[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], p. 448) that can be used to interpret and interrogate personal experiences as well as larger societal discourses of smartness and whiteness in schooling.     

Fuzzy books and sideways looks: discourses of schooling on Australian television advertisements

Media constructions of schooling provide suggestions about what should be expected of the school experience. Studies on discourses of schooling have examined how the school is framed in media discourses, but few have examined how it is formed mundanely and repeatedly in advertisements promoting products that are not directly educational. This paper examines how the school is constructed in a range of television advertisements that sell products that are not directly educational such as cereal and broadband Internet, focusing on how schools come to be framed negatively in advertising narratives. The television advertisements often use the technique of governmentality, whereby they attempt to direct the conduct of viewers by suggesting that self-improvement is achievable through personal enterprise. These advertisements position parents as agentive consumers of education, whose consumption habits are central to their children's scholarly success within problematic educational spaces.     

Scholarisation, apprenticeship and social differentiation. Analysis of the non-industrial craft sector in Morocco

The article approaches the question of the schooling processes in the particular environment of the Moroccan craftsmen of Fez. It shows that the weak schooling of the children is bound to the representations and to the ways of transmission of craft industry knowledge. Schooling is, indeed, the object of tensions between a school system of western inspiration and the Muslim system of transmitting patrimonial knowledge. The article shows then that schooling is integrated into craftsmen's ‘relationships with knowledge’ and ‘reasons of knowing’: because of historic development factors of the school system in Morocco, and of sociological factors of domination in the craftsmen's environment, schooling is not indeed legitimate for most craftsmen. It is not even always “possible”: in fact, social reproduction in craftsmen's environment is indeed, and because of the previous factors, based on holding positions bound to the mastery of the traditional knowledge and of the production market, rather than to the possession of school capital. On the other hand, schooling has gained strong legitimacy at a general society level, so that the craftsmen, and especially their children, are more and more the victims of social declassification.     

Resisting the Orthodox Smart Label: High School Latinas and the Redefinition of Smartness on the Western Frontier

Drawing from Chicana feminist epistemology and counter-storytelling, this article argues that Latina high school students’ refusal to attach the culturally constructed and hegemonically imposed label of smartness to themselves, while easily identifying that label within others, stems from a resistance to associate themselves with traditional notions of smartness, a label they often frame as exclusive, inappropriate, and/or incongruous within their experiential contexts. This article suggests that the participants in this study agentically embrace their own constructions of smartness to include alternative funds of knowledge and, in this way, coopt smartness in a culturally relevant and specific way.     

Some remarks on Navajo geometry and piagetian genetic theory

Abstract

Some of the basic findings of Piaget's study on spatial knowledge in Genevan children are contrasted to Navajo spatial knowledge: there is no unique spatial «primitive» in Navajo knowledge and each and every notion is constituted in a different way than its Genevan correlate. The total system of Navajo knowledge shows a structure of interrelated and codetermining notions which differs markedly from the unilinear logical-deductive structure in the Piagetian model. In the second half of the paper the investigation turns to education and schooling. Here a position is taken against the (Piaget-based) rationalistic education policy one finds in the New Math-movement. Instead, some of the principles of Freudenthal are explored in a non-western setting: children should reinvent geometry on their own, in the terms of their culture. To that end, a curriculum for geometry teaching in a Navajo bicultural school is presented, focusing on the schooling in geometric concepts within the Navajo language and with full respect for the Navajo spatial representations in pre-school children.     

Missionary girl power: saving the ‘Third World’ one girl at a time

Deborah Ellis’s The Breadwinner is a popular young adult novel about Muslim girls. In this paper, we offer an analysis of the representation of Muslim girls and women in the book as well as responses from undergraduate students enrolled in a children’s literature course to these constructions. Building on the work of postcolonial feminism (specifically the concept of paternalistic care) and critical pedagogy (the role of popular cultural texts as education), we argue that The Breadwinner, and similar historical fictions aimed at youth, wittingly or unwittingly focus on the real and/or imagined plight of ‘other’ girls/women. These representations build upon a care ethic central to the project and history of schooling in the West that in turn results in the stabilisation of colonial relations of domination between white women/girls and colonised women/girls.     

Assisting self-explanation prompts are more effective than open prompts when learning with multiple representations

Learning with multiple representations is usually employed in order to foster understanding. However, it also imposes high demands on the learners and often does not lead to the expected results, especially because the learners do not integrate the different representations. Thus, it is necessary to support the learners’ self-explanation activity, which concerns the integration and understanding of multiple representations. In the present experiment, we employed multi-representational worked-out examples and tested the effects of two types of self-explanation prompts as help procedures for integrating and understanding multiple representations. The participants (N = 62) learned about probability theory under three conditions: (a) open self-explanation prompts, (b) self-explanation prompts in an assistance-giving-assistance-withholding procedure (assisting self-explanation prompts), or (c) no prompts (control group). Both types of self-explanation prompts fostered procedural knowledge. This effect was mediated by self-explanations directed to domain principles. Conceptual knowledge was particularly fostered by assisting self-explanation prompts which was mediated by self-explanations on the rationale of a principle. Thus, for enhancing high-quality self-explanations and both procedural knowledge and conceptual understanding, we conclude that assisting self-explanation prompts should be provided. We call this the assisting self-explanation prompt effect which refers to the elicitation of high-quality self-explanations and the acquisition of deep understanding.     

The promise of post-structuralist methodology: ethnographic representation of education and masculinity

The past decade has witnessed a remarkable explosion of knowledges across the academy, media and political discourse, generating a wide range of representations of men and masculinity. In this paper, we interrogate the failure for an accompanying understanding of the epistemological and methodological implications of the research process in this area of inquiry. More specifically, the paper is located within a particular arena: the schooling of masculinities. The first section critically explores how the ethnographic study, The making of men used identity politics as a methodological theme. The second section continues to draw upon this study by highlighting the emerging methodological tensions between identity politics and a politics of cultural difference. Finally, the third section builds upon this reflexive account, drawing upon our more recent work; it further explores the promise of post-structuralist methodology in relation to emerging paradigms for masculinity research.     

Beyond Re/Presentation: A Case for Updating the Epistemology of Schooling

In this paper we wish to argue that despite strong challenges to representational epistemology in the last two centuries, modern schooling is still organised around a representational view of knowledge. This is the case despite teaching practices being modified to accommodate different views of knowledge that have emerged in the last two centuries. This means, if schooling is to be brought in line with current epistemological trends, there is still a case for updating the epistemology of schooling. Our analysis shows, however, that this update will not leave the idea of modern schooling in tact. Updating the epistemology of schooling, so we argue, requires a fundamental rethink of the purposes of schooling.     

Street Smarts vs. Book Smarts: The Figured World of Smartness in the Lives of Marginalized, Urban Youth

How smartness is defined within schools contributes to low academic achievement by poor and racial/ethnic minority students. Using Holland et al.’s (1998) [Holland, D., Lachicotte, W., Skinner, D., & Cain, C. (Eds.) (1998). Identity and agency in cultural worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.] concept of “figured worlds,” this paper explores the “figuring” of smartness through the perspectives of marginalized youth. The youth made key distinctions between being book smart vs. street smart. This distinction is a direct challenge by the youth to the dominant discourse of smartness or “book smarts” as it operates in schools. To the youth, “street smarts” are more important because they are connected to being able to maneuver through structures in their lives such as poverty, the police, street culture, and abusive “others.” This distinction is key because street smarts stress agency in countering social structures whereas, for many of the youth, book smarts represented those structures, such as receiving a high school diploma. Implications for schools and pedagogy are discussed. B.A. earned from Indiana University – Bloomington, Masters and Ph.D. earned from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Beth Hatt Fis an Assistant Professor of Educational Administration and Foundations at Illinois State University where she teaches research methods and social foundations of education. Her current research explores smartness as a cultural construct in schools and the media.     

Creating an educational home: mothering for schooling in the Australian Women’s Weekly, 1943–1960

Abstract

This article examines cultural representations of the mid-twentieth century mother of schoolchildren in a mass-circulation Australian women’s magazine, arguing that schools and schooling have been under-acknowledged in the historiography of mothering, despite their importance in shaping modern childhood and family life. Framing the Australian Women’s Weekly as a medium of public instruction, we identify and analyse its advice about schooling, both direct and implied, across a variety of the magazine’s sections: in illustrations, news, feature articles, advertising, letters and advice columns. This advice was informed by the popular dissemination of medical, psychological and educational expertise, by managed exchanges amongst the magazine’s readers and by the availability of a variety of consumer products. Much of the guidance offered to mothers was aspirational, aimed at educating and thereby modernising the readership. The interconnectedness of advertising and editorial produced visual and textual images of an “educational home” in which children had their learning supported or enriched, just as their bodies were capably fed and clothed. By the 1950s there was an increasing emphasis on interpersonal relations and therapeutic psychology and the Weekly had embarked on a project of encouraging mothers to learn more about schooling, to do more to support their children’s learning and to take an interest in education as a social project. Despite her strong and growing connection to the school through her children, however, the school mother was almost always represented as working outside its physical boundaries during this period.     

Accountable for what and to whom? Changing representations and new legitimation discourses among teachers under increased external control

This article discusses how teachers construct new representations about accountability and professionalism in the context of increased external control. Over the last decade in particular, concerns about the quality of schooling and the quality of teachers has been raised by both politicians and the public alike, while prominent policy responses have seen an increased emphasis on student performance and the external control of professional work. Based on a 1 year long fieldwork in a Norwegian municipality, the findings imply how forms of external accountability are accepted by many teachers as a necessary and desirable development, but also one that is resisted as the policies are seen to downplay the broader aims of education. In this tension of external and internal accountability, however, alternative discourses have developed. In particular, an emphasis on scientific knowledge and research-informed practice becomes an important representation for enhancing professional legitimacy and trust. By opening up the concept of accountability, it is possible to investigate how teachers’ representations of being accountable may take new forms when teacher professionalism is reconstructed in policy.     

White innocence as an investigative frame in a schooling context

ABSTRACT

Ineffective and oppressive schooling of people of color has been obstinate and widespread. Disinviting and hostile practices often engaged through written and oral discourses contribute to this condition. Thus, identifying such discourses becomes imperative to reversing these conditions and creating equitable schooling. This essay proposes the use of critical analysis of white innocence as a concept to investigate prejudicial schooling practices. Borrowing from legal studies, the author proposes analyzing the rhetoric of white innocence and its simultaneous opposite, person of color as perpetrator, as an investigative frame in the schooling context. In this work, white innocence is reviewed as a social representation that assists in making more transparent the unmarked standard of white supremacy. The essay first conceptualizes the rhetoric of white innocence. Then, a methodological framework of social cognition through discourse and its (re)production of social representations is offered and utilized to exemplify the manifestations of white innocence in a social studies context.     

Multimodal Literacies in Science: Currency, Coherence and Focus

Since the 1990s, researchers have increasingly drawn attention to the multiplicity of representations used in science. This issue of RISE advances this line of research by placing such representations at the centre of science teaching and learning. The authors show that representations do not simply transmit scientific information; they are integral to reasoning about scientific phenomena. This focus on thinking with representations mediates between well-resolved representations and formal reasoning of disciplinary science, and the capacity-limited, perceptually-driven nature of human cognition. The teaching practices described here build on three key principles: Each representation is interpreted through others; natural language is a sign system that is used to interpret a variety of other kinds of representations; and this chain of signs or representations is ultimately grounded in bodily experiences of perception and action. In these papers, the researchers provide examples and analysis of teachers scaffolding students in using representations to construct new knowledge, and in constructing new representations to express and develop their knowledge. The result is a new delineation of the power and the challenges of teaching science with multiple representations.     

Examining the task and knowledge demands needed to teach with representations

Representations are often used in instruction to highlight key mathematical ideas and support student learning. Despite their centrality in scaffolding teaching and learning, most of our understanding about the tasks involved with using representations in instruction and the knowledge requirements imposed on teachers when using these aids is theoretical. In this study, we examine the task and knowledge demands for teaching integer operations with representations by analyzing teaching practice. Teaching integer operations is used as an intensity case, as integer operations are challenging for students, and teachers are often required to employ several representations to teach this topic. Following a practice-based approach while also taking prior literature into consideration, we first generate a list of tasks entailed in teaching with representations and then discuss the knowledge demands imposed on teachers to successfully undertake this work. We highlight these tasks and knowledge demands by analyzing and discussing an integer addition and an integer subtraction episode for each of two teachers, Bonita and Karen. Based on our analysis, we organize the generated knowledge components using the Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching framework. We conclude by drawing implications for teacher educators and curriculum developers.     

Student Success and Failure: As a matter of fact or just how they are portrayed?

This paper introduces and analyses three broad discourses of academic achievement and failure, specifically those that speak of students' deficits, disadvantages and differences. It draws on interview data collected from teachers working in Australian primary (elementary) and secondary (high) schools and on academic literature that speaks to the field. The paper argues that 'deficit', 'disadvantage' and 'difference' represent discourses of considerable influence in determining how teachers, students and parents define what constitutes success or failure in schools, which respective approaches educators employ, and the beliefs we hold about students who fail and those who succeed. In this respect, the paper is concerned with matters of inclusion and exclusion in schooling. In particular, we seek to tease out the stories that these discourses tell about student diversity, as a way of unmasking how students are differently represented and how these representations serve to include some and exclude others from the benefits of schooling and society more broadly.     

Effective investment in women's futures: Schooling with learning

Women's schooling has long been regarded as one of the best investments in development. Yet countries vary widely in the extent to which a year of schooling conveys useful skills and knowledge and hence schooling and education cannot be treated as synonyms. Using two different cross-nationally comparable data sets which contain measures of schooling, assessments of literacy, and life outcomes for more than 50 countries we show the association of women's education, defined as schooling and the acquisition of literacy, with four life outcomes (fertility, child mortality, empowerment, and financial practices) is much larger than the standard estimates of the gains from schooling alone. In our preferred instrumental variables (IV) estimates, that correct for the attenuation bias induced by measurement error, the gain from education is more than 3 times larger than the standard OLS estimates of gains from schooling alone. While our results are not causal estimates, if anything like our results are true in the causal pathways whereby schooling and learning lead to improvements in women's well-being this implies the estimates of the costs and benefits of expansions in grade attainment versus improving learning need to be adjusted accordingly.     

An evaluation of evaluation

Conclusion The present evaluation procedures are useful if looked at as secondary data; if they are seen as broad and essentially complementary to the main business of schooling — student learning, and not as the primary outcome of schooling.When they are seen as direct or primary representations of the quality of programs, they are fraudulent and misleading. Moreover, they are dangerous to the humanistic image of man and our evolving understanding of the learning process.It is the heightening of this danger, currently being fostered by federal grant programs, accountability movements, industrial focus, and the national testing program, that makes it crucial to take a stand, now.We who are engaged in schooling activity are being made over by the pressures of our contemporary milieu. As I see it at present, the evaluation signs of the times can only lead, in the long run, to a process whereby we shall become middlemen technicians in schools that perform a service-training function.Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of North Carolina (Greensboro).     

Slowmation: Preservice elementary teachers representing science knowledge through creating multimodal digital animations

Research has identified the value of learners using technology to construct their own representations of science concepts. In this study, we investigate how learners, such as preservice elementary teachers, design and make a narrated animation to represent their science knowledge. The type of animation exemplified is called a “Slowmation” (abbreviated from “Slow Animation”), which is a simplified way for preservice teachers to make an animation that integrates features from claymation, object animation, and digital storytelling. Drawing on semiotic theory, a case study of three preservice elementary teachers, who were audio and video recorded as they created a slowmation, illustrates how the construction process enabled them to engage with a science concept in multiple ways. Findings suggest that when preservice teachers create a slowmation, they design and make a sequence of five representations, each being a semiotic system with particular affordances that link as a semiotic progression: (i) research notes; (ii) storyboard; (iii) models; and (iv) digital photographs, which culminate in (v) a narrated animation. In this study, the authors present their theoretical framework, explain how the preservice teachers created a slowmation using a sequence of representations to show their science knowledge and discuss the implications of these findings for learners in universities and schools. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 48: 985–1009, 2011     

违法广告治理研究

近年来,违法广告层出不穷,充斥着我们的生活,对我们的消费起着错误的引导作用。违法广告行为制约着我国广告业的发展,造成了公众对广告产生了一种厌恶心理。从法律的角度分析,我国当前广告立法滞后,政府监管和社会监管不到位,消费者相关的法律知识匮乏,维权意识淡薄,这些原因造成了违法广告在社会上的泛滥。违法广告行为亟需治理。