Curriculum analysis and education for sustainable development in Iceland

The article explores how the Icelandic public school curriculum for early childhood, compulsory and upper secondary school deals with education for sustainable development. As the curriculum does not often mention the term sustainability, a key with which to investigate signs of education for sustainable development in the three curricula was created. The key encourages a holistic view of sustainable development, where economic, environmental and social factors are not treated as separate entities. It was designed to reflect the goals of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005–2014) with research on environmental education and education for sustainable development in mind. The key has seven characteristics: values, opinions and emotions about nature and environment; knowledge contributing to a sensible use of nature; welfare and public health; democracy, participation, and action competence; equality and multicultural issues; global awareness; and finally, economic development and future prospects. Using the key, a variety of signs and indicators that provide a space for teachers and schools to deal with issues of sustainable development were identified.     

Michael Young and the curriculum field in South Africa

The paper addresses the question of what we should make of Michael Young’s recent work with respect to curriculum theory by considering the particular case of South African curriculum reform. The paper thus traces two trajectories: the evolution of Michael Young’s ideas over time and South African curriculum reform in the post-apartheid period. The paper shows how the two trajectories have run in parallel, not least because of Young’s ongoing involvement and interest in South Africa. Three broad periods in Young’s career are identified: the new sociology of education period; a middle period where he engaged in substantial policy work, focusing predominantly on the relation between schooling and the economy; and his social realist phase, where much of his work has focused on an educational notion of specialized knowledge: ‘powerful knowledge’. The possibilities and limitations of this notion as it has been taken up in the research literature, and in relation to the South African case, are explored.     

Not just skills: what a focus on knowledge means for vocational education

This contribution to the symposium on Michael Young’s article ‘Overcoming the crisis in curriculum theory: a knowledge based approach’, supports his contention that curriculum theory has lost sight of its object—‘what is taught and learned in schools’, and argues that this has particularly deleterious consequences for vocational education and training (VET). VET is unproblematically positioned as applied, experiential and work-focused learning, and it is seen as a solution for those who are alienated from or unsuccessful in more traditional forms of academic education. This article argues that rather than being a mechanism for social inclusion, VET is instead a key way in which social inequality is mediated and reproduced because it excludes students from accessing the theoretical knowledge they need to participate in debates and controversies in society and in their occupational field of practice. It presents a social realist analysis to argue why VET students need access to theoretical knowledge, how a focus on experiential and applied learning constitutes a mechanism for social exclusion and what a ‘knowledge rich’ VET curriculum would look like.     

本科小学教育专业课程设置研究与实践

我国小学教师的培养已经提高到了本科层次,如何将小学教育专业纳入高等教育的范畴加以建设,通过实验形成具有中国特色的本科学历小学教师培养模式和课程体系,是我国教师教育发展中一个十分值得探索的重要问题。由于经济社会发展的不平衡,需要各地区的师范院校根据所在地区的经济社会发展情况、学校特色等制订相适应的培养模式和课程方案,满足基础教育对人才的需求和社会改革发展的需要。     

高师小学教育专业本科课程的基本特征

小学教育专业本科课程处于小学教师专业化培养的中心地位。实现小学教师教育现代化的核心是课程的现代化。在构建小学教育专业本科课程体系的研究中,首先要研究小学教育专业本科课程所具有的社会生态性、文化多元性、学科多样性、知识综合性、结构合理性、本土特色性、发展创新性等基本特征。     

Professionalization of progress and expertise among teacher educators in Iceland: A Bourdieuean interpretation

This paper considers the use of the conceptual framework of Pierre Bourdieu to study curriculum reform and the professionalization of teacher educators in Iceland. It argues that it is theoretically productive to interpret professionalism as the production of expert knowledge and learned discourse. The learned discourse of the Icelandic teacher educators and other education reformers, based on child-centered perspectives, developmental psychology, and child-centered curriculum theory, has become their symbolic capital in the field of educational reform. The paper considers to what extent the discourse on teacher professionalism in Iceland in the 1980s has merely occupied the space (social field) wherein education reformers work. It argues that those who have become “professionalized” are first and foremost teacher educators, curriculum development “professionals,” and teacher leaders, and points out that this was possible in an intermediate social space with much room for a creative redefinition of what can count as capital.     

School curriculum in South Africa in the Covid-19 context: An opportunity for education for relevance

The pandemic nature of the Covid-19 virus and the infectious potential that this virus has for the global population demands a radical response. This article focuses on school education within the context of Covid-19 and asks a fundamental curriculum question around what knowledge is most worthwhile for school education in response to this disease. Schools within South Africa have been closed for an extended period and, within the guidelines for dealing with this infectious disease, social distancing has become a key component in determining how and when schools should reopen. This uncertainty has led to speculations, suggestions, proposals and tentative plans for a school recovery plan to save the integrity of the academic year. The article reviews some of the suggestions, proposals, and plans, which illuminate a technical concern of curriculum coverage rather than a curriculum concern of what learning should be pursued post the lockdown period. It also argues that, going forward, a review of the purpose of school is needed. If learning is the bedrock for determining a school curriculum, it should of necessity be relevant and responsive to the issues and challenges of the country within a global world.

     

应用型本科教育课程改革亟待解决的几个问题

应用型本科教育课程改革在课程目标上应该倡导“实基础、强能力”,坚持基础应该真正成为能力发展的基础;在课程内容上应该强化课程内容选择的社会取向,提倡“以学科为支撑”;在课程实施上要倡导在教育性与训练性之间保持必要的张力和平衡;在改革方法上,不仅要重形式更新,更要重视实质变化。     

Still in the LEGO (LEGOS) room: female teachers designing curriculum around girls’ popular culture for the coeducational classroom in Australia

While the issue of boys’ dominance of the curriculum has a long history, the article examines this phenomenon in a contemporary context, through an empirical study with female teachers designing English curriculum around girls’ media in a coeducational secondary school in Victoria, Australia. In this space, teachers, and the researcher, produce and perform both individual gendered identities and plans for the identities of future student subjects, while negotiating subject positions made available to girls and women in broader social contexts. In this instance, negotiations that take place during the development of a unit of work on Mattel's Barbie website form the basis of feminist discourse analysis, enabling us to ‘take stock’ in thinking about what curriculum design is, about where the past is situated in relation to the present, and to question why, within a discursive feminist/postfeminist entanglement, the heritage of feminist intellectual thought in this area seems absent.     

(Re)visions to a secondary teacher education course: Trials and triumphs in attempting to disrupt hegemonic understandings and performances of education

The purpose of this paper is to explore curricular (re)visions made over the span of two semesters to a required secondary teacher education course. Specifically, we focus on our trials and triumphs in implementing the revised curricula. Our work is guided by the following question: in what ways do preservice teachers deem the diversity-focused course curriculum as relevant to their future teaching stances/practices? Data collected illuminated the complexities of disrupting hegemonic understandings and performances of education. Some of the data indicated that preservice teachers deemed the diversity-focused course curriculum as relevant to and connected with their future teaching stances/practices. Other data highlighted that some preservice teachers’ struggled with making sense of their future teaching practices in relation to issues of oppression and privilege, while other preservice teachers were resistant.     

Private Tutoring and Social Cohesion

Mastering the public school curriculum is so important to a child's occupational future that in many regions of the world “shadow” education outside of the public system has now become the norm. In one way, this is excellent news because private investment in human capital is a strong contributor to economic and social development. However, private demand is driving a separate and powerful private industry. According to the constitutional standards in many countries, education is supposed to be “free.” This suggests that, in some instances, shadow education might be unconstitutional. The United Nations Declaration on Human Rights also says that education should be free. This suggests that in some circumstances, shadow education may be contrary to the principles of human rights. The question addressed in this article is whether shadow education is wrong. This article summarizes the arguments in favor and against shadow education and ends with a series of recommendations to better manage what has become a worldwide dilemma.     

Moral and civic education – the hidden curriculum in Macau

Macau, as a society, is a crossroads where East–West encounters have been taking place for centuries. This paper examines some of the contemporary issues and implications for moral education. After a brief introduction to the social background of Macau, the paper describes the characteristics of Macau's education in general and the development of its moral education in particular. This has taken place in the context of the strong influences on morality of both Catholicism and Confucianism. An outline of the current curriculum of moral and civic education is followed by a critical appraisal of its implementation over the last few years. By means of this case study of Macau, the paper argues that a communitarian‐oriented morality in Macau is justified, and it also suggests how, by turning attention to its history, a minimal set of values can be constructed for Macau's particular social setting. Finally, some further educational challenges for Macau's future moral and civic education are reviewed.     

Radical adult education and learning

How can we speak about radical education in these seemingly unpropitious times? I explore this question first by examining aspects of our radical heritage (self-directed learning, facilitation, democratic pedagogy, learning in hegemonic struggle, learning in social action, critical pedagogy) and then by discussing what radical learning and education mean now, in an era of capitalist triumphalism. I outline a method which helps practitioners to investigae and act on what people are actuallly learning and teaching each other in different sites—educational instititions, workplace families, communities, the mass media and social movements. Culture is ordinary: that is where we must start. (Williams, 1958a)     

Reviews

In the UK policy context, skills, education and learning are seen as a universal solution to a vast array of economic and social problems. In challenging this view, this paper argues that those educationalists calling for progressive reforms to the education system need to acknowledge the reality of the contemporary workplace and the institutional context of UK capitalism. When it comes to the question of how the UK might move towards a more inclusive high skills society, no matter where we start to look - be it the economy or a highly class-divided English education system - it all seems to add up badly. In challenging the current policy agenda, educationalists will need to insist that progressive educational reform cannot be separated from the struggle for broader political, social and economic change.     

The Future of Teacher Education: Framing the questions that matter

As we enter the new century, there are multiple debates about what teachers need to know, who should provide education for teachers, how teachers should be certified and licensed, and what role (if any) university-based teacher preparation should play in school improvement. The author argues that the future of teacher education in the United States depends to a great extent on the ways three fundamental questions are framed: the knowledge question, the learning question, and the outcomes question. To a great extent, the ways these questions are framed and their larger agendas for the purposes and consequences of schooling will determine the future of the field.     

当现实逼近想象:人工智能时代预见未来教育研究

人工智能使想象正成为现实,未来研究方法论是对未来的想象和预期的扩展。本文运用未来研究方法论,从未来想象、未来社会、未来知识生产、未来学习、创造中的未来五个方面对未来教育发展蓝图进行描述、预测、探索与解释,审视与省察未来人工智能时代教育研究的行动措施。未来想象通过科幻故事探索和理解未来高科技实践的应用场景,人与人以及人与外界环境的互动过程。人工智能技术是经济社会发展的核心动力,对未来社会分工、劳动力市场以及人才结构变革带来全新冲击。未来知识生产自动迭代、科学共识的建立更为高效;未来知识传播多模态立体化、超越学科界限;未来知识进化呈现碎片化及适应性。未来学习将呈现个性化、自适应以及终身学习的新样貌。创造中的未来应平衡人与人工智能技术的关系,理性统合组织、文化、人员、环境,努力打造自适应的教育生态圈。本研究旨在厘清未来教育的科学走向与规律,勾勒符合人工智能时代的未来教育应用蓝图。     

EDUCATION AS AN AFFIRMATIVE INVENTION: ALAIN BADIOU AND THE PURPOSE OF TEACHING AND CURRICULUM

Schools can be places where students articulate a preferred social future and exercise informed judgment with others toward that goal. Yet, educators have few examples of what a curriculum explicitly concerned with undertaking such a process might look like. Distinct from questions about how best to receive an Other or social science investigations of what may constitute educational “best practices,” Kent den Heyer explores here the ways in which the work of Alain Badiou provides for a more proactive arrangement of knowledge in schools organized to instigate truth‐processes that might supplement individual and socially inherited commitments. Through this exploration, den Heyer argues for the democratic and life‐affirming benefits of scholars and teachers who take up a “disciplinary ethic of truths.” He provides one of potentially many curricular examples of such an arrangement of knowledge.     

高职院校媒介素养教育的独特性分析

在大众传媒业飞速发展的社会背景下,高职院校积极开展媒介素养教育直接关涉自身软实力的提升、办学特色的凝练和教学模式的改善,高职院校重视实践教学及与社会经济发展紧密联系的特色构成了开展媒介素养教育的独特优势。高职院应从加强师资队伍建设,完善具有高职特色的媒介素养课程体系,积极开展合作,培育高职院校媒介素养教育的良好氛围,建构高职院校媒介素养教育的科学评估体系等方面,加强媒介素养教育。