Critical ethnography: The reflexive turn

This paper explores the recent debates on ethnographic writing by explicating four types of reflexivity: confessional, theoretical, textual, and deconstructive. It then illustrates how the author has incorporated such reflexive practices into his recent ethnographies. The paper generally advocates blending autobiography and ethnography into a ''cultural Marxist'' standpoint. This perspective also draws upon multiple epistemologies and feminist notions of science, and it highlights the importance of writing in ordinary language. Such narrative experimentation aims to replace the old scientific ethnographic realist narrative style with a more reflexive realist narrative style. The author argues that reflexive epistemological and narrative practices will make ethnography a more engaging, useful, public storytelling genre.     

A Path Model for Students' Attitude to Writing a Thesis

Writing a thesis can be characterized as the ultimate self-regulated learning task. Consequently, it is often a source of great anxiety for may students of higher education. Therefore, identifying the correlates of students' attitude to writing a thesis is essential if students are to be guided successfully through this process. In this paper some correlates of students' attitude to writing a thesis are identified and a general hierarchical path model is proposed in which action-control belief variables are seen as having both direct and indirect effects on students' attitude to writing a thesis. Using a sample of 90 undergraduate and graduate students, a modified version of the proposed model in which action-control belief variables had only an indirect effect on students' attitude to writing a thesis mediated through two academic orientation variables was found to fit the data best. This final model accounted for a large proportion of the repeatable variance in the two academic orientation variables and in students' attitude to writing a thesis. Issues related to identifying students in need of extra help are discussed briefly.     

Learning to write in the street

In Mexico City there is a system of public scribes who function as written language brokers, composing letters, filling out forms, drawing up contracts, designing invitations or producing any other kind of written product that a client might require. The main question to be addressed in this paper is how the scribes learned their trade, and how they acquired the literacy practices and knowledge they need to make a living writing for others. The scribes' views about what they needed to learn and how they went about learning it is of interest to researchers and practitioners alike. Of particular relevance is the relationship they establish between the specific context in which they write and the use of ''local knowledge'' (as defined by Geertz) while writing. Their commentary on what they learned to do at school, what they learned to do in order to meet the demands of their clients, and how they must meet those demands is of particular interest at a time when educators are broadening their views about literacy, how it is learned, and how it is accomplished.     

Sites unseen: Ethnographic research in a textual community

Recent writing on the subject of ethnography has sought to examine the field not only as a place where research is carried out, but also as a methodological construction. While this writing emphasizes the extent to which people's experiences of community and culture can no longer be necessarily understood in relation to geographically based locations, it often continues to assert the "legacy of the field" (Clifford, 1997, p. 88) and its accompanying expectations and practices. In this article, I draw on my experience of doing ethnographic research in the textual community of 'zines in order to challenge the assumption that ethnographic fieldwork is necessarily dependent on physical displacement, and face-to-face encounters with our research participants. Specific attention is paid to the epistemological and ethical issues that emerge when one chooses to carry out research in textual communities. Intentionally foregrounding the parallels between the textual community of 'zines and the virtual communities associated with the Internet, this article also raises important questions for ethnographers carrying out research in networked environments.     

A halter and a lead rope: shifting pedagogical imaginaries of becoming within a human–horse relationship

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the process of becoming within the relation between a human and a horse, and seeks to reimagine pedagogy as a relational process of ‘becoming-animal’. In order to emphasise the relational space between a horse and a human, I begin with an experimental style of writing that traces specific moments between an actual relation between a horse and myself. Considering the relation as a singularity in this way acts as a method through which the pedagogical relation can be explored and new pedagogical images can be suggested. I then move onto to discuss Rosi Braidotti's post-humanist ideas on becoming and link these to the ideas of the ‘event’ and of ‘beginnings’ within the educational theory of Gert Biesta, drawing out two lines of thought. One line follows Braidotti's work on becoming-animal, and the other Paul Patton's work on the nuances of power relations between humans and horses. In conclusion, I discuss how this figuration of a halter and a lead rope in the human–horse relation helps to think pedagogy as rooted in becoming-animal and how this contributes to the development of new imaginaries of becoming.     

Student Writing in Higher Education: Contemporary confusion,traditional concerns

In this paper, we focus on the 'problem' of student writing in higher education. We set out to explore this problem from two perspectives: first, from the perspective of 'non-traditional' student-writers as they attempt to engage in academic writing and, second, from the perspective of a cultural-historical tradition of scientific rationality. A common frame of reference for these perspectives we see as a 'discourse of transparency', whereby language is treated as ideally transparent and autonomous. We illustrate how this discourse of transparency is currently enacted and historically situated. We argue that current academic practices need to be located within a broader historical and epistemological framework both in order to reach a deeper understanding about what's involved in student writing and in order to inform meaningful pedagogies.     

Writing dance: Tensions in researching movement or aesthetic experiences

Dotti researched how students in her tertiary dance class ascribed personal meaning to her use of different dance pedagogies. Jane was involved in the supervision of her thesis within the research process. However, what they discovered was a tension between researching and writing about artistic experiences within the confines and limitations of traditional academic scholarship. In this article each tells her story and shares how these tensions were or were not addressed. They then look at what a thesis is and what different forms of thesis presentation have been used. Finally, some suggestions are offered as to how both academic scholarship and artistic integrity might be maintained in a formal research process. The authors suggest that as an academic community there is a need to seek new ways of researching creative fields, such as dance, so that the academic process does not strangle the artistic endeavor.     

The perceptions of first-year undergraduate Malawian students of the essay writing process

Abstract

A good command of written English is essential for tertiary students in Malawi. Notably, their academic success is largely dependent on their mastery of the written language but, in addition, recent years have seen more employers in Malawi emphasising the need for excellent communication skills in both the national language (Chichewa) and English. This article analyses Malawian first-year undergraduate perceptions of the essay writing process. A study in which 200 students from the faculties of Humanities and Social Sciences were surveyed was carried out at the University of Malawi's Chancellor College in 2006. The results indicate that students find it very challenging to obtain sufficient and relevant source text information, paraphrase or summarise information, and use an appropriate academic writing style. It appears that essay writing is challenging for first-year undergraduates — partly due to lack of thorough and timely training in essay writing.     

A Teacher's and Researcher's Experiences with Power and Representation within the Practical Argument Process

The purpose of this paper is to explore the tensions that erupted between the two authors during the final stages of their engagement with the practical argument process. These tensions arose when the 'researcher' constructed a representation of 'the teacher's' reality. In this paper, the researcher shares her representation and the teacher responds to her analysis. The teacher's response to the researcher's representation of her and her teaching suggests tensions arose between the teacher and the researcher over how the researcher constructed the teacher's practical argument. As the teacher and the researchers, we analyze our experiences with the practical argument process and our collaborative relationship. The result is an enlarged view of the place of story and practical argument within research collaborations. In addition, we learned the necessity of continuing dialog between researcher and teacher through the writing of the project. This ensures that, regardless of the research method, both collaborators are heard and their tales are told in the public representation.     

Teaching Women's Studies: The effects of 'race' and gender

This article aims to explore the relationship between gender and 'race' when teaching a course on 'race', class and gender to women's studies students at a university. It will explore how the racial background and gender of the lecturer may affect the relationship she has with the students and how they see her role as a teacher of 'race' and gender. It will examine how teaching can be and is related to our personal subjective experiences such as our gender, 'race', class, sexuality and age. Whilst most students welcomed the opportunity to discuss issues around 'race' and racism, for some (mostly Black and Asian students) this was often seen as a painful experience based on past experiences. For others (mostly white women) the opportunity to discuss and hear about the experiences of Black and Asian women was something they valued. The article goes on to argue that teaching students about sensitive subjects such as 'race' can be affected not only by the personal experiences of the lecturer, but also by their racial identity and their gender. Indeed, such identities can also affect how students feel about such subjects and how they, in turn, experience their learning.     

Computers and the Teaching of Writing: implications for teacher development

ABSTRACT

The relationship between the computer and the teaching of writing is complex; it varies over time, is embedded in the classroom social context, and depends on the teacher's instructional goals. In this article, several dimensions of this relationship are explored to provide illustrations of its complexity. The conclusion is that the computer literacy workshops or courses typically found in pre‐service or in‐service teacher educational programmes are inadequate to prepare teachers for the teaching of writing with computers. New kinds of courses need to be developed that examine how computers affect classroom culture and the writing process.     

Exploring Authority: A Case Study of a Composition and a Professional Writing Classroom

Abstract

This article reports on classroom research designed to answer questions about authority—how institutions and disciplines, broadly conceived, influence teachers' ability to abnegate authority and how students' experiences influence their perceptions of authority in a business writing and a first-year composition class. The theoretical framework is derived from research about institutional and disciplinary influences on these two areas of study. This framework and our results lead us to speculate about the ways in which our students' experience of the institution and expectations of the classes and their intentions for using the material taught in the classes may have thwarted our attempt to share authority in our classrooms.     

Constructions of locality and gender and their impact on the educational aspirations of working-class children

Over recent years the moral panic that has surrounded 'boys' underachievement' has tended to encourage crude and essentialist comparisons between allboys and allgirls and to eclipse the continuing and more profound effects on educational achievement exerted by social class and 'race'/ethnicity. While there are differences in educational achievement between working-class boys and girls, these differences are relatively minor when comparing the overall achievement levels of working-class children with those from higher, professional social class backgrounds. This article argues that a need exists therefore for researchers to fully contextualize the gender differences that exist in educational achievement within the overriding contexts provided by social class and 'race'/ethnicity. The article provides an example of how this can be done through a case study of 11-year-old children from a Catholic, working-class area in Belfast. The article shows how the children's general educational aspirations are significantly mediated by their experiences of the local area in which they live. However, the way in which the children come to experience and construct a sense of locality differs between the boys and girls and this, it is argued, helps to explain the more positive educational aspirations held by some of the girls compared with the boys. The article concludes by considering the relevance of locality for understanding its effects on educational aspirations among other working-class and/or minority ethnic communities.     

A classroom intervention on Spanish grammar and writing: the use of the past tense with secondary school students / La intervención didáctica en el aula sobre gramática y escritura. El saber gramatical y la revisión de textos en el uso de los tiempos verbales del pasado con alumnos de secundaria

Abstract

This article presents an innovative experience which links grammar teaching with writing, following the premises of the Grammar Didactic Sequences (GDS) with one basic objective: to create a situation in which students learn to reflect on the language they use and are able to use these reflections to improve their writing. The GDS, focused on the use of past tense verb forms, was carried out with fourth-year secondary school students in Spain. This article highlights the difficulties experienced by students when using grammatical concepts as elements to control usage and the importance of revising texts in order to create metalinguistic awareness in a recursive didactic process: from grammar to writing, from writing to grammatical revision, and final version writing.     

Writing Revision: Evidence for Learning

ABSTRACT

This paper identifies evidence that significant procedural learning can emerge from process approaches to teaching writing, including from the transition of pupils’ writing from draft to revision. It shows how writing schemes that use an underlying process framework to structure learning, give pupils ownership of their own writing and exploit the resources of classes as learning communities can enable pupils to learn how to write more effectively, and in some cases to discover what they want to say through the process of composition. The paper draws on this and other work to set out a number of implications for teaching and classroom practice.     

Making Connections for Future Directions: Taking religion seriously in the sociology of education

This article argues that a problem for the contemporary sociology of education is that it has operated within a 'secularisation of consciousness paradigm'. This has limited both the depth and the scope of its intellectual enquiries. Sociological analysis which elides a religious dimension not only presents an over-simplified view of social relations in 'the Modern West', but it also fails to make an authentic engagement with many socio-cultural and educational situations internationally, where God is far from dead. The article suggests various ways forward for a reorientation of sociological writing and research.     

‘Back to the future’: the impact of political ideology on the design and implementation of geography in the National Curriculum

ABSTRACT

The use of drama to promote children's engagement with and motivation to study history is now commonplace at sites of historical interest and in many primary and secondary classrooms. Researchers interested in this area have often measured children's engagement and interest through the oral contributions made both during the drama and afterwards in discussion, whereas the written responses of children to their experience of history through drama have not been systematically analysed. OFSTED has recently reported that while they have observed many examples of high standards of oral work in history, the standard of writing at Key Stages 2, 3 and 4 has been disappointing by comparison. This article seeks to provide direction for teachers trying to develop children's historical writing through drama, and shows how drama can be used to promote analytical as well as empathetic responses to historical questions and problems.     

The Experience of Disseminating the Results of Doctoral Research

Postgraduate study is something of growth industry with, worldwide, a substantial increase in the number of courses offered and students enrolled (Kerlin, 1995). A substantial part of the requirements for the successful completion of a research degree is that the research conducted should be in some way original and also make a worthwhile contribution to knowledge. Given these requirements it would be expected that the dissemination of the results of the research should be a routine part of the process of postgraduate study and its aftermath. However, it would seem that this is not the case and that the progression from completed dissertation to publication is not the universal experience. Certainly, those publications which deal with 'how to' get a research degree rarely if ever specifically address the issue of dissemination at any length. One would assume that supervisors of postgraduate research would see advice about the matter as one of their duties but it is not at all obvious whether this is the case. This article reports the results of two international studies of the experience of 'doing the degree' conducted with samples of 139 and 53 doctoral holders. Specifically, it concentrates on the participants' experiences of disseminating, or otherwise, the results of their research.     

To valerse por si misma between race,capitalism, and patriarchy: Latina mother-daughter pedagogies in North Carolina

This article examines mujer-oriented mother-daughter pedagogies that are narrated and discursively embodied, improvised, and contested in the conversations and oral life histories of a group of Latina mothers in rural North Carolina. The teaching and learning that occurs between mothers and daughters through consejos (advice),cuentos (stories) and la experiencia (experience) are wrought with tensions and contradictions yet open with spaces of possibility. Latinas evoked patriarchal ideologies about being a mujer de hogar (woman of the home), while simultaneously negotiating these in discourses about knowing how to valerse por si misma (to be self-reliant). A conceptual framework built around ''funds of knowledge,'' educacion, and third space feminism serves to illuminate how mothers teach daughters to be submissive, rebellious and comforming, all at the same time, as they maneuver between race, patriarchy, and capitalism.