‘World would move ahead!’: exploring the learning of science and aspirations in the urban context through a case study

Cultural Studies of Science Education - Through a case study of a girl student, this paper attempts to draw linkages between science classroom, gender and the larger discourse on the economy and...     

Developing mathematical ability in primary school through a ‘pull-out’ programme: a case study

This article reports the findings of a case study which examined a pull-out strategy for provision for mathematically able children in a primary school in London. The research investigated how the needs of a group of pupils, identified as able mathematicians, were being met through a special small group that works outside the regular mathematics lessons. Based on the observations of the lessons and the semi-structured interviews with both the pupils and their teacher, this article presents some interesting and useful ways for teaching mathematics to able children through small, pulled-out classes.     

Graduate employability: a conceptual framework for understanding employers’ perceptions

This study provides a conceptual framework for understanding what employers think about the value of graduates with similar educational credentials in the workplace (their employability), using insights from the new institutionalism. In this framework, the development of employers’ beliefs about graduates’ employability is broken into a number of factors and mechanisms, including exogenous factors, initial signalling effects and the processes of both private and public learning. With such conceptualisation, this article discusses the implications for international higher education providers on how to improve their graduates’ employment by influencing employers’ beliefs.     

The ‘critical friend’ role in fostering reflective practices and developing staff cohesion: A case study in a new secondary school,New Zealand

This exploratory case study, arising from a longitudinal project into the establishment of a new secondary school in New Zealand, examines reflective practice through critical friend roles among staff. The paper describes, through the lens of Bourdieu's logic of practice, the implementation of a critical friendship approach linked to the school leaders’ vision and aim regarding learning within open classroom spaces as part of a modern learning environment. Reflective practice involves critiquing, rethinking and reframing existing professional practices, often through a critical friendship approach among school staff within a fostered collaborative and open culture. The researchers interviewed six participants (four leaders and two teachers), observed how the teaching and learning took place in the new open classroom spaces, and reviewed blog posts and the school's website. Findings reveal that critical friendship, as a way to develop staff cohesion, is fostered and supported by the school leaders’ vision and actions, while the physical geography of the new classroom spaces, and the redesign of learning, also make this easier to enact. Staff cohesion, trust and openness to peer scrutiny are hallmark of this emerging school culture. These emerging findings provide some insights into how one new school culture develops cohesion with its stated vision and mission.     

Contribution to activity: a lens for understanding students’ potential and agency in physics education

In this paper I argue for using the concept of contribution to activity to understand student engagement with science education and its transformational potential in formal settings. Drawing on transformative activist stance, I explain contribution as how individuals take part in and transform collective practices according to their own life agendas and get transformed themselves. As contribution to science education is a concept based on transformation, not adaptation, it can be especially informative when examining how underrepresented students in science can be more engaged in science education and eventually science. Using survey, interview and group conversations, and field observations in an undergraduate physics course, I put forward Zoey’s case to illustrate my argument and show how her contribution to the activities in the course initiated change in the activity among her peers.     

The ‘myth of greater access’ in agrarian LDC education and science education: An alternative conceptual framework

This paper departs from the position that the ad hoc increase in access to post-elementary formal education in agrarian LDCs is a demonstrably misguided development strategy. With special reference to the Basic Needs paradigm and the mass informal economy of agrarian developing societies, stages of formal schooling are discussed as development sectors. A planning approach is advocated that stresses the need to constantly monitor the education/economy interface, alongside an associated research agenda focusing on the relationship between internal and external efficiency. This conceptual framework is finally applied to science education as a development sector in its own right.     

Translating between representations in a social context: a study of undergraduate science students’ representational fluency

Interacting with and translating across multiple representations is an essential characteristic of expertise and representational fluency. In this study, we explored the effect of interacting with and translating between representations in a computer simulation or in a paper-based assignment on scientific accuracy of undergraduate science students’ explanations regarding the underlying mechanisms of action potential. The study proposed that a simulation designed with scaffolded inquiry and with multiple dynamically linked representations fosters students to use greater scientific accuracy in speaking about a complex scientific phenomenon as well as to work with this complex knowledge in higher cognitive domains. Student explanations were analysed for use of accurate scientific language as they worked with the instructional tool as well as under test conditions. We also investigated the cognitive domain that students worked within as they created explanations of the phenomenon under study. The proportion of elaborations that occurred in higher-level cognitive domains such as applying, analysing, evaluating and synthesising was used to denote representational fluency. The rationale for this approach is discussed. Findings suggest that the simulation prompted students towards operating in higher cognitive domains in order to construct new knowledge and therefore promoted representational fluency. It also suggests that translating between representations in a simulation in a collaborative social setting contributes towards students’ use of accurate scientific language. Students’ perceptions expressed during the interviews confirmed the findings.     

What do science teachers think about developing scientific competences through context-based teaching? A case study

ABSTRACT

In this paper we explore the views and opinions of four secondary education science teachers regarding the teaching of scientific competences. Their views were gathered in the context of a training programme in which they had to design, implement, and assess their own teaching unit for developing students’ scientific competences by means of context-based learning. Analysis of the data yielded a set of 14 categories distributed across 5 areas: scientific competence and context-based teaching; the teacher and his/her professional environment; implementation in the classroom; development of the teaching unit; and assessment. This process also identified the aspects which teachers believed either facilitated or acted as an obstacle to the development of scientific competences through context-based teaching. We discuss the implications of our findings and suggest ways in which a shift towards a context-based approach to teaching scientific competences can best be achieved, and consider a series of factors related to teachers’ professional identity that may influence this process.     

Exploring halaqah as research method: a tentative approach to developing Islamic research principles within a critical ‘indigenous’ framework

This paper explores a traditional Islamic pedagogy known as halaqah as a potentially useful authentic research method and contributes to discourses about critical and indigenous research methodologies through an analysis of Islamization of Knowledge and other ‘critical indigenous’ movements amongst Muslims. Islamic research principles are tentatively proposed and then used to assess the effectiveness of halaqah as an authentic Islamic research method through analysis of a small qualitative study. The study involved Muslim mother-teachers participating in halaqah to collaboratively reflect on their work as holistic Islamic educators who are developing a ‘critical indigenous’ education to meet the needs of Muslim children in contemporary Britain. This paper argues that halaqah is a more authentic research method in this study than a group interview or focus group as it enabled participants to articulate themselves within their own epistemological and ontological context and engage in critical reflection within an Islamic paradigm.     

Pre-service teachers’ mathematical reasoning as an imperative for codified conceptual pedagogy in algebra: a case study in teacher education

Through the use of taped interviews, the reasoning level of eleven (11) pre-service teachers relative to selected concepts in Algebra was ascertained. Yumus’ (2001) levels of reasoning were applied as a guide, namely: (a) Level 1: Unable to produce any reasoning, (b) Level 2: Have awareness of the models, known facts, properties and relationships to be used but cannot produce any arguments; (c) Level 3: Able to produce some reasoning although the arguments are weak and (d) Level 4: Able to produce strong arguments to support their reasoning. Using this guide it was found that of the 121 responses given, 47.1% were at level 1, 29.8% at level 2, 16.5% at level 3 and only 6.6% were at level 4. The most difficult problem proved to be converting repeating decimals to fractions, while the easiest was on finding the value of x0. As a whole, the reasoning ability of the respondents, based to their average reasoning ability on the given tasks, indicate that 73% was low, 27% was moderate and that nobody had a high level of reasoning. Assessments followed as to the factors contributing to this situation and possible solutions.     

Students’ experiences of co-creating classroom instruction with faculty- a case study in eastern context

In order to co-create teaching and learning for enhanced student engagement, faculty–student partnership in higher education is emerging as a distinguished practice in the West especially for undergraduates. However, little is known about the impact of such practices in the East. This article reports the benefits of a term long collaboration between the faculty and students in designing and delivering classroom instructions through the experiences of faculty–student partnership of post graduate students. The findings indicate that while students had positive experiences, they were also distinct in a number of ways when compared with the experiences of students in the West. Students also provided insightful information on the mechanism of navigating through their newly assigned roles of partnership with their faculty. The implications are discussed for higher education practitioners and recommendations are provided for further investigation to achieve better understanding of this practice.     

Analysing sexual experiences through ‘scenes’: a framework for the evaluation of sexuality education

This paper describes an alternative approach to undertaking and evaluating sexual health promotion, focusing on the notion of sexual scenes and scenarios and how these can provide a vantage point from which to examine sexual experience. The concept of sexual scenes provides a context within which to analyse many of the behavioural and epidemiological factors associated with sexual practice. In principle, such an approach provides a tool for conscientization, action and the invention of novel group and individual repertoires that may result in individual and social mobilization for health and/or sexual and reproductive rights. Scenes can be elicited through individual interviews, group interviews and discussions, or through staged and dramatized performance and students' writing. Analysing sexual scenes offers an entry point for dialogue in sexual health promotion programming. Evaluation of these programmes can be part of the process of changing sexual scenarios. Change is witnessed not only through individual changes but, especially in impoverished communities, through challenges to dominant local sexual scenarios and engagement with structural concerns.     

Potential for transformation? Two teacher training programs examined through a critical pedagogy framework

This paper argues that teacher training programs, with the objective of transforming gender norms in schools, should employ a critical pedagogy framework in order to achieve the transformational learning goals necessary to change the deep-seated beliefs and patterns of behavior that characterize these gender norms. Using document analysis, this study evaluates the teacher in-service training component of two school-based intervention programs, aimed at promoting gender equality in school communities. This paper finds that the trainings miss opportunities to employ elements of critical pedagogy and therefore, are not likely to create a transformative change around gender norms in schooling.     

Why critical literacy should turn to ‘the affective turn’: making a case for critical affective literacy

The central argument of this essay is that critical literacy with a rationalistic bent may not enable us to cope with ethical dilemmas in our responsiveness to human sufferings. I argue that critical literacy education would benefit from turning to the recent scholarship on affect/emotion studies. I draw upon the works of Sara Ahmed – one of the leading contributors to critical affect studies – to shed light on what is called a regulatory power that creates a schism in our responsiveness to violence and suffering. The key contribution of this essay is to present an actionable framework of what I describe as critical affective literacy. To delineate this framework, I present four pedagogical principles, along with examples of instructional activities.     

Professionalism and Intensification in Teaching: a case study of ‘care’ in teachers’ work

This paper reports a research project in teachers’ work in one secondary school. It takes a labour process perspective to examine how localized notions of professionalism act to both enable and disable teachers in their struggle to exercise control over their work. For the teachers in this study an ‘ethic of care’ appears to inform their practice and relationships. Professionalism as care plays a contradictory role in these teachers’ working lives, at the same time providing the motivation, commitment and conditions that result in the intensification and control of their work.     

Exploring affecting factors of and developing a framework for teachers’ online instruction

Online teaching has been capitalized to maintain normal educational activities since the outset of the pandemic. However, the wide adoption of emergency remote teaching may present challenges to teachers in terms of performing their instructional work. Hence, this study aimed to deeply explore the affecting factors of teachers' adoption of online instruction during emergencies through a qualitative research design. Semi-structured interviews and document analysis were utilized to collect data with nine higher education teachers at nine Chinese universities. Eight categories of factors emerged from this study that influenced the participants' adoption of online instruction, namely, facilitating conditions, technology self-efficacy, characteristics of learners, teaching administration, pedagogical factors, resistance to change, time issues, and security issues. A framework for developing teachers’ competencies for online instruction is proposed based on the results.     

Student‐teachers’ conceptions of science,teaching and learning: a case study in preservice science education

The resort to experiment is considered to be essential for teaching physics. But it often consists of an inductivist method where students are supposed to be able to find physical laws by observing phenomena. In fact it is not as easy for the students as it is for the physicist. We propose and test another way. When studying a new phenomenon, an initial discussion is performed between students in the class. They can propose various (eventually contradictory) explanatory models. Experiments are then used to make a choice between these models. Sequences in class situation are described, with learning behaviour and results reported for pupils in French schools (grades 6 and 8, 11‐14‐year olds).     

The ‘state of exception’ and disaster education: a multilevel conceptual framework with implications for social justice

The term ‘state of exception’ has been used by Italian political theorist Giorgio Agamben to explain the ways in which emergencies, crises and disasters are used by governments to suspend legal processes. In this paper, we innovatively apply Agamben's theory to the way in which countries prepare and educate the population for various types of emergencies. We focus on two main aspects of Agamben's work: first, the paradoxical nature of the state of exception, as both a transient and a permanent part of governance. Second, it is a ‘liminal’ concept expressing the limits of law and where ‘law’ meets ‘not-law’. We consider the relationship between laws related to disasters and emergencies, and case studies of the ways in which three countries (England, Germany and Japan) educate their populations for crisis and disaster. In England, we consider how emergency powers have been orientated around the protection of the Critical National Infrastructure and how this has produced localised ‘states of exception’ and, relatedly, pedagogical anomalies. In Germany, we consider the way in which laws related to disaster and civil protection, and the nature of volunteering for civil protection, produce exceptional spaces for non-German bodies. In Japan, we consider the debate around the absence of emergency powers and relate this to Japanese non-exceptional disaster education for natural disasters. Applying Agamben's work, we conclude by developing a new, multilevel empirical framework for analysing disaster education with implications for social justice.