New learner subjects? Reforming the rural child for a modern India

This article discusses findings from an ethnographic study of schooling in India to reflect on the ways in which new learner subjects – the ideal citizens of the future – are constructed by education reforms in poor, rural communities. The concerns of the article are framed by the significant economic growth and social modernisation occurring in India, particularly for the expanding urban middle classes. The rural poor have been largely excluded from India's narrative of development and modernisation. This article asks, then, what kind of citizen-subject does schooling for the poor in India seek to produce? It focuses on the intentions and effects of child-centred pedagogic programmes in rural primary schools in the south Indian state of Karnataka. The analysis shows that in order for democratic and egalitarian education ideals to become more fully realised in these school contexts, teachers need to be supported to engage critically with the deep social stratifications in Indian society which continue to marginalise the rural poor.     

Toward a modern concept of schooling: A case study on Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel developed the concept of institutionalized education, which reflected public schooling and its legitimacy in the context of rapid transformation of European feudal societies to modern societies. The concept of school reflects the Hegelian theory of Bildung and the concept of modern society. What makes Hegel’s philosophy interesting is his conviction that the processes of Bildung can take place only in the context of social institutions and in the highly organized forms of human interaction regulated by those institutions. Hence the development of an individual, according to Hegel, depends exclusively on institutionalized forms of interaction. In modern society, pedagogical institutions have a specific function: on the one hand, schooling is essentially an institutional form of initiating the process of Bildung in which an individual acquires culture and applies it to life—a life which consequently becomes consciously led by an individual self; on the other, schooling is essentially a way for modern society to ensure its self-preservation by preparing the individual to respond to the demands of civic society so that she or he can take part in the economic production and reproduction of modern society.     

Women's schooling and religious affiliation in Malawi at the end of the twentieth century

This paper examines the association between religious affiliation and women's schooling in Malawi. Using data from the nationally representative 2000 Demographic and Health Survey, results show that there are substantial differences in the acquisition of schooling by religious affiliation. More nonreligious and Muslim women reported that they had never been to school compared with women from Church of Central African Presbyterian and Catholic denominations. Further, our findings suggest that a woman's schooling is strongly influenced by her urban childhood residence and an increase in age at first marriage. These findings are related to the association of Christian groups with Western societies and religions that emphasize evangelization and recourse to schooling. Recommendations for further direction in research are discussed.     

Text messaging in the school lives of American high school girls

Digital technologies open new windows for ethnographic explorations of cultural experiences. In this paper, we examine text messaging among academically talented teenage girls of colour at three US urban high schools. Texting introduced a new communication modality into the girls’ lives and created a space for new discourses mediating their participation in school. We draw on the concept of ‘serious play’ to reveal the paradoxical nature of the girls’ texting. At each school, distinct text-messaged discourses emerged – with implications for ethnographic studies of discourse and young people’s commitments to schooling.     

‘I feel I am really pleading the cause of my own people’: US southern white students’ study of African-American history and culture in the 1930s through art and the senses

Abstract

In the 1930s there emerged an initiative to teach black history and culture to white students, which pre-dates more widespread efforts of the post-Second World War era. This article analyses student work – considering sight, sound and text – and investigates what white students learned about African-American history and culture. Curriculum history has generally relied on textbook analysis, while this study examines non-traditional teaching materials and student work. It is argued that, while most of the student work reveals the reification of stereotypes of blacks as lazy and in need of white oversight, the school work of white students reveals an eagerness to understand African-Americans. However, white students could only understand African-Americans in relation to themselves and could not remove themselves from the centre of their study of black history and culture. Such attempts at learning an inclusive history from the learners’ viewpoints are rarely documented in the history of education.     

Ready,steady, learn: school readiness and children’s voices in English early childhood settings

Internationally, school readiness is increasingly the rationale for early childhood education and care (ECEC). This is the case in England, yet the statutory English Early Years Foundation Stage framework for children 0–5 years also requires practitioners to listen to children’s voices: discourse indicates dissonance between school readiness and listening to children’s voices so this paper discusses an intrinsic case study that investigated beliefs and practices of 25 practitioners in the English midlands regarding school readiness and listening to children’s voices. In survey responses and semi-structured interviews, practitioners indicated they listen to – and act on – children’s voices but are confused about school readiness; their beliefs and practices align more strongly with social pedagogy than pre-primary schoolification. Findings carry messages for policy-makers regarding the need for coherent policy concerning the purpose of ECEC, with practitioner training and a framework aligned fully with that policy. A larger study is indicated.     

When I was at school – differences in stories about school told by parents of home-schooled and regular-schooled children

Home schooling has become increasingly widespread over recent decades in the western world. Since the choice to educate children at home in effect signifies abandonment of the educational system, one may assume that parents’ childhood experiences within the educational system play a significant part in their decision to opt for home schooling. The present study takes a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to investigating the choice in favour of home schooling and compares the childhood memories of school reported by 28 mothers of home-schooled and regular-schooled children. Data were analysed in three stages – determining the nature of the experience; performing a thematic analysis; and arranging the themes into groups of meta-themes. Six interviewees reported an entirely positive experience; 6 reported an entirely negative experience; and 16 reported a mixed experience. Analysis of the text revealed 30 themes, which were grouped into five meta-themes: treatment, attributes, teachers, studies and social relations.     

对现代学校教育的一种历史分析

学校教育一直是教育史研究的核心问题.许多教育史学家注重历史的连续性,认为教育史就是学校从小到大,从"萌芽"到参天大树的过程.实际上,19世纪以来,学校教育已经发生了断裂性变化.现代学校决不是以往学校在规模上的扩大,它是一种全新的教育.在现代学校中,教育已经渗透在学校生活的方方面面,无论是教师的课堂教学、学校日常生活管理,还是学校建筑本身,都承载着某种教育功能,对学生的心理、身体以及行为进行塑造.     

学校安全教育制度——现代学校制度中必不可少的重要元素

文章通过论述＂学校安全教育制度＂在＂现代学校制度＂体系中的重要地位,强调＂学校安全教育制度＂必须成为＂现代学校制度＂中必不可少的一种重要元素,并提出目前在学校中急需建立并完善的五种＂安全教育制度＂：强化政府及各级领导责任的制度;加大资金投入,落实经费的制度;对组织实施安全教育的教师进行培训的制度;安全教育与学校课程整合的制度及建立安全教育合作网络的制度。     

The writing on the wall: enacting place pedagogies in order to reimagine schooling for Black male youth

This ethnographic case study examines how Black educators at an urban middle school enacted critical place pedagogies in order to create a sense of community – that is, a sense of belonging to the place of school – and mutual nurturing between people and space in an attempt to transform how their Black males experienced school. Educators at Starks Middle School did this in order to subvert the failure narrative that describes negative schooling experiences and the ultimate failure of Black boys across this nation. Place pedagogies of Starks Middle School – the signs, symbols, text, pictures, and affirmations used to educate, encourage, and inspire students – were enacted in order to reimagine school space for their Black male students.     

Australian Early Childhood Teacher Education: Developments and Concerns

The history of early childhood teacher education in Australia dates back to 1897 with the establishment of the Kindergarten Union Teachers' Training College in Sydney. Since the 1970's, small, specialized, private teachers' colleges in each state have emerged to become part of the national government system of Colleges of Advanced Education (CAE's). These institutions had as a primary goal to teach rather than to conduct research about teaching. CAE's have historically been primarily responsible for vocationally-oriented professional courses of study such as nursing, teaching, social welfare, media and communications, fine arts and health studies. It was in this CAE's system where students were prepared to be early childhood, elementary, and secondary teachers. These programs lead to a three-year Diploma of Teaching or a four-year Bachelor of Education. This approach was based on the Australian pattern of specialized teacher training which was generally provided immediately upon graduation from high school. Universities provided training in early childhood-related areas such as psychology, psychiatry, social work and medicine but did not include specialized early childhood teacher preparation per se (although they do provide secondary teacher preparation).     

Regulative discourses of primary schooling in Greece: memories of punishment

The mechanisms of discipline and power within the institution of the school constitute, in part, the relationship between society and childhood. This article traces the relationship between official regulative discourses of control and punishment practices over students in primary school. It focuses on the memories of schooling of first-year students in a Department of Primary Education at a Greek University. The concepts of power, discipline and discourse from the theory of Michel Foucault are drawn on to examine the pedagogical control over primary school pupils. The research was carried out using an open questionnaire in which participants were asked to describe their experiences of school punishment. The key findings showed that corporal punishment is dominant in the memory of the majority of research participants. The reason for the pupils’ punishment was mainly their making noise in the classroom and their poor performance in core subjects of the curriculum. These findings are significant for the sociology of education as they reveal the real and symbolic violence of school life that endures in memories of childhood, schooling and society.     

Pupil selection segments urban comprehensive schooling in Finland: composition of school classes in pupils’ school performance,gender, and ethnicity

The Finnish comprehensive school system is regularly referred to as a uniform and “no-tracking”. In this article, we show with novel urban case data in Finland that school performance differed significantly between schools, most strikingly between school classes, and was connected to the school's selectiveness in pupil admission. A comprehensive registry data of 13-year-olds in all schools and school classes of one Finnish city was used. Via the case of urban Finland, it is discussed how school choice policies, and thus pupil selection, has led to hidden ability grouping although applied among totally publicly run basic schooling. Thus the traditional perception of a uniform Finnish comprehensive schooling seems not to be valid in the urban contexts of our study.     

Teachers' memories of disciplinary control strategies from their own school days

This article provides a vision of school disciplinary strategies as provided by childhood school memories of practicing or unemployed teachers. This narrative approach allows us to understand the school and its daily routines and rituals from an insiders' point of view, drawing upon the double perspective teachers employ when reflecting on their own experience as school children. The results of the study demonstrate a wide range of disciplinary practices coinciding with a Foucauldian disciplinary structure – a system of micro‐penalty governing time, activity, behavior, speech, the body, and sexuality. Analyzing the systemic regulation of bodies in schools can uncover institutional meanings and make them available for questioning, perhaps even negotiation. Recognizing the ways in which teachers' roles are inextricably bound with the disciplinary power relations of their institutions can help alleviate frustration and burnout and help teachers make more informed pedagogical decisions.     

The urban and the natural in education reform: the development of Hamburg Schullandheime (rural school hostels) in the 1920s

ABSTRACT

The desire to be close to nature and live in tune with it grew as industrialisation, urbanisation and the impact of technology became increasingly ubiquitous at the turn of the twentieth century. Throughout Europe, model schools were established in rural environments. These private reform schools could not solve the problems of public urban schools. Founded on the initiative of teachers and parents, the Schullandheim (rural school hostel) emerged as a new form bringing urban education and schooling close to nature after the First World War in Germany. Even if related pedagogic activities developed at that time in other countries there is no evidence for comparable institutions. Besides tracing the development of Schullandheime, the article shows how the school hostel idea was embedded in the contemporary educational discussion about the influence large cities had on youth and explores the educational and cultural differences within the school hostel movement through the use of visual material.     

Government Policy and the Provision of Teachers

The introduction of mass public education posed unfamiliar problems for the governments of modern states, and the ways in which governments worked through those problems can reveal much about the culture and values of a state. This paper focuses on central Government officials and the Ministers they advised, with particular attention to the pivotal period 1960-1976. Trends identified include: the shift from post-War optimism to the more pessimistic view of schooling since the late 1960s; the dynamics of professional development amid over-rapid expansion and contraction; relationships between training institutions and schools; and policy-makers' changing perceptions of teachers as professionals. Four themes are considered in detail: the imperatives of numbers; status concerns as a driver of change; linkages among the 'partners' in the schooling enterprise; and accountability. Some questions are posed about the sustainability of the schooling enterprise in England and Wales.     

School Lunch Matters: Encountering the New Jim Crow and the Anthropocene

This presidential lecture to the American Educational Studies Association argues that school lunch matters as education, not merely as management, especially within the ethically challenging contexts of the New Jim Crow (with its school-to-prison pipeline) and the Anthropocene—both wicked problems. The educational significance of children's foodways, school food, and school lunch has deep roots in early modern, as well as high modern thought, and within the past decade a new educational studies scholarship on school lunch has emerged concurrently with Michelle Obama's leadership for National School Lunch Program reforms. This study invites a wide range of educational studies scholarship by mapping school lunch matters that might frame new curriculum theorizing with the purpose of developing leaders' ethical responses to both the school-to-prison pipeline and the environmental crisis. This conceptual frame focuses a prospectus for educational creativity on school lunch's health matters, choice matters, table matters, earth matters, aesthetics matters, kitchen matters, community matters, service matters, and study matters.     

When appearances are not deceptive: A Comparative History of school uniforms in Argentina and the United States (nineteenth–twentieth centuries)

Appearances are deceptive, the saying goes. However, we devote much time to the presentation of ourselves, and ties and necklaces can take up more energy than other ‘substantial’ matters. This article analyzes the history of the presentation of selves in schools through the study of school uniforms. It will be claimed that modernity configured a ‘regime of appearances’ that had powerful effects on the ways that people relate to themselves and to others, and that schooling played a significant role in shaping it. The article will deal particularly with school uniforms as part of this regime of appearances, focusing on the development of vestimentary codes in Argentina and the United States of America. In Argentina, white smocks, which were adopted as the mandatory dress code around 1910 on the basis of an egalitarian rhetorics, were part of a politics of the body closely tied to Hygienism and linked to ideals of moral and racial purity. White smocks established a homogeneous and austere, monochromatic aesthetics of the school space that quickly identified transgression and indiscipline. In the US, uniforms were used for the schooling of minorities (Native Americans, women) as a way of rigorously training unruly bodies and of learning other aesthetic and bodily dispositions. Recently, urban public schools have adopted uniforms to counter‐balance gangs' and rappers' dress codes. I believe that both cases show the fertility of analyzing school appearances for the history of school daily life and for understanding the effects that schooling produces in our societies.     

Literature,listening, and young children

“What is that sound?”, “What did the kangaroo say?”, and “What might you hear during a walk?” provide evidence that educators of young children realize that listening represents a necessary ingredient in successful school experiences. Children listen for many hours of the school day, but listening has been a neglected area of instruction. The traditional low priority of listening instruction may have been based upon the myth that children naturally learn to listen or on the misconception that listening skills cannot be taught. Using literature to teach listening can improve learners' listening abilities, provided early childhood educators use developmentally appropriate children's literature.