New Technologies‐‐New Opportunities? The potential of cable in educational and social action broadcasting

Cable television seems set for rapid expansion in the UK, with profound consequences on the pattern of broadcasting. Taking as a starting point the Government's White Paper on cable TV, the author examines the potential and implications of cable for educational and social action broadcasting. Clearly, the number of available channels could increase, with the possibility of two‐way (interactive) communication and a greater localisation of programme origination and distribution, but the likelihood of these and other consequent innovations happening depends on the legislative restriction or freedom permitted to cable operators, and on the modes of financing allowed. Pessimism over the outcome for educational and social action broadcasting is unavoidable, but practical steps are proposed for a concerted strategy to protect the interests of education and social action, and to ensure that a proper balance is struck between interests and benefits. The decisions of the next few months will determine whether the dramatic opportunities offered by cable will become realities.     

教育广播的新形式:网络知识电台——兼论教育广播的发展变迁

文章首先梳理了从20世纪初期到建国后教育广播的发展变迁,指出20世纪的大部分时间我国都处于教育资源匮乏的状态,广播作为当时重要的知识传播工具被广泛应用于学校教育和社会教育,在降低国民文盲率、为国家培养人才方面发挥了重要作用;但20世纪末,教育广播逐渐走向衰落。接着,文章重点介绍了网络知识电台,指出它作为教育广播的新形式,延续和拓展了广播的教育功能,并分析了它的优势、功能和存在的问题。最后,文章针对教育广播的未来发展提出了相关建议,以期为我国教育广播事业的改革发展提供新思路。     

L'usage de la radio dans l'enseignement secondaire à Montréal, 1920–1970

The use of radio for educational purposes in high schools expanded considerably between 1920 and 1970. Education scholars generally qualify radio for schools as a failure. This conclusion is based on the accessibility of radio sets in schools, the interest of teachers in radio for schools, and the budgets allocated for the purchase of radio sets. A wider investigation shows that educational radio resulted from collaboration among school personnel, radio broadcasters and the political authorities. We agree with communication scholars that using a means of communication for educational purposes involves many spheres of society. An examination of the origins, development and decline of radio broadcasting for schools also reveals that this was a technical substitution phenomenon; one means of communication was replaced by another. The use of radio in schools gradually declined, following the introduction of television in schools during the 1960s. Taking all these aspects into account, our study identifies the social mechanisms whereby radio was used for teaching in high schools. This clearly illustrates on a more general level the change in use of audiovisual tools in schools. The Montreal Catholic School Board (CECM) — the largest French‐language school board in Canada — is an institution of particular interest for the study of radio broadcasting for schools. Because of it size, the CECM had sufficient resources and personnel to be a pioneer in education. From 1931, CECM personnel went on the air on CKAC radio to popularize instruction in music, literature and language. Members of Montreal's educational community, parents and students alike, and listeners interested in learning, began to view radio as a means of conveying knowledge. In 1936, Société Radio‐Canada (SRC), the French‐language section of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, appeared on the Quebec radio scene, and educational radio gradually became more clearly defined. The programs that were aired, of which the best known was Radio‐Collège, gave the green light to educational radio in francophone Quebec. Before emulating SRC initiatives, the CECM used radio as a tool for social communication. In the early 1950s, the school board used radio mainly as a forum for explaining educational issues to the public; for example, teachers' salary negotiations. From autumn 1950, the CECM School and Family Committee aired a series of ten programs about the role of the school in society. Post‐war Montreal society was in a state of flux. Urbanisation and the emergence of mass communication and consumption were transforming the entire social structure. The francophone elite was starting to question traditional values taught by the Church, and religious practice was declining. Reacting to these new realities, the CECM appealed to parents for their help to ensure that together, family and school would succeed in the task of educating children. The board also used CKAC to discuss the shortage of schools. When parents demanded schools for their children, speakers from the School and Family Committee explained how the problem would be solved. As these examples show, Montreal schools initially made use of radio for social communication.

In 1954, following the third congress on the French language in Canada (Troisième congrès de la langue française au Canada), the CECM devised a wide‐ranging campaign to improve the spoken language of students. This was the beginning of educational radio. With the help of executives at CKAC radio, the board created school broadcasting designed to improve everyday language in students from grades 1 to 12. After the first series of programs proved a success, the board repeated the project the following year, broadcasting twice as many lessons. The glory years of Améliorons notre langue parlée would follow, with the series airing continuously from 1954 to 1963. As a result of this enduring venture, the government extended teaching by radio to other school boards across the province of Quebec. This marked the institutionalization of school radio broadcasting. Transistor radios, the democratisation of high school teaching and active pedagogy were all elements that boosted the use of radio in schools. Radio was now present in every classroom, but television was also being introduced. Radio had earned pride of place but was gradually superseded by television. The range of academic subjects widened, and the numbers of hours set aside for television broadcasting increased. Meanwhile, the use of school radio broadcasts gradually diminished. We therefore attribute the decline in radio broadcasting for schools to the emergence of television for schools, in other words, a phenomenon of technical substitution.

Finally, our research shows that the contribution by social agents incidental to schools and the influence of various factors external to schools are of major importance in explaining the mechanisms whereby educational radio became part of school life. It shows that radio changed in status from a public communication tool in the 1930s, to a pedagogic tool supporting the teaching of French twenty years later. Our study also shows that radio for schools was created not only by school‐related actors and institutions but also by the mass media and government. Far from being a failure, as education scholars maintain, educational radio was a success, but was replaced by television in the late 1960s.     

The BBC's Educational Posture

The BBC has a lasting and massive commitment to education. At a time of difficulty for education and of momentous changes to broadcasting technology and opportunities, it is time to confirm and strengthen that commitment. Among concerns requiring the special attention of educational broadcasting are unemployment and retraining, the ageing population and health care, and ethnic minorities. The opportunities for educational broadcasting in the future can only be enhanced, and certainly not diminished.     

Theoretical Claims and Empirical Evidence in Maori Education Discourse

Post‐Marxist critical sociology of education has influenced the development of indigenous (‘kaupapa’) Maori educational theory and research. Its effects are examined in four claims made for Maori education by indigenous theorists. The claims are: indigenous kaupapa Maori education is a revolutionary initiative; it is a cultural solution to Maori educational under‐achievement; it has reversed the decline of the Maori language; it provides a valid educational alternative for an ethnically and culturally distinctive population. The analysis suggests that the indigenous theory approach is representative of the position‐taking strategy that characterises post‐Marxist critical sociology of education, concluding that claims made in kaupapa Maori voice discourse are not supported by the empirical evidence which indicates a more complex social reality.     

Recognising and managing pupils with mental health difficulties: teachers' views and experiences on working with educational psychologists in schools

The role and future directions of the educational psychology services are being re‐examined and there is a drive to build a more integrated system of services for children and young people that incorporates education, health and social care. This qualitative study examines teacher’s perspectives on their professional involvement with educational psychology services. The results indicate that while it was clear that educational psychologists are highly valued by teachers, there are a number of issues that teachers believe constrain service provision. We suggest that greater cross‐system consultation is needed in order to more closely examine how the roles of professionals working in education, health and social care services impact on each other.     

The socio‐political significance of changes to the vocational education system in Germany

This paper explores the effects on social inequality in Germany of ongoing changes to the employment system and, thus, vocational education. Results based on an examination of the literature indicate that students from increasingly middle‐class backgrounds with higher levels of general, rather than vocational, educational attainment are winning the competition for ever‐fewer apprenticeships. Progress for women in education is accompanied by relative declines in men’s performance on high school exit examinations and does not translate into success in the employment system. Employers are abandoning the corporate‐state organization of vocational education. The paper concludes that school degrees are increasingly important for later career opportunities. As a result, the educational system is increasingly stratified, contributing to social inequality in Germany.     

Success and failure in secondary education: socio‐economic background effects on secondary school outcome in the Netherlands, 1927–1998

In the Netherlands, educational attainment is the result of a sequence of separate educational transitions. Because of the tracked nature of the Dutch educational system, students do not make binary stay‐or‐leave‐decisions at each transition. After having entered one track of secondary education, students can change tracks during the entire secondary course. The initial track and the secondary school outcome therefore are incongruent for a significant proportion of the Dutch students. As social background partly predicts initial track placement, track changes and successful termination of the course, we suggest distinguishing conditional and unconditional effects of family background in the transition to secondary school outcome. This paper complements findings of previous research by taking into account the tracked structure of the Dutch educational system and the entire sequence of transitions in secondary education. For the empirical analysis, repeated cross‐sections from the Family Survey Dutch Population (1992, 1998, 2000 and 2003) are used. Multinomial logistic regressions reveal that inequality in the outcome of secondary education is partly explained by the fact that initial track placement is socially selective and because this initial inequality is even enhanced by track changes during secondary education. The remaining ‘conditional’ effect of parental education, however, indicates that parental education works on top of this selection to prevent drop out. Inequality in secondary school outcome thus is a cumulative result of social background effects in a sequence of educational transitions throughout secondary education. Decreasing inequality over time is entirely explained by decreasing inequality in the transition from primary to secondary education.     

Inferentialism at Work: The Significance of Social Epistemology in Theorising Education

In connecting educational theory to a neo‐pragmatist social epistemology, we set out to understand education as knowledge practices that yield ‘the cultural world again’ by retelling culture or by making explicit what is implicit in culture. Recent trends in German educational studies towards holistic understanding of education demonstrate that such a holistic, non‐representationalist framework is deliberately placed outside the traditional procedure of merely applying knowledge gained in the so‐called foundational disciplines such as philosophy, sociology or psychology to the field of education. By constructively relating Brandom's non‐representational inferentialism to a re‐reading of Mollenhauer's distinction of the presentation and representation of culture in and through education, we try to show that Brandom's philosophy can also be used to point out an inferentialism that is already at work in educational theory. Together, this strengthens a social theoretic account of education that explores how to conceptualise the role of knowledge in educational processes in terms of a holistic epistemology.     

Distance education and the World Bank

This article is based on a study undertaken for the Education and Training Department at the World Bank which reviewed 32 Bank projects 1963–1985 that included education via broadcasting (television and/or radio) and by correspondence. It is clear that Bank investments in distance education were most beneficial when the borrowing country and the Bank agreed on the educational objectives of the distance education component. It is also clear that distance education was most effective when it was sharply focussed on improving the quality of teaching available, when it was used to offer non-formal education to students who were without teachers and classrooms, and/ or when it met social demands and answered urgent needs for formation of human capital through education and training.     

The Language of Schools’ Radio and Television Programmes in Geography

Although increasing attention has been given to the language of teachers, pupils and published materials the language of schools' broadcasting remains largely neglected as a topic of research, study and discussion. British educationists and teachers have access to a burgeoning literature on geographical education but the contribution of schools' television, radiovision and radio programmes and associated publications to the teaching of geography is rarely, if ever, treated as a topic for serious consideration. Not surprisingly, therefore, the language of schools' broadcasting in geography is new ground to explore. Geography has figured prominently in the annual provision of broadcasts during the fifty‐four years of educational broadcasting in Britain. Added to the currently transmitted programmes are the taped broadcasts, audio and video recorded, which teachers may have retained from previous years.     

Lifelong education: a test of the accumulation hypothesis

A path model of the lifelong education cycle is developed and estimated, using data relevant to a Swedish cohort of men and the method of linear structural relations analysis. The estimates are used to address the question as to whether adult education, by offsetting differences in educational backgrounds, has reduced the gap in educational attainment between the initially poorly‐educated and well‐educated groups comprising the sample studied. The results show that a cycle of accumulation is in operation, so that the quality of earlier experiences of education predict the quality and amount of educational experiences subsequently gathered. Hence, as the expansion of adult education has served to reinforce inequality of educational attainment, at least for the group of Swedish men studied, the accumulation hypothesis is supported. However, because the stability coefficients found in the model are only of modest size, it is concluded that there is room for interventionist policy designed to influence the social distribution of adult education resources.     

Extra‐credential experiences and social closure: Working‐class students at university

Human capital theorists perceive of educational expansion as beneficial to individuals, corporations and national economies, while social closure theorists have claimed that inflation of credential requirements maintains traditional status inequalities. In this paper I argue that status inequalities are not only maintained by credential inflation, but also the inflation of extra‐credential experiences. As undergraduate degrees become more common, access to employment and further education opportunities increasingly depend on extra‐curricular and ‘enriching’ educational experiences. Using qualitative data from a longitudinal study of working‐class university students in Canada, I will address the mechanisms by which they have gained or were denied access to such experiences. The data suggest that working‐class students’ relative lack of financial resources and social networks are barriers to the development of extra‐credential experiences, which in turn leads to the change of educational and career plans for some.     

Post‐Fordist visions and technological solutions: Educational technology and the labour process

This paper is concerned with the relationships between pedagogy, technology and the production of education. A central theme is that these relationships are coalescing around three conceptual arrangements of production, characterised by the terms Fordism, neo‐Fordism and post‐Fordism. Each of these ideal‐type models suggests very different social, political and educational outcomes. The paper starts by introducing these terms within the literature. Second, the post‐Fordist debate in distance education is summarised, identifying its strengths, weaknesses, omissions and objectives. Third, the labour process in higher education is explored in more depth, and its relationship to democracy and technology highlighted. The paper concludes with a focus on constructivist models of educational technology and their socio‐political implications.     

Beyond educational attainment: The importance of skills and lifelong learning for social outcomes. Evidence for Europe from PIAAC

Empirical evidence suggests that educational attainment nurtures people's social outcomes and promotes active participation in society and stability. However, it is unclear to what extent other types of human capital also correlate with social outcomes. Hence, we explored the opportunity offered by the PIAAC survey through its provision of information on educational attainment, observed individual key skills proficiency, and participation in adult education and training (adult lifelong learning). We therefore studied the association between these human capital variables and social outcomes, and more specifically interpersonal trust and participation in volunteering activities. Results revealed that these social outcomes were affected not only by the formal qualification obtained, determined by the education variable, but also throughout the life‐cycle. Indeed, education and training when undertaken during adult life have a significant impact, especially on volunteering. The fact that the skill proficiency also plays a significant role is extremely relevant, as skills are more likely to change over the life‐cycle, either in a positive or negative way. Whilst the formal education received is constant after exiting the educational system, skills reflect competences more accurately: first, because those with the same level of education may have different skill levels because of differences in the quality of education or ability; second, because skills can vary over time. For example, they may increase with work experience or informal education, or decrease as a result of depreciation and ageing. These findings suggest that social outcomes are prone to be affected by many factors other than formal education, suggesting that policy makers can implement recommendations even after formal education has been completed.     

Educational Television in Israel: spotlight on the future

The author was based at the Educational Television Centre in Tel‐Aviv with a remit to study the development of educational television in Israel from its inception in 1966. The article briefly discusses the political and technological factors which led to the development of an educational television channel in Israel. At that time television in Israel consisted solely of educational television broadcasts in the mornings and afternoons. This was extended when the Israeli Broadcasting Authority started to broadcast on the one Israeli channel in the evening slot. The article concentrates on the recent development of educational television and its bid for a new niche in the constellation of Israeli broadcasting. Inevitably the development and future of educational broadcasting is intimately linked with Israel's religious and political schisms and its military and cultural preoccupations. At the moment Israel still only has one television channel, although test programming has been piloted on a second channel. This article explores the future options open to the Educational Television Centre in the context of satellite and cable broadcasting and the development of a second channel. Evidently the factors affecting the future of broadcasting in Israel are not dissimiliar from those which now face the UK, given the publication of the 1988 White Paper on Broadcasting     

Non‐formal education implementations in Turkey: issues and latest challenges

The aim of this article is to analyse the latest implementations and issues raised in Turkish non‐formal education from a historical perspective in Turkey. The high population rate and lack of adequate educational opportunities for adults and migration from rural areas to urban areas caused many educational, social and cultural problems in non‐formal education. For solving all the problems, Turkey followed the latest developments in the world about the aims and functions of non‐formal adult education and organised several different adult education programs in terms of integration to international bodies such as European Union and so forth. These programs aim to reach a wide range of people from rural and urban settings, the employees, employers, farmers, students, tradesmen, housewives, artisans and many others. The most important educational characteristic of this audience is that they are not regular students. The organisation way of non‐formal education differ from other developed countries in essence. In social terms, the non‐formal education for adults does not only provide professional and technical training; but also provides the learners with basic literacy and helps continue their educational life, contributes to preservation and improvement of national and cultural values, creates an awareness of citizenship and democratic thinking in Turkey.     

Some Antecedents of Educational Philosophy in Britain with Particular Reference to Social Science

It would be convenient to pretend that the histories of educational philosophy in Britain and, by extension, the USA and Australia, were responses to a common social and intellectual history but convenience in this case could only be accomplished at the expense of explanatory power. The history of educational philosophy in these three places is parallel but not in common. Philosophy of education in Britain is more closely related to philosophy than is philosophy of education in the USA. Philosophy of education in the USA appropriated the lead of the American Social Science Association and initially retained closer connections with social science than did its English counterpart. Nevertheless, it is argued here that educational philosophy's reference to social science—Victorian and modern—is the missing explanatory element in modem histories of the discipline. The appropriation of education by social science—a common feature of the intellectual history of education in Britain, Australasia, and the USA—leavened the research agenda of educational philosophy in Britain. Peters’ educational work can be best understood as an attempt to reunite education with moral philosophy such that the study of education would resume a profile similar to its nineteenth‐century counterpart, when it was moral philosophy that provided the most interesting discussions of human nature, primitive customs, and social institutions—education among them.     

Reconceptualising Structure and Agency in the Sociology of Education: structuration theory and schooling

Since the 1970s there has been considerable debate among sociologists of education about the macro‐micro gap in educational analyses. However, educational research remains divided largely into the study of large‐scale phenomena such as social systems and national policies on the one hand, and case‐studies of individual schools and social interaction on the other. This split has had a number of unfortunate consequences for the development of the field. Most importantly, the dominant conceptions of structure and agency employed in the sociology of education are characterised by a dualism which makes it difficult to conceptualise adequately the processes involved in social change. In this paper, I briefly describe this structure‐agency dualism before critically examining three attempts which have been made to address this problem. The ability of structuration theory to overcome this dualism is then examined, and I conclude by arguing that this approach offers an important new direction for the sociology of education.     

Young people’s relationship to education: the case of Greek youth

The aim of this study is to explore how Greek youth understands their relationship to education, and how this understanding might change as a result of the interplay between participation in different educational/social arrangements and structural factors such as gender, socio‐economic background and area of residence. In total, 800 young people (i.e. four groups—students in upper‐secondary school, tertiary education, vocational education and training and working young people) were surveyed. The results yield an impressive homogeneity of the young people’s views corresponding to a ‘pragmatic’ image of schooling, though they are partially differentiated with respect to attitudes and practices. Moreover, boundaries are discerned between the young people following academic and non‐academic educational trajectories, and between the learning opportunities provided within and outside the formal educational system. Finally, females appear to be more mobilized, but less satisfied by educational services. These findings are contextualized and discussed against a background of relevant trends in other European countries, as well as of wider social, historical and political forces affecting Greek society.