Negotiating Normalcy with Peers in Contexts of Inclusion: Perceptions of youth with disabilities in India

The qualitative study reported in this article investigated how youth with disabilities in India described their peer relationships within their educational settings. We situate the aims of this study within the larger context of inclusive education in India and discourses on self-determination for individuals with disabilities. Findings from the study suggest that students with disabilities actively sought membership in their peer communities but had few opportunities within inhospitable schooling contexts to represent themselves in ways other than as needing help. For families of students with disabilities, the onerous demands of making physical environments and curricular materials accessible to their children left them isolated within schools and their communities. The study sheds light on families’ reluctance to abandon legal guardianship models in order to support increased self-determination for their children, and also raises important questions for activist educators working within complex conditions such as the Indian context.     

Exploring the role of India’s secondary school compulsory curriculum textbooks in students’ national identity constructions in an overseas school

This study problematises the contribution of India’s school textbooks in students’ national identity constructions in an overseas school in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The textbooks construct students’ national identity on the concepts of India’s secular democracy, colonial resistance and equal citizenship rights. Notwithstanding study participants’ ambivalent identification with these ideals, they mostly express confusing identities evincing religious tendencies, gendered beliefs towards women and antipathy for India’s neighbouring states. This entails implications for India’s national cohesion and students’ ability to live in harmony with other communities in the diasporic setting. It also poses risks to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 2030.     

中国资源型城市特征论析——以煤矿城市为中心

中国有118座资源型城市,其中63座为煤矿城市。这些城市大多因煤而兴,具有煤炭工业主导功能突出、城市空间布局分散、产业关联度低、产业结构相对单一、所有制结构单一、劳动力结构单一、性别比例失调、基础设施不足、第三产业发展滞后、环境保护任务艰巨等特征。总结其特征,探讨应对之策,有益于煤矿城市乃至资源型城市的健康发展与转型。     

Connecting family,school, gold mining community and primary school students’ reading achievements in Burkina Faso – A three-level hierarchical linear model analysis

Family, school, and community play an important role in creating learning opportunities, but research on the topic tends to approach them separately. Employing three-level hierarchical linear modeling, this study investigates how gold mining communities are related to students’ reading achievements and how they interact with school (teacher and principal) factors, child health, and child labor status to affect reading achievements in Burkina Faso. Findings suggest that gold mining communities negatively affect students’ reading achievements, but better teaching practices and better principal management quality contribute to reduce this negative effect. These findings contribute to the literature on the resource curse hypothesis and school effectiveness modeling in developing countries. Furthermore, implications of the findings for education policy are discussed.     

The Emergence of Counseling in Traditional Cultures: Ultra-Orthodox Jewish and Arab Communities in Israel

The introduction of school counseling services into traditional communities that are unfamiliar with counseling is a complex multidimensional process that involves considerable ideological tensions, disputes and obstacles... This paper considers the different trajectories of the recent development of counseling services within two distinctive minority groups in Israel-Arab and the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities. The dynamics of the change process for these traditional communities within the current Israeli social–political context lends support for the advancement of the international counseling community’s vision to promote human welfare and fairness as well as the healthy development of children and youth within diverse cultural contexts. The paper is based on a Keynote address, IAC Conference: Jamaica, April 2004.     

Claiming modernity through clothing: gender and education in Pakistani Muslim and Indian Hindu communities

Through focusing on forms of clothing, this article reveals how educated women from marginalized communities in Pakistan and India made differential claims to being modern. Our analysis of two ethnographic studies shows how the participants mobilized their subjectivities as modern and educated women through a distinction between ‘local modern’ and ‘local traditional’. In this article, our goal is not to define modernity, but instead to illuminate what it meant to be modern in both contexts. We integrate the narratives of young, rural Muslim women in Pakistan with those of young, rural Hindu women in India to disrupt the linear telling of the production of universal and homogenous modernity through education.     

When Participants Don’t Wish to Participate in Participatory Action Research,and When Others Participate on Their Behalf: The Representation of Communities by <Emphasis Type="Italic">Real</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Faux</Emphasis> Participants

This article focuses on methodological and epistemological issues arising from a research project with two Gypsy communities (2010–2012) in the South West of England. Although the two communities seem to share cultural roots and values, and live within a few miles of each other, they have contrasting experiences within the education system and very different relationships with the surrounding mainstream communities. The article explores difficulties emerging as a consequence of the contrasting positions of the participant communities, the differing research aspirations and practices across the research team, and also the tensions between ethnographic work and participatory action research. It queries the problematic nature of participation, and proposes the concept of the faux-participant.     

The activation of epistemological resources in epistemic communities: District educators’ professional learning as policy enactment

This article argues that professional learning can be understood as a form of policy enactment, characterized by the activation of particular ‘epistemological’ resources within specific communities of shared understanding (‘epistemic communities’). In making this case, we draw upon insights from district officials responsible for enacting a provincial assessment policy in Ontario, Canada. Our research suggests these senior educators' learning about assessment reform, particularly their strong advocacy for teacher learning for assessment reform, were epistemological resources developed within the specific, effective epistemic communities of which they had been a part, over time. Policy enactment is heavily influenced by student-centered school/cross-school/system communities.     

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.     

A comparative case-study of school-LEA-NGO interactions across different socio-economic strata in Israel

This study examines the interaction between non-governmental organization (NGO), the Local Education Authority (LEA), and public schools in communities of different socioeconomic backgrounds in Israel. We characterize how schools serving more and less affluent communities create, cultivate, and preserve interactions with NGOs; how NGOs form, and sustain interactions with schools serving communities of different socioeconomic backgrounds; and how this process is maintained through LEA regulation. We show how school–NGO–LEA interaction is largely shaped by the affluence of respective schools’ communities within given educational settings. Analysis of interviews conducted with different stakeholders exposed two main themes: (1) the differing capabilities of various actors in this interaction to express agency; (2) the power relations between involved parties, whereby NGO and LEA impose a global agenda on local schools (particularly those serving less affluent communities) – occasionally in contrast to the needs as perceived by schools’ leaders. Our conclusions offer some insights into the nature and possible consequences of the interaction between third sector organizations and schools serving communities of diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.     

Education in early postcolonial India: expansion,experimentation and planned self-help

After independence India’s leaders committed the country to democracy with universal franchise and to pursuing a socialistic pattern of society. As part of these interlocking projects, it was widely recognised that India’s educational systems needed reform. However, with scarce resources, Indian policy-makers faced the dilemma of whether to improve the existing system, which served a narrow, urban elite, or expand it to the entire population, as the Constitution promised they would. This overview of education policy in the first two decades after 1947 finds that, at the centre, Indian planning did not monopolise control over education. Rather, India’s was a socialism of scarcity, which relied on self-help efforts by the people to build the institutions of the welfare state. However, by relying on communities to use their own resources to build local schools, this DIY socialism entrenched existing inequalities.     

Resisting English: Excavating English Ideologies of Young Boys through Chutkule at an Indian Orphanage

The prevailing scholarship on Indians’ beliefs about English has, with few exceptions, largely failed to capture ideological resistance. Given the supremacy of English within the hierarchically ordered and unequal linguistic landscape in India, this study intervenes within this limited area of research. This investigation excavates ideologies of resistance to English through chutkule, a humorous folk genre, narrated by young boys at an anathashram (orphanage) in suburban New Delhi. The theoretical lens of language ideology is employed to unpack latent issues of resistance and erasure within the chutkule, and emergent ideological tensions are interpreted in the context of educational equity. In addition to locating beliefs about language in a previously unresearched genre, this study adds to the limited scholarship on Indians’ ideological resistance to English. Further, because these notions are mined through the boys’ chutkule at the anathashram, this investigation illuminates previously neglected discourses from India’s socioeconomic margins.     

Can massive communities of teachers facilitate collaborative reflection? Fractal design as a possible answer

This paper explores the possibility that virtual communities of teachers with large numbers of members (referred to as massive communities of teachers) can offer support to novice teachers by means of collaborative reflection. The paper examines and conceptualises some problems found in professional massive communities and proposes that massification can dilute what some authors have called social presence or engagement. It is argued that this dilution, among other problems, very much hinders collaborative reflection among members of the community. Collaborative reflection is argued to be a crucial part of the support that novice teachers need in their first years in the profession. Therefore, a challenge is envisioned for massive communities of teachers to avoid the dilution of social presence or engagement. The authors argue that this dilution can be overcome by the use of multiple layers within a platform, referred to as fractal design.     

Changing Educational Policies in the United States and India: Perspectives of Teacher Educators

Abstract

Educational policy changes are intertwined with teacher education at multiple levels, affecting teacher educators in a variety of ways. Despite the different contexts, teacher educators in the United States and India must fulfill a variety of roles in order to meet the demands within those contexts. This qualitative study compared the cases of seven teacher educators in Iowa in the United States and seven teacher educators in Delhi, India on their common experience of mandated policy changes. Collaboration was found to be central in the teacher education policy implementation process in Iowa, USA and Delhi, India.     

Learning to see the familiar: Technological assemblages in a higher education (non)classroom setting

If an objective of public higher education is to engage with a diversity of communities, then coursework should be less insulated within classrooms. This work describes and analyzes a university course design that supports undergraduate students to experience learning as relational and transformational via Site Visits within various communities. We focus on “technological assemblages” as a way to understand students’ reorientation to the process and purpose of learning (and teaching). We analyze experiences within the course as moments of disorientation, reassembly and stabilization in which students use their mobile devices, bodies and interactions-in-place to understand familiar locations as socially and historically contingent sites of learning (and teaching). We argue that this instructional model does important work of putting students at the nexus of building relationships between the university and other community settings around the city.     

The Bio-Culture of Parenting: Evidence From Five Cultural Communities

Objective. This study analyzes culturally formed parenting styles during infancy, as related to the sociocultural orientations of independence and interdependence. Design. Free-play situations between mothers and 3-month-old infants were videotaped in 5 cultural communities that differ according to their sociocultural orientations: cultural communities in West Africa (N = 26), Gujarat in India (N = 39), Costa Rica (N = 21), Greece (N = 51), and Germany (N = 56). The videotapes were analyzed using coding systems that operationalize the component model of parenting with a focus on 4 parenting systems, including body contact, body stimulation, object stimulation, and face-to-face contact. Results. 2 styles of parenting (distal and proximal) can be related to the sociocultural orientations of independence and interdependence. It is apparent that they express parenting priorities in particular ecocultural environments. Conclusions. Infants participate, from birth on, in sociocultural activities that are committed to cultural goals and values which inform parenting behaviors.     

Building social capital through outdoor education

Over the last 15 years, the body of literature surrounding the subject of social capital has witnessed steady growth. While sociologists have extensively discussed how social capital can be created and sustained within local communities and national contexts, there is little evidence of the social capital discourse within the outdoor education sector. Hallmarked by trust, reciprocity and voluntary associations within social networks, social capital may offer outdoor educators a helpful framework from which to conceptualise the impacts of their practice. This paper outlines the principal themes of social capital and explores outdoor education's role in building social capital within the local communities where they often operate. The notion of bridging, as articulated within the social capital concept, offers a way of exploring the recursive relationship that exists between outdoor education programmes and host communities.     

Rediscovering the teacher within Indian child-centred pedagogy: implications for the global Child-Centred Approach

The Child-Centred Approach (CCA) is increasingly promoted within India and internationally as a response to the challenge of delivering quality education. From identifying and examining Indian indigenous and global concepts of CCA within traditional and contemporary child-centred pedagogic discourse, this paper reveals the complexities of underlying agendas within the domestic and international setting and the implications of this for the integration of CCA and the ‘child-centred’ teacher in India. Based on empirical analysis of teachers’ interviews, the findings demonstrate that the role of the teacher continues to be largely overlooked in spite of a willingness from teachers to engage within the child-centred pedagogic discourse. Disempowerment, a lack of autonomy and limited professional status are highlighted. Therefore, this paper calls for the rediscovery of the ‘child-centred’ teacher to advance from within the nation. Without this, it is asserted that the authenticity of the CCA model will continue to be compromised, and with it, any indigenous expressions of a similar epistemology will be fundamentally restricted.     

Technology,Learning Communities and Young People: The Future Something Project

The Future Something Project (FSP), a two‐year action research project, was devised to nurture the creative and technological talent of small groups of young people at risk by creating a structured network, mentored and driven by creative professionals exploring innovative ways for the two distinct target groups to work together. The project practice is located within the new field of interaction design and takes a social and critical approach to art and design pedagogy. The external research team found that one valuable way of looking at the FSP enterprise was through the social theory of communities of practice (CoPs) developed in the 1990s by Lave and Wenger. The creation of a learning community as a pedagogical strategy is central to the conception and practice of this project. This article, therefore, sets out to apply an existing theory to a new art and design context together with more general thoughts on learning communities. It explores the potential of new technologies and different settings to effect learning within structured networks and local and virtual communities of practice.     

The cultural construction of child development: creating institutional and cultural intersubjectivity

Since its inception in the early nineteenth century, early childhood education has moved beyond European communities and become institutionalized in countries such as Australian, India, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore. At the same time, many European countries have experienced migration, and now have broadly based culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Although early education has continued to evolve over time, some fundamental principles about the nature of learning have remained static. In drawing upon cultural‐historical theory, this paper seeks to make visible early childhood institutional practices that may no longer be relevant, particularly when western theory and middle‐class practices are not representative of the culturally and linguistically diverse communities they serve. In this paper, an alternative model of child development is offered that takes into account and values the diversity of children’s cultural experiences.