The politics of environmental education: a case‐study

ABSTRACT

The ‘Environment and School Initiatives’ (ENSI) project is an OECD curriculum development project based on a ‘process model’. Eleven OECD countries, excluding the UK, participated in Phase 1 (1986‐8). The author carried out a comparative analysis of case‐studies of this phase, then sought to gain government support for the participation of UK schools in the second phase of ENSI. This article tells the story of his efforts and the responses they met with. The narrative describes and analyses the complex roles and positions taken by government departments, charitable foundations and multinational companies. The negative outcome for the future of the project in England and Wales indicated that the British government were more interested in the construction of politically symbolic acts which publicly signify concern for the environment than with the promotion of effective and educationally worthwhile pedagogies for environmental education.     

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.     

The role of education in nineteenth‐century doctrines of political economy

Human Characteristics and School Learning. By B. S. Bloom. Pp. 284. New York. McGraw‐Hill, 1976. £8.20.

Child Language, Learning and Linguistics. By David Crystal. Pp. 106. London: Edward Arnold, 1976. £4.25. Paper £1.95.

Schools Council Working Paper No. 60: Examinations at 18+—The N and F Studies. Pp. 272. London: Evans/Methuen Educational, 1978. £4.50.

In and Out of School (The ROSLA Community Education Project). By R. White &; D. Brockington. London: RKP, 1978. 200pp. Hardback £4.50, Paperback £2.25.

County Grammar School: A History of Ludlow Grammar School Through Eight Centuries Against its Local Background. By David J. Lloyd, 1977.

Adolescence and Youth in Prospect. Edited by John P. Hill and Franz J. Monks. Pp. 216. IPC Science and Technology Press, Ltd., Guildford; 1977. £6.80.

Resource‐Based Learning. By N. Beswick. Pp.xiv+264. Heinemann, London, 1977. £6.50.

Instead of Education. Ways to help people do things better. By John Holt. Pp. 252. Penguin Books, 1977. 8op.

Philosophical foundations for the curriculum. By Allen Brent, pp. 233. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1978. £7.50 hardback, £3.50 paperback.

The Politics of Curriculum Change. By Tony Becher and Stuart Maclure. Pp. 192. London: Hutchinson, 1978, £2.95.

Power and the Curriculum: Issues in Curriculum Studies. Edited by Colin Richards. Pp. 170. Driffield: Nafferton Books. 1978. £2.95.

The Nineteenth Century Woman: Her Cultural and Physical World, Edited by Sara Delamont and Lorna Duffin. Pp. 213. London: Croom Helm 1978: £7.50.

The training of teachers in England and Wales 1800—1975. By H. C. Dent. Pp. viii, 163. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1977. Paperback £2.35.

American Education: An Introduction to Social and Political Aspects. By Joel Spring. Pp. vi, 234. New York and London: Longman, 1978: £4.50.     

Sardonic science? The resistance to more humanistic forms of science education

Resistance to more humanistic forms of science education is an endemic and persistent feature of university scientists as well as school science teachers. This article argues that science education researchers should pay more attention to its origins and to the subtleties of its stubborn influence. The paper explores some of the imperatives which dominate the continuing practices of teachers; the linkages between school and university science; and re-considers the relationships between learning science, learning to do science and learning about science. It draws on recent, prominent publications, as well as neglected and rather more contentious material, to underline the unhelpfully narrow view of science held by those who defend the traditional disciplinary influences of biology, chemistry and physics. Suggestions are made as to where those of a more radical and determined disposition should direct their attention in the interests of improved education, vital scientific progress as well as human survival. It is argued that university science must change in order to ensure that teachers better help their students to learn, do and appreciate science.     

The micro‐politics of openness

In this paper, David Harris, senior lecturer in sociology at the College of St Mark and St John in Plymouth, explores the context in which our current definitions of openness have evolved. He goes on to suggest that it is time to shift interest away from the level of grand design and abstract typologies towards a ‘micro‐political’ level, involving analyses of concrete practice.     

Talking of fabric: a multi‐dimensional model of quality in education

‘Improving quality’ has become a key phrase in policy and academic discourses on education in low‐income countries, reflecting concerns that the success in increasing enrolment and widening access to schooling is being undermined by low‐quality teaching and learning, and subsequent low levels of skills and knowledge among school leavers. We wish to revitalise discussions problematising ‘quality’ through examining current debates on and available frameworks for understanding the concept and proposing a new framework. We model ‘quality’ as a stretched ‘fabric’ maintained in tension through a contextually appropriate balance across seven conceptual dimensions. We recognise tensions and complementarities among the dimensions and the centrality of values inherent in making judgements of quality, that quality is a matter of process rather than product, and that this complex process demands a strategic approach. Finally, we recognise two issues that remain to be addressed in a future agenda.     

The pedagogy of argumentation in science education: science teachers’ instructional practices

ABSTRACT

Argumentation has been a prominent concern in science education research and a common goal in science curriculum in many countries over the past decade. With reference to this goal, policy documents burden responsibilities on science teachers, such as involving students in dialogues and being guides in students’ spoken or written argumentation. Consequently, teachers’ pedagogical practices regarding argumentation gain importance due to their impact on how they incorporate this practice into their classrooms. In this study, therefore, we investigated the instructional strategies adopted by science teachers for their argumentation-based science teaching. Participants were one elementary science teacher, two chemistry teachers, and four graduate students, who have a background in science education. The study took place during a graduate course, which was aimed at developing science teachers’ theory and pedagogy of argumentation. Data sources included the participants’ video-recorded classroom practices, audio-recorded reflections, post-interviews, and participants’ written materials. The findings revealed three typologies of instructional strategies towards argumentation. They are named as Basic Instructional Strategies for Argumentation, Meta-level Instructional ?St??rategies for ?Argumentation, and Meta-strategic Instructional ?St??rategies for ?Argumentation. In conclusion, the study provided a detailed coding framework for the exploration of science teachers’ instructional practices while they are implementing argumentation-based lessons.     

The politics of workers’ education in Nigeria

In this analysis of workers’ education in Nigeria, set against the broad definitions of the broad meaning of workers’ education, education as against training, and other fundamental issues, an important point should be noted. It is that the ‘worker’ in Nigeria is defined by law. This definition excludes, for example, those who are not on a monthly or annual wage. Thus those unskilled people hired on a temporary basis are not, legally, ‘workers’.     

A winding road – professional trajectories from higher education to working life: a case study of political science and psychology graduates

This qualitative and longitudinal study focuses on graduate employment and the development of graduate employment paths. The aim of this article is to explore the present professional trajectory from higher education to working life, with particular reference to graduates from two different study programmes at Linköping University in Sweden: Political Science and Psychology. More specifically, the article focuses on how graduates construe their professional trajectories in terms of their envisaged future work as senior students, and later as novice and early-career professionals with 18 and 34 months of work life experience. The results indicate that graduates’ professional identities and vision of their future work change over time. The set of categories, depicting the graduates’ vision and experiences of their professional trajectories, do not seem to follow a specific temporal and logical progression in their career. Rather, they appear in different order and at different points in time after graduation. The results, instead, endorse the discourse of lifelong learning and the need for flexibility and employability on the labour market.     

The Equity Raw‐Score Matrix – a multi‐dimensional indicator of potential disadvantage in higher education

Issues surrounding student participation, transition, retention and successful completion in higher education are topical. While the Australian federal government has identified broad groupings of under‐represented students, these do not shed light on the complexities underlying the issues of the educationally disadvantaged, such as the compounding problems of multiple equity‐group membership or the overlay of the acute or chronic effects of equity sub‐group membership. This paper details the Equity Raw‐Score Matrix. The matrix is a multi‐dimensional indicator of potential disadvantage in learners, created for the specific purposes of diagnosing the complexities of educational disadvantage and creating pre‐emptive strategies for the participation, transition and retention of students who are disadvantaged. The paper also describes the qualitative research study that was the catalyst for the creation of the matrix.     

The premise and promise of inquiry based mathematics in pre‐service teacher education: a poststructuralist analysis

Many teacher educators have recently implemented inquiry based instructional practices into their programs (Crawford & Deer, 1993 Crawford, K and Deer, C. (1993). Do we practise what we preach? Putting policy into practice in teacher education. South Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 21: 111–121. [Taylor & Francis Online] [Google Scholar]; Foss & Kleinsasser, 1996 Foss, D and Kleinsasser, R. (1996). Pre‐service elementary teachers’ views of pedagogical and ­mathematical content knowledge. Teaching and Teacher Education, 12(4): 429–442. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]; Klein, 1996 Klein M (1996) The possibilities and limitations of constructivist practice in pre‐service teacher education in mathematics Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Central Queensland University, Rockhampton, Australia  [Google Scholar], 1997 Klein, M. (1997). Looking again at the ‘supportive’ environment of constructivist pedagogy. ­Journal of Education for Teaching, 23(3): 277–292. [Taylor & Francis Online] [Google Scholar], 1998 Klein M (1998) New knowledge, new teachers, new times in: C. Kanes, M. Goos & E. Warren (Eds) Teaching mathematics in new times (Brisbane, Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia) 295 302  [Google Scholar], 2001 Klein M (2001) Correcting mathematical and attitudinal deficiencies in pre‐service teacher education in: J. Bobis, B. Perry & M. Mitchelmore (Eds) Numeracy and beyond (Sydney, Australia, MERGA) 338 345  [Google Scholar]; Schuck, 1996 Schuck, S. (1996). Reflections on the dilemmas and tensions in mathematics education courses for student teachers. Asia‐Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 24(1): 75–82. [Taylor & Francis Online] [Google Scholar]; Tillema & Knol, 1997 Tillema, M and Knol, W. (1997). Collaborative planning by teacher educators to promote belief changes in their students. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 3(1): 29–46. [Taylor & Francis Online] [Google Scholar]). In mathematics education the promise has been that pre‐service teachers’ socialization into new interactive ways of learning will not only lead to the (re)construction of powerful mathematical ideas and relationships, but that it will facilitate the implementation of these inquiry based practices in the classroom. This promise, however, is not often realized (Foss & Kleinsasser, 1996 Foss, D and Kleinsasser, R. (1996). Pre‐service elementary teachers’ views of pedagogical and ­mathematical content knowledge. Teaching and Teacher Education, 12(4): 429–442. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]; Tillema & Knol, 1997 Tillema, M and Knol, W. (1997). Collaborative planning by teacher educators to promote belief changes in their students. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 3(1): 29–46. [Taylor & Francis Online] [Google Scholar]). One reading of why this may be so, relying on and made visible through a poststructuralist analytic lens, is (a) that perhaps the pre‐service teachers’ ability to act in inquiry‐based, generative ways in the classroom does not necessarily follow from, but is produced or constituted in, teaching/learning interactions in school and teacher education, and (b) it may be that pedagogic practices in teacher education unintentionally and invisibly reproduce old epistemologies and ontologies that support knowledge transmission and teacher authority over student authored engagement and construction of ideas. In this paper the premise of a rational, autonomous agent of change on which so much of current practice is based is challenged, and the possible implications for teacher education discussed.     

Inter‐disciplinary but not Undisciplined: Writing the history of Aboriginal “education”

The history of Australian Aboriginal peoples sits uneasily on the margins of Australian history in much the same way as Aboriginal peoples themselves exist on the borders and interstices of the society that has colonised them and dispossessed them of their lands and cultures. The history of education likewise, sits somewhat on the margins of the discipline of history. The history of Aboriginal education, therefore, has never been a large field of study, though a handful of individuals have made important contributions.

This article will consider some of the reasons for the current position of the study of how Aboriginal peoples have learned and been taught in the past and will suggest that there are a number of inter‐related reasons for the limitations of both research and analysis within the field. Some of these limitations stem from the discipline itself, others from the subject. They will be discussed using examples from research with Australian Aboriginal and Canadian First Nations peoples and with regard to some recent publications in Australia and New Zealand.     

Levelling or Playing the Field? The politics of access to university education in post‐apartheid South Africa

This article identifies the three discursive forces of ‘equity and redress’, ‘development’ and ‘academic standards’ in the structuring of access and admission policies in South Africa. It is argued that these forces undergo a process of complex repositioning within the policy making arena of the National Commission on Higher Education. The discourse of ‘development’, couched in neo‐classical economic terms, emerges as a dominant discourse in this process and shapes the discourses surrounding ‘academic standards’ and, more fundamentally, ‘redress’ policies and strategies. Such oblique effects of the dominant discourse, it is suggested, have fundamentally reframed access and admission policies and strategies proposed by the Commission.     

Inquiry-based science education: scaffolding pupils’ self-directed learning in open inquiry

ABSTRACT

This paper describes a multiple case study on open inquiry-based learning in primary schools. During open inquiry, teachers often experience difficulties in balancing support and transferring responsibility to pupils’ own learning. To facilitate teachers in guiding open inquiry, we developed hard and soft scaffolds. The hard scaffolds consisted of documents with explanations and/or exercises regarding difficult parts of the inquiry process. The soft scaffolds included explicit references to and additional explanations of the hard scaffolds. We investigated how teacher implementation of these scaffolds contributed to pupils’ self-directed learning during open inquiry. Four classes of pupils, aged 10–11, were observed while they conducted an inquiry lesson module of about 10 lessons in their classrooms. Data were acquired via classroom observations, audio recordings, and interviews with teachers and pupils. The results show that after the introduction of the hard scaffolds by the teacher, pupils were able and willing to apply them to their investigations. Combining hard scaffolds with additional soft scaffolding promoted pupils’ scientific understanding and contributed to a shared guidance of the inquiry process by the teacher and her pupils. Our results imply that the effective use of scaffolds is an important element to be included in teacher professionalisation.     

The problem of education‐based discrimination

While the research, theory and policy literature on race, class and gender discrimination in education is extensive, the problem of education‐based discrimination itself has been widely overlooked. Indeed, the dominant ideologies of meritocracy and human capital (into which we are inculcated throughout our lives by schools, media and the state) proclaim that higher levels of education are and should be linked with greater reward. In a world where education is regularly invoked to legitimate inequality, it can appear nonsensical even to raise concern about education‐based discrimination as a matter of social injustice. We need, however, to challenge those who have taught us not to see what has essentially become an elephant in our living room. Otherwise, we will find ourselves unable ever to use our public systems of education for universal emancipation and empowerment.     

Discussion of Socio‐scientific Issues: The role of science knowledge

This paper considers the relationship between science knowledge and the ability to engage in reasoned discussion of the social consequences of science. Through a study of over 200 school students aged 14–16 we show that the ability to engage in reasoned discussion of applications of gene technology is strongly influenced by the ability to recognize key issues, and that ability to recognize key issues requires some understanding of the relevant science. It is also influenced by the specificity of the context under discussion and personal experience. The requisite scientific knowledge base is relatively modest and can be effectively taught through brief teaching interventions that are well designed and contextualized. The implications for classroom practice are considered     

Turning the focus from ‘Other’ to science education: exploring the invisibility of Whiteness

This paper provides another way to gaze upon Brad’s story as presented by van Eijck and Roth (2010). It raises questions about infrastructural racism in contemporary science education by exploring its association with Whiteness and White privilege. To explore the racial positioning inherent in Western science education specific attention is given to the positions of power that accompany Western ways of knowing the world (i.e., science education) in comparison to Other ways of knowing the world (i.e., First Nations Ways of Knowing). The paper suggests the power relationships inherent within this dualism are asymmetrical due to the implications of Whiteness within colonial societies. Even though power relations were not discussed in Brad’s story, the paper suggests the implications were visible. The paper concludes by advocating for a re-imagining in science education where the traditional ontological and epistemological foundations are deconstructed and spaces are created for enacting practical ways of resisting oppression.