‘Why are you applying there?’: ‘race’, class and the construction of higher education ‘choice’ in the United Kingdom

Despite entering higher education in good numbers, candidates from some black and minority ethnic groups are concentrated in less prestigious institutions. A similar pattern is evident in candidates’ applications, raising important questions about the role of ‘self-exclusion’. Statistical analysis confirms that candidates from some minority ethnic groups tend to target lower-ranking institutions, but these differences are almost entirely explained by other variables, particularly academic attainment, type of school attended, number of A-levels taken and subject mix. It follows that some minority ethnic groups appear to be indirectly disadvantaged by patterns of schooling that do not prepare candidates for elite higher education. Similar processes are evident in relation to social class, although candidates from less privileged family backgrounds remain less likely to target high-status institutions even when other variables are taken into account.     

‘I’ve been sort of laddish with them … one of the gang’: teachers’ perceptions of ‘laddish’ boys and how to deal with them

Concerns about schoolboy ‘laddish’ anti‐learning and/or anti‐school cultures are pervasive in current education discourses. Mandates to tackle laddishness frequently assume that there is a common understanding of what laddishness means, and also that teachers will know how to tackle it. This article explores these assumptions, drawing upon data generated during interviews with 30 secondary school teachers working in England. First, it maps out the key features of laddishness identified by the secondary school teachers. Second, it explores and critically evaluates the strategies that these teachers use, or advocate, for tackling laddishness, focusing particularly on the ways in which these are gendered. The paper closes with a discussion of the different agendas that may underpin attempts to tackle laddishness, and the pitfalls to avoid if teachers are to enhance learning and promote social justice.     

Biopolitics and the ‘subject’ of labor in science education

Viewing science education as a site of biopolitical engagement—intervention into forces that seek to define, control, and exploit life (biopower)—requires that science educators ask after how individuals and populations are governed by technologies of power. In this paper, I argue that microanalyses, the analysis of everyday practices and discourses, are integral to biopolitical engagement, are needed to examine practices that constitute subjectivities and maintain oppressive social conditions. As an example of a microanalysis I will discuss how repetitive close-ended lab/assessment tasks, as well as discourses surrounding careers in science, can work to constitute students as depoliticized, self-investing subjects of human capital. I also explore the relationship between science education, (bio)labor and its relation to biopolitics, which remains an underdeveloped area of science education. This paper, part of my doctoral work, began to take shape in 2011, shortly after the 2008 economic crisis achieved a tiny breached in the thick neoliberal stupor of everyday (educational) life.     

‘A space for you to be who you are’: an ethnographic portrait of reterritorializing Indigenous student identities

ABSTRACT

This article explores the discourse practices of an Indigenous, community-based charter school and its efforts to create space for Indigenous both/and identities across rural–urban divides. The ethnographic portrait of Urban Native Middle School (UNMS) analyzes the discourse of making ‘a space for you’, which brings together rural and urban youth to braid binary constructs such as Indigenous and western knowledge, into a discourse of Indigenous persistence constraining contexts of schooling. We use the concept of ‘reterritorialization’ to discuss the significance of UNMS’s community effort to create a transformative space and place of educational opportunity with youth. The local efforts of this small community to reterritorialize schooling were ultimately weakened under the one-size-fits-all accountability metrics of No Child Left Behind policy. This ethnographic analysis ‘talks back’ to static definitions of identity, space and learning outcomes which fail to recognize the dynamic and diverse interests of Indigenous communities across rural – urban landscapes.     

Reinforcing the ‘diminished’ subject? The implications of the ‘vulnerability zeitgeist’ for well-being in educational settings

Abstract

Pessimistic discourses about crises in youth and children's well-being, mental health and vulnerability permeate English educational policy and practice. These generate vague and slippery elisions of wellbeing and mental health, and the related rise of an ad hoc, confusing market of psycho-emotional interventions promoted by new types of 'pay-experts'. Revisiting earlier arguments that these developments depict a ‘diminished’ human subject, we propose that the incoherent state of policy, much research and practice in this area warrants robust challenge and critique. In particular, more precision about key concepts of social and emotional learning, mental health and wellbeing, a reining in of universal programmes, and serious interest in the types of curriculum that can offer richer, more meaningful alternatives to developing wellbeing in educational settings.     

‘Who are you,and what are you doing here’: methodological considerations in ethnographic Health and Physical Education research

In the pursuit of understanding declining levels of participation from scholastic Health and Physical Education (HPE), ethnographic research has been increasingly utilised as a tool to explore the intersubjective and intrasubjective meaning-making processes that concurrently invite or dissuade participation. Despite the ostensible epistemological benefits of deploying ethnographic research as a vehicle for better understanding contextual HPE (dis)engagement processes and meanings, a critical methodological discussion of the actual implementation and positionality of these methods is largely absent in the extant literature. Reflecting on an ethnographic study conducted with adolescent boys at a Canadian elementary school, this paper provides HPE ethnographers with a series of methodological deliberations, and reflexive points of departure for consideration in the design and implementation of ethnographic research. Specifically, this paper elucidates the process of rapport building with teachers/students, the omnipresent tensions, ethical dilemmas and triumphs that can emerge during ethnography, and the various socio-contextual interview factors that can influence data generation.     

What row are you in?

M:Good evening,Mrs Read.Nice to see you again. R:Hello,Meimei.Nice to see you. M:What row are you in R:I'm in Row 14.What about you     

‘Giving voice’ in research processes: an inclusive methodology for researching into social exclusion in Spain

This article seeks to illustrate how a research study that claims to be inclusive should incorporate into its development, decisions of methodological flexibility that enable voice to be given to all participants regardless of their personal conditions. The changes carried out in the techniques, procedures or in the kind of questions used in the research, illustrate how young persons can be involved in the building of scientific and academic knowledge that is being generated about them. This work forms part of a more extensive line of inquiry that started a number of years ago by two Spanish universities (Cantabria and Seville).     

Initial teacher education in the university ‘My little ship,how ill-laden you are’

Initial teacher education programmes in universities must meet the needs of varying constituencies. Politicians, school leaders and academics, for example, understandably seek to influence how these programmes should look. Given the importance of well-qualified teachers for the building of effective schools, it is right that a range of stakeholders should have their say. The Donaldson Report on teacher education in Scotland (2011) has much to say regarding the academic content of teacher education programmes. It offers food for thought for those wedded to the ‘craft’ model of teacher education. Academic rigour and breadth of experience cannot be seen as inimical to the need to ensure that newly qualified teachers are, indeed, ready to teach. The rediscovery of liberal approaches to education studies and the value of the liberal arts can be key components of a reimagined teacher education process.     

‘Unless you are collaborating with a big name successful professor,you are unlikely to receive funding’

Women consistently remain underrepresented in senior academic roles within the academy worldwide. Academics increasingly require research funding to conduct research, leading to publications, both of which can then be used for promotion applications. This article explores fourteen academic women's experiences of the research funding process in New Zealand, to provide insights into one aspect of why this inequity continues. The findings identify institutional, personal, and funding issues that impact on women's application behaviour. Addressing these may assist in developing women's careers as academics and provides us with a more in-depth understanding of the issues than have previously been gleamed from large quantitative studies.     

Medical educators’ metaphoric talk about their assessment relationships with students: ‘you don’t want to sort of be the one who sticks the knife in them’

Current perspectives in cognitive linguistics highlight the conceptual nature of cognition and how the conceptual metaphors we hold affect ways we think, talk and act. This study examines medical educators’ metaphoric talk to understand ways in which assessment relationships with students are conceptualised in order to understand why educators might ‘fail to fail’ underperformance in medical students. We conducted 10 focus groups with 70 educators at two UK medical schools. The audiotapes were transcribed and analysed using systematic metaphor analysis. The analysis revealed six over‐arching metaphors associated with the target domain of assessment relationships, i.e. assessment relationships as journey, war, sport, parentalism, machine and medicine. While medical educators conceptualised students’ academic failure in relatively innocuous ways (e.g. students’ failure to arrive at their destination; journey), they also conceptualised failure in harmful ways (e.g. students’ death; war). If medical educators hold the concept of assessment relationships as war, it is perhaps unsurprising that they are reluctant to fail students. We discuss these findings in light of existing literature and provide recommendations for designing training sessions through which assessors can address reluctance to fail underperformance. Such faculty development may aid assessors in identifying and using alternative metaphors to conceptualise the assessment relationship.     

How do you get pre-service teachers to become ‘good at ICT’ in their subject teaching? The views of expert practitioners

The paper reports on a particular strand of the outcomes of the English contribution to an Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development comparative study, ICT in Initial Teacher Training, which aimed to develop insights into how courses of initial teacher training prepare student teachers to use information and communications technology (ICT) effectively in their teaching. The paper extracts from the broader dataset the views of practitioners who were identified as being particularly ‘expert’ in their use of ICT, on what strategies and interventions are most helpful in developing teachers who are able to use ICT to enhance learning in their subject teaching, and also what it means ‘to be good at ICT’ as a subject teacher. Although some findings confirm research elsewhere on the importance of Technological and Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) frameworks, other aspects of the study question some of the assumptions which have been made about teacher induction in this field in England, which may have implications for the training of pre-service teachers in other countries.     

What type of person are you?

你知道自己是什么样的人吗?说不出来吧?那么请看下面的文章,你会从中找到答案的。如果有看不懂的地方,你可以写信来向我们咨询。     

‘It was,perhaps, the most important one’ students’ perceptions of national tests in terms of test-taking motivation

The aim of this study was to examine ninth-grade students’ perception of a Swedish national test in science (high-stakes for the students) and a field trial (low-stakes for the students), in terms of test-taking motivation. The study is based on semi-structured interviews with 12 students. Overall, the students had a positive perception of the national test; they were motivated to do their best, believed they did well and found the test important and good. Several students were nervous before the test and some during the test whereas others felt okay, or even enjoyed taking the national test. The students talked about less effort and test anxiety in the field trial and perceived the test as less important compared to the national test. The interviews provided a rich understanding of the different aspects of test-taking motivation as described by the expectancy-value theory. Furthermore, they indicated how the test administration could be adjusted so as to achieve higher test validity.     

Teachers’ emotional experiences of growing diversity and multiculturalism in schools and the prospects of an ethic of discomfort

This article analyzes the ways in which emotions are constituted and mobilized by teachers to respond to growing diversity and multiculturalism in schools. The analysis is based on a two‐year ethnographic study conducted in three Greek‐Cypriot primary schools that are ‘multicultural’. The following focus questions are addressed: (1) How do teachers’ emotional experiences of growing diversity and multiculturalism in schools form particular economies of effect?; and (2) What is the nature of these economies of affect and in what ways is it possible to form an ethic of discomfort as a space for constructive transformations in multicultural schools? An ethic of discomfort is theorised as an economy of affect that uses discomfort as a point of departure for individual and social transformation. The outcomes of this study show that teachers experience intense emotional ambivalence in their efforts to cope with growing diversity and multiculturalism in schools. It is argued, however, that the capabilities of teachers to cope with growing diversity and multiculturalism are enhanced, if an ethic of discomfort is constituted in multicultural schools. The implications of this study are discussed in relation to teaching and teacher education and suggest that constituting an ethic of discomfort offers opportunities to challenge structures of power, privilege, racism, and oppression.     

‘Testing,testing, testing… can you hear me?’

This article draws on material that formed part of a project entitled ‘Sustaining Pupils’ Progress at Year 3'¹. One area that emerged as significant early in the project was the practice and the place of assessment. The project found a high increase in testing and other forms of assessment during Year 3 designed in part to facilitate progress. This article poses the question of whether we can learn from hearing what pupils have to say about their experience of assessment and concludes that, given the language with which to discuss and understand the processes they experience, children's views can indeed be of value as schools focus on ways to sustain learning     

Enriching the subject of Greek Literature with the experience of the ‘other’: an approach that fosters citizenship education in Cyprus

This article reports on a research project that explored the potential to integrate autobiographical work emphasising personal experiences of exclusion and marginalisation into the Greek Literature curriculum followed in Greek-Cypriot schools. Given the difficulties encountered in Cyprus in promoting changes in attitudes towards diversity, we discuss the autobiographical poems of the disabled Turkish-Cypriot poet Orkun Bozkurt with the aim of strengthening efforts to foster citizenship education in Cyprus. One aspect of the study involved the analysis and comparison of Bozkurt's poems with those traditionally employed in the Greek Literature curriculum. By taking this analysis as a baseline, we designed and implemented an intervention programme that aimed at changing the attitudes of adult students towards the ‘Other’. Our findings suggest that changes in attitudes are possible, provided that traditional teaching methods and materials are enriched with alternative materials that represent typically underrepresented groups of people, and also that the teaching methods adopted encourage active involvement and critical thinking among students.     

‘Going global’: conceptualization of the ‘other’ and interpretation of cross-cultural experience in an all-white,rural learning environment

Based on an ethnographic case study done in an all-white, rural middle school, this article examines the students’ experience with and interpretation of an international education program implemented with a hope of providing more global/international contents to the curriculum. The study shows that these students interpreted other cultures introduced by the program in relation to their own culture and their own identity formation. The process of local ‘othering’ within the student school community was analogous to that of the students’ collective ‘othering’ of unfamiliar non-US cultures. The idea of US-centrism based on US consumer culture became the main standard against which the ‘otherness’ of different cultures were measured. The findings show how prejudice and stereotyping of global others derive from both the everyday process of differentiation in local home cultures and defense of national culture.     

‘Ordinary kids’ navigating geographies of educational opportunity in the context of an Australian ‘place-based intervention’

This paper addresses the vexed educational policy aspects of area-based interventions (ABIs) in neighbourhoods designated as ‘disadvantaged’ in an Australian context. We find that the way in which the policy of ABIs is supposed to operate and impact education is highly problematic. What we present instead in this paper is a much more complex process by which aspirations are formed, sustained, contested and maintained by young people who regard themselves as ‘ordinary’ and as being engaged instead in a process of navigating educational opportunities on the basis of resources available to them.