Post-colonial science education: the challenge of negotiating researcher positioning

In this paper, I describe a methodology that I employed, and resultant methods that I designed, to facilitate a Critical Discourse Analysis exploring perspectives on Western modern science as a school subject discipline in a given Caribbean context. Using specific themes from post-colonial theory, I sought to engage with some of the viewpoints presented by key stakeholders in secondary science education in the research setting. This paper reports on the methodological framework for the research study, illustrating some of the philosophical challenges encountered during the development of the research methods. Specifically, I discuss the tensions associated with the pursuit of researcher legitimacy, the use of ‘scientific’ methods of inquiry in a work that seeks to be decolonizing, and the challenge of stimulating conversation about a topic for which participants might not possess readily formulated opinions. My response to these challenges resulted in methods that utilized a unique adaptation of Stephenson's Q methodology. Although these tensions are far from being fully resolved, the approach outlined helps contribute to our understanding of the complexities of negotiation that can occur when conducting research of this nature.     

Indigenous knowledge and the machinist metaphors of the bricoleur researcher

This paper explores the intersection between critical methodologies and Indigenous knowledge. It is especially concerned with the ways in which the metaphors associated with the bricoleur researcher – tools and production – conceptualize Indigenous knowledge to that of an ecology and environmental work. This limits the appreciation for and engagement with narrative, and the ways in which “ecological” knowledge is embedded in narrative practices and interpretive processes. The author puts the work of Anishinaabe novelist and theorist Gerald Vizenor in conversation with the writings of J. Kincheloe as a way not only to contrast the central metaphors in critical and Indigenous methodologies, but similarly to highlight the differences between a bricoleur language of research and an Aboriginal language of survivance.     

Problematising the role of the white researcher in social justice research

This article contributes to the debate on decolonising methodologies in qualitative research by considering how a white researcher can try and destabilise white supremacy when explicitly conducting research with social justice aims. It draws on data from a recent ethnographic study of minority ethnic pupils’ experiences in secondary schools in England and interrogates the tensions between the research aim to challenge racial stereotyping in education and issues of race and power emerging from the research process. This article investigates specifically the ways in which interaction is shaped by – frequently hidden, particularly to those privileged by them – structures of white supremacy. Developing an innovative analytical framework which draws on insights from both critical race theory and the work of Judith Butler, the researcher problematises issues of voice and representation in conducting social justice research. It is argued that an approach which engages with elements of both structural and post-structural theory allows a more critical exploration of white supremacy through an understanding of the performativity of race. The author works towards a possible research methodology which not only takes into account, but also tries to destabilise processes of white supremacy in research by both recognising participants’ efforts to do this, and trying to make researchers better able to take responsibility for their own complicity in perpetuating unequal racial structures. It is argued that such a recognition by white researchers will necessarily be an uncomfortable process.     

Teacher mediation of curriculum making: the role of reflexivity

This research explores curriculum making by teachers and offers a nuanced way of understanding these practices through the concept of reflexivity. The study draws from a collective case study of teachers in an online focus group, in order to identify and analyse diverse thinking on the curriculum making by teachers from Scotland and Wales. A WordPress® page was set up to generate both synchronous and asynchronous discussions over a period of five weeks to discuss curricular issues. Six teachers from Scotland and three teachers from Wales participated in the discussions. Data collection tools comprised iteratively designed interview questions and an Internal Conversation Indicator (ICONI), for indicating participants’ dominant mode of reflexivity. Data were analysed thematically, drawing from Margaret Archer’s theoretical constructs relating to reflexivity and internal conversation. Data analysis suggests that reflexivity provides a useful lens for understanding teachers’ particular approaches to curriculum making. The research suggests that curriculum making practices can be understood, at least partially, in relation to different modes of reflexivity. Further research is needed to substantiate these arguments and provide a richer picture of curriculum making.     

Reconstructing the internship program as a critical reflexive practice: the role of tutorship

Critical reflexivity has been acknowledged as fundamental in higher education. For facing complex situations in turbulent environments, students nowadays need not only to be taught technical knowledge, but also to be helped develop “relevant” learning for their future professional practice. In recent years, scholars have concentrated on what makes the internship experience a successful opportunity for the parties involved, and have also discussed the crucial role of a mentor/tutor in sustaining relevant and effective learning. However, the specific conditions that make tutorship successful in promoting critical reflexivity in such a boundary crossing experience need to be further explored. Aim of this paper is therefore to analyze what tutorship conditions sustain the development of critical reflexivity in internship. For this purpose, we will present the case study of an internship program run by one of the largest universities in northern Italy.     

Bourdieu,Practice and Change: Beyond the criticism of determinism

This article sets out to go beyond those criticisms that claim Bourdieu’s theory is structuralist determinism and identifies how change can be realized within a Bourdieusian framework. Starting with Bourdieu’s theory of practice, the first part of this article aims to develop an understanding of the interlocking relationship between capital, habitus and field. The review shows that the inability to anticipate change is arguably the most crucial weakness of the Bourdieusian framework. The second part examines Bourdieu’s attempts that seemingly challenge the determinist criticism: ‘reproduction strategy’, ‘reflexivity’ and ‘hysteresis effect’. By relocating these concepts in Bourdieu's grand social theory, it then becomes clear that change is attainable in Bourdieusian theory if we can successfully identify the ‘mismatch’ between the field and habitus that can trigger the awakening of consciousness, fully recognize the neglected, but equally important, methodical mode of habitus formation, which is ‘explicit pedagogy’, and strategically engage with an open system that provides new possibilities. By scrutinizing Bourdieu in his original texts, with an eye to finding the ‘hidden essence’, this article hopes to show the need to take a certain theoretical innovation, one that is clearly outside the habitual use of Bourdieu’s theory.     

21世纪初国际高等教育研究发展的动态及趋势

作者采用实证分析的方法研究了21世纪初国际高等教育研究的主题、研究的方法、分析层次、学术刊物以及作者分布,并简要分析了它们的特征.     

Learning in activity: exploring the methodological potential of action research in activity theorising of social practice

Cultural–historical activity theory (CHAT), founded on the seminal work of Vygotsky and evolving in the subsequent work of Leont’ev and Engeström, continues to emerge as a robust and increasingly widely used conceptual framework for the research and analysis of the complex social mediation of human learning and development. Yet there remains ongoing methodological ambiguity around its use in qualitative research and therefore questions regarding its effectiveness in fulfilling its intrinsic interventionist aspiration. Meta‐level research suggests that the primary methodology theorised for CHAT – Engeström’s development work research that is based on a highly localised developmental ethnography – is not in widespread application in CHAT‐based research. Instead, the majority of research employs an eclectic array of qualitative and quantitative methodologies and uses CHAT more as a heuristic device rather than engaging its more authentic interventionist motive. Given this, it is perhaps surprising there has been limited conceptualising around the prospective relationship between CHAT and action research, which remains largely under‐developed. This paper argues that action research may offer CHAT a legitimate and viable complementary interventionist methodology to investigate the increasingly complex environments of social activity, particularly given escalating expectations of more democratic and participatory modes of research engagement and social learning.     

Sexism,homophobia and transphobia in a sample of Italian pre-service teachers: the role of socio-demographic features

Although recent research has highlighted that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youths represent a resilient population, they still suffer from social stigma and oppression, being potentially at additional risk of developing negative mental health outcomes. One of the main environments where violence and harassment against this population are present is the school. Within school contexts, the impact that teachers can have on the educational experiences of LGBT youths seems to be a crucial point. This paper explored sexist, homophobic and transphobic attitudes among 438 pre-service teachers in relation to specific socio-demographic features. Results indicated that being male, heterosexual, conservative and currently religious were positively associated with sexist, homophobic, and transphobic attitudes and feelings, and having a LGBT friend was negatively associated with homophobic and transphobic attitudes and feelings. These results suggest the need to introduce specific training on the deconstruction of gender and sexual stereotypes and prejudices, to provide teachers with efficient tools to address diversity in the classrooms and to implement inclusive school policies. Suggestions for the implementation of good practices are provided.     

Tutor learning: the role of explaining and responding to questions

Previous research on peer tutoring has found that students sometimes benefit academically from tutoring other students. In this study we combined quantitative and qualitative analyses to explore how untrained peer tutors learned via explaining and responding to tutee questions in a non-reciprocal tutoring setting. In support of our hypotheses, we found that tutors learned most effectively when their instructional activities incorporated reflective knowledge-building in which they monitored their own understanding, generated inferences to repair misunderstandings, and elaborated upon the source materials. However, tutors seemed to adopt a knowledge-telling bias in which they primarily summarized the source materials with little elaboration. Tutors’ reflective knowledge-building activities, when they occurred, were more frequently elicited by interactions with their tutee. In particular, when tutees asked questions that contained an inference or required an inferential answer, tutors’ responses were more likely to be elaborative and metacognitive. Directions for future research are also discussed.     

Significant events and the role of emotion along doctoral researcher personal trajectories

ABSTRACT

Background

This study focuses on furthering the understanding of doctoral researcher development, through the examination of significant events and application of the trajectories analysis framework. Conducting doctoral studies requires a high level of cognitive, personal and emotional competency. Students experience positive and negative emotions that affect their confidence and their performance, in both their doctoral studies and their personal life.     

教育理论与实践的困境之思考

教育理论与实践的脱节造成了理论与实践的诸多困境:造成实践中对理论的遗忘、理论对实践的无效、盲目的实践以及书斋中的理论.困境的原因在于人们对理论、实践及其关系的诸多误解,以及由此导致的对理论与实践及其关系的不适当的立场、态度和行为.     

Facilitating democratic professional development: exploring the double role of being an academic action researcher

Abstract

This article focuses on the double role of the academic action researcher working as facilitator and researcher in democratic professional development projects. The inquiry is based on three partnership projects: ‘research circles’ in Sweden, ‘dialogue conferences’ in Norway and ‘tailored professional development’ in Finland. In a self-study and through the lens of practice architectures, we, as action researchers, explore how our practices are enabled and constrained in, as well as are enabling and constraining, professional development partnerships with teachers and educational leaders. A critical perspective is provided on how and what democratic practices evolve. The inquiry opens up understandings about how the academic action researcher’s practices entails multi-faceted ways of working to be able to accomplish different and somehow contradictory objectives, yet at the same time enacting democratic working methods. Furthermore, the act of recognition as a connecting aspect between prefiguring arrangements and evolving practices will be elaborated on to supplement perspectives offered by the theory of practice architectures.     

Emotions and teaching styles among academics: the mediating role of research and teaching efficacy

The key purpose of this research was to investigate the mediating role of academics’ self-efficacy in teaching and research (termed ‘academic self-efficacy’) in the relationship between emotions in teaching and teaching styles. Two hundred and thirty-two academics from 13 higher educational institutions in Shanghai, mainland China, responded to three self-report inventories, each assessing academics’ emotions in teaching, efficacy in teaching and research, and teaching styles, respectively. Results showed that academics’ emotions in teaching statistically predicted teaching styles, both directly and indirectly – through academic self-efficacy. Findings have enriched the literature on emotions in teaching, that on teaching styles, and that on teacher/academic self-efficacy. Practical implications are proposed in relation to academics and university senior managers.     

Campus climate: The role of teacher support and cultural issues

ABSTRACT

The literature on campus climate has mainly focused on diversity and demographic variables within single or multiple university campuses from one country. There is a need to investigate campus climate further with regard to cultural issues and the role of teachers. This study thus proposed to examine perceived teacher support as a mediator of the relation between institutional and psychosocial variables of the campus climate of two universities from two culturally distinct countries. To achieve this goal, 980 Brazilian and Portuguese university students answered the Institutional and Psychosocial Campus Climate Inventory. Findings showed significant differences in how students from two different countries described their campus climate and how both Brazilian and Portuguese students described their institutional climate more accurately than their psychosocial climate. Moreover, results from a mediation analysis revealed that perceived teacher support mediated the relationship between students’ perceptions of the institutional readiness of their university and their sense of well-being, as well as newcomer adjustment. A moderation analysis showed that the country of origin moderated the relationship between students’ perceived teacher support and newcomer adjustment. Implications for developing a positive campus climate are discussed.     

Turning Heads: changes in the preferred learning styles of school leaders and managers in the 1990s

The study focuses upon the learning style preferences of 310 school leaders and managers collected, on the basis of opportunity sampling, over the last 3 years (1991–94), and identifies a trend towards the activist learning style preference, and away from the reflector, theorist, and pragmatist preferences described by Honey & Mumford. It suggests that the trend is significant, and relates at least in part to the subjects’ responses to legislative, societal and cultural changes since the Education Reform Act, 1988. The paper concludes that there are increased pressures upon school leaders and managers to act, to act decisively, to act quickly, and to act in concert as whole school management teams, that such action has overall priority, and that this leads to a decrease in the perception that analysis, synthesis and planning are relevant and necessary functions in the leadership and management of schools.     

Integrating ICT to higher education in China: From the perspective of Activity Theory

This paper is based on a study that explored the relationship between the implementation of ICT pedagogy and the factors that influenced seven teachers of English for Business Purposes in Chinese higher education concerning their adoption of ICT into their teaching. Activity Theory was used as an analytical tool to investigate the relationships and to identify contradictions in their teaching systems that could lead to teachers’ implementation of a student-centred ICT pedagogy. The study revealed that the main potential driving force for change lay in the conflict between the deep-rooted teacher-centred pedagogy in the educational system and the student-centred pedagogy that accompanied the introduction of ICT. If teachers, curriculum developers and policy makers understood this conflict, this would enable them to concentrate on such issues as how to change the teacher-centred pedagogy to support both teaching and learning for improved learning achievements. Activity theory proved a powerful tool to analyse and understand the contradictions in an activity system. Changes in ICT related policy are recommended.     

The role of pre-game learning attitude in the prediction to competitive anxiety,perceived utility of pre-game learning of game,and gameplay interest

Educational games can be viewed in two ways, “learning to play” or “playing to learn.” The Chinese Idiom String Up Game was specifically designed to examine the effect of “learning to play” on the interrelatedness of players' gameplay interest, competitive anxiety, and perceived utility of pre-game learning (PUPGL). Data from 288 subjects were validated and analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Results indicated that players' pre-game learning attitude (PGLA) served positively to predict participants' gameplay interest and reflected a higher level of PUPGL of learning gameplay. PGLA was negatively correlated to competitive anxiety but was not significantly associated with players' PUPGL of learning gameplay. These results implied that by enhancing players' willingness to learn before engaging in a competitive game can contribute to increased gameplay interest and reduced competitive anxiety, thereby reinforcing the benefits of educational games.     

Quality education and the role of the teacher in Fiji: mobilising global and local values

Abstract

This article reports on the findings of original field research carried out in the small island developing state of Fiji, in the South Pacific. A North-South research partnership was built upon previous collaboration between team members and, in so doing, pioneered the blending of Pacific and Western research approaches sensitive to a postcolonial positioning. The study interrogates practitioner perspectives on: the nature and quality of teachers and teaching in Fiji; the challenges of teachers’ work and lives; priorities for successful qualitative reform; and theoretical implications for the processes of education policy transfer and qualitative improvement. The analysis draws upon work on the politics of aid and international development, revealing tensions between existing learner-centred policy frameworks and emergent neoliberal and performativity oriented initiatives influenced by international surveys of student achievement, related league tables and the experience of the regional reference societies of Australia, New Zealand and India.