Globalisation,Qualifications and Livelihoods: The case of Zimbabwe

This article explores how globalisation has impacted on the demand and nature of qualifications and livelihoods in Zimbabwe. It argues that while economic globalisation has had an influence on the labour market, particularly through economic reforms such as the Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes, colonial legacies continue to influence education and training in Zimbabwe. The article observes that although access to education has increased phenomenally since the attainment of political independence, this has not significantly solved unemployment and the reduction of poverty as new challenges have surfaced. The information and communications technology revolution that characterises globalisation has changed the skill and knowledge requirements for most jobs, leading to the need for continuous retraining and the improvement of one's qualifications. Yet qualifications have no impact on the availability of employment opportunities since these depend on the prevailing economic situation. The article comes to the conclusion that while globalisation has created new opportunities through liberalised economic systems, it has mainly benefited industrialised countries with more stable economies. For developing countries such as Zimbabwe, it has had a negative impact since it has led to retrenchments, weakening of the informal sector, increased consumer prices and a general decline in living standards.     

Economic Liberalisation,Qualifications and Livelihoods in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka experienced a rapid expansion of population in the first few decades following Independence in 1948. Population growth far outstripped the rate of growth of the economy which remained mostly dependent on primary production for export and domestic consumption. Introduction of universal free education pre-dated political independence and led to rapid school enrolments. In a slow-growth economy, dominated by state enterprises, education became the main avenue of upward social mobility for many underprivileged young people. Increasing competition for education and white-collar employment in the then dominant state sector in the 1960s and the 1970s necessitated policy interventions that were not necessarily fair to all competing social and ethnic groups. In the late 1970s, the policy focus shifted from education to liberal economic reforms aimed at generating economic growth and employment creation. Early gains in terms of economic expansion were slowed down by the ethnic conflict that erupted in 1983 and continues to retard economic development in the country. While the affluent strata continue to gain from the open economic and liberal educational environment in terms of income and lucrative employment opportunities, many young people from lower social strata who possess conventional paper qualifications live in despair looking for scarce white-collar jobs. Those who have resources to invest in overseas training and/or foreign qualifications are in an advantaged position in the competition for private and transnational sector employment.     

Complex Systems and Educational Change: Towards a new research agenda

How might we usefully apply concepts and procedures derived from the study of other complex dynamical systems to analyzing systemic change in education? In this article we begin to define possible agendas for research toward developing systematic frameworks and shared terminology for such a project. We illustrate the plausibility of defining such frameworks and raise the question of the relation between such frameworks and the crucial task of aggregating data across ‘systemic experiments’, such as those conducted under the Urban Systemic Initiative sponsored by the US National Science Foundation. Our discussion includes a review of key issues identified by groups of researchers regarding (1) Defining the System, (2) Structural Analysis, (3) Relationships Among Subsystems and Levels, (4) Drivers for Change, and (5) Modeling Methods.     

On Food,Farming and Land Management: Towards a research agenda to reconnect urban and rural lives

Science education has a key role to play in helping people to develop their understanding of the local and global dimensions of food, farming and land management. Based on a review of the literature on what is known about young people’s (3–19) views towards and learning about these topics, a research agenda is outlined for consideration by the science education research community.     

Globalisation and Education in the Postcolonial World: Towards a conceptual framework

The article examines the relevance of existing accounts of globalisation and education for low income, postcolonial countries, with special reference to the education systems of sub-Saharan Africa. Using recent developments in globalisation theory, existing accounts are analysed in relation to their view of the origins, nature and future trajectory of globalisation and the implications for education. It is argued that most of the recent literature deals with Western industrialised countries and the newly industrialised countries of the Pacific Rim and therefore has limited relevance for low income countries. The literature that is concerned with low income countries often lacks a firm theoretical basis and has been limited to a discussion of the impact of economic globalisation on education. Drawing on recent work on the political economy of development and the state in Africa, the article sets out a conceptual framework for understanding various aspects of the education/globalisation relationship in low income, postcolonial countries including economic, political and cultural aspects.     

Teacher Leadership: towards a research agenda

This article explores the emerging discourse about teacher leadership in the UK. It draws upon the international literature in exploring a classification of forms of teacher leadership and discusses issues concerned with the policy context. It considers some theoretical perspectives on distributed leadership before going on to examine in detail a possible framework of factors affecting teachers' capacity to exercise leadership. Finally it puts forward a proposal for research.     

Towards a meta-research agenda in science and enviormental educaion

Abstract

This paper begins by establishing the existence of a debate in the broader educational community about the nature, meaning and significance of educational research, and its recognition that different approaches to educational research do not simply represent different strategies for data collection but rest on and express different ideologies that implicate different political attitudes among teachers, students, subject‐matters,schools, support agencies and researchers themselves. Evidence can be seen that this debate is beginning to appear in the science education literature and it is believed that the arguments can be extended.

It is argued that research in science education and environmental education needs to consider methodology in the political terms of ideology, rather than simply in the technical terms of method and technique. Some of the recent thinking about the politics of method in both science education and environmental education, is then considered briefly and a number of meta‐research questions are proffered that might focus further attention on the political theory of research in these two fields.     

Higher education and its communities: Interconnections, interdependencies and a research agenda

Universities everywhere are being forced to carefully reconsider their role in society and to evaluate the relationships with their various constituencies, stakeholders, and communities. In this article, stakeholder analysis is put forward as a tool to assist universities in classifying stakeholders and determining stakeholder salience. Increasingly universities are expected to assume a third mission and to engage in interactions with industrial and regional partners. While incentive schemes and government programmes try to encourage universities to reach out more to external communities, some important barriers to such linkages still remain. To fulfil their obligation towards being a socially accountable institution and to prevent mission overload, universities will have to carefully select their stakeholders and identify the ‘right’ degree of differentiation. For the university, thinking in terms of partnerships with key stakeholders has important implications for its governance and accountability arrangements. For the future of the universities we foresee a change towards networked governance and arrangements to ensure accountability along the lines of corporate social responsibility. In order to further explore some of these concepts and to empirically investigate the tendencies suggested here, this article proposes an ambitious research agenda for tackling the emerging issues of governance, stakeholder management and higher education’s interaction with society.     

Globalisation and educational research: Whose context counts?

This paper relates contemporary educational research to processes of globalisation. While the activity of educational research is essentially cultural, its production is also economic. As global research agenda emerge, the cultural contexts of those who generate funds and ideas for them are increasingly remote from those in a position to utilise research for the promotion of learning.This paper examines two bodies of research in international education located at very different points in the educational research hierarchy. The first, educational assessment, is extensive and accessible to a worldwide audience of researchers, policy-makers and practitioners in education. The second, multigrade teaching, is small, dispersed and accessible only to those who exercise a dogged persistence.The review of educational assessment underlines the need for a greater contextualisation of research and a greater sensitivity to the context of research by global policy-makers. It raises imperatives for the future conduct of research on educational assessment and international education more generally, and identifies areas for future research on the reciprocal effects of globalisation and educational assessment. The review of multigrade teaching describes briefly what multigrade teaching is, its extent, its relative neglect by researchers and policy-makers, and differences in the economic and educational contexts of the North and the South of the multigrade debate.     

Curiosity, interest and engagement in technology-pervasive learning environments: a new research agenda

This paper identifies the need for developing new ways to study curiosity in the context of today’s pervasive technologies and unprecedented information access. Curiosity is defined in this paper in a way which incorporates the concomitant constructs of interest and engagement. A theoretical model for curiosity, interest and engagement in new media technology-pervasive learning environments is advanced, taking into consideration personal, situational and contextual factors as influencing variables. While the path associated with curiosity, interest, and engagement during learning and research has remained essentially the same, how individuals tackle research and information-seeking tasks and factors which sustain such efforts have changed. Learning modalities for promoting this theoretical model are discussed leading to a series of recommendations for future research. This article offers a multi-lens perspective on curiosity and suggests a multi-method research agenda for validating such a perspective.     

Education for Sustainable Development and retention: unravelling a research agenda

This paper considers the question of what education for sustainable development (ESD) research might signify when linked to the concept of “retention”, and how this relation (ESD and retention) might be researched. It considers two different perspectives on retention, as revealed through educational research trajectories, drawing on existing research and case studies. Firstly, it discusses an ESD research agenda that documents retention by focusing on the issue of keeping children in schools. This research agenda is typical of the existing discourses surrounding Education for All (EFA). It then discusses a related ESD research agenda that focuses more on the pedagogical and curricular aspects of retention, as this provides for a deeper understanding of how ESD can contribute to improving the quality of teaching and learning within a wider EFA retention agenda.     

Spillover effects in environmental behaviors,across time and context: a review and research agenda

When implementing environmental education and interventions to promote one pro-environmental behavior, it is seldom asked if and how non-target pro-environmental behaviors are affected. The spillover effect proposes that engaging in one behavior affects the probability of engagement or disengaging in a second behavior. Therefore, the positive spillover effect predicts that interventions targeting one specific behavioral have the capacity to promote non-targeted and/or future pro-environmental behaviors. However, the negative spillover effect predicts that engaging in a first pro-environmental behavior will prevent or decrease a second pro-environmental behavior. Since the theoretical and empirical basis for positive and negative spillover effects are not sufficiently understood, the present paper (1) suggests a distinction between behavioral, temporal, and contextual spillovers (2) reviews the existing spillover research literature across a variety of environmental domains, (3) presents potential moderators governing the direction of spillover effects, and finally (4) discuss techniques to promote pro-environmental spillovers.     

Stress among higher education students: towards a research agenda

This article has two primary aims. Firstly, it provides a critical review of previous studies into student stress and identifies several important issues that, as yet, have not been explored. There has been no consideration of the effect of students maturing during their studies on the stress that they experience and how they cope with that stress. Secondly, the article highlights limitations in the past and present literature base, where there has been a concentration on a quantitative approach, and focus on a narrow range of subject groups. There is also a need to undertake longitudinal research to investigate individuals’ stress experiences during the period they study at university. Overall the key assertion here is that thus far research into student stress has not offered a complete account and explanation of students’ stress experiences.     

Teachers and teacher education: a call for a renewed sociological research agenda

This article provides an overview of the main sociological approaches applicable to the study and analysis of teaching, teachers and teacher education. Analytical perspectives from sociology are then compared to research on teachers from two other disciplines, education economics and educational psychology, which have produced the lion’s share of recent research on teachers. In the article’s final section, recent results are reported from surveys of student teachers and teachers in two Nordic countries, Denmark and Finland, to exemplify the importance of institutional and other contextual variables for the study of teachers and teaching. The article ends with a plea for a renewed sociological research agenda that studies teachers and teacher education.     

Religion and the global middle class: towards a new research agenda

ABSTRACT

This essay discusses the role of religion as a central facet when researching the emerging social group – the global middle class (GMC). It is argued here that religion is a particularly relevant feature for the constitution of this social group because of the GMC’s transnational and cosmopolitan character. In this essay, I will draw on several examples focused on Islamic education provision in Western, pre-dominantly Christian societies to illustrate why and how religion should become critical to our study of the GMC. The essay’s central argument is that there remains a gap in research related to the role of religion in the making and practising of the GMC as a social group. I conclude by proposing a future research agenda that addresses the intersections of religion, education, and the GMC on an individual, national, and global level.