Referents for changing a science curriculum: A case study of one teacher's change in beliefs

This interpretive investigation of curricular change involved Karl, a middle school science teacher. Initially, he made sense of his and student roles in terms of objectivism and the teacher having control. When Karl had opportunities to observe the teaching of a colleague he began to consider changes in his teaching. The referents used to frame alternative teacher and student roles were students having greater autonomy for their actions and constructivism. However, constraints, such as shortage of time and beliefs of colleagues and students favored the retention of traditional practices. Although Karl's commitment to change was sufficiently strong to ensure that changes would be attempted, old belief sets and associated practices, restraints, and new belief sets and associated practices co-existed in a dialectical relationship. Effecting meaningful change necessitated teacher learning and sustaining of new equilibria between a complex array of interacting sociocultural factors.     

Occupational stereotyping by hearing impaired and hearing people: experiences of a comparative survey

ABSTRACT

The problems of preparing hearing impaired people for adult life and for productive work have not yet been properly solved in Hungary. The main reasons can be found in the old tradition of segregated education for people with disabilities. The political changes of 1990 and the economic reforms have not brought about any favourable changes. A nationwide, comparative survey dealing with vocational prejudices and attitudes concerning hearing persons and hearing impaired persons showed that the vocational knowledge and expectations of the latter group is not satisfactory, their information is uncertain and that they have prejudices against themselves ‐ that is, they suppose that high‐prestige professions are not available to them. Deaf persons are even more prejudiced than hard of hearing persons.     

Centrifugal schooling: third sector policy networks and the reassembling of curriculum policy in England

This article examines changes in curriculum policy in secondary education in England. It is concerned with recent curriculum policy and reform, and the proliferation of non-government actors in curriculum policy creation. It examines the emergence of a loose alliance of third sector organisations and their involvement in a series of alternative ‘curriculum experiments’. The third sector curriculum policy network revolves around a policy vision of decentralisation constituted by public–private partnership, media-friendliness, social enterprise and an ‘open source’ or network-based organisational logic. It assembles a policy ideal of ‘centrifugal schooling’ which links together ideas about ‘networked governance’ with ‘flexible’ learning and ‘entrepreneurial’ curricula. The article traces and discusses some of the inter-organisational relations, materials and discourses of the third sector network of alternative curriculum policy developments, and provides a case study of a prototypical third sector curriculum programme. It examines the organisational relations and practices by which the project was produced and the conditions leading to its failure.     

Pupils,Recipe Knowledge,Curriculum and the Cultural Production of Class,Ethnicity and Patriarchy: a critique of one teacher's practices

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to further elaborate processes of teacher socialisation and to explore their implications for a critical theory of schooling. Employing a radical humanist paradigm (Burrell & Morgan, 1981), and in delimited fashion, it attempts to elucidate multi‐dimensional processes of chalkfacial negotiation— in a school where the pupils’ ‘parent culture’ is Jewish, bourgeoise and patriarchal; and the teacher is a non‐Jewish, home economist. As such, the paper is a study of a non‐'unidirectional’ intercultural classroom where the ‘parent society’ is not officially fenced out of the school’ unlike, for example, the Cherokee (Dumont & Wax, 1969) or the working class. As a critical case, despite and because of its anthropological strangeness, it hopefully metaphorically illumines processes that all teachers, especially ‘cleanworkers’, experience.     

The International Baccalaureate Career Programme: a case study of college and career readiness policy goals

The International Baccalaureate (IB) is noted in school reform policy circles as the gold standard of academic excellence. While the presence of IB as a sought-after education vendor has grown in the past decade, the organization has attempted to shake off its image as an elite agency serving only private international schools with its longstanding liberal arts curriculum. As such its turn toward the public sector in the United States with a credential for vocational students appears perplexing and out of step with its product brand, but the newer Career Programme (CP) is marketed as meeting the needs of applied learners in secondary schools. This paper offers a case study of two schools in one US state that adopted the CP, generating IB school enrollments from among talented vocational students while elevating its ranking on the college and career readiness (CCR) score, an annual assessment of postsecondary success. The CCR policy reformers advocate curricular improvements so that all students receive the academic foundations and employability skills needed to thrive in the new economy. Yet the egalitarian discourse of CCR could not be attended to using the CP. In this case study only high-achieving students were advised to participate and enroll in the program.     

Behavioural and emotional problems in hearing impaired children: a preliminary study of teacher and parent ratings

A case study of what appears to be an inclusive classroom in Sweden is reported. The group of children in the class studied was very heterogeneous: five of the 15 children had a disability diagnosis at the time of the study. One aim of the study was to develop a methodology which can be used in order to investigate in what sense classrooms are ‘inclusive’, especially as regards the point of view of the pupils. It is argued that an explicit definition of characteristics of inclusive classrooms and clear‐cut methods to study those characteristics are necessary prerequisites in order to reach valid conclusions concerning what teaching strategies are central to inclusive processes. The data consist of interviews with the teachers and children involved, sociograms, a questionnaire answered by the children, notes from participant observations and poetry by the children. The analyses suggest that the classroom seems to be inclusive, although it is emphasised that this is not an all‐or‐none phenomenon, especially children's experiences are complex phenomena. It is argued that the teachers try to create a learning community where differences are valued. Six teacher strategies emerged from the data.     

Alternative models of schooling: Budget reallocation and policy change

Based on previous conclusions that current models of schooling have become obsolete, two major issues have developed. The first is the technical aspects of design and examples of design specifications; the second is the issue of financing the research, development and implementation of new processes of schooling. A change of paradigm offers an improvable model of instruction. Specific recommendations are made for funding necessary programmatic research and development leading to a greater exploitation of technology. It is argued that educational problems cannot be solved by quick-fix policy changes; research and development programs are critical. Alternative means of financing the research are suggested.     

Community,philosophy and education policy: against effectiveness ideology and the immiseration of contemporary schooling

Contemporary education policy is dominated by a seriously flawed intellectual framework (school effectiveness) which will inevitably fail as a means of educating persons for the 21st century or, indeed, any other. Drawing on the work of the Scottish philosopher, John Macmurray, the paper sets out not only to understand why this is so, but also to offer a positive alternative in its place, namely, transformative or person-centred education. Central to this endeavour is an emancipatory, inclusive notion of community and a complementary understanding of its relation to the necessary demands of organizational and functional life.     

听障儿童鼻音功能低下矫治个案研究

为探讨鼻音功能低下患儿鼻腔共鸣障碍的矫治训练的有效方法。实验对一名鼻音功能低下的听障儿童进行鼻腔共鸣障碍矫治训练,采用捏鼻试验监测患儿鼻音功能并且采用单一被试法对鼻腔共鸣障碍矫治前后的鼻流量数据进行统计分析,以监测训练效果。经矫治后患儿捏鼻试验发鼻音时鼻翼两侧有明显振动感,矫治前后鼻流量值差异有显著统计学意义(P<0.01)。鼻腔共鸣法、增加鼻音训练对于鼻音功能低下有很好的疗效。     

Game-based career learning support for youth: effects of playing the Youth@Work game on career adaptability

Choosing a career is one of the most important decisions that youth has to take but many young people find this a hard issue to engage with. Current career counselling practice does not appear very compelling or motivating to young people. Professional games could provide a more engaging and motivating way of acquiring professional awareness and competence for career decision making and learning. We present the design and effects of playing a game that aims to increase career awareness and adaptabilities in youth (13–19 years). In a Randomized Controlled Trial, 93 high school students from Iceland and Romania were asked to carry out career-oriented activities, with half playing an interactive game and the other half performing a paper-and-pencil version of the same activities. The students were compared on career adaptability, career learning and career awareness scores before and after these interventions. Main results show that engaging players in these career-oriented activities has short term effects on outcome scores for career adaptabilities and for perceptions of career learning competences. Students who played the game report significantly faster growth on career adaptabilities that deal with “concern”, “control” and “confidence”. It can therefore be concluded that introducing game-based learning in career decision support for youth is a promising endeavour.     

Collaborative action research on the learning and teaching of algebra: a story of one mathematics teacher's development

This paper presents the story of a mathematics teacher's transformation that resulted from her engagement in collaborative action research. The collaborative research, conducted by a university mathematics educator and an eighth-grade mathematics teacher (Marylin), centered on investigating the outcomes of implementing a Hands-On Equations approach to teaching algebra. This algebraic study, which is briefly reported herein, serves as a vehicle for examining the questions, reflections, and changes brought forth by Marylin throughout the collaborative process. Thus, the project of investigating the teaching and learning of algebra can be viewed as the sub-study within the broader study of the effects of collaborative action research on the mathematics teacher involved in the investigation. Within this paper, issues related to the broader study of collaborative action research in the mathematics classroom, that are connected to Marylin's transformation, are discussed. These issues include the characterization of and goals for collaborative action research as well as the challenges for collaborative action research in mathematics classrooms.This revised version was published online in September 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A qualitative approach to the study of a teacher's beliefs

This article describes a qualitative study of the beliefs and principles of one science teacher. The study employs the Repertory Grid Technique of Kelly (The psychology of personal constructs, New York: Norton, 1955). This technique is illustrated thoroughly by the case study, and ample segments from an interview with the teacher concerned are provided. All relevant information obtained from working with this teacher is used to establish the dominant beliefs held by her. The significance of the study is argued within the framework of curriculum and instructional innovation and implementation.     

Mobilities of policy and mobile parents – creating a new dynamic in policy borrowing within state schooling

ABSTRACT

In this article, we focus on the transformations imposed on schools by individual parents, arguing that schools as modern organisations change not only through top-down pressures orchestrated by an array of international organisations, for-profit companies and media as shown in previous research, but also through the agency of mobile parents, who seek to import reforms from elsewhere, based on their previous schooling experiences abroad. We focus on a specific group of middle class parents, who are continuously mobile, moving between global cities for employment. This paper brings into the discussion the role of individual parental strategies as they seek to promote education policy-borrowing. By applying the theoretical lens of stakeholder identification and salience, using a multi case study research design, we suggest that parents express high levels of power, legitimacy and a sense of urgency, thus being able to successfully advocate for change. We argue that while exploring organisational reform occurring due to the globalisation of education, we must view parents as central actors in this new space.