Primary teachers’ self‐perceptions concerning implementation of the National Curriculum for science in the UK

This paper reports on selected aspects of data, with special reference to science, derived from a survey of primary school teachers as part of the Leverhulme Primary Project at the University of Exeter.

A national sample of teachers (N = 901) across 152 schools was surveyed in order to ascertain teachers’ perceptions of competence and needs with respect to the new National Curriculum in the UK. Initially, data were collected in relation to ten subject areas and generic teaching skills, with provision made for free‐form responses concerning National Curriculum implementation.

Selected aspects of these data, principally related to the National Curriculum core area of science, were subjected to detailed further analysis and are reported. Variables identified from the survey findings, and of concern to science educators, included early subject specialism, years of teaching and gender. These were probed for relationships and significance. The tension between competing National Curriculum requirements for specialist subject knowledge and generalist teaching skills was explored.

Findings have implications for innovation in approaches to staff development to cater for perceived needs, teacher educators and curriculum alignment.     

Australia’s Engagement with Asia in the National Curriculum

The 2014 national curriculum of Australia is a significant initiative that the Australian government has taken in proposing a curriculum that stresses Australia’s engagement with Asia. In practice, this means that Asian cultures, beliefs, environments and the connections between Australia and Asia are embedded in the learning processes of Australian schools. This article provides an analysis of Australia’s engagement with Asia, which is a cross-curriculum priority in the Australian curriculum. In particular, using the example of China, the article examines the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis involved in Australia’s engagement with Asia from an educational perspective, especially during the global pandemic with the spread of COVID-19 affecting the world so significantly. The intent of this analysis is to map out the educational factors involved and consider what might happen to Australian students and schools as a result of their engagement with the educational cultures, beliefs and practices of China. This is connected to the two countries’ economic engagements and people-to-people ties. By considering some of the current discourses that shape the Australia-China relationships, possibilities are opening up to rethink educational positions.     

Becoming a ‘learning nation’: what are South Africa's chances?

The article explores the possibilities for South Africa as a learning nation given its historical context and current attempts to transform its political and social structures. It argues that the satisfaction of international criteria by which a learning society is judged, will depend upon the acceptance and promotion of non‐formal educational processes throughout South Africa, given the damage done to the formal education system by the policy of apartheid between 1948 and 1988. Through a case study of transformational learning at the Mercedes Benz plant in the city of East London, the article explores the contribution that non‐formal education agencies can make (via the workplace) to the achievement of learning society status by South Africa. It argues that similar possibilities exist in other non‐formal learning contexts ranging from sports organizations to performing arts councils. The paper concludes that whilst South Africa is still far from qualifying as a learning nation, it has one of the most important pre‐requisites ‐ the political and societal will to develop a culture of learning in the country.     

Preschool Teachers’ Understandings of the National Preschool Curriculum in Greece

In 2003, a new curriculum was enacted in Greek preschool education, replacing the previous one of 1989 and following the development of new curricula for the other rungs of compulsory education. Within this context, the new curriculum development policy aimed at an equal integration of preschool education into the unified design of primary and secondary education. A basic issue in any such educational change is how teachers make sense of the new curriculum and what impact it has on their thinking and daily practice. Considering the need to better understand the relationships between curriculum and parameters that shape practice, the study examines preschool teachers’ perspectives of the new early childhood curriculum and its implementation, as well as the extent to which the new curriculum has influenced preschool practices.     

National Identity in a Multicultural Society: Malaysian Children’s Literature in English

This article explores the question of how children’s literature reflects national identity in a diverse society. Drawing parallels with Ellison’s Invisible Man, it speculates on how literary omissions and misrepresentations of diverse groups may influence the minds of young readers in their attitudes toward themselves, their nation, and others. In a sampling of the current children’s picture book literature of Malaysia in English, it relates current thinking in multiculturalist and post-colonial theory to the forms of multiculturalism found in these works. It examines this literature’s representations of history, diversity, class, gender, and values to determine who is represented, how they are portrayed, who is excluded, and what values are promoted, exploring what image of national identity this literature projects.

‘Every child's birthright’? Democratic entitlement and the role of canonical literature in the English National Curriculum

In the current government's ‘Great Books' approach to the National Curriculum for English lies an apparent desire for all school students to benefit from access to a shared ‘cultural heritage', where compulsory knowledge of Shakespeare and other canonical writers is in itself assumed to be a transformative and democratising process. With reference to qualitative classroom-based research focusing on year 9 and 10 students' experience of Shakespeare at Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4, this article questions that assumption. Drawing on classroom and interview data from two London comprehensive schools, it suggests that for many students it has been an experience that serves to exclude, a reproduction of existing socio-cultural differences. Ultimately, even in classrooms where teachers attempt to construct Shakespeare pedagogically as ‘active’, the process of reading may remain a passive one, where textual meanings are ultimately almost entirely mediated by teachers, mindful of ensuring all students are afforded ‘access’ to the text. This article argues that Shakespeare’s iconic status and the authority of the text thus remain largely intact, a disabling process for some students.     

Boundaries and selves in the making of ‘science’

Relying on ideas from practice theory and critical autobiography, I use this article first to tell, and then to analyse, a story about trying to publish a book whose contents are in some ways marginal to what is normally considered science or science education. During the publishing process, what counts as science got tangled up with what counts as “credible” science, “marketable” literature, and academic competence. As a result, a book and a person (me) dedicated to expanding the boundaries of science also became contributors to those very same boundaries.     

‘To go boldly’: teaching science fiction to first-year engineering students in a South African context

This paper reflects on the teaching of science fiction texts to first-year engineering students at the University of the Witwatersrand as part of a Critical Thinking course that uses literature as a vehicle through which to develop competence in critical literacy and communication. This course aims to equip engineering students, as future intermediaries between science and society, with the ability to fulfil this role in both the contemporary global world and South Africa more specifically through the imaginative inhabitation of divergent subject positions afforded by literary texts. Science fiction encourages students to engage imaginatively with various societal ideas, constructs and possibilities. One of the principles of the course is that reading facilitates empathic responses, challenging readers to inhabit unfamiliar subject positions. In this way, the teaching of science fiction aims to develop self-reflective and critical learning practices, wherein engineering students grapple with the ethical ramifications of extrapolated known science in a South African context.     

‘All things are in flux’: China in global science

Higher Education - Since 1990, a large and dynamic global science system has evolved, based on grass roots collaboration, and resting on the resources, infrastructure and personnel housed by...     

Whatever happened to entitlement in the National Curriculum?

ABSTRACT

In this article I recount the origins of the concept of entitlement in relation to the com‐ pulsory curriculum, particularly the government position (DES, 1987) as stated in the proposal for a National Curriculum. I suggest that the term ‘entitlement’ was then in clanger of being little more than a legitimating shibboleth, employed to lend authority to an educational programme that was substantially political rather than educational. With reference to my own doctoral research, and to subsequent National Curriculum developments, I observe that the passing of a decade has lent weight to this view, even as Sir Ron Dearing's major review (SCAA, 1994) continued to make various claims for entitlement being conveyed upon children.     

Can the subaltern ‘speak’ science? An intersectional analysis of performances of ‘talking science through muscular intellect’ by ‘subaltern’ students in UK urban secondary science classrooms

Cultural Studies of Science Education - This paper draws on Judith Butler’s concepts of intelligibility and identity as performance to make sense of enactments of ‘subaltern’...     

‘Pastoral Care’ as Curriculum Discourse: a study in the reformation of ‘academic’ schooling

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the significance of the recent development of pastoral care as a distinct category of secondary school provision. It argues that existing accounts of the rise of pastoral care fail to take on board the relationship between changes in the school curriculum and their wider context. It also suggests that the separation and construction of pastoral care as distinct from the ‘academic’ is only one dimension of, and can only be understood in the context of, a changing curriculum. Pastoral care is not a ‘new’ area, but results from, and was made possible by, a reformulation and fragmentation of what counts as ‘academic’. Finally, it proposes that this consolidation of social/personal concerns under the category of ‘pastoral care’ acquired particular significance in response to tensions created through the reorganization of secondary schooling. Pastoral care provided the means by which the contradictions embedded within comprehensivization could be reconciled.     

Enquiry-based science in the infant classroom: ‘letting go’

Enquiry-based science in primary classrooms is key to encouraging children's interest and curiosity about the world around them and as a result helps to stimulate their understanding and enjoyment of science. Yet many primary teachers lack the confidence to implement enquiry-based approaches effectively. The reasons are myriad and often result in the teacher controlling and orchestrating the lesson leaving little room for children's exploration and autonomy. This paper explores how one infant school teacher was willing to relinquish control and ‘let go’ and expand her pedagogical repertoire to manage the many obstacles to including enquiry-based science in her classroom. The autonomy the children were given resulted in genuine enquiry-based science with the consequential benefit to their learning. Furthermore the teacher's confidence and self-efficacy seem to have been raised ensuring that that she would continue to include enquiry-based science as part of her practice in the future. As a model for other primary teachers this approach could help them overcome their reticence to engage with enquiry-based science.     

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.     

Inclusion of ‘generations of human rights’ in social science textbooks

The ‘Generations of Human Rights’ (GHR) classified ‘rights’ in terms of the interests they protect and to law and legislation related to Human Rights (HR) policies. First GHR are civil and political rights, the second GHR are socio-economic and cultural rights, and the third GHR are collective and solidarity rights. This article examines the inclusion of the GHR through conceptual content analysis from current primary and secondary school social science textbooks in India. The results of the study show that GHR are explicitly and implicitly included more at secondary than primary school level. The political science and history textbooks at the secondary level generally indicate a higher instance of implicit and explicit inclusion of GHR. The null inclusion (completely missing) of GHR is more at the primary school level. In addition, while the first GHR are more explicitly included, the second GHR shows weak explicit inclusion and the third GHR is the weakest although there are many opportunities to include third GHR in social science textbooks.