Autistic young people’s experiences of transitioning to adulthood following the Children and Families Act 2014

Changes to special educational needs and disability (SEND) legislation in England were implemented in 2014. Here, we evaluate the impact of these changes from the perspective of 80 autistic young people aged 16–25 years. Using an online survey and/or interviews, we examined young people’s views on three key principles of the SEND reforms: the help and support provided to them; whether they were given a say in the choices and support that they were offered; and their satisfaction with their educational journeys and outcomes. The results paint a mixed picture. Our sample of young people reported varied experiences regarding the help and support they received, and how much of a say they had regarding the choices and support available to them. The types of schooling they accessed played a role here: young people in mainstream schools highlighted particular challenges in accessing appropriate support, while many young people in special schools said they felt well supported. Parental advocacy was crucial for all young people, as was having key ‘champions’ in the form of teachers who really knew them well. The need for the development of general life and self-advocacy skills was apparent, however, especially in preparing the young people for life after school. Encouragingly, most of our participants were generally happy with their current situation, despite identifying several areas for further improvement. Overall, the results highlight the importance of listening to—and learning from—autistic young people, throughout their educational journeys and especially as they transition to adulthood.     

Inquiry as a Members’ Phenomenon: Young Children as Competent Inquirers

Understanding children’s inquiry often draws on exogenous understanding (i.e., scientists’ inquiry, classroom expectations) without first understanding inquiry in children’s everyday lives. In contrast, we examine young children’s inquiry in their families to better understand their competent engagement in inquiry. Specifically, we develop an endogenous representation of inquiry as a members’ phenomenon (IMP)—a representation formulated by participants in the course of their own activity. IMP highlights key moments in inquiry—beginning by orienting to inquiry, making progress by drawing on sensemaking resources, and orienting to ending inquiry. This representation also allows us to recognize evidence of young children’s competence in managing interactional, affective, and epistemic challenges inherent in these key moments of inquiry; the diverse array of sensemaking resources through which children address those challenges; and a range of children’s interests and concerns addressed within their inquiry. Furthermore, IMP provides a prism for reconceptualizing learning from learners’ perspective: attending to how participants orient to a moment of inquiry, inquire together, and come to what counts to them as a satisfactory end to their inquiry. This representation of inquiry is an important step in basic learning sciences research and informative for the design of science and other domain learning environments.     

Sex,Male Teachers and Young Children

The recent case of a male student nursery nurse found guilty of sexually abusing children brought into focus the absence of policies on men working with young children in schools regarding such issues as how to handle physical contact, intimacy and masculinity, their female colleagues and the children in their care. This means individual male teachers have to construct their own frameworks in which to work ‘safely’ with children. If male teachers and children are to work together within a protective and supportive environment, issues involving sex and masculinity need to be given a forum for discussion.     

Vocational education and training and the therapeutic turn

The concept of ‘therapeutic education’ is being increasingly used in contemporary education policy studies to identify learning initiatives which are dominated by objectives linked to personal and social skills, emotional intelligence and building self‐esteem. Contemporary educational goals connected with such strategies have been criticised for encouraging a ‘victim culture’ which marginalises learners and replaces the pursuit of knowledge and understanding with the development of personal values relevant to a life of social, cultural and economic risk and uncertainty. In relation to vocational education and training (VET) and post‐school policy trends in particular, Hayes has argued that preparation for work has abandoned vocational/occupational knowledge and skills in favour of providing learners with personal skills for emotional labour in low‐level service jobs. This paper interrogates such analyses and questions whether the therapeutic role of VET really is incompatible with the traditional objectives of developing knowledge, understanding and values in work environments. Links are made between new emphases on work‐based learning and the ‘caring’ conceptions of learning in post‐school education. It is concluded that—although therapy should not dominate VET—an attention to the important values dimension of learning in the field does involve a therapeutic dimension of some kind.     

Formations of Mexicana ness: Trenzas de identidades multiples Growing up Mexicana : Braids of multiple identities

As California's complexion and social panorama changes in color and class so must the directions for writing ethnicity and social analysis. This qualitative study seeks to break out of paradigmatic insulation by proposing innovative perspectives and directions for creating subversive narratives about our own realities. It also seeks to inform current social analysis about Mexicana quality of life and about educationalpolicy on Mexicana educacion (education of the whole person) and school cultures. This article examines how Mexicana identities are created, shaped, and developed through the construction of narratives. I interpret these with the analytical tools of trenzas that ''braids'' critical race theory and multidimensional feminist frames, platicas (popular conversations) and cultural intuition, and the engagement of myself, the researcher, and the young Mexicanas participating in the study. By claiming our space and voicing our feelings and meanings about language, Aztlan culture and identity, and womanhood, we correct stereotypic representations that render Mexicanas vulnerable and dismissed from U.S. civic life and public education. In light of the missing discourse about young Mexicana identity formations, this research makes possible trenzas ''braids'' of multiple identities and tools for transforming educational research, curriculum, and the building of education partnerships.     

‘Just don’t tell them what’s in it’: Ethics,edible insects and sustainable food choice in schools

Supporting young people with global crises mitigation strategies is essential, yet loaded with ethical dilemmas for the educator. This study explores whether young people will make ethical decisions regarding the sustainability of food choice in schools, and based on the processes identified, what educators’ needs are in supporting transformative learning. This study is the first of its kind, where young people under the age of 14 have been tasting edible insects and discussing their role in a more sustainable diet. The article draws on mixed-method research with over 180 young people and their teachers in three schools in Wales and examines responses to a possible introduction of edible insects into school canteens. Highlighted is the complexity of sustainable food choices—likely to be identifiable with other young people and educators in western countries. The article considers how educators and policy makers may need to frame routes to positive sustainable action and the associated impacts these may have on personal, social, political and environmental spheres.     

Emotional pedagogy and the gendering of social and emotional learning

Social and emotional learning (SEL) has predominantly been conceptualised as a neurological process, which has precluded understanding of how social, cultural and material discourses inform the expression of emotional experiences. Gender remains a notable omission. This article explores the micro-practices through which gender structures the development of young people’s emotional subjectivities within the context of a school-based SEL intervention. Particular emphasis is placed on the gendering strategies utilised by educational professionals during the course of their emotional pedagogy. Three strategies are considered: the overt coercion of girls to demonstrate their learning; the permission of boys’ passivity, with their docile bodies being indicated as a signifier of participation; and the restricting of occasions for emotional expression in accordance with perceived gender norms. Efforts to inculcate students with a gendered emotional subjectivity mean that differential learning opportunities are on offer, raising concerns about the introduction of new forms of gendered educational inequalities.     

Friendships for wellbeing?: parents’ and practitioners’ positioning of young children’s friendships in the evaluation of wellbeing factors

ABSTRACT

Friendship matters for young children’s development, learning and experience of wellbeing. This paper emphasises the significance of young children’s friendships for their wellbeing, especially in the context of early years settings. Findings are presented from two online questionnaires developed for the project, in which 155 parents/carers and 285 practitioners in England expressed their perceptions of what matters for young children’s wellbeing. Data shows some ambivalence in the views of both parents/carers and practitioners about the importance of friendship in this context. Both groups gave low prioritisation to ‘the company of friends’ for children’s wellbeing. As friendships are of central importance to young children themselves, this could suggests that adults and children may have different priorities, which raises questions about the extent to which young children’s friendships are seen as important by adults. The paper concludes by proposing the need for practitioners in particular, but also parents, to consider their roles and priorities for children’s lives within schools and nurseries, including how they might sensitively support and facilitate children’s friendships in play, activities, transition and everyday life.     

Conceptualizing Debates in Learning and Educational Research: Toward a Complex Systems Conceptual Framework of Learning

This article proposes a conceptual framework of learning based on perspectives and methodologies being employed in the study of complex physical and social systems to inform educational research. We argue that the contexts in which learning occurs are complex systems with elements or agents at different levels—including neuronal, cognitive, intrapersonal, interpersonal, cultural—in which there are feedback interactions within and across levels of the systems so that collective properties arise (i.e., emerge) from the behaviors of the parts, often with properties that are not individually exhibited by those parts. We analyze the long-running cognitive versus situative learning debate and propose that a complex systems conceptual framework of learning (CSCFL) provides a principled way to achieve a theoretical rapprochement. We conclude with a consideration of more general implications of the CSCFL for educational research.     

English as a Site of Evangelical Contact: A Critical Ethnography of Missionary English Teaching between South and North Koreans

ABSTRACT

Drawing from a larger ethnography of North Korean young adults learning English in Christian educational programs in South Korea, this article explores the power relations between evangelicals and minority people and the political economy of missionary English teaching. This article follows Christian educational programs that provided various forms of resources—including English teaching—to North Korean young adults to examine how access to resources was regulated in relation to learner identity. Building on the sociolinguistic framework of political economy of language and emerging research on religion and second language learning, this study illustrates the integration of Christianity and English, and the intersection of religion, nationalism, and neoliberalism. The findings elucidate how English works as a secular resource in religious spaces, thus serving as a site of religious contact between people of divergent goals. Issues of professional ethics are also discussed.     

The sensorium and fleshy schools

As places of learning, schools inevitably foreground cognition. Neglected in schools and in the literature is the body, often an inconvenience or barrier to learning rather than a site of perception and understanding. Where the body is considered, it is primarily concerned with pedagogy and children rather than analysing the broad range of embodied experience: teachers' sensuous experience is side-lined; classrooms are central, with toilets and staffrooms and corridors usually ignored; policy and architecture largely unconsidered. Furthermore, ironically, the focus in the literature also foregrounds the body within its contribution to cognition rather than centring the fleshy experience of sensing. This paper therefore addresses these omissions and focuses on the sensorium—movement, the haptic, hearing, smell/taste and visual—providing a framework to analyse the truly embodied experience of the school environment. It argues that as well as being culturally bound, the sensorium is delineated and encoded within the educational ideology and architecture of schools, prescribed by senior leaders to manage and police the flesh within their school walls.     

Critical literacy: an approach to child rights education in Uganda and Canada

For children to know how to fully participate in and most effectively lead the world they will inherit, they must learn how to critically engage with it and be knowledgeable about foundational rights and instruments that support such engagement. Together, critical literacy, which encourages the examination and interrogation of the underlying assumptions of dominant narratives and ‘legitimate’ knowledge, and children's rights education, which involves children in learning how to express their ideas and fully participate in society (as appropriate to their age and ability), offer a powerful approach—theoretical and pedagogical—to engage children in active engagement of the world, especially with respect to the promotion of social justice. However, the layers of complexity and risks associated with deep consideration of challenging topics require expert guidance and compassionate role modelling from teachers of young children. Our paper considers the intersections between critical literacy and global child rights with reference to a study conducted with young school children in Canada and Uganda to discuss how teachers can support meaningful learning experiences in the classroom that can promote children's agency and social justice commitments.     

The Validity and Reliability of Assessments and Self‐assessments of Work‐based Learning

Recent developments in British higher education have included taking a close look at work‐based learning, in particular its assessment (and its integration within academic programmes of study). However, two questions which are still continuously being asked are (a) to what extent are assessments of work‐based learning valid and reliable, and (b) can they count towards the award of university degrees and diplomas? These questions are becoming increasingly important as there seems to be a growing trend for students to assess their own learning at the workplace (through reflection and analysis and the use of diaries and self‐development journals). This article addresses the above issues by drawing on classical test theory (for an understanding of the fundamentals of validity and reliability) and by examining how the different notions of validity and realiability may be applied in the context of assessments (and self‐assessments) in the workplace. The article concludes that, under certain stated conditions, it is indeed possible to determine whether assessments (and self‐assessments) of work‐based learning are valid, reliable — and comparable.     

Counterstories of college persistence by undocumented Mexicana students: navigating race,class, gender,and legal status

This paper draws from four sets of four in‐depth interviews and one subsequent focus group to examine how undocumented Mexicana students navigate identities and the meanings of race, gender, class, and legal status. We mobilize a critical race theory framework to center and explore the content of students’ counterstories. While majoritarian stories perpetuate stereotypical narratives that portray communities of color as culturally deficient, counterstorytelling creates a space for exposing and resisting hegemonic narratives in the home, community, and college settings. We argue that, through counterstories, Mexicana students are able to develop a positive self‐image that allows them to hang on to their academic aspirations, to persist in college, and to envision and pursue the possibility of success. We look at how undocumented Mexicana students’ narratives also reproduce and/or reinscribe elements of oppressive discourses of race, class, and gender in the contemporary USA. We consider some implications of our discussion of counterstories for educational theory and policy.     

Utilising place-based learning through local contexts to develop agents of change in Early Childhood Education for Sustainability

ABSTRACT

The aim of this research was to consider how young children could develop an education for sustainable mind-set, through place-based learning within a local context. This research built upon the development of an Early Childhood Education for Sustainable (ECEfS) framework (Boyd, D., H. Hirst, and C. McNeill. 2016. Early Childhood Education for Sustainable Framework 48 (ECEfS). https://www.foundationyears.org.uk/2017/09/environmental-sustainability-resources/). The place-based research focused upon Dewey's theory of experiential learning and by engaging in offsite longitudinal community-based projects, where young children become familiar with their own locality. This familiarity encourages children to develop an ecological self within place by being submerged in an ever-changing natural environment through the Forest School Philosophy, with an emphasis upon regular visits conducted over an extended period. Over a period of a year children and adults in different and diverse settings experienced opportunities for place-based learning to develop their Education for Sustainability perspective. Observations focused upon children and adults considering how they both started to become more aware of local critical issues and related them to their own reality. The research received ethical approval by LJMU and all involved chose to take part and could withdraw at any time.     

A place to learn: cultivating engaging learning environments for young rural Aboriginal Australians

Rural Aboriginal Australians experience disadvantage across a number of significant social and economic outcomes, including educational engagement and achievement. Current debate postulates that educational environments and systems perpetuate this disadvantage. This qualitative study aimed to contribute to the debate by taking a broader ecological view to consider the aspects of the learning environment that may promote engagement with learning. This paper reports on research conducted in a community-based programme designed to support the engagement of young rural Aboriginal students. A total of 32 participants (including children, parents/carers, tutors, managers, and local teachers) were interviewed to explicate their perspectives on the key aspects of the learning environment that fostered student engagement. An analysis of the interview data identified core characteristics that could be employed to foster engagement and thus contribute to developing equity and self-determination for young rural Aboriginal Australians. Core characteristics that were valued included: a focus on learning and individualised pace; a flexible and relaxed atmosphere; individualised assistance; having an adult who showed interest in the child and their learning; providing a culturally secure learning environment; provision of food; supplying transportation; and staff being part of the same community. This paper contends that these characteristics are valued by the community and thus should inform the practices within the community-based programme as well as mainstream education to facilitate future engagement in learning.     

Learning in Early Childhood: experiences,relationships and ‘Learning to Be’

Learning in the earliest stage of life — the infancy, toddlerhood and preschool period — is relational and rapid. Child-initiated and adult-mediated conversations, playful interactions and learning through active involvement are integral to young children making sense of their environments and to their development over time. The child's experience in this early phase of life is at the heart of ‘Learning to Be’ in any society. This article reviews early learning studies aimed at understanding children's personal, intellectual and social development, and promoting that development. Particular reference is made to attachment and attention, the process of self-regulation, and the adult-child engagement strategies that advance the child's receptive and expressive language: these all exercise substantial influence on early childhood learning and child development outcomes over time. The selected research studies variously highlight the development of infants, toddlers, and young children in kindergarten and the early years of school, and how children make sense of their environments as social, learning and unique human beings. Both the home learning environment and early childhood education programmes are important in children's development. This article argues for high-quality early childhood experience and giving attention to the engagement role of adults in advancing young children's development, minimising the risk of poor development and supporting positive long-lasting personal, academic and social benefits. In this early phase of life, in the words of Jacques Delors: ‘… none of the talents which are hidden like buried treasure in every person must be left untapped’. (Delors et al. 1996, p. 23).     

Educating the creative workforce: New directions for twenty‐first century schooling

This article sets out reasons for arguing that creativity is not garnish to the roast of industry or of education—i.e. the reasoning behind Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi's insistence that creativity is not only about elites but involves everyone. This article investigates three key domains—scholarship, commerce and learning—to argue the importance of moving creativity from the margins of formal education to its centre. First, the article elaborates the scholarly work being done to bring definitional clarity to the concept of creativity, moving it from the realm of mystery, serendipity and individual genius to a definitional field that is more amenable to analysis. It then provides evidence about the extent to which creative capacity is being understood to be a powerful economic driver, not simply the province of the arts and the hobbyist. Finally, it examines new learning theory and its implications for formal education, noting both the possibilities and pitfalls in preparing young people for creative workforce futures.     

‘Poetry is not a special club’: how has an introduction to the secondary Discourse of Spoken Word made poetry a memorable learning experience for young people?

This paper explores the impact of a Spoken Word Education Programme (SWEP hereafter) on young people’s engagement with poetry in a group of schools in London, UK. It does so with reference to the secondary Discourses of school-based learning and the Spoken Word community, an artistic ‘community of practice’ into which they were being inducted. It focuses on what happened when secondary students, already enculturated into school Discourses about learning (in their English lessons especially), learned about new ways of being readers, writers, listeners, and performers through the SWEP Discourse. The paper draws on qualitative data collected during the first three years of programme development to consider how an introduction to the social practices of this artistic community appeared to influence 11–18 year old students’ attitudes to poetry study, discussion, writing, and performance both in school and beyond the parameters of traditional secondary school learning.     

Exploring the tactfulness of implementing play in the classroom: a Hong Kong experience

‘Learning through play’ in early childhood education is widely advocated, but studies show that play is not easily enacted in classrooms. The quality of learning through play has been questioned in various countries, especially when learning outcomes are a global concern. This paper examines how one teacher implemented learning through play within a formal and didactic Hong Kong pre-school classroom. Following this real-life adaptation of the play pedagogy, this paper aims to illuminate the practical theories of linking play with learning in the classroom. The findings support the adoption of ‘play’ in young children's learning and reveal tactful ways in which a teacher can encourage the evolving ‘flow’ of children's play while simultaneously scaffolding their learning. The paper analyses the tact involved in the above process and suggests key dimensions for realizing ‘learning through play’ in the classroom.