Cyberbullying and moral disengagement: an analysis based on a social pedagogy of pastoral care in schools

The practice of cyberbullying in its various forms carried out by pupils has increased substantially. Many pupils, on a daily basis, are now using electronic devices such as mobile phones, smart phones and tablets, to transmit distressing messages and images to their peers. These often include the use of publically accessible social networking sites, such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Given this increase, cyberbullying in schools has been widely investigated by researchers in many countries. A common feature of cyberbullying is the moral disengagement of those who practise it, based on the desensitization of prosocial values and emotional empathy towards another person. A consensus has emerged regarding the importance of establishing anti-cyberbullying policies and practices, and the need to address cyberbullying within the school’s pastoral care system and its personal and social education programme. However, few researchers have justified anti-cyberbullying practices within the framework of a particular educational theory. This paper examines how the theoretical and methodological assumptions underpinning a social pedagogy of pastoral care in schools can enable the education community to better understand and avert the moral disengagement which commonly underpins cyberbullying.     

The case for natality in pastoral care and why it matters

The author presents the concept of natality for consideration in terms of pastoral care and educational purpose. The discussion identifies significant threats to the future for pastoral care in schools, including the Global Educational Reform Movement and the increasing emphasis on teachers taking charge of discipline in the classroom, at the expense of relational and emotional engagement. The author proposes options for professional development and improvements in school culture with natality as a recurrent reference point in a holistic view of education.     

Studies in mindfulness: widening the field for all involved in pastoral care

Abstract

Since 2010, the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK, has offered an MSc in studies in mindfulness degree programme within its School of Education. The programme has attracted over 200 students from multiple professional contexts, providing the authors with the opportunity to gather and analyse demographic data, as well as data regarding student motivations and expectations, both personal and professional. The paper initially creates a picture of the current UK ‘studies in mindfulness’ landscape by describing the established programmes at UK universities. Data from an entry questionnaire completed by three cohorts of students on the ‘Aberdeen’ programme and data collected from students throughout their studies is then presented, analysed and discussed. The authors argue that, in their professional roles, graduates from programmes and courses at Universities in the UK are introducing an ever-increasing number of people to mindfulness. They are implementing and integrating mindfulness into diverse social, business contexts as well as into all sectors of education. The University of Aberdeen’s programme, based in the School of Education, perhaps represents a move towards more holistic, pastoral and multi-professional applications of mindfulness. This contrasts with the clinical, pathological settings for mindfulness to date.     

The challenges of making school guidance culturally responsive: narratives of pastoral needs of ethnic minority students in Hong Kong secondary schools

Many Hong Kong schools are concerned about the growing number of ethnic minority students. How they are supported and how the diversity of their pastoral needs is fulfilled become critical. This article examines teachers’, students’ and parents’ narratives of the cross‐cultural experience of ethnic minority students from India, Pakistan, Philippines, Nepal and Thailand, and the diversity of those students’ pastoral needs. The qualitative data were collected from interviews, through which the constructs of 32 teachers and 32 students from three secondary schools were explored. Four groups of focus‐group interviews were conducted, in which 15 parents were involved. This article argues that to implement the ethos of caring, it is not only necessary for the school to promote the intercultural sensitivity of all practitioners, but equally important to develop a connected school system where ethnic minority students and parents can be consistently supported in the subsystems of classroom, school and home.     

An interactional analysis of one-to-one pastoral care delivery within a primary school

Despite an interactional analysis being able to offer valuable insight into the institutional workings of pastoral care practice, pastoral care delivery remains largely unstudied. This paper will contribute new knowledge to the field of counselling and education by offering an interactional analysis of one-to-one pastoral care provision within a primary school. Much pastoral care practice is informed by theory, often accompanied by guidelines about how to deliver pastoral care activities effectively. The pastoral carer needs to convert these guidelines into talk in order to deliver the intervention as an interactional encounter. However useful these guidelines are, they cannot show what the actual delivery of those pastoral care activities might look like in real life. Using conversation analysis, we examine video recordings of pastoral care delivery to reveal the ways in which a pastoral carer supports a child’s behaviour, social and emotional well-being. The significance of the findings is that those who provide pastoral care can see in close detail what delivery might look like as a real-life encounter, imparting valuable knowledge that can then be applied alongside theory and guidelines to enhance professional practice. Of further significance is that the findings can also show how an interactional analysis of pastoral care work can be used to demonstrate social and emotional learning and that the work being done effectively supports children.     

Towards a whole-school approach to the pastoral care module in a Postgraduate Certificate of Education programme: a South African experience

This study explores the potential of adopting a whole-school approach to the pastoral care module in a Postgraduate Certificate of Education Programme to ensure that all newly qualified teachers practice effective pastoral care in their classrooms and promote the learners’ academic engagement and performance. A non-experimental survey research design involving quantitative data was used. A group-administered questionnaire was used to collect the sampled student teachers’ (n?=?59) opinion on the competencies they obtain from the module. The student teachers ranked knowledge first, beliefs and values second and skills third. For the student teachers to perform their academic and pastoral roles constructively together in a challenged education system, it is recommended that, in the short term, a learning unit, which is grounded in Best’s needs-focused model of pastoral care, be included in the module; and, in the long term, given the context of the South African schooling system, the nurturer professional model of teacher education be implemented. This article reports the outcomes of a follow-up study of an earlier preliminary study.     

Martin Buber,Hasidism, and Jewish spirituality: the implications for education and for pastoral care

Abstract

There is a legal requirement that schools engage with the spiritual aspects of education, which encompasses pastoral care. This reflects the ethical sensibility that is present in individuals and underlies interactions with Others; and which should be part of the ethos of all educational institutions and especially schools. This is because spirituality is important to leading a moral life and to understanding the Other. The article considers specifically the potential of Jewish spirituality, and uses Martin Buber’s thought, to gain a better understanding of its contribution to education and to pastoral care. In the first part, we comment on the ‘basic words’, I-Thou and I-It, which are connected with Hasidism, the Jewish spiritual movement which had a great influence on Martin Buber. Hasidism understands that it is our duty to find and connect with the ‘divine sparks’, as genuine relations merge with the Divine, and when humans relate genuinely to one another, they relate to God. This is crucial for understanding the superiority of I-Thou relations over I-It relations. In the second and third parts of the article, we consider the implications of this understanding of Jewish spirituality for education and for pastoral care. This is done through highlighting the importance of I-Thou relations if the spiritual aspects of education and of pastoral care are to be encouraged and fulfilled.     

Creativity as a pastoral concern

In this paper, the author considers the contribution of creativity to pastoral care in education. Since its advent in English schools in the early 1970s, pastoral care has placed the affective realm and individual enrichment centre stage in both its curriculum aims and teaching approaches. These principles have, however, had much to contend with over the past 50 years; from the obtrusive effects of state intervention in schools, to the challenges confronting young people growing up in increasingly complex societies. For many teachers and practitioners, engaging young people in creative pursuits has come to be regarded as a necessary counterpoint to increasingly performative school cultures and an essential means to enabling vibrant forms of positive self-expression. The power of creative activities has received new impetus as a pastoral concern in light of two national trends. The first as creative arts provision in the curriculum in English state secondary schools declines as a consequence of Government qualification reforms, and second as an increasing number of young people are referred to Alternative Educational Provision with mental health issues. As a consequence, many pastoral educators have turned or, indeed, returned to creativity and creative practices as a primary means of supporting and enriching the lives of young people, particularly for those who now struggle in contemporary school environments. In light of these developments and drawing on research and practice in the field of creativity and pastoral care, this paper aims to cast further light on creativity in pastoral education.     

Distributed leadership in practice in Finnish schools

The aim of this study is to explore what aspects the principals and the members of the management teams in the primary and upper secondary education schools in Vantaa support distributed leadership in their school and how necessary they see that distributed leadership is extended to the students in matters concerning the curriculum and the development of teaching practices. The research method was a survey based on a questionnaire of 48 questions, where the respondents evaluated the preconditions of distributed leadership in their school. The principals and members of the management teams in the primary and upper secondary schools in Vantaa see distributed leadership mostly as delegation of predetermined tasks than the interaction among leaders, followers and situations. The results strengthen the view of distributed leadership as a phenomenon which in its primitive form can be seen in the official structures of the school and as delegation based on a formal position in the more advanced view distributed leadership can be seen as interaction among the management team and in the situations in the official and unofficial structures of the school.     

The complex task of leading educational change in schools

The leadership of educational change in schools is a complex task, particularly at a time when schools are being granted greater autonomy but are also under greater scrutiny through the publication of high stakes test results. This paper examines the complexity of the task of changing a school culture and the challenges faced by leaders engaged in this task. It is informed by case studies of two principals involved in a project designed to bring long-term change. The study provides insight into the qualities which make change leaders effective, and the different ways that leaders manage the task. The paper concludes with implications for the management and sustainability of change in schools.     

Building resilient schools in Russia: effective policy strategies*

The article uses the framework of resiliency to examine the strategies of principals in schools working under challenging socio-economic conditions that show higher-than-expected educational results. We collected a unique set of data within the Russian ‘National monitoring of education markets and organisations’ programme. This work continues the study, begun in 2014, of the peculiarities of the functioning conditions, management and educational strategies of different groups of schools (urban, rural, implementing higher-level programmes, private, etc.), where authors supplement the economic indicators of school performance with socio-economic contextual factors. A contextualisation model was applied to distinguish the resilient schools studied and the socio-economic characteristics for each school. The typical strategies of principals of resilient schools are as follows: recruiting more successful students from other schools, the branding of the school, creating a culture of high expectations for staff and students, and a less bureaucratic management style.     

青海牧区中小学校“阳光体育运动”实施现状调查及对策研究

采用问卷调查法,对青海牧区的15所中小学阳光体育运动的开展状况进行调查研究,结果表明：青海牧区中小学阳光体育运动实施状况令人担忧,并且牧区中小学体育教师紧缺,体育运动场地较少,体育设施差,学生参与的体育运动项目具有民族特色．据此提出了牧区阳光体育运动的开展要兼顾地区经济、文化、宗教的差异性;制订引进体育教师的优惠政策;做好现有体育教师的培训;加大教育经费的投入;民族传统体育项目和学校体育相结合等相应对策．     

Family involvement in PSE: international schools easing the transition of mobile families

The impact of family mobility from domestic or international moves can be challenging for families. Some families adjust and other families experience crisis. For some families, relocation may be due to a job promotion and transfer, while for other families moving may be due to divorce, loss of employment or other stressful circumstances. Regardless of whether the family perceives relocation as positive or negative, moving places demands on families and consequently families experience varying degrees of transience. This article is based upon a qualitative research study about internationally mobile (IM) families managing relocation and transience and the place of international schooling in that process. 90 semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 45 (IM) families at an international school in southern England. The study included an intervention that consisted of implementing a personal and social education (PSE) programme for families with adolescent children. Family involvement in PSE facilitated parent‐adolescent communication at a critical transitional stage as IM teenagers who grow up ‘on the move’ were experiencing complex emotional and social upheavals in relationships with their peers and their families. Although the focus of this study explored the experiences of a small sample of IM families, there are wider implications from the study. Family mobility presents an opportunity for schools to also work with families who experience domestic moves to ease the transition of children through pastoral care.     

Involvement of heads of departments in strategic planning in schools in the Pinetown District

ABSTRACT

Strategic planning is crucial in facilitating sustainable development of schools. It enables schools to survive and cope with changes and challenges from government policies and market forces. There is broad agreement that all stakeholders need to be part of school strategic planning. In response to the lack of evidence suggesting stakeholders’ involvement – specifically that of Heads of Department (HOD) – in strategic planning in schools, and its value in ensuring that all stakeholders execute their duties, HODs’ experiences regarding their involvement in strategic planning were explored. Qualitative research was undertaken and semi-structured interviews were employed to generate data. The study reveals that the HODs were involved in some form of planning but there is no evidence suggesting their participation in substantive issues on strategic planning. Further, the study reveals that transparency-driven leadership and collaboration are key factors to ensure HODs’ participation in strategic planning. The findings suggest that the involvement of HODs is crucial towards improving teaching and learning.     

Participatory creativities: developing a research design for children’s pastoral encounters with the natural world

ABSTRACT

In this paper, the author discusses the interrelationship between creativity, children’s experiences of the natural world and pastoral education. Based on a research design developed whilst undertaking a professional doctorate in education (EdD), and grounded in a theoretical framework of children’s rights, the author explores the creative uncertainties of collaboratively researching children’s educational experiences with nature. The paper considers the ways in which the research design supports a pastoral care agenda, whilst encouraging the emergence of ‘creative artefacts’, alongside the extent to which the focus of the research, encounters with the natural world, might be deemed pastorally minded in its own right. The children who have participated in the research then draw the paper to a close, sharing what their involvement in the project has meant to them. Images and excerpts of children’s own creative reflections are offered as illustration of the powerful confluence of the Creative and the Pastoral.     

The place of emotions while inspecting schools: reflections of two Ofsted inspectors

This article investigates the role of emotions of inspectors while inspecting schools as reported by inspectors themselves within an education context of increased accountability that arguably privileges rationality over emotions. The study is built on an emotion management framework that regards emotions not only as unavoidably natural and intimately linked to ‘rational’ judgements that people make, but also that such judgements are social constructions used to regulate expression of emotions. In-depth interview data of one retired and another, semi-retired Office for Standards in Education, inspectors were thematically analysed to assess the extent to which their emotions formed part of school inspections. In the absence of an officially sanctioned narrative of inspectors’ emotions during inspections, two kinds of self-prescribed emotions emerged as key findings: emotions for accountability, to which inspectors gave expression, and emotions for improvement, that they suppressed. For an inspection body that needs to ensure both accountability and improvement of schools to justify its viability, these research claims open up a new area of discussion that should lead to a review of inspection body’s stance on emotions and individual inspectors’ self-reflections on the moral as well as professional obligation to pursue both emotions for accountability and improvement.     

渐变调适:理解与实践教育中分布式领导的关键

分布式领导因强调"领导并非集中在居于正式职位上的个体"而为越来越多的研究者、政策制定者和实践者所接纳。本文认为,应该采用一种渐变调适的视角对其加以理解。分布式领导是一个从正式领导向非正式领导不断卷入的渐变过程,需要重新理解正式领导及组织架构在分布式领导实践中的作用;分布式领导实践须与学校实际情境结合,根据学校发展对领导力的需求和组织成员的准备状态进行调适。     

Towards a spiritual pedagogy of pastoral welfare and care

Abstract

This paper considers the role of spirituality in the practice of pastoral welfare and care in English state schools. Set against an educational landscape of increasingly aggressive neoliberal interests combined with growing public disquiet over the mental welfare of young people, the author examines how spirituality might in response contribute to a pedagogy of pastoral welfare for pupil well-being. The paper begins by foregrounding the policy contexts for pastoral education in England and the challenges presented by the increasingly performative cultures that schools, children and young people have become subjected to. Highlighting concerns around the well-being of children and young people, the paper advances a spiritual pedagogy in pastoral care predicated on pivotal interrelated attributes of intrapersonal transcendence, care and educational practice. The paper then considers the possibilities presented by the spiritual realm in pastoral welfare and the positioning of this as an educational pedagogy and practice.     

Blackboard bullies: workplace bullying in primary schools

This paper offers a comprehensive examination of the ‘lived experience’ of workplace bullying in primary schools in Ireland. Underpinned by the qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with a class teacher, a chairperson of a Board of Management and a school principal – all of whom who believe themselves to have been targets of workplace bullying in their schools – the paper presents their personal narratives as representative inductive exemplars. Each of these case studies highlight the far-reaching impact of negative workplace interaction for both individuals and the wider school community and, in so doing, provide a voice for a hithertofore silent minority. Through a Foucauldian analysis of the complex exercise of power which is at the heart of all bullying relationships, this study reveals the key role of management and organisational cultures to both the experience and incidence of adult bullying in primary schools, as well as the critical importance of leadership in framing the nature of professional relationships in school organisations.