A critical investigation of the nature and extent of cyberbullying in two post-primary schools in Northern Ireland

This study aimed to investigate internet usage among post-primary pupils in years 9, 11 and 13 in two contrasting post-primary schools in Northern Ireland, the nature and incidence of cyberbullying among these pupils, and the ways in which their schools are currently addressing the problem. A mixed methodological approach was adopted: a paper questionnaire was completed by pupils in Years 9, 11 and 13 (n = 425) in the two post-primary schools; focus group interviews were conducted with pupils from each year group (n = 18); and individual semi-structured interviews were carried out with the pastoral care coordinators (deputy heads with responsibility for pupil wellbeing) of each school (n = 2). The findings confirm that the post-primary pupils in these two schools own a range of internet-capable media devices and spend considerable time online. The incidence of cyberbullying among these pupils was relatively low, and most often consisted of hurtful or nasty comments sent via texts or posted on social networking sites. The study reveals inconsistencies between the approaches taken by the two schools, but also generally low levels of staff training, little engagement with parents, a lack of pupil confidence in the school’s ability to discuss cyberbullying openly, and a worrying absence of any systematic evaluation of the effectiveness of the schools’ current strategies for tackling this complex issue.     

Cyberbullying bystanders and moral engagement: a psychosocial analysis for pastoral care

One of the new challenges facing pastoral care in schools is dealing with the rapid growth of cyberbullying by school-aged children. Within digital cyberspace, cyberbullies are finding more opportunities to express their aggression towards others as social networks become technologically more sophisticated. An important feature of cyberbullying is the extent to which hostile messages can go viral, in the sense that they are seen and then forwarded to others many times over. This paper considers psychosocial aspects of why cyberbullying messages can go viral, and what can be done to reduce this phenomenon. This paper focuses on the role of the hostile cyberbullying bystander (viz. the person who receives and then forwards to others a cyberbullying message). Finally, we develop intervention strategies based on pastoral care, which may be effective in inhibiting hostile cyberbullying bystander behaviour.     

Swiss student‐teachers' views of social pedagogy

In recent years a number of policy and practice initiatives concerning pastoral care in schools in England have led to schools increasingly being expected to take a leading role in addressing a widening range of concerns regarding the welfare, care and education of children, and in working more closely with parents and other professional agencies in addressing these. This has included a consideration of the notion of ‘social pedagogy’ as widely practiced in mainland Europe. This paper explores the views of student‐teachers in Switzerland, a country where social pedagogy is well developed, regarding the role of the school in addressing pupil problems. The findings indicate that these Swiss student‐teachers felt schools should take the lead role primarily in areas regarding poor academic progress, bullying, general misbehaviour and disaffection, and less so in areas of a more personal nature for pupils where schools may be less accountable. The findings provide some pointers concerning how Swiss student‐teachers would benefit from greater attention being given to considering such pastoral care issues in their training course.     

Striving for social sensitivity: the impact of a social justice project on student teachers’ understanding of pupils from socially disadvantaged backgrounds

This paper considers the concerning issue of social disadvantage in N. Ireland schools and suggests that the majority of those entering the teaching profession are ill-equipped to empathise with pupils in disadvantaged areas and thus less enabled to offer effective pastoral care. It argues that this lack of preparedness stems from backgrounds very different to that of these pupils and also from an initial teacher education which does not provide a systematic practical experience in schools in ‘challenging’ areas. The paper briefly outlines a small-scale ITE social justice project undertaken at Stranmillis University College, Belfast designed to provide such experience and, citing specific evidence from data gathered in a recent evaluation, offers it as a model of preparing student-teachers to better understand the realities of their pupils’ lives through extended pre-service contact.     

‘If there's a dead rat,don't leave it’. Young children's understanding of their citizenship rights and responsibilities

Concerns about pupil disengagement from school and society have led to compulsory citizenship education in state schools in England. However, there is little evidence that the new citizenship education is meeting its goals. The research described here assesses a new approach to citizenship education that appears to overcome some of the identified obstacles in current practices. Hampshire's ‘Rights, respect and responsibility’ initiative is a rights‐based whole school reform of school policies and practices. Under this initiative the contemporaneous citizenship status of pupils is respected, pupils are taught about their rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and democratic participation is made meaningful in classroom and school functioning. Of particular interest is that the initiative starts in infant schools. This research indicates that young children can understand their rights and responsibilities in ways that are meaningful to their everyday behaviour and that rights‐based whole school reform has the capacity to improve pupil learning and citizenship behaviours.     

Banning mobile phones from classrooms—An opportunity to advance understandings of technology addiction,distraction and cyberbullying

There is now an emerging worldwide trend for mobile phones being banned from classrooms and schools. While some academics working in the area of educational technology have raised concerns, many others have so far failed to respond to what is a significant shift in the ongoing development of digital education. The paper considers how academic researchers and other educational technology stakeholders can respond to what might be perceived as the curtailment of some forms of digital education. In particular, the paper argues that this current turn away from digital devices offers an opportunity to advance understandings about a number of seemingly problematic issues regarding the continued use of digital technologies in schools. In particular, the paper reconsiders five such areas of concern that are associated with banning phones from school: (1) technology addition; (2) digital distraction; (3) cyberbullying; (4) surveillance capitalism; and (5) environmental sustainability of digital education.     

KAIZEN: school‐wide quality improvement

Abstract

It is evident that secondary schools organise themselves in different ways for the purposes of pastoral organisation. In general these can be characterised as either horizontal or vertical structures, depending on whether a Year or House system has been adopted. From a survey of secondary schools in one particular local education authority, it appears that the most common and popular approach for secondary schools to organise pastoral care is based on a Year (horizontal) system in which Heads of Year have overall responsibility for pupils in one age‐group. However, one potential problem is that such an arrangement may give rise to an artificial separation of pastoral and academic concerns. In comparing and contrasting the respective advantages of Year and House systems of pastoral organisation and management, David Fincham examines a model in which a school sets out to combine pastoral and academic concerns by establishing a vertical (House) system. Whilst acknowledging that pastoral care implies something more than the setting up of a formal organisation for management purposes, he proposes that academic and pastoral concerns can in fact be integrated effectively through a vertical system.     

生活:开掘学生品德生成的源头活水

生活是人的生命的存在状态。在小学品德教学中,教师应密切关注学生的生活,使品德教育缘于生活、立足生活、高于生活、走向生活,用真挚的情感去拨动学生生命中的心弦,积极塑造学生良好的品德。     

重大公共卫生事件下小学德育现状与思考

德育工作是学校教育的重中之重,此次重大公共卫生事件给小学德育带来了一定的影响。为了解重大公共卫生事件期间小学生的品德状况以及教师的德育工作实施状况,对东部、中部、西部地区的1472名小学生和207名教师开展问卷调查。调查结果显示,小学生具有一定的公民素养、健全的人格品质和积极的理想信念,但存在信息素养缺失、职业认知模糊...     

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.     

Supporting the Vulnerable Child: Engaging Fathers in the Home–School Dimension of Pastoral Care

Drawing on findings from a recent study of pastoral care within a primary school, this article highlights the role of fathers as a key factor in a range of successful interventions. While gains can be made in work with vulnerable children, the home–school dimension of pastoral care deserves far greater attention by schools, educationalists and researchers than it has so far received. The English government has a strategy to promote a closer relationship between parents and primary schools: much depends upon the resources available to schools and the commitment of staff.     

Dangerous Carers: Pastoral power and the caring teacher of contemporary Australian schooling

Whilst care imperatives have arisen across the breadth of Western societies, within the education sector they appear both prolific and urgent. This paper explores the deployment of care discourses within education generally and draws upon the case of Australian Health and Physical Education (HPE) more specifically, to undertake a Foucauldian interrogation of care. In so doing I demonstrate the usefulness of Foucault's pastoral power lens and its capacity to provide insight into the moral and ethical work conducted by caring teachers on behalf of the state (Acker, 1995). Following a brief overview of the advocacy, challenges and debates surrounding the issue of caring teaching within education, I draw on the work of Hunter (1994) and three case studies from a genealogical interrogation of HPE that employed Foucualt's ethical fourfold as a heuristic device to reveal the ethical practices and objectives of the good HPE teacher. Drawing on this genealogical work, I argue that HPE teachers and their colleagues have been purposefully incited to constitute themselves as agents of pastoral power. From this Foucauldian perspective, I conclude with an exploration of the unintended and possibly ‘dangerous’ practices of caring teaching that may emerge within the complex and messy nexus of contemporary self‐constitution.     

Celebrating the Contribution of Douglas Hamblin

This article celebrates the life of Douglas Hamblin, and his significant contribution to pastoral care, personal-social education and the lives of schools, teachers and pupils. From very incomplete information, it offers a brief account of his career, and lists his most relevant publications.     

The pencil and the shepherd's crook. Ethnography of Maasai education

This paper aims to study the various forms of education to be found amongst the Kisongo Maasai, a pastoral population in Tanzania, both in their own right and in terms of what their encounter with one another implies. The late and rather limited development of schooling in that remote area and educational policies, as well as the pastoral way of life of this population, combine to produce a low rate of schooling: around 33% of children enrolled in primary schools versus a national rate that was twice as high in the 1990s. Few of these pupils go on to secondary schooling. The paper attempts to show the impact of primary schooling on educational practices and, more generally, on the Maasai way of life. Although they coexist side by side to a large extent, formal schooling and ‘traditional’ education—offering conflicting forms of knowledge that are conveyed in widely different fashions—usually tend to be in competition with each other, especially when it comes to pastoral education. Whereas in school all pupils are given the same instruction in a single classroom, in their communities young Maasai receive distinct kinds of education from different persons and in different places, depending on gender and age. Education for girls, non-circumcised boys and warriors is therefore orientated towards domestic labour, pastoral activities and practices associated with warriorhood. After highlighting the dynamics of interaction amongst the various forms of education, the paper focuses on Maasai perceptions of school and on the various educational strategies such perceptions generate.     

Being Valued

The idea that it is important to make pupils feel valued is central to much of what we do in pastoral care and personal and social education. But like many key concepts, we tend to take this one for granted and what it means to value someone is not usually something we reflect on in detail. In this paper John Wilson does just this by subjecting the notion of valuing to analysis. He argues that it is an idea which is more complex than is often recognized in the way we use it in schools.     

Moral Education in South Africa

Abstract

Moral education in South Africa has always been a matter of priority to parents and educationalists alike. Although it is not taught as a separate subject in the schooling process, much attention is paid to it throughout the school curriculum. Particularly in religious education and in social studies time is devoted to matters of moral conduct. The basis for moral education has almost right through been a Christian approach to life. This is the case in schools for black and for white pupils. A great number of devoted teachers go to great lengths to prepare young people for life in such a way that they may become steadfast citizens of the country. The role of parents, youth organizations, churches and ‐‐ in the case of black youths ‐‐ tribal customs, should, however, not be underestimated in the moral training of young people.     

Supporting the Vulnerable Child: Engaging Fathers in the Home–School Dimension of Pastoral Care

Abstract

Drawing on findings from a recent study of pastoral care within a primary school, this article highlights the role of fathers as a key factor in a range of successful interventions. While gains can be made in work with vulnerable children, the home–school dimension of pastoral care deserves far greater attention by schools, educationalists and researchers than it has so far received. The English government has a strategy to promote a closer relationship between parents and primary schools: much depends upon the resources available to schools and the commitment of staff.     

The five dimensions of social pedagogy within schools

A ‘social pedagogy’ approach is increasingly being adopted by professional agencies in the United Kingdom involved in dealing with the welfare, care and education of children. This paper argues that, in the context of schools, social pedagogy can be characterised as taking an integrated view of the needs of the whole child in terms of five key dimensions: care and welfare; inclusion; socialisation; academic support; and social education. Whether or not these changes in professional practice lead to the widespread employment of a professional called a ‘social pedagogue’ remains to be seen. However, integrated working practices have already had an impact on how teachers are expected to deal with the needs of pupils identified as giving a cause for concern.     

Including Pupils with Special Educational Needs: beyond rhetoric and towards an understanding of effective classroom practice

The future of educational provision for pupils with special educational needs can be seen to be central to educational debate across Europe and the USA. Legislation from many countries has focused upon the means by which the achievement of a more inclusive education system can be achieved. This article suggests that whilst the socio‐political and moral arguments for inclusion have been well established, insufficient attention has been given to the development of an understanding of classroom practices which are conducive to creating an inclusive education system. The moral imperative for inclusion is clear and few teachers would deny that a move towards a more equitable education system should be regarded as a priority. Yet, moves towards the achievement of greater inclusion have been slow. Existing research has demonstrated that under some circumstances inclusion can be efficacious, yet many teachers remain uncertain with regard to its implementation in their schools. This article argues that there is a need to move forward from debating the justification of inclusion and to shift efforts in the direction of an analysis of effective classroom practice to meet the needs of those pupils who are currently presenting the greatest challenges to teachers.