Homotolerance and heteronormativity in Norwegian classrooms

This article is based on classroom observations and discusses sexual education that addresses homosexuality. Tolerance of queer lifestyles as well as support for judicial equality between heterosexual and homosexual couples is generally perceived as being high in the Norwegian political context. Norwegian sexual politics is, however, based on a binary understanding of sexuality, linked to stable and authentic sexual identities, and this perspective is highly influential in Norwegian education on sexuality. Homotolerance appears to be the most prominent ambition when teachers deal with homosexuality in their teaching. Informed by queer theory, I intend to investigate how teaching that sets out to create homotolerance reproduces heteronormativity. I will argue that even though education on homosexuality may create increased homotolerance, the very same education does also marginalise and stigmatise homosexuality as well as reproduce binary and heteronormative concepts of sexuality.     

Interrogating heteronormativity in primary schools: the No Outsiders project

Parent–adolescent communication about sexual health is one strategy to encourage healthy adolescent sexual behaviour. However, this literature has largely overlooked immigrant families. Hmong youth, identified as facing extreme challenges to parent–adolescent communication, are considered in the USA. Content analysis was used to examine parent–adolescent communication about sexual health for 44 pregnant or parenting Hmong adolescent girls. The minority of adolescents recalled an actual conversation about sexual health in their families with mothers most often identified as the source. Their stories reflect discussions about abstinence, puberty, pregnancy, and sexually transmitted infections – with much information being inaccurate. With culture being a recurrent theme, communication was reported to be hindered by cultural traditions, comfort level, applicability, and perceived consequences. The results identify opportunities for culturally-relevant sex education materials in the US Hmong community.     

Formal and non-formal digital practices: institutionalizing transactional learning spaces in a media classroom

This article examines how a classroom procedure known as PGE (Plan/Go-through/Evaluate) group work aims at integrating formal and non-formal media experiences and practices into classroom-based media learning. The study displays, on the one hand, how PGE group work emerged and was institutionally embedded in a media course. On the other hand, the study displays how students in this media course negotiated with their teachers by drawing on out-of-school media experiences and production practices in the process of planning classroom work. Empirically, the study draws on ethnographic observation of a vocational media studies course in the age range between 16 and 19 years at the upper secondary level in Norway. Video observations from several hours of PGE group work are analysed in order to document how students are involved in co-planning classroom work together with the course teachers. The analysis is based on cultural historical activity theory (CHAT). This theoretical position is applied in order to foreground tensions between formal institutional obligations and non-formal practices that surface in the classroom, and how an institutional measure such as PGE group work creates a transactional space for handling these differences.     

Performance in Home Schooling: An Argument against Compulsory Schooling in the Netherlands

International Review of Education - Although home education is a growing phenomenon in many Western countries, it is almost non-existent in the Netherlands. Under Dutch educational law, children...     

Online Schooling: A Cautionary Tale

In this controversy piece, we portray online learning as growing too fast for existing regulatory structures to oversee and generally as having failed to live up to its potential. Operators, particularly for-profit operators, have generally not produced successful schools. We urge reforms of cyber schooling funding mechanisms, data systems, and oversight.     

Schooling Quasi-Markets: Reconciling Economic and Sociological Analyses

We provide an economic assessment of the operation of schooling quasi-markets, re-interpreting the findings of the mainly sociologically-based empirical research. We find that economic analysis is complementary to that of sociology, providing further explanations for the failure of greater competition to increase the diversity of provision and challenge traditional school hierarchies.     

人文关怀与学校教育

人文关怀是马克思主义哲学追求的价值目标。人文关怀是社会发展的要求。人文关怀是基础教育的应有之义。学校教育必须把人文关怀当作自己的使命，在此基础上深化学校改革。