Inclusive arts education in two Scandinavian primary schools: a phenomenological case study

Previous studies indicate that ideas related to special education could influence the way arts education is performed and motivated in schools. Further investigation is therefore required in order to raise awareness of how perspectives on inclusion can serve as a starting point for arts education, and vice versa. This article takes it starting point in an ethnographic double case study of arts education practices. Data were collected during the school year 2013/2014 in two Scandinavian schools (for pupils aged 6–13) with an articulated commitment to the arts. The methods used for data collection were observation and interviews. The material was analysed from a phenomenological point of view, and the analysis showed a predominantly holistic view of inclusion in the two schools. Five dimensions of inclusion were identified through the analysis: providing arts education for all, being connected to something larger, allowing access to different forms of expression and communication, establishing preconditions for holistic inclusion, and developing special arts education. The results indicate that these schools have made considerable progress in developing an inclusive arts learning environment. Results also suggest that a holistic inclusive view of education encourages a functional and vivid arts education for ‘all’, both inside and outside the classroom.     

Inclusive education for students with refugee experience: whole school reform in a South Australian primary school

In recent years, there has been an increase in students with refugee experience in the UK, the US, Europe and Australia. These students face many barriers to education, and appropriately educating this diverse student population presents many challenges to schools and education departments. We argue that a whole of school approach that includes school structures, culture and pedagogy is needed to provide equity for students with refugee experience. This approach to reform requires that the ‘structures and programs [that] are designed for a dominant group’ (DETE, South Australian Curriculum Standards and Accountability Framework, South Australia 2001), and which disadvantage minority groups, are challenged and changed. Implementing such change raises many practical difficulties, and there are few documented examples of good practice. This prompted the authors’ ethnographic study of a South Australian primary school, with a New Arrivals Program, which positions itself as taking a whole of school approach to educational reform for refugees. This paper reports on the structural changes the school has implemented in its class organisation, staff roles and curriculum. We consider the effects of government funding and neoliberal education policy on these reforms.     

Equitable science education in urban middle schools: Do reform efforts make a difference?*

A central commitment of current reforms in science education is that all students, regardless of culture, gender, race, and/ or socioeconomic status, are capable of understanding and doing science. The study “Bridging the Gap: Equity in Systemic Reform” assessed equity in systemic reform using a nested research design that drew on both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. As part of the study, case studies were conducted in two urban middle schools in large Ohio cities. The purpose of the case studies was to identify factors affecting equity in urban science education reform. Data were analyzed using Kahle's (1998) equity metric. That model allowed us to assess progress toward equity using a range of research‐based indicators grouped into three categories critical for equitable education: access to, retention in, and achievement in quality science education. In addition, a fourth category was defined for systemic indicators of equity. Analyses indicated that the culture and climate of the case study schools differentially affected their progress toward equitable reform in science education. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 38: 1130–1144, 2001     

高等职业教育校企合作办学模式研究

目前高等职业教育校企合作尚处于浅层次水平。其制约因素包括政策因素、体制因素和观念因素。要促进校企合作向纵深发展，应考虑校企合作的纵深发展及校企双方承担的责任与义务，同时还要建立起合作办学的激励、调控、保障和评价机制。     

市场化与自主办学:高等教育变革的两翼

我国高等教育奇迹般的发展背后蕴涵着市场逻辑和自主办学,以地方政府和资本市场介入、家庭和大学的成本分担为支撑力又加速了这一发展。但是,大学继续扩张的资金空间不足,快速扩张还带来了知识阶层的新贫困群体,隐性成本的增加,大学发展的文化、价值与精神危机等问题。因此,我国的高等教育应该走自主办学的市场化之路:(1)大学的自主办学,本质上符合学术市场的要求;(2)大学发展的市场规则,应将市场手段作为调节机制,并非以市场目标为评价标准。(3)大学评价的标准应该选择学术标准为主,而以市场标准为次。     

Inclusive Classroom Profile: a pilot study of its use as a professional development tool

Research has highlighted that children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) might be at risk of receiving less-than-outstanding experiences in settings typically rated as outstanding. There are still significant barriers to the implementation of high-quality inclusive practices in early years settings: inadequate preparation of early educators for implementing inclusive classroom practices, and a lack of reliable and valid measures for assessing the quality of inclusive practice. The Inclusive Classroom Profile (ICP) was designed to measure the quality of inclusive classroom practices that can support the developmental needs of children with SEN in early childhood programmes. This paper describes the first study that explored the feasibility and usefulness of the ICP measure for quality improvement. The usability of the ICP was explored in the context of a partnership between a team of early years inclusion advisors and inclusive settings in one local authority in south England. Early years advisors received training for using the ICP and performed follow-up feedback visits to settings. Advisors achieved reliability proficiency and rated the ICP measure and training programme positively. Future research needs to investigate how the ICP might support quality improvement through designing and piloting the effectiveness of a multi-component professional development programme.     

Promoting interculturalism in primary school children through the development of encountering skills: a case study in two Finnish schools

The present article introduces diversity (educational, social and multicultural) of children as a resource in language teaching. Two English teachers with a total of 105 children of their language classes participated in the teaching experiment that was part of a nationwide research and development project in Finland. The aim was to develop conceptions and practices of intercultural language education and transform language curricula based on them. With the support of university researchers, the teachers experimented, reflected on, evaluated and developed such pedagogic action – pedagogy of intercultural encounters – through which they could meet the challenges of diversity in their classrooms. Good practices in teaching intercultural encountering skills were developed and seen essential for promoting identity development in language learning. Based on regular seminars where teachers' reports on their progress were discussed, reflected on and theoretically analysed, the teachers and researchers suggested justified improvements for language curricula.     

素质教育与高等学校德育课程改革与发展

素质教育并不是一个专门的教育学术语,但在我国却具有良好的纠正应试教育偏差的纠偏功能, 它要求高校德育课程按照教育本身的特点和功能进行设计与开发。长期以来,我国高校德育课程由于受传统学科课程观念的影响,形成了较为狭义的学科德育课程观念,即把德育课程仅仅理解为直接学科德育课程,较为重视直接学科德育课程建设,而忽视其他渠道德育课程建设,存在着德育课程主渠道与其他渠道之间的矛盾、德育课程稳定性与变化性的矛盾、德育课程结构和层次不清等问题。高校德育课程建设的基本思路是根据素质教育和教育改革和发展要求,树立一种大的德育课程观念,从直接学科德育课程、间接学科德育课程、活动德育课程、学校教育物质条件层面的隐性课程、组织制度层面的隐性课程、精神文化层面的隐性课程等多角度、全方位地进行德育课程综合性建设,更好地促进高校德育课程改革与发展。     

A classroom observational study of Qatar's independent schools: Instruction and school reform

Qatar initiated a K–12 national educational reform in 2001. However, there is limited information on the instructional practices of the teachers in the reform schools. This project was an observational study of classrooms with a stratified random sample of the first six cohorts of reform schools. Specifically, 156 classrooms were observed in 29 reform schools. Instructional differences were noted in schools with different gender of students and were moderated by school level. Implications of findings were discussed pertaining to implementation of the Qatar national reform and professional development needs of teachers.     

Independent study: Continuing professional development in distance education

Abstract

The Universidad Estatal a Distancia (UNED) of Costa Rica has admitted over 80,000 students in its seventeen‐year history. However, total enrollment figures are an insufficient measure of the institution's success in achieving its mission of democratizing higher education in Costa Rica. This article examines the issue of student drop‐out in an attempt to determine ways in which UNED can best and most realistically achieve the goal of increased access to higher education.     

Inclusive education reform in Queensland: implications for policy and practice

In Queensland, Australia, the school system is being reformed to be more ‘inclusive’. However, the enthusiasm for ‘inclusive education’ in Queensland seems to be waning amongst practitioners, and the ‘confusion, frustration, guilt and exhaustion’ that has emerged with teachers and support practitioners in the UK is emerging amongst support practitioners and teachers in Queensland. This paper argues that this is happening because inclusive education reforms that intend to provide an equitable education for all students regardless of cultural, physical, social/emotional and behavioural differences are being introduced, but these policies, procedures and structures continue to label, isolate and segregate students within schools in the way in which segregated special education facilities did in the past. Also, new policies and structures are being introduced without practitioners having the time and support to examine critically the underlying assumptions about disability, difference and inclusion that underpin their practices. These reforms need to be reviewed in terms of their effectiveness in achieving their ‘inclusive’ goals, i.e. in terms of the impacts that these reforms are having on the students themselves, and on the educational practitioners who support the students.     

Web-enhanced case-based activity in teacher education: a case study

Recent work in case-based reasoning (CBR) reinforces the importance of situated learning, expert cases, and authentic tasks and activities for novice learners. As novices engage CBR environments, they apprentice in the experts’ practices while developing the understanding, knowledge and skill of a given community. This study examined how prospective teachers, as novices in a semester-long course, engaged and developed expert-like practices using the case knowledge of experienced teachers who teach with technology. By engaging experienced teachers’ knowledge and skill via Web-enhanced cases, prospective teachers refined their understanding of teaching culture and teaching with technology as they transitioned to the teaching community.     

A Discourse of Benefit: technology and school reform in the USA

ABSTRACT

This paper suggests that the subject of school reform and technology in education needs to be considered as a discourse that needs to be ‘unpacked’ and analyzed from a social, historical, and cultural perspective. Unpacking the historical and current interests in educational reform in light of information and communication technologies is no simple matter. There are two basic challenges. First, we need to analyze the language of change and the context of school reform. Second, the discourse of school reform needs to placed within a context of history and political theory. In the end the paper asks the reader to consider who the ideological ‘we’ is when we talk about education and technology.     

从中小学教师的专业成长需求看高师教育改革

师范院校是培养中小学教师的主阵地，其教学质量直接影响高师生的素质与水平，继而影响其日后专业发展。本通过对中小学教师专业发展需求的研究，分析当前制约中小学教师成长的内在因素，进而反思我国师范教育在培养目标、课程设置、师资培训、教育实习等方面存在的问题，提出一些相关的建议。     

Effective Inclusive Schools: a study in two countries

Over the past several years a number of constituencies in the USA and the UK have advocated for the concept of the inclusive school as the placement of choice for students with disabilities. Such a school offers appropriate educational opportunities to all students regardless of type or severity of disability or difficulty. To determine the characteristic features of such a school, two separate studies of inclusive educational practices were undertaken in locations that shared a commitment to inclusive education but differed geographically and culturally. The first study focused on the implementation of a statewide policy on inclusion in a rural state in the USA. The second study was conducted in a densely populated London Borough also committed to inclusive education. Both studies utilised interviews with key personnel and observations of innovative practice. Results suggest that effective inclusive schools are diverse problem solving organisations and that there are different ways of achieving this goal that must reflect the cultural and social context. The barriers faced by schools are described and suggestions for policy makers, administrators and practitioners are presented.     

Staff perceptions of professional development and empowerment as long-term leadership tasks of school principals in South African schools: an exploratory study

This article reports on the perceptions of school staff of professional development and empowerment as part of the long-term leadership task of principals. The long-term leadership model was used as a theoretical framework to quantitatively determine the perceptions of 118 teachers and education managers in approximately 100 schools throughout South Africa. The findings indicated how principals perform, and indicated those aspects in need of attention in improving the quality of leadership relating to professional development and empowerment. A further finding was that there was a positive, and statistically significant, relationship between the respondents’ sense of empowerment and their perceptions of professional development.