Problems of a Sociological Approach to Pop Music in Schools

In this paper I shall deal with some issues raised by a sociologist interested in music education, Graham Vulliamy. I shall draw on four of his papers.

There will be certain areas of agreement between us: recognition of the importance of Afro‐American music in our century and its dominance in the popular tradition; that forms of analysis through notation are particularly inappropriate to an oral‐aural tradition; that all music is bounded by particular styles and traditions and occurs within a socio‐cultural context.

I shall briefly examine two minor points of difficulty—that Vulliamy overstates the ‘freedom’ of improvised music and the rigidity of notaled music and that he confuses discussion by conflating the views of Meyer and Longer.

There are three major issues to which we need to address ourselves. The first of these is the assumption that pop music can be legitimised in school merely by establishing that different criteria are necessary. The second arises in the attempt to provide appropriate tools of analysis by arguing, with Shepherd, that music has a kind of social referent. This proposition is stated in several ways. In some forms the proposition is acceptable but in others it is problematic.

The third issue involves problems concerning the expressive and formal elements of music and the uses to which music is put, which may range from a signal for action (or reaction) to a meaningful symbol (a much more complex and rich form of response). Using the terms ‘intensional’ and ‘engendered feeling’ as though they were synonymous and the terms ‘extensional’ and ‘embodied meaning’ as though they were the same, some confusion is created, yet there are implications for music education which are not only theoretically important but vital in practical terms of teaching and learning in schools.     

The Accomplishment of Divergence

The situated development of South Asian communities in the UK has led to the growth of a number of schools in which ‘ethnic minority’ pupils form a majority. Such a situation throws into higher relief issues and concerns surrounding cultural transmission and encounter, and communicative competence.

This paper recounts some of the principal findings of research in which the teaching staff of a large 9‐13 middle school were interviewed individually regarding their perceptions of their South Asian pupils. The school has an almost wholly South Asian intake and is situated near the centre of a large northern city.

The teachers’ markedly deficit view of their charges is detailed and this is followed by an explanation of their constructions in microsociological terms. A model is presented which clarifies the processes by which close intercultural interaction seem to accomplish worlds as divergent.

The author teaches children with special educational needs at the school in which the study was undertaken.     

BFI EDUCATION,CULTURE AND THE CURRICULUM

Understanding film and television through study is a distinct educational activity, but hardly integrated into the education system. This, it is argued, is due to a separation maintained by narrow institutional definitions of education and culture. In attempting to reconceptualize a relation, a shifting history of education is first described, in which clear links are discernible between changing financial fortunes of the education system and changes in successive political policies in this century. The inheritance of that history, it is argued, is a largely static curriculum.

Secondly, in investigating curriculum issues, the centrality of a subject‐based timetable is seen as inadequate; instead, a curriculum constructed in terms of ‘fields of knowledge’ is suggested, an idea exemplified by broadening the language base of English teaching and refocussing on the study of systems of signification.

Thirdly, in describing a tradition of intellectual and educational debates that underwrites such a shift, BFI Education ‐ an agency whose function in part is to promote education in film and TV studies ‐ is positioned in that tradition, and its policies and practices accounted for.

An annotated bibliography of key texts charts the context of the article, for readers for whom that context is unfamiliar, and as a potential reading list for educational courses.     

Teaching at a Distance — Reflections on the relationship between discipline‐based and general teaching theories

German readers would immediately associate the term ‘discipline-based’ with Didaktik, which in the German-speaking world is an established branch of education science. The first section therefore deals with the development of Didaktik, understood as a theory of teaching and learning which seeks to investigate the relationships between discipline-based and general teaching theories. Didaktik was originally a strictly theory-oriented discipline in German-speaking countries, but changes in its terms of reference have led to an acceptance of the more pragmatically oriented curriculum theory of the English-speaking world. The term ‘discipline-based’ seems to indicate that here, too, education science has turned its back on positivistic, ‘purely scientific’ standards, so a knowledge of the German discussion of teaching-learning theory may be of interest.

The second section shows that in distance education, too, general teaching models need concretization in terms of discipline-based teaching theory, and that on the other hand, any discipline-based theory needs to have its foundations in general teaching theory, i.e. in pedagogic principles.

The third section therefore postulates the necessity of a theory of distance education which is based on practical experience.     

Families as Educators for Global Citizenship: Five conundrums of intentional socialization

An international multidisciplinary Symposium on ‘Families as Educators for Global Citizenship’ was held in Budapest in December 1994, jointly convened by the Institute of Family & Environmental Research (London) and the Hungarian Sociological Association.

We based our work on two propositions: first, that families everywhere socialize their offspring for the norms and behaviour valued in their social systems; and second, that there are major changes going on a ‘global’ scale which are relevant to current socialization practices. We asked how changes in global culture and values impact on families and how families are responding. In the light of the importance of these questions and the sparseness of reliable answers, we suggest the need for research on families and the teaching/learning of social values: 1. How do families actually teach values: how much of it is intentional instruction, how much inadvertent teaching, as in association with language teaching and non‐intentional modelling ?

2. How do families reconcile their local traditional values with those emerging as part of global culture (i.e. the humanistic values of universal human rights, gender equity, respect for the environment, non‐violent conflict resolution and diversity).

3. How are personal identities formed which incorporate a global dimension, and how are conflicts in multiple identities (local, national, regional global) managed?

It is recognized that at present it is probably a minority interest to undertake intentional socialization for global values. However, we suggest that it will be increasingly recognized as important. For families seeking to instill such values, a number of conundrums are apparent. We have identified five for preliminary analysis.

     

Information Skills in Education for Manufacturing Technology: the Case for an Integrated Quality Approach

Considerable ‘user education’ work of high quality has been produced from academic librarians to impart information skills to students on degree-level and diploma BTEC engineering courses. However, in the author's opinion, this lacks a focus on some points of importance for the effective teaching of potential engineers and technologists, This requires the following.

(1) More case-studies of engineering problems highlighting information retrieval aspects.

(2) More accurate grounding in the way engineers actually use information.

(3)Better integration between lectures, information guides, exercises and test material.

(4)Greater emphasis on the analysis stage of technical problems, and linkage to types of available information to help generate solutions—information needs analysis.

Scope exists for packaged teaching material incorporating improvements and drawing upon advances in educational technology such as CAL methods. The author attaches a sample scheme based on advanced manufacturing themes, developed for the BTEC Production Engineering course at Coventry Polytechnic in the UK.     

Teaching global climate change to pre-service middle school teachers through inquiry activities

Background Global climate change (GCC) has become one of the most debated socio-scientific issues after an increase in media attention. Recently, there have also been several studies describing students’ and teachers’ alternative conceptions about GCC. Therefore, designing learning environments at the college level that focus on accurate conceptions of GCC has become important in order for pre-service teachers to correct their alternative conceptions. There are, however, a limited number of studies that aim to both increase pre-service teachers’ knowledge about these issues and explore their perceptions of teaching this subject.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of inquiry-based activities on pre-service teachers’ knowledge about GCC and their perceptions of teaching this subject.

Sample The participants were 102 pre-service middle school mathematics and science teachers who were enrolled in an environmental education course.

Design and methods A one group pre-test–post-test design was employed to identify changes after pre-service teachers engaged in a learning unit on GCC. The inquiry-based GCC unit was implemented during the spring semester at a public university in northeastern Turkey. The unit was implemented over seven sessions. Data were collected through two questionnaires: the ‘GCC content questionnaire’ and the ‘perceptions of teaching GCC questionnaire’. Each questionnaire was administered both before and after implementation of the unit. Content questionnaire responses were analyzed using a paired-samples t-test. Responses to the perceptions of teaching questionnaire were analyzed using inductive open coding.

Results Results indicated that after the implementation the pre-service teachers significantly improved their understanding of GCC across all items in the content questionnaire, saw several benefits of and challenges about teaching GCC, and perceived themselves as better prepared to teach about GCC in their future classrooms.

Conclusions Teacher education programs should integrate inquiry-based GCC instruction to increase pre-service teachers’ knowledge as well as their preparedness to teach about this important planetary issue.     

Productive Activity in the Curriculum: changing the literate bias of secondary schools in Tanzania

This paper offers an analysis of the attempt in Tanzanian Secondary Schools to alter the conventional academic school curriculum by the inclusion of productive work.

It describes the broad aims of the policy of education for self reliance as a text, focussing in particular on those elements in the policy which imply a redefinition of the relationship between the dominant literate curriculum and the productive, or essentially practical, projects carried out by the schools.

The paper includes some research evidence which suggests that, in practice, teachers have been unable to adopt the ‘unified’ approach advocated by President Nyerere. The paper outlines different practices carried out by teachers in response to the policy imperatives and presents three critical factors affecting teachers’ actions. These are the relationship between schools and the division of labour, the difficulties of specifying what ‘unity’ may mean in terms of pupil action and the problems of school organisation related to the inclusion of productive activity. The paper concludes by arguing that in the context of the ‘unsympathetic’ environment suggested by these factors, the issue of implementation becomes increasingly important.     

Implementing the Contract: the technical and vocational education initiative

Participating schools have a contractual responsibility to recruit a ‘balanced intake’ of students to TVEI courses. However, in many schools it is form teachers who have the eventual job of promoting TVEI to both sexes ‘across the ability range’.

What this recruitment structure does not allow for is that form teachers may be affected by a number of ‘sources of influence’, the effects of which do not coincide with this objective.

The aim of this paper is to build up a picture of the school as an ‘open ended’ interrelating totality, within which form teachers confront the demand for a ‘balanced intake’ alongside a number of other, potentially conflicting factors.     

Interaction in distance education — a case study: Teaching biology at two rural schools

There are many instances where distance education for children is in a state of upheaval and change. This is particularly true of Australia and, as earlier reports indicate, of Canada. Central planners often have abandoned the old ‘correspondence schools’ and established ‘open access’ centres; central schools have been de‐centralised; correspondence stuthes are offered to children in city schools; isolated children attend ‘classes’ vastly different from their old ‘School of the Air’ classes; etc. Some of these changes are the marks of progress; the quality of other changes is debatable.

This account is that of one country teacher operating in northern South Australia where distance education has now changed to be offered, Statewide, by a series of open access schools and has also been regionalised to be offered at the initiative of Education Department Regional Centres with a broad responsibility for education of children in their region. The article makes no pretence to being considered as ‘international research literature’ — some will question whether or not it is even distance education. It is being published at my request.

The teacher functions in an areaof small country towns 50 km apart and with 500 or so people. Not too much further north, into sparsely‐watered country, the towns are likely to have 50 or so people and are up to 500 km apart!

What the paper does highlight is that there are professional people ‘out there’ who see themselves as having a stake in distance education. Central administrators and those who regard themselves as scholars in distance education are only a part of the personnel in distance education.

Ed.     

BEYOND BUILDING BETTER CHECKLISTS: STAFF DEVELOPMENT IN A SCHOOL EXPERIENCE PROGRAMME

The article reviews the aims of the School Experience of a new B.Ed, primary degree, based on Zeichner's notion of the ‘reflective teacher’. Having established the aims, the authors then examine the implications this has for finding forms of assessment which are commensurate with the process‐orientated, formative, self‐critical nature of the degree.

The issues raised, in this article, relate to the needs of tutors in developing new roles and relationships between tutor and student, tutor and class teacher, and tutor and tutor. The resulting staff development programme — designed to support the emerging ‘reflective tutor’ — is discussed.     

Alternative education on Prince Edward Island: a hybrid of ‘mainstream’ and special education

Alternative education programmes have acted as a disciplinary practice used by schools in Prince Edward Island (PEI), Canada, as a response to providing students, especially those identified with challenging behaviours, who do not fit into ‘mainstream’ schools.

This article highlights the emergence of alternative education in PEI and brings to light the complexities underpinning how a child with challenging behaviour is viewed. Through the use of Foucauldian genealogical analysis and critical discourse analysis, this research centres on the discourse of ‘alternative education’ and problematises how alternative education programmes have been put in place as a solution to the problem of the child with challenging behaviour in ‘mainstream’ schools as constituted in the 1990s in PEI, Canada.

Using data generated from educational policies, government documents, and interviews with educators who worked in alternative placements and practitioners who worked with students identified as having problematic behaviour, I propose that alternative education programmes are hybrid programmes emerging from an overlapping of understanding from ‘mainstream’ education and ‘special education’.     

Practical Components in Teacher Training Programmes in Slovenia (Yugoslavia)

For the present development of teacher training system in Slovenia (Yugoslavia) two trends are characteristic: the prolongation of studies for elementary school teachers (grades 1‐8) from two to four years and an institutional shift of responsibility for subject teacher training from ‘mono‐technical’ (pedagogical academies) to ‘polytechnical’ institutions (different faculties or departments of the universities).

These trends are having important implications for the scope of practical training and its relationship to other parts of the studies. Traditional forms of practical training that had developed at pedagogical academies are being discontinued but the new ones are not yet firmly established.

The existing forms of practical training of student teachers are briefly described (exercises in general professional courses, exercises in classroom observation, teaching attempts and block practice). In addition, the role of teachers of special didactics and the role of practice teachers is analysed.

The pragmatic character of practical training has to be overcome on the basis of systematic attempts to confront students’ subjective theories on teaching and learning, based on experience, with scientific theories throughout the process of their training.

An important prerequisite for the necessary integration of different components of study and especially of theory and practice is cooperation between university teachers of academic, general professional subjects and special didactics. How do we achieve such a cooperation and overcome the negative attitude of teachers of academic subjects toward professional and practical training of students? This remains one of the open problems in the reform of teacher training in Slovenia.     

TELEVISION IN THE TEACHING OF CHEMISTRY: A REVIEW FROM FURTHER EDUCATION

The uses and potentialities of educational television as described by recent authors are reviewed, and television compared with film from the viewpoints of producer and audience, while off‐air recordings are compared with ‘home‐made’ programmes.

The author concludes with an extensive review of the literature concerned with the uses of television in the teaching of chemistry. While the review does not attempt to list every possible reference, none of the few that have been omitted adds substantially to the uses mentioned, and the survey should provide a basis for those interested in beginning research in this field, as well as those contemplating the introduction of television into chemistry teaching.

The article was prepared in connection with research into student attitudes to educational television, the results of which will appear in the next issue of the Journal.     

The Gap between Theory and Practice

This contribution outlines the state of the art of the recent developments in teacher education for Secondary education in the Netherlands.

In the first section an overall picture is given from the different types of teacher training, their certification and their developments.

In the second section two key‐issues in teacher training are discussed, particularly the different training concepts and the developments in teaching practice in schools. Specific attention is given to the training of the co‐operating teachers.

In the third section two of the author's research projects are reviewed: the first is a project on problems of beginning teachers, and the second a project on teaching practice in schools.     

On defining distance education

Four generally accepted definitions of distance education are analysed and from them six components of a comprehensive definition are chosen. The forms of education that are considered to fall within the concept of distance education as outlined are considered from the point of view of choice of medium, institutional type and didactic model. Various forms of education that bear some similarities to distance education but are not to be identified with it are described. The term ‘distance education’ is proposed as the most satisfactory solution to the problem of terminology.

The term ‘distance education’ covers the various forms of study at all levels which are not under the continuous, immediate supervision of tutors present with their students in lecture rooms or on the same premises, but which, nevertheless, benefit from the planning, guidance and tuition of a tutorial organisation.

(Holmberg,1977:9)

Distance education is education which either does not imply the physical presence of the teacher appointed to dispense it in the place where it is received or in which the teacher is present only on occasion or for selected tasks.

(Loi 71.556 du 12 juillet 1971)

Distance teaching/education (Fernunterricht) is a method of imparting knowledge, skills and attitudes which is rationalised by the application of division of labour and organisational principles as well as by the extensive use of technical media, especially for the purpose of reproducing high quality teaching material which makes it possible to instruct great numbers of students at the same time wherever they live. It is an industrialised form of teaching and learning.

(Peters, 1973:206)

Distance teaching may be defined as the family of instructional methods in which the teaching behaviours are executed apart from the learning behaviours, including those that in a contiguous situation would be performed in the learner's presence, so that communication between the teacher and the learner must be facilitated by print, electronic, mechanical or other devices.

(Moore, 1973:664)     

Primary school students’ conceptions about microorganisms. Influence of theoretical and practical methodologies on learning

Background: Microorganisms are very important in day-to-day life, but they are inadequately addressed in the Spanish educational system. It is essential that students are well informed about their characteristics and functions.

Purpose: The study aims to find out primary school students’ perceptions of microorganisms and to analyze whether theoretical or practical teaching interventions produce different levels in student’s learning about this topic.

Sample: The sample consisted of 199 primary students in 2nd (aged 7–8) and 6th (11–12) grades from two public schools in Albacete (Spain).

Design and method: This study uses a pre- and post-intervention questionnaire to evaluate the knowledge of students on the issue of microorganisms. We compare differences by age and two teaching–learning intervention methodologies: theoretical and practical.

Results: Results from the pre-test showed a poor understanding and several misconceptions. Children have a limited and negative view of microorganisms, mainly derived from non-formal learning. Both types of intervention provided an improvement in knowledge, but closed questions did not reveal clear statistically significant differences between methods. Open questions showed how the scientific use of the language and quality of verbalization is much better in the groups that received a practical intervention.

Conclusion: The findings can be a starting point for curriculum planners and for teachers interested in engaging students in science learning.     

The challenges of setting up the evaluation of extension systems by using a systems approach: the case of Greece,Italy and Slovenia

Purpose: Considering current debates on ecosystem services’ effectiveness and the AIS/AKIS functioning, in this study we suggest a new, systemic way to evaluate extension systems (ESs). Using this model, we compared the effectiveness of ESs in three countries with essential differences but also characteristic similarities in their agricultural sectors: Greece, Italy and Slovenia.

Design/methodology/approach: Initially, we defined ‘extension system’ as a wide range of actors integrating resources with the aim of co-producing value (not for but with) farmers. To capture the value flow within this constellation of actors we distinguished between the notion of ‘value in production’ – i.e. the value embodied in service offerings – and the value emanating when service content is used in real settings or ‘value in use.’

Findings: Our approach revealed that, despite their structural and organizational differences, the ES in the three countries share common problems arising from a limited focus on the issue of value in use.

Practical implications: The application of a systemic approach – seeing farmers as co-creators and not as end-users of extension services – in the evaluation of ESs contributes to better understand the complexity of value flow within the system and can strengthen extension systems’ effectiveness.

Theoretical implications: The present study, by reconsidering traditional evaluation approaches and by focusing on value co-production, offers an alternative value-centric framework for the conceptualization of extension services and points out to the need for refining the evaluation criteria of ESs.

Originality/value: Our work, by emphasizing the reciprocal creation of value within ESs, and by adding the concept of value in use, offers a new systems approach worth considering when evaluating ESs within different organizational and sociocultural contexts.     

Teaching strategies to promote concept learning by design challenges

Background: This study is the second study of a design-based research, organised around four studies, that aims to improve student learning, teaching skills and teacher training concerning the design-based learning approach called Learning by Design (LBD).

Purpose: LBD uses the context of design challenges to learn, among other things, science. Previous research shows that this approach to subject integration is quite successful but provides little profit on (scientific) concept learning. For this, a lack of (knowledge of) proper teaching strategies is suggested as an important reason. This study explores these strategies and more specific the interaction with concept learning.

Sample: Six Dutch first-year bachelor’s degree science student teachers, between the ages of 16 and 18, and two science teacher trainers (principal investigators included) were involved.

Design and methods: A mixed methods study was used to study LBD’s teaching practice in depth. Based on a theoretical framework of (concept) learning-related teaching strategies video recordings of a guided LBD challenge were analysed to unravel teacher handling in detail. Complemented by questionnaire and interview data and students’ learning outcomes (pre- and post-exam) the effectiveness of teaching strategies was established and shortcomings were distracted.

Results: Students reached medium overall learning gains where the highest gains were strongly task-related. Teacher handling was dominated by providing feedback and stimulating collaboration and only 13% of all teacher interventions concerned direct explication of underlying science. And especially these explicit teaching strategies were highly appreciated by students to learn about science.

Conclusions: In accordance with insights about knowledge transfer, LBD needs to be enriched with explicit teaching strategies, interludes according to poor-related science content important for cohesive understanding and de- and recontextualisation of concepts for deeper understanding.