Teachers ’ conversations about civic education: Policy and practice in Australian schools

Civic education has been a priority for many countries in the Asia Pacific region over the past decade. Governments of different persuasions have recognized the need to provide stability and cohesion in their societies. This has been particularly so at a time when globalization and other forces threaten to fragment the nation state and co-opt its citizens into broader realms of allegiance and commitment. Policy makers have not been slow to come up with new directions for civic education in the school curriculum and the literature now abounds with examples from different countries. Yet missing from this flurry of policy development has been recognition of the role that teachers play in constructing civic education programs at the school level. In the end, it is teachers in classrooms who determine how centralized polices are understood and implemented. Drawing on a sample of Australian teachers, the purpose of this paper is to highlight the role that teachers play in constructing and reconstructing civic education policy in schools and classrooms. Interviews conducted with teachers in four Australian States/Territories have revealed that teachers ’ personal views of civics are more likely to influence them than external policies, their focus is more on citizenship than formal civics programs and that they are reluctant to develop programs where civic knowledge is formalized and disciplined based. The research reported in this paper was funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC). The views expressed are those of the authors and not the ARC.     

Politics and education policy into practice: conversations with former Secretaries of State

Set against a period of rapid change, education has grown in political importance and policy development has moved from the local authority to central government with a key role being played by the Secretary of State. Based on a series of semi-structured interviews, with 10 politicians who have served as Secretary of State for Education, this paper considers a range of issues related to the development and implementation of education policy in England. This paper focuses on motivation and preparation for the role, the movement of ministers, regional factors, relationship with the Prime Minister and the breakdown of consensus. It illustrates the reality of policy implementation against the political realities of serving as a Government minister and the illusion of being able to develop long-term strategies in a rapidly changing environment.     

Schooling for the long-term: elite education and temporal accumulation

How do we make sense of educational strategies that stretch across decades and generations? Taking the case of elite bankers in the US, this article argues that part of the strength of their education is its ability to accumulate and protect learning over the long-term, through long-term education strategies and structures. Synthesizing key recent texts on banking, the article describes four of these strategies—institutional wormholes, biographically entrained field structures, quasi-school structures, and inter-generational folding. These are tentative identifications: the article is a conceptual foray, an effort to define a problematic of the long-term in elite schooling, with implications for education in general.     

Short-cycle higher education: Purposes and issues

This article deals with a worldwide movement called short-cycle higher education - a level of education placed between post-compulsory/post-secondary education and university degree completion. Three types of short-cycle institutions are examined and evaluated: (1) extensions of secondary education, (2) expansions of universities and other senior institutions, and (3) units separated from existing schools.Purposes of short-cycle higher education are next discussed, and finally, major issues are identified, and directions taken by various nations contrasted. Particular attention is given to the relationship between short-cycle and university education referred to as articulation and transfer.     

Disruptive events: elite education and the discursive production of violence

This paper considers the discursive production of violence in the context of educational markets. Drawing on a larger study of sexually violent incidents that occurred in an elite private boys' school in Sydney, Australia, in 2000, the paper examines disciplinary traditions and communicative practices surrounding these events. Insights from Michel Foucault and Michel de Certeau inform the analysis of market‐inflected features of school cultures, and their reconfiguration in violent acts by educational consumers. The paper aims to bring the intersection of school cultures and policy contexts into the matrix of factors considered in relation to school violence, and argues that institutional and social discourses that normalise and reproduce hierarchies of status and worth are complicit in the symbolic and material production of violence.     

Researching the once-powerful in education: the value of retrospective elite interviewing in education policy research

While it is generally acknowledged that being ‘historically informed’ lies at the heart of critical accounts of education policy-making, the use of historically focused retrospective research methods within the field is rare. This paper makes the case for retrospective research at a time when some of the most significant episodes of post-war educational policy-making are fast passing into the realms of not-so-recent history. In particular, it is argued that current policy scholars now have an opportunity to revisit the issues and concerns regarding the formation of the ‘New Right’ education policy reforms 30?years ago. Drawing on the experiences of a recently completed study of educational policy-making during the 1979–1983 Thatcher administration, it is argued that retrospective methods offer a surprisingly rich opportunity to collect primary data from the policy elites of the 1980s. It is concluded that the time is right for the production of a useful addendum to the founding studies of educational policy sociology that were conducted at the time.     

Recurrent education: some economic issues

Despite increasing interest internationally concerning the concept of recurrent education, comparatively little work has been undertaken on its economic implications. This paper applies the principles of social cost-benefit analysis to the recurrent education model and contrasts it with the conventional apprenticeship or front-end model of provision. Consideration is given to the implications of redistributing education and training over the lifespan of the individual, and also of utilising alternatives to conventional full-time formal educational provision. It is suggested that, when a range of factors is taken into account, recurrent education may not be so obviously uneconomic as simple analyses suggest. On the other hand, the concept may pose rather starkly the possible conflict between efficiency and equity objectives in educational policy-making. These findings must be tentative, however, because the cost implications of different forms of provision geared to the specific characteristics and needs of adults have been little researched. The paper concludes by asking how far the cost-benefit framework itself is an appropriate tool for choosing between alternative educational strategies, when decisions are non-marginal and the criteria for educational policy-making may not be primarily economic.The author wishes to thank Professor Gareth Williams for helpful suggestions on an earlier draft.     

精英教育与大众教育之间的大学品格

古典的大学传统以完整的人的培养作为大学理念的核心。当高等教育从精英教育走向大众教育之时,大学必然要适应普通个人对职业教育的需求,使得古典大学教育传统难以为继,导致大学品格的俯就。我国大学品格的建设不仅面临着高等教育大众化的冲击,还面临着自身大学人文传统的重建问题。当前大学品格的建设,应注重大学自身的定位,甄定大学培养目标,并确立不同类型大学教师的发展方向。     

Researching elite education: affectively inferred belongings,desires and exclusions

This paper reflects on key moments occurring during the course of a three-year study of elite girls’ education, with a focus on the power relations that emerged between researchers and elites within the context in which the study was conducted. Central to our analysis is a focus on the affective dimensions of interaction between the researcher and study participants. Our experience gaining access to elite schools in the study illustrates how productive relationships may be fostered by a demonstrated alignment of interests; the desire for intellectual dialogue; and factors linked to the dynamics of the local education market. In our interviews with elite young women, we found that experiences of affinity, foreignness or awe within the interview process triggered different systems of affect. These moments are significant in shaping understandings of the social projects pursued by elite subjects.     

Surface learning about teaching in higher education:The need for more critical conversations

Academic development takes place in a context of higher education that is fragmented. Many argue that the development of teaching and learning is a largely generic and practical activity, which is common across disciplines. Others claim that it is generic but grounded in educational theory and research. Sceptical of these claims, this paper argues that it can be theoretical, critical and interdisciplinary. Such an approach would be enhanced if expertise from academic education departments and from service units concerned with educational development could be brought together. This raises questions concerning organizational structure and the professional identity of workers in the field of academic development.     

Technical and further education reforms: Theoretical issues

This paper examines theoretical issues arising from technical and further education and training reforms over the last few decades. It illustrates how these reforms have been dominated by particular knowledge concerns assumed to be central to specific areas of human activity. It then examines the reforms in terms of theoretical relationships among knowledge, skills, activity and meaning, as advanced by Piaget (1980a, 1980b) and Vygotsky (1934/1986); and discusses the implications for this and other sectors of education. The paper concludes that the reforms in technical and further education have pursued an image of relevance, but have mistaken how individuals construct meaning in workplace activities and the relationships among these kinds of meanings and those used in wider individual and social activities. It is also concluded that this mistake has serious implications for the current directions of the sector and its effectiveness in preparing people for their working lives.