The global middle class and school choice: a cosmopolitan sociology

In this paper we suggest the need for research which addresses school choice as a global phenomenon. That is, a form of choice which extends beyond local politics and policymaking. We consider here the educational choices and choice making contexts of a burgeoning, mobile, post-national middle class who operate on a global scale. We also sketch the educational market within which these choices are considered and realised but the main focus is on demand side issues. The paper seeks to open a space for further research, in which to ask some old and some new questions about social class and social reproduction through schooling, and to make the case for choice researchers to attend more carefully to choice in a framework of mobility, globalisation and related new kinds of social class identities and interests.     

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.     

Leading and achieving a learning school through developing middle leaders

In this paper the writer outlines a case study (in which he was involved) which demonstrates the relationship between leadership and learning in an 11–16 secondary school. It will be clearly demonstrated that effective improvement can take place through the identification of key players and focused professional development. Evidence of the importance of bringing together a variety of relevant and appropriate agents to lead individual and institutional change, growth and development is presented. There will be reference not only to this example of best practice using an action research/action learning approach but also to the current and contrasting work of the National College for School Leaders, including what is now being counted as significant research in the English scene. The findings indicate that there is learning and other gains to be achieved by all parties when learning is contextualized and purposefully led.

Dans cet article l'auteur décrit une étude de cas qui démontre la relation entre apprentissage et direction dans une école secondaire (élèves de 11 à 16 ans). On peut démontrer nettement qu'une amélioration effective peut se réaliser par une identification de personnes‐clefs et par un développement professionel concentré. On présente des évidences sur l'importance de réunir les acteurs significatifs et adéquates afin de guider le développement individuel aussi bien que institutional. Non seulement fait‐on référence à cet exemple ‘de bonne pratique’, utilisant une approche de ‘recherche action ‐ apprentissage actif’. On considère aussi les traveaux actuels, mais d'une approche différente, du National College for School Leaders, en incluant la recherché significative et représentative pour l'Angleterre. Les résultats indiquent que tous les participants bénéficient d'un apprentissage contextualisé mis au centre du développement professional.

Der Verfasser berichtet über eine Fallstudie (an der er selbst beteiligt war), die die Beziehung zwischen Führung und Lernen in einer Sekundarschule für die Altersstufen 11–16 zeigt. Es zeigt sich, daß eine wirkungsvolle Verbesserung stattfinden kann, wenn die einflußreichen Personen einbezogen werden und die berufliche Entwicklung im Mittelpunkt steht. Außerdem wird nachgewiesen, daß es wichtig ist, geeignete Akteure aus verschiedenen relevanten Bereichen zusammenzuführen, um Veränderung, Wachstum und Entwicklung auf der individuellen wie auf der institutionellen Ebene zustande zu bringen. Es wird nicht nur dieses Beispiel für “best practice” vorgestellt, dessen Ansatz in der Handlungsforschung und im handlungsbezogenes Lernen liegt. Es wird auch Bezug auf die aktuelle im gewissen Gegensatz dazu stehende Arbeit des National College for School Leaders genommen und auf das, was als bedeutsame Forschung in der englischen “Szene” angesehen wird. Die Befunde weisen darauf hin, daß Lernen stattfindet und weitere Vorteile für alle Beteiligten erreicht werden, wenn Lernen zweckbezogen ausgerichtet ist und der Kontext berücksichtigt wird.

El autor de esta contribución presenta un estudio de caso (en el cual participa) y con el que demuestra la relación entre liderazgo y aprendizaje en una escuela secundaria inglesa. Queda claramente demostrado que una mejora efectiva se logra con una buena identificación de los actores‐clave y con su buena preparación profesional. Se presenta el proceso de cambio, crecimiento y desarrollo poniendo en evidencia la importancia de la aportación conjunta, a partir de una variedad relevante y apropiada de los agentes que lideran el cambio, tanto el individual como el institucional. Se hace referencia no solo a este ejemplo de buena pràctica, que aplica una metodología de investigación‐acción/acción‐aprendizaje, sino también al trabajo actual y crítico del National College for School Leaders, incluyendo lo más relevante de la investigación significativa en el panorama actual inglés. Los resultados indican que el aprendizaje y los demás beneficios con él relacionados, obtenidos por todos los agentes implicados, sólo se consiguen cuando el aprendizaje se contextualiza y se dirige de manera claramente intencionada.     

Weight,gravity and air pressure: Mental representations by Italian middle school pupils

The research reports an investigation concerned with schemes of commonsense knowledge connecting the three elements weight, air and gravity to the phenomenon of free fall. Inferences about the mental representations of Italian middle school pupils (12‐13 years of age) have been gathered by interviewing a sample of 40 children, using a number of different questions and searching for the possible consistencies among the whole set of answers. Three schemes are suggested: in the first, the force of gravity operating on the weight of the objects causes their fall; in the second, the force of gravity and weight are two independent causes for the fall of objects; and in the third the force of gravity, weight and the phenomenon of fall are unrelated entities. Air is implicitly or explicitly invoked as a cause of either weight or gravity, or both.     

互联网+时代下中学生阅读推广的特点与对策分析

阅读影响着青少年的一生,也影响着国家的未来。我国社会正处于剧烈变迁中,互联网+日益成为社会大众关注和使用的焦点,互联网的快速普及,导致价值混乱、过分功利、过度娱乐化,这些都影响到中学生群体的阅读推广。文章从青少年群体数字化阅读的特点分析出发,探究中学生阅读推广特点,提出解决阅读推广的对策与途径。     

The school in the state and the state in the school: the social re-production of education systems in a mobile modernity

Schools offer powerful scope for viewing and comprehending the wider society in which they are produced and replicated. The ways in which schools are structured, positioned, funded, managed, appreciated, critiqued, cared for and neglected, presents us with a means for seeing beyond the rhetoric of a nation state to the lived realities faced by its citizens. In this paper I want to link the development of Australian educational policies to shifts in socio-cultural thought and practice that reflect and reproduce a mobile modernity. I am interested in school funding policies as they relate to the private, or non-government education sector from the late colonial period to these so-called neo-liberal/late modern times. The interrogated scenes shift about amongst a complex of interrelated fields, from the urban to the rural, the public and the private, as well as the primary, secondary and tertiary layers of educational “offerings”. The periodization reveals a loosening of commitments to a secular, state-centred, welfare-focused modernity, towards a privatizing, individualizing “second modernity”. Drawing from a range of empirical studies of school choice I highlight the shifting ideas and practices of those involved in the re-production of both public and private schools either as professionals/workers in the system, or as “consumers” of the products available in education’s “quasi-markets”.     

The middle school in The Netherlands

In 1976 a small-scale experiment concerning the middle school was begun in the Netherlands. The aim of the middle school is comprehensive education for pupils aged 12 to 15. In this article the development of this experiment and a review of research results is presented. The results are not very clear, partly because of imperfections in the evaluation design chosen. The middle school experiment as such has now been stopped, but a new innovation, comprising the introduction of a basic (common core) curriculum is planned. These plans and the evaluation design proposed to assess its effects are briefly summarized at the end of this article.     

Anglo-Western international school teachers as global middle class: portraits of three families

ABSTRACT

This exploratory study on the global middle class (GMC) examines three representative experiences of the tens of thousands of Anglo-Western international schoolteachers (ISTs), who teach in private, K-12, English-immersion international schools for extended periods of time. The notion of GMC provokes consideration of social class making and forms of belonging of professional and managerial service workers who are ‘middling actors’ in the flows of transnational migration. We ground our analysis by examining three IST families as a unique group within the GMC. We find that ISTs, oriented by pre-sojourn middle-class histories, differentially (re)fashion their social class locations in the more elite transnational milieu of the international schools. These families accumulate and exchange economic, cultural and social capital under their transnational routes, connections and returns. Their children’s access to an elite international education as a condition of their international employment represents a unique form of school choice.     

Futurescaping: school choice of internationally mobile global middle class families temporarily residing in Malaysia

ABSTRACT

This paper explores internationally mobile global middle class families (GMCF) in terms of how they rationalise moving away from their home country, select schools and reimagine their young children’s futures in an international setting. Building on Appadurai’s notion of ‘the future as a cultural fact’ and Anagnost’s concept of ‘life-making in neoliberal times’ we analyse how the search for escaping the past is dialectically related to seeking better futures. For GMCFs, the search for better futures within current neoliberal times leads to them discursively constructing spatial–temporal movements across international boundaries. The term ‘futurescaping’ is introduced and used to understand the act of imagining futures that are shaped by a person’s past and present experience. We argue that futurescaping is more than simply transnational mobility, but is a multidimensional act, which is dynamic, culturally value-ladened, historically embedded, futuristic and provides a unique view into the everyday lives of internationally mobile GMCF.     

新媒体时代下中学德育存在的问题及解决对策

在网络十分发达的今天,新媒体在中学德育工作中的应用是德育改革和发展的必然要求。本文简要分析了新媒体时代下网络信息良莠混杂导致学生迷失方向,网络的虚拟构筑使学生脱离现实世界,德育工作者自身网络信息素养相对欠缺等影响中学德育工作的问题,并提出了相应浅显的解决对策。     

新时代中学生思想政治教育存在问题及对策探析

新时代中学生思想政治教育总体成效是显著的,但也存在不容忽视的问题。部分中学生思想政治素养不够高,既有学校教育的因素,也有家庭、社会因素。要努力强化学校育人功能、发挥思想政治课优势、提高家庭教育水平、净化社会环境,逐步提高中学生思想政治素养,促进学生全面发展。     

The emergence of a learning progression in middle school chemistry

Previously, a small scale, interview‐based, 3‐year longitudinal study (ages 11–14) in one school had suggested a learning progression related to the concept of a substance. This article presents the results of a large‐scale, cross‐sectional study which used Rasch modeling to test the hypothesis of the learning progression. Data were collected from 4,450 students, aged 11–14, across 30 secondary schools in England using a computer‐based assessment instrument. The construction of the items was informed by the research literature on students' understanding in chemistry. One hundred seventy‐six fixed response items, in three formats, involving the use of video and animation were developed. Scored dichotomously, overall, the data show a good fit to the Rasch model. Item difficulties have a high degree of invariance across ability, schools, gender, and year group. Conceptually, when items are placed in order of difficulty, a coherent progression of ideas emerges which matches the expectations from the longitudinal study. The learning progression is presented. Independent, nationally standardized data allow tentative projection of student performance to the wider population in England. Implications for research and curriculum design are discussed. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 48: 849–877, 2011     

The gifted underachiever in the middle school

Underachievement among gifted early adolescents may be the result of the nature of the youngsters at this stage of their development.     

Fostering spatial abilities of middle school students through augmented reality: Spatial strategies

Education and Information Technologies - In school mathematics, representations of solid figures and three-dimensional geometric objects generally rely on two-dimensional projective representation...     

中小学生实践学习的基本特征、教育价值及其辅导原则

长期以来 ,中小学生实践学习成为学习研究的空场。这与实施素质教育 ,进入学习化社会不适 ,必须把握中小学生实践学习的基本特征 ,重视实践学习的教育价值 ,坚持实践学习的辅导原则 ,引导中小学生走实践学习与书本学习结合并重之路。     

Governing through guidance: an analysis of educational guidance practices in an Italian lower secondary school

ABSTRACT

Current social policy discourse defines educational and career guidance as a key tool to enhance individual self-realisation while pursuing collective social objectives (economic growth, reduction of drop-out rate, social inclusion). Relying on Foucault’s concept of governmentality, critical research has long destabilised this mainstream narrative by stressing that guidance polices constitute a technology of government through which the political ambition to govern is realised by shaping citizens’ desires and ambitions. This article aims to provide an in-depth empirical analysis of how governing practices unfold within a concrete guidance setting. Based on ethnographic data, the essay focuses on guidance practices addressing 13–14-year-old students in Italy moving from comprehensive education to a tracked educational level. Particular emphasis is given to the role played by guidance forms, questionnaires and exercises. These materials, it is argued, enable particular technologies of the self that are key to involving individual in practices of self-government.     

Caught in the middle: examining a contentious divide through the experiences of a small Christian school for Mexican immigrants

ABSTRACT

In this article, I describe how Escuela Luz del Mundo (ELM), a progressive Christian school that served the Mexican immigrant community in Albuquerque, New Mexico USA was ‘caught in the middle’ between Christians and secular humanists. As the school’s director, I had opportunities to interact with a variety of secular and non-secular organisations and through these experiences learned about their perspectives on the school and its mission. Using the qualitative methodology of self-study, two idents are described that occurred during the school’s existence that elucidate these perspectives. In the first ident, a doctor who worked in the ELM community implicitly expressed his lack of support for the school. In the second, students and parents at a ‘Christian bubble school’ demonstrated overtly negative behaviours towards ELM’s low-ome, students of colour. Literature is reviewed that illustrates the historic legacy in the United States of low-ome students and students of colour being denied access to high-quality educational opportunities. To address this historic legacy, individuals and groups must work across divides that separate and sustain this legacy. The need in Christian education to support the development of students’ empathy for ‘the other’ through meaningful and sustained relationships is also discussed.     

The development of the middle school in Sweden: Research and evaluation

The development of the middle school in Sweden is discussed. The historical development is described, with the focus on the creation of teaching traditions as a result of a parallel school system. In the development of the comprehensive school system after World War II, these traditions influenced the forming of the content of the new school.The conflicts around the comprehensive school showed the need for educational research in order to improve decision making. The relation between educational planning, curriculum development and educational research is analyzed.In the seventies a new direction in educational policy emerged, aiming at a more decentralized school system. These changes in the political governing of education are analyzed and discussed in relation to research and the role of educational research in policy making and evaluation of reforms.