Negotiating Change for Multicultural Education: A Consultation Model

Recent demographic changes in our society have wrought new challenges for schools as growing numbers of students from diverse racial and linguistic backgrounds move toward becoming the majority in public schools. Because schools are slow to change and may lack the internal expertise in multicultural education, consultants are needed who can provide assistance to teachers and administrators attempting to respond to these new challenges. The purpose of this article is to provide a framework that consultants can use for communicating and negotiating change in schools. In this consultation model, consultants work with educators, community members and students to: (a) define terminology and agree upon the parameters of the consultation process; (b) recognize the 'impact of ideology; (c) transform the language of schools; (d) focus on group empowerment; (e) negotiate power conflicts; (f) involve the community; (g) transform staffing, decision making, and resource allocation; and Oa) recreate an inclusive classroom environment.     

Partnerships for Implementing School and Community Prevention Programs

The planning and implementation of prevention programs for families and children has shifted towards community-based, multi-component approaches that are rooted in partnerships among diverse stakeholders. We argue that values and partnerships should be central to the planning and implementation of this new approach to prevention programs. Following from these concepts,wepropose 6 steps that can guide educational and psychological consultants in the implementation of prevention programs in partnership with other stakeholders. For each step, we identify key tasks, processes, and challenges for consultants. To illustrate these steps, we include examples from our work in prevention initiatives for and with immigrant and refugee children and families.     

高校辅导员的角色定位与专业塑造

我国对外开放的深化、市场经济的负面效应、互联网上不良信息的传播等不可避免地对高校大学生思想政治工作造成冲击,也对新时期高校辅导员的角色以及专业形象提出了新的要求。重新对辅导员进行角色定位和专业塑造,并大力提升其全面素质,对提高高校思想政治教育的实效性具有重要意义。     

Enacting instructional leadership: perspectives and actions of public K-12 principals

This article’s purpose is to highlight the perspectives and actions of urban, public school K-12 principals who are noted for prioritising instructional leadership. Grounded in the conceptual framework of agency, I examined the work experiences of 18 New York City public school principals nominated by supervisors, colleagues, trained educational consultants, parents, and students through a four-phase qualitative study consisting of interviews, time surveys, document review, and observations with participants. In order to uphold instructional leadership, analysis highlighted that participants assumed agency by engendering perspectives and actions that viewed instructional leadership as: grounded in learning, influenced by teachers/staff, requiring time and planning for principals and teachers/staff, and calls for teacher/staff empowerment.     

Women,Education and Empowerment in Asia

ABSTRACT Education is widely perceived as an indicator of the status of women and even more importantly, as an agent for the empowerment of women. This article examines the relationship between education and several facets of empowerment, using the macro statistics on countries in Asia presented in the United Nations Human Development Report, 1995, which attempts to compute country specific 'Gender Empowerment Measures', as well as data from qualitative studies in selected representative countries. The study concludes that there is no positive linear relationship between education and the economic, social and political empowerment of women, as a consequence of the interface of gender ideologies and social and economic structural constraints. It further examines factors that surface from within education structures and content and from social and economic structures and gender relations within the family that constrain the role of education as an agent for the empowerment of women.     

From traditional accountability to shared responsibility: the benefits and challenges of student consultants gathering midcourse feedback in college classrooms

The explicit purpose of gathering feedback in college classes is to improve those courses, usually along the lines of structure, organisation, pace, or some other aspect of the course over which the professor typically has control. A potential outcome that is less immediately obvious is the shift that can take place regarding who is responsible and in what ways for the analysis and revision of pedagogical practices at the college level. In this article, I take as a foundation for my discussion the premises of new wave student voice work, and I describe a project through which students were positioned as consultants who gathered midcourse feedback for faculty members. I analyse how those student consultants supported faculty members in revising not only their courses but also their relationships with students – both student consultants and students enrolled in the courses.     

Harnessing the Power of Social Media in the Classroom: Challenging Students to Create Content to Share on Social Media Sites to Improve Learning Outcomes

Many young adults consume news, political, and historical information through social media sites, and yet students do not always connect this information to the academic knowledge they learn in their classes. In addition, while students learn academic writing and presentation skills, they may not feel equipped to present the knowledge that they have learned to a non-academic audience. I detail a class assignment in which students produce a social media project that imparts academic knowledge to a general audience. These have taken the form of short videos, websites, a documentary and even poems and songs. Drawing on a survey of the students, as well as a content analysis of the projects, I find that the project is successful in achieving several teaching goals, including knowledge retainment, critical thinking skills, making real world connections with class material, student empowerment, and improving communication skills.     

学生辅导员的心理契约管理

学生辅导员在辅助学校开展思想政治教育过程中起着重要作用。重视大学生思想政治教育必须重视学生辅导员队伍的建设。引入心理契约管理方式,形成辅导员主体对学校的心理期望与学校对辅导员主体的心理期望的默契,是激发学生辅导员队伍的创造活力和工作热情,促进学校思想教育工作有效开展的重要途径。     

The Role of Agricultural Consultants in New Zealand in Environmental Extension

Abstract

The aim of this study was to understand the role that agricultural consultants in New Zealand were undertaking in the Research, Development and Extension (RD&E) system—and in particular in relation to environmental extension. New Zealand does not have a public extension service and hence there is a strong reliance on consultants and regional councils for environmental management information and advice. As they are independent of the formal RD&E system there is no guarantee that RD&E outcomes are reaching farmers, nor that effective environmental extension is occurring. The study used a combination of case studies, phone interviews with informed persons and a national web survey to explore the role of the consultant. The study found that agricultural consultants are playing an important role in working with farmers to improve agricultural production. There are, however, indications that gaps have developed over time between agricultural consultants and the agricultural research sector which limit the effectiveness of the RD&E system. Agricultural consultants are playing a minimal role in proactive environmental extension because insufficient market forces are driving this role. The paper suggests that a national database of agricultural consultants could improve the flow of tailored information between research and agricultural consultants and also suggests mechanisms where consultants could be better integrated into the RD&E system and provide feedback to research programs. Market failure in the area of environmental extension could be addressed by publicly funded incentive programs.     

Voice,empowerment and youth-produced films about ‘gangs’†

This article explores the dissonance between the expansive discourses imagined by the advocates for youth media as helping foster ‘empowerment’ and ‘voice', versus the more circumscribed realities of participatory media production. I focus on a two-part case study – considering both a film-making project for ‘at risk’ young people in South London and the English national government funder that provided the resources for the young people to take part. This case study allows for an exploration of the political economy of youth media, and the relationship between youth media funding and how and why young people in my research often chose to make films about ‘gangs', a striking topic of concern across 11 youth media case study sites. I use this empirical example as a means to analyse how ‘empowerment’ in youth media projects, understood as both critical media literacy and youth voice, moves from abstract discourse to on-the-ground practice.     

A 30 Year Perspective On Best Practices for Consultation Training

This article uses the author's 30 years of teaching consultation as a basis for developing suggestions for those providing training in this field. The article addresses questions about what the content of training should be, how consultation training can link theory to practice and how to respond to persistent challenges to training (e.g., freedom versus constraint, multicultural consultation, and when consultation training should be offered within a preservice curriculum for developing school-based consultants). The training suggestions derive from a model of consultation and consultation training that is based in constructivism and seeks to enhance feelings of empowerment and long term implementation of consultation on the part of the trainee. The article proposes a practitioner-researcher model in which practicing consultants view themselves as researchers who collect data and share information about their practice with other school-based consultants. These shared practices are used to inform the knowledge base and are used as a basis for contributing to the scholarly literature. Finally, this article proposes directions for researching the process and outcome of consultation training that cut across all of the issues raised in this article.     

Biography,Identity, and Inquiry: The making of teacher,teacher educator,and researcher

This is a self-study of my professional and cultural biography and identity, a history which directed me first toward the work of urban teaching and then into teacher education and research into comparative educational issues of racial and national identity. I use this inquiry to demonstrate how biography and identity influences the lived experience of teaching and the researcher's stance. I also examine areas where preservice urban teacher education programs must improve. My personal recommendations describe experiences that would have better prepared me for urban teaching. Suggestions include expanding coursework in the historical, political, and sociocultural influences on urban education and in designing culturally responsive curricula. I also recommend restructuring field experiences to offer richer classroom-based learning opportunities for preservice teachers and extending fieldwork into urban communities. Finally, I suggest ongoing inservice teacher education in learning-community models that respond to educators' context-specific teaching concerns.     

Opening the black box: women’s empowerment and innovative secondary education in Honduras

This article aims to clarify the relationship between education and women’s empowerment. Drawing from qualitative data collected in a study of four Garifuna villages on the north coast of Honduras, it argues that education can trigger the empowerment process if it expands women’s knowledge and understanding, self‐confidence and awareness of gender equity. However, not all education programs will do this. The program studied, Sistema de Aprendizaje Tutorial, has several unique features that appear to foster the empowerment process and are not traditionally present in Latin American secondary schools. We must carefully consider the content and pedagogy of educational programs that attempt to promote women’s empowerment, rather than assuming that education and empowerment automatically go hand‐in‐hand.     

The Contract Negotiation Stage of a School-Based,Cross-Cultural Organizational Consultation: A Case Study

This article draws on organizational and cross-cultural consultation tenets, to analyze the contract negotiation of a school reform initiative by focusing on the contracting and cross-cultural issues that emerge at that stage. A case from one school presents illustrative examples generated and grounded by qualitative methodology using participant observation, semistructured interviews, extant records, and researcher logs. Themes related to contract negotiation that were derived from the analysis include conflicting expectations and beliefs; dissatisfactions with procedures and policies; lack of empowerment; pedagogical dissonance; and feelings of blame, inadequacy, and racism. This case highlights problems that can occur in school-based, cross-cultural organizational consultation when a rigid adherence to the content of consultation overshadows the consultation process. It is suggested that framing consultation as a coconstructed, participatory process that includes consensual contract negotiation may promote successful school reform. This is significant when the consultants and consultees do not share common cultural reference points. It is argued that consultants who value cultural reciprocity between themselves and consultees while being intentional in their use of process skills have the best potential to effect sustainable school-based change.     

Restructuring UNESCO's statistical services—The “sad story” of UNESCO's education statistics: 4 years later

Criticism directed at the quality of UNESCO's education statistics led to the recent restructuring of the Organization's statistical services. This criticism, primarily supported by the World Bank and subsequently confirmed by consultants engaged by UNESCO, does not prove to be completely justified. In fact, a change in the political orientation of the statistical program appears to have been the main goal of the reform. Providing few significant (or new) recommendations to improve the other dimensions of data quality, the consultants’ reports essentially concentrated on the need for measuring and comparing educational systems’ performances in a strongly competitive world economy. While UNESCO's General Conference did not discuss the political aspects of the reform, the restructuring can be tied to UNESCO's loss of leadership to other international agencies, which have come to produce their own statistics and recommendations on education.     

政治赋权与政治一体化：１８３２ 年英国选举权扩大的政治分析

政治上的赋权有利于实现边缘群体的政治一体化。英国１８３２ 年的议会改革实现了向工商业资产阶级的政治赋权,其原因在于三个方面,一是“有钱但无权”的阶级和下层阶级不愿照旧生活下去;二是统治阶层无法照旧统治下去;三是法国革命等国际环境的影响。１８３２ 年议会改革及选举权的扩大,或者说政治上的赋权,实现了工商业资产阶级的政治一体化,其意义在于,首先,从短期来说,它缓解了英国当时尖锐的政治矛盾,保持了政治稳定;其次,从长期来说,它促进了妥协的政治意识,为英国以后的和平改革提供了典范;最后,它也解释了英国工人运动史上改良主义之所以占主导地位的原因。英国的改革为当代中国的政治体制改革提供了重要的借鉴意义。     

Character education,new media,and political spectacle

Ontario’s new Character Development Initiative is analyzed to determine whether it can be characterized as political spectacle. Examination of official policy texts, media reports, speeches, web pages, webcasts, and events at the Character Development Symposium suggests that the Initiative contains many elements of political spectacle; however, the policy has received little coverage in traditional media. Media coverage is considered as an essential component of political spectacles. In this case, media coverage is limited to digital media produced by the Ontario government itself. This raises questions about the implications of new media forms for the theory of political spectacle. I demonstrate that digital media offer new means for bringing political spectacles to citizens and enable governments to have greater control over their content. Since political spectacles facilitated by traditional media promote the status quo and make critical analysis of public policy difficult, government‐produced digital media might put democracy at even greater risk. Alternatively, government websites post texts that can be analyzed by citizens and used to promote democracy in education. I conclude that the strategic use of language and illusions of democracy, whether brought to citizens through digital or traditional media, are essential components of political spectacle.     

Human Rights and Citizenship: an Unjustifiable Conflation?

Human rights discourses are increasingly being coupled to discourses on citizenship and citizenship education. In this paper, I consider the premise that human rights might provide a theoretical underpinning for citizenship. I categorise citizenship into five main categories—moral, legal, identity-based, participatory and cosmopolitan. Bringing together theoretical and documentary evidence, I argue that human rights cannot logically be a theoretical underpinning for citizenship, regardless of how citizenship may be conceptualised. This is because human rights discourses are located within a universalist frame of reference, in contrast to that of citizenship, which is located within a more particularist frame. Human rights are conceptually distinct from citizenship, and the conflating of human rights with citizenship not only is conceptually incoherent, but may actually obstruct the empowerment and active participation of individual citizens in the context of a political community.     

The World Wide Web,Computers and Teaching Literature

Abstract

Students in my on‐campus literature classes have made good use of a series of computer programs that I have created for text analysis. I offered a course via the World Wide Web that provided 14 of my programs to students throughout the world. My course taught those students how to use the programs, and as they completed the assignments, students not only learned to use software for literary analysis, but they also often gained new kinds of insights into the study of texts.     

Imagining the flowers,but working the rich and heavy clay: participation and empowerment in action research for health

Participation of the ‘target group’ is a key concept in working on empowerment in health education. However, it raises many questions and is not without struggle. I will discuss the findings from a study into the state of the art of empowerment in health education, which includes a literature review and the analysis of eight Dutch health‐promotion projects. An important finding is that participation is not an unequivocal concept. Professionals working in health education strongly disagree on the value, goals and meaning of participation. Moreover, in working on empowerment, a tension exists—between the ideal of participatory, ‘bottom‐up’ approaches on the one hand; and the ‘top‐down’ structure of health education programmes, on the other. I will argue for a ‘realistic approach’ in which the practice of health promotion is taken as the starting point to work on empowerment. After all, imagining the flowers is easy, but working the rich and heavy clay is the challenge.