The sphere of authority: governing education policy in Pakistan amidst global pressures

The authority of the nation states and their capacity to govern their education policy has been reconfigured by the processes of globalisation. This paper examines recent education policy in Pakistan in order to reveal the nature of national authority in education policy-making in a challenging context. The central piece of analysis is the pre-policy text issued by the Ministry of Education, Pakistan — the White Paper. This analysis is further supported through interviews with senior policy actors and other significant policy texts. The paper identifies several tensions caused by the interaction of global and national education policy priorities and explores how the national government of Pakistan seeks to expand its SoA through ‘soft’ governance approaches despite the material and financial constraints within which it operates.     

Anarchist education and the paradox of pedagogical authority

This article interrogates a key feature of anarchist education; focusing on a problem with implications not only for anarchist conceptions of education, but for anarchist philosophy and practice more broadly. The problem is this: if anarchism consists in the principled opposition to all forms of coercive authority, then how is this to be reconciled with situations where justice demands the use of coercion in order to protect some particular good? It seems that anarchist educators are forced to deny coercive authority in principle, whilst at the same time affirming it in practice. This is the paradox of pedagogical authority in anarchist education. Coercive authority is simultaneously impossible and indispensable. Exploring this paradox through a reading of Jacques Derrida’s later work, and, in particular, his conception of justice as requiring openness to the singular situation, I argue that in exercising their authority anarchist educators encounter the aporetic moment in anarchism, experiencing what Derrida calls ‘the ordeal of the undecidable’. Understood this way, the paradox becomes less an indication of anarchism’s limitations than it does its value. For it is here that the problem of pedagogical authority is treated with the gravity that all questions of justice deserve.     

媒介技术与媒介权力关系的反思——麦克卢汉思想对于媒介权力研究的启示

麦克卢汉媒介技术的差异性视角揭示了媒介对于沟通与文化、个人感知之间的决定性影响,将其理论视角延伸至媒介权力,将有效地解决媒介权力研究缺乏媒介技术分析的缺陷。     

Critical moments in negotiating authority: grading,accountability, and teacher education

Understanding teacher educators’ reasoning about critical moments in negotiating authority can inform efforts to foster democratic teacher education practices and prepare future teachers to teach democratically. We know very little, however, about critical moments in negotiating authority, particularly in teacher educators’ practices. The purpose of this study was to examine, using self-study methodology, a teacher educator’s assumptions and perspectives about purposefully and explicitly negotiating authority through grading and accountability processes in an undergraduate teacher education course. From a critical pedagogical lens – concerning the intersection of classroom power relations, democratic citizenship, and student growth – the findings suggest that seeking legitimacy through consensual acceptance, responding to students’ expressed interests, and constructing knowledge through continual questioning present potential frameworks for constructing purposeful pedagogical partnerships consistent with democratic aims in teacher education.     

Re-conceptualising the paradox in policy implementation: a post-modernist conceptual approach

A review of education policy and practice indicates a paradox in policy implementation. Policy outcomes most often differ significantly from intended purposes and provisions enacted. This paper re-conceptualises this policy phenomenon, drawing on the post-modernist conception of policy as both ‘text’ and ‘discourse’ as an approach for understanding and unmasking the messiness and contested nature of education policy processes. The choice of approach is based on three factors. First, the choice is grounded in its efficacy in explicating and legitimatising the issues of power within the policy arena. Second, the choice is based on the potential of the approach in integrating social and political theories of discourse with more linguistically oriented approaches to the study of policy. Third, the preference of approach follows from its potential to draw on language as a resource for reading into and/or analysing complex social issues.     

The nature of teacher authority and teacher expertise

The so‐called ‘soft skills’ utilised by teachers – including relationship building, awareness of the pupil's context and background and the demonstration of authority – to develop an appropriate learning culture in their classrooms have long been recognised as being a major contribution to effective promotion of positive behaviour. This article considers some of the dimensions of these, focusing on how these help in contributing towards ‘teacher authority’. The article draws on the parallel experiences of teachers and researchers in England, Russia and the United States to illustrate some of the international dimensions of this theme.     

The semiotics of authority: a closely-observed lesson

This article looks at the ways in which the semiotics of authority are established and challenged during a secondary school English lesson on The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. I focus on the utterances of one student and the context of the classroom in which she finds herself as a means to explore the ways in which pedagogic identities and relationships are negotiated and contested.     

Understanding narrative relations in teacher education

The use of stories in teacher education is ubiquitous; yet, the question regarding how stories help teachers make sense of their professional lives is more complex than it first appears. The authors draw from Adriana Cavarero's understanding of narrative relations as the political site where one's unique singularity is revealed in the desire to have one's story told. They compare her insights to Judith Butler's resignification of injurious speech, examining both positions as they apply to a beginning teacher's efforts to become the professional she admires. It is suggested to teacher educators that they use stories from practice to foreground the tension between a teacher's life and her life-story. By understanding the irresolvable tension of desire to have one's story told, a teacher has a better chance of recognising her own vulnerability and that of her students, and of teaching at the starting place of ethics.     

论思想教育与公共关系的结合

当今良性思想教育的缺失已经相当严重,公众的物质概念正日益提高,但人们往往忽视了＂社会价值＂的存在。现今公共关系正日益盛行,各个社会团体、组织、单位、企业等,都争先利用社会关系提高自身的影响力和社会地位,我们正好可以借用这一时机,以提高公众的思想水平,并借此良机进行思想教育。     

The state steers by remote control: Standardising teacher education

This article questions whether the teacher training standards, (Department for Education and Employment Circular 4/98) have made it more difficult for teacher educators to help student teachers to become critically reflective teachers. It is suggested that, following the introduction of the discourse of the three 'e's', efficiency, economy and effectiveness and the teacher training standards, teacher 'education' has been transformed into teacher 'training' within an ideology of technical rationality. Four classroom-based episodes are introduced to form the contexts through which the teacher education standards are interrogated. It is argued that these standards ignore important issues to do with equality in the classroom and the relationship between education and the state. Ideas are suggested for teaching sessions using the episodes to encourage the development of a critically reflective perspective amongst student teachers.     

政府与学府:权威博弈、伙伴关系与责任指向

从历史发展的基本轨迹看,政府与学府经历了由“分立”到“缝合”的过程。在这一过程中,学府的社会治理作用不断强化,在社会治理结构中逐渐成为仅次于政治权威的另一种权威即学术权威。在现代社会的治理体系中,两种权威正发挥着不同的治理作用,两者的博弈也时时刻刻地存在。两种治理权威在多次博弈后,通过营造伙伴关系,逐渐成为社会治理的“轴心力量”,因此,两者也承载着更多的社会治理责任。     

Knowledge practices and relations in professional education

ABSTRACT

The dynamics of knowledge in society have transformed the conditions of professional work and learning. Professional expertise has become increasingly specialised, and practitioners are challenged to keep up with rapid developments in their fields. At the same time, the complexity of professional work requires the integration of different forms of knowledge and knowing. Against this background, the knowledge settings in which learners engage and the practices and resources these offer are of vital importance. This article addresses professional education as embedded in profession-specific ‘machineries of knowledge construction’, that is, the set of practices and arrangements through which knowledge and ways of knowing in a profession are generated. It is argued that such machineries span settings in education and work. Examples from research in three professional programmes are used to discuss how students are introduced to epistemic practices and resources in selected knowledge settings. Analytical attention is given to the dynamic interplay between people, practices, knowledge resources and educational arrangements as well as to how connections to work and the epistemic machinery are made. Taking these linkages into account is important for our understanding of what learning entails in different areas of expertise and how this may change over time.     

The governmentality of reconciliation: adult education as a community relations technique in Northern Ireland

Despite a successfully negotiated peace agreement in Belfast in 1998, tensions between different community groups continue to exist in Northern Ireland. This situation creates a governmental need to find solutions to problems such as segregation, inter- and intra-group violence and other forms of sectarian antagonisms. On the one hand, this is attempted by disciplinary measures such as ‘peace walls’ and an increased presence of state powers such as police and armed forces. On the other hand, community relations discourses remain a common refrain in Northern Ireland with their focus on a ‘conduct of conduct’ approach. In this article, I seek to understand adult community education through community relations initiatives and designated anti-sectarian courses as a governmental technology in Northern Ireland designed to change technologies of the self. The article highlights the possibilities for a way forward inherent in this approach and links community relations to broader contexts of policy developments in Northern Ireland.     

Decentralization of authority in colleges and universities

Research on 115 colleges and universities is used to test hypotheses about the relationships between organizational characteristics—including size, horizontal and vertical differentiation, complexity, and the qualifications of the faculty—and decentralization of authority in four issue areas: the creation of new departments, appointment of deans, faculty salary raises, and leaves of absence for faculty members. Little support is found for the hypotheses. We suggest, however, that a general pressures/risks model of decentralization can explain many of the empirical findings and that institutional tradition and history may be a major determinant of decentralization in some areas.     

Exploring the theory-practice gap in initial teacher education: moving beyond questions of relevance to issues of power and authority

The ‘theory-practice divide’ in teacher education can be viewed not simply as an acceptance of a body of knowledge but instead an acceptance of the teacher educator’s authority to determine what is relevant educational theory. This research aimed to explore student teachers’ views of ‘educational theory’ and how it was discursively positioned relative to their practice in an attempt to examine whether their acceptance or rejection of it was also related to accepting the authority of the teacher educator. Using one-to-one interviews with 23 student teachers and employing a discourse analysis, four categories of students emerged. The paper describes these four categories and discusses the implications of these findings for initial teacher education and our understanding of the ‘theory-practice’ gap.     

大学惩戒权与学生受教育权的冲突与平衡

近年来不断涌现的学生诉高校不当处分案，反映了大学惩戒权与学生受教育权的现实冲突正在加深。如何实现二利益的平衡，已成为当前必须解决的一个重要课题。本以两的现实冲突立足，一方面探讨了我国大学惩戒权的内涵和作为大学自治手段存在的合理性；另一方面指出学生受教育权作为一项宪法权利的重要性和不可侵犯性。在此基础上，章针对我国高等教育发展状况和教育法律制度的实际情况，参照台湾及国外立法经验，指出解决问题的关键在于：(1)必须从实体和程序两个方面，加强我国高等教育立法，使大学惩戒权的行使接受法律的限制。(2)设立畅通的行政救济与司法救济渠道，以保障学生受教育权的充分实现。     

论孟禄在中美教育关系中的角色延续

在中关教育关系史上,孟禄是一个十分重要的角色。他不仅对中国的教育问题提出了许多极具建设性的意见,他还在为中美教育关系发展过程中发挥作用的中基会、华美协进社的建设和管理作出了巨大的贡献;他领导的国际研究所为许多中国留学生提供了学习和生活援助。孟禄在中美教育关系中的角色延续,谱写了中美关系史上新的篇章。     

Bad behaviour in school: a discursive approach

Disturbing, problematic, or challenging student behaviour is said to be among the greatest challenges facing today’s school life. However, despite the apparent commonsensical nature of the issue, there is no commonly agreed upon definition for such events, and there is often very thin analysis of what actually becomes disturbed, challenged, or problematised in such instances. In this article, disturbing behaviour is seen as a discursive practice that produces reality; it is a historically and socioculturally formed coming-together of various intersecting power-related discourses that make claims about individuals and contexts. Informed by post-structural approaches, this theoretical article looks at how ideas of disturbing behaviour come to be formed within the discursive environment of school. The article argues that behind the idea of disturbing behaviour are the ideas of a normal developmental course and an idealised student, as well as increasing emphasis on management and measurement in school.     

试论高等教育科学发展的九大关系

随着高等教育竞争的日益激烈,现代社会对高校的发展要求越来越高,促进高校全面、科学、可持续发展成为当前高校必须思考的问题,高校应紧密结合新的历史条件,只有正确处理好改革发展与稳定的关系、规模质量与效益的关系、教风学风与校风的关系、依法治校与民主管理的关系、教师与学生的关系、教学与科研的关系、管理与服务的关系、当前利益与长远利益的关系、个人与集体的关系这九大关系,才能从本质上促进高校的科学发展。