The impact of research on policy and practice in education

The expansion of educational research in the past twenty-five years has led to pressure for useful, practical studies which have a direct impact on policy and practice. The impact of research is often indirect, creating an agenda of concern and illuminating the discussion, rather than simply providing answers to problems. There is a need for both these kinds of research. This Special Number reviews the provision for educational research and development in countries across the world. One conclusion suggested is the need for a clearer understanding of the nature and function of educational research, and the papers presented here are intended to contribute towards that understanding.

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Zusammenfassung Die Ausweitung der Bildungsforschung in den letzten 25 Jahren hat zur Forderung nach nützlichen, prakúschen Untersuchungen mit direkter Auswirkung auf Bildungspolitik und -praxis geführt. Oft hat die Forschung nur indirekte Wirkung; sie zeigt Schwerpunkte auf und bereichert die Diskussion, ohne Lösungen für die ausgewiesenen Probleme zu liefern. Beide Arten von Forschung sind notwendig. Diese Sondernummer gibt einen Überblick über vorhandene Forschungsund Entwicklungskapazitäten in verschiedenen Ländern der Welt. Eine Schlußforderung ist, daß ein klareres Verständnis des Wesens und der Funktion von Bildungsforschung erreicht werden muß, und die hier vorgelegten Artikel sollen zu solchem besseren Verständnis beitragen.

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Résumé L'expansion de la recherche sur l'éducation au cours de ces vingt-cinq dernières années a abouti à une poussée vers des études utiles, réalistes, qui aient un impact direct sur la politique et la pratique dans le domaine de l'éducation. L'impact de la recherche est souvent indirect, il polarise l'intérêt et les préoccupations, suscitant et éclairant la discussion, plutôt que fournissant simplement des réponses aux questions. Le besoin existe pour ces deux sortes de recherche. Ce Numéro Spécial de laRevue examine les dispositions prises concernant la recherche et le développement de l'éducation à travers le monde. L'une des conclusions auxquelles il parvient est le besoin d'une compréhension plus claire de la nature et de la fonction de la recherche en matière d'éducation, et les articles présentés ici se proposent de contribuer à cette compréhension.

     

The (absent) politics of neo-liberal education policy

Despite its ideological saturation, recent neo-liberal education policy has been deeply depoliticising in the sense of reducing properly political concerns to matters of technical efficiency. This depoliticisation is reflected in the hegemony of a managerial discourse and the decontestation of terms like ‘quality’ and ‘effectiveness’, as well as in the apparent consensus around the necessity of particular practices, such as the adoption of ‘standards’ and the implementation of high-stakes testing regimes. The reduction of the political to the technical is not only anti-political but also anti-democratic, with violence often unrecognised behind appeals to consensus, commonsense and ‘rationality’. This study draws on the work of political theorists like Mouffe and Rancière to critique the depoliticisation reflected in recent Australian federal government recent education policy, particularly its notion of an ‘education revolution’ that pre-empts politics through a utopian harmonisation of difference and a reduction of the political to the merely technical and instrumental. This article concludes with some potential starting points for crossing, or traversing, fantasies in education which, along with a recognition of the inescapability of social and political antagonisms, could serve as a basis for a renewed emphasis on the importance of the political in education policy.     

浅谈实践环节在教学过程中的重要性

从实践教学和理论教学的特点出发，通过分析两者间的关系，论述了实践教学在教学改革过程中的重要性，并指出教学过程中两者应相辅相成、取长补短。     

高校舞蹈教育中艺术实践的重要性浅析

随着高等教育的发展,高校对艺术教育越来越重视,高校舞蹈教育进入了发展的快车道。在既往的舞蹈教育过程中,高校在理论、训练上倾注了大量的精力、时间,却忽视了艺术实践教育的重要性,导致学生的实践能力、创造能力、团结能力等难以得到有效地提升。为了更好地推动高校舞蹈教育的发展,需要在加强理论以及基础训练的同时,开展丰富多元的艺术实践,让艺术回归生活,焕发艺术的生命力。本文分析了高校舞蹈教育艺术实践的重要性,以期对高校及舞蹈教师有所启发和帮助。     

Equity in education in Chile: The tensions between policy and practice

The article examines education policy in Chile after the return to democracy in 1990 from an equity perspective. Since then, policies have aimed for continuity, coherence and complementarity with the aim of furthering national development, promoting social mobility, and equitable access to quality education at all levels. However, Chile faces the challenge of implementing equity-oriented policies within the legal confines of an education system constructed under the neoliberal model which was introduced by the military government (1973–1990). This has resulted in tensions between policy and practice, which have constrained the role of the state in a highly marketised system in its efforts to distribute quality education more equitably.     

谈教育实习

对师范生来说，教育实习不仅仅是对毕业后所要从事的教师职业的一次尝试和演练，而且就是他们将来一生教师生涯的一个开端。一个师范生教育实习的成败，将有可能影响到他今后一辈子所要从事的教师工作的好坏。教育实习一定要搞好。否则，不仅不能达到其应有的效果，相反，实习生在这一时期所习得的一些不好的做法和习惯将有可能成为他们今后工作中终身都难以克服的毛病，从而给他们的未来成长设置下障碍。     

The narrative of special education in Sweden: History and trends in policy and practice

ABSTRACT

Access to public education that provides equal opportunities for all is a democratic right for every person living in Sweden. In addition, every child should as far as possible be included in the mainstream school. An official story that is taken for granted in Sweden is that an extremely low proportion of children are in need of special support, since there is no categorisation system in the official statistics. However, the results from the interviews of a number of key informants in the Swedish school system and several research studies show the opposite; the proportion of children categorised in practice as being in need of special support has increased dramatically, especially the group of children assigned with neuropsychiatric diagnoses for example Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. This paper explores the implications of growing segregation of children with special educational needs for the idea of an inclusive education system.     

Coming to matter in practice: enacting education policy

This article is offered as a counterpoint and complement to the symposium on policy enactment in a previous issue of Discourse by Stephen Ball, Meg Maguire and colleagues. Although their focus was largely on the discursive, and policy actors and policy subjects, this article is concerned with researching the emergent materiality of policy and draws on an Australian Vocational Education and Training policy study. It focuses on one particular object (a mini-warehouse) and one policy (Productivity Places Program) and develops an approach to researching a topology of policy enactment along three intersecting axes. In this topology, the material is given an ontological status, which is ‘in-here’ as opposed to ‘else-where’; where reality is emergent in practice. The research focus therefore is on policy processes and the assumption is that these processes are not benign as the world continues to be (re)articulated unequally; the point of policy research being to investigate the ways in which policy processes contribute to or work against this inequality.     

Examining practice to address policy problems in teacher education

This article puts forward a case for addressing policy problems in the rigorous pursuit of new practices in faculties of education. Recent policy developments in pre‐service teacher education at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia are discussed in terms of a programmatic rift between study in foundational disciplines, on the one hand, as component bodies of knowledge included in a Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) degree, and, on the other hand, the practical experiences provided in a 1‐year Professional Development Program. This article includes a discussion of underlying assumptions about the nature of learning to teach that inform a framework for a B.Ed. programme that attempts to strike a better balance and more meaningful integration of academic study and the practice of teaching. The concept of schools of practice is discussed in the context of some of the author's experiences in the Professional Development Program. Excerpts from ‘the Summerfest letters’ ‐ taken from a summer school in science that was taught by SFU education students to a class of elementary children ‐ are presented to demonstrate a potential policy direction to educate teachers in practice.     

Language choice for science education: policy and practice

The Maltese National Minimum Curriculum published in 1999 sought to strengthen bilingualism by reinforcing the practice of teaching and assessing some subjects in English and others in Maltese. It also pointed out that code-switching should only be used in cases of severe pedagogical difficulties. As a new National Curriculum Framework was being prepared some educators suggested language as a possible barrier to student progress and argued that the traditional practice of teaching subjects such as science in English should be reconsidered. This study investigated language choices, function and code-switching in science lessons. Classroom observations, interviews and focus groups showed that in state schools 12-13 year old students were being taught science predominantly in Maltese while reading, writing and formal assessment were in English. Students who were more exposed to English, irrespective of class stream, used this language more frequently than those who were less exposed to the language. The findings seem to suggest that teachers may be overcautious. While code-switching may initially provide technical terms and serve as a bridge between the two languages, eventually it can give way to a more precise and formal use of English thus ensuring both learning of science and development of bilingualism.     

Inclusive education reform in Queensland: implications for policy and practice

In Queensland, Australia, the school system is being reformed to be more ‘inclusive’. However, the enthusiasm for ‘inclusive education’ in Queensland seems to be waning amongst practitioners, and the ‘confusion, frustration, guilt and exhaustion’ that has emerged with teachers and support practitioners in the UK is emerging amongst support practitioners and teachers in Queensland. This paper argues that this is happening because inclusive education reforms that intend to provide an equitable education for all students regardless of cultural, physical, social/emotional and behavioural differences are being introduced, but these policies, procedures and structures continue to label, isolate and segregate students within schools in the way in which segregated special education facilities did in the past. Also, new policies and structures are being introduced without practitioners having the time and support to examine critically the underlying assumptions about disability, difference and inclusion that underpin their practices. These reforms need to be reviewed in terms of their effectiveness in achieving their ‘inclusive’ goals, i.e. in terms of the impacts that these reforms are having on the students themselves, and on the educational practitioners who support the students.