Variations on Modernisation: Technological Development and Internationalisation in Local Swedish School Policy From 1950 to 2000

ABSTRACT

Since WWII, Sweden has had an international reputation for being modern and progressive, with schooling that provides equal opportunities for all children. Analysing local enactment of the national pursuit of modernisation in two contrasting municipalities, this paper offers new perspectives on Swedish education history beyond the image of schooling as a uniform national project. The concepts of technological development and internationalisation are applied to capture the ideas and visions inherent in this modernisation. The study demonstrates, through the example of the rural municipality of Tierp and the municipality of Stockholm, the complexity of the modernisation process and the interplay between divergent interpretations of national reforms and local enactment of modernisation.     

The antithesis of inclusion? The emergence and functioning of ADHD special education classes in the Swedish school system

The neuropsychiatric paradigm has substantial impact on schools. The increase in the number of pupils being diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is an expression of the medicalisation of deviance. There is also an increase in educational classes specially designed to meet the needs of children with ADHD. This is contrary to the notion of inclusion and in conflict with the Swedish school law. Thus, it is important to obtain knowledge about Swedish ADHD classes. A questionnaire was sent to all Swedish municipalities (290, response rate 76%) regarding schooling for pupils with ADHD. As many as 40 Swedish municipalities have classes specifically designed for pupils with ADHD. Although the classes are said to be specifically designed for ADHD problems, they are not properly evaluated. Municipalities with ADHD classes also exhibit ambivalence towards these classes. The emergence, prevalence and functioning of the ADHD classes are discussed in light of the notion of inclusive education.     

从教育交流的视野看我国当代教育理论的构建——以五种《教育学》教材的文本分析为中心的实证研究

教育交流是推动教育理论发展的重要力量。论以1979年至1991年间出版的5种《教育学》教材为本，通过对教材注释中的外国献分析和行中对国外教育家引用情况的实证研究，揭示了国外教育因素对我国当代《教育学》写作的影响呈不断增长趋势，说明中外教育交流在我国当代教育理论的构建中发挥了重要作用。     

Has schooling of ADHD students reached a crossroads?

ABSTRACT

The aim of the present study was to examine and describe educational leaders’ mindset types related to schooling of students with ADHD in five municipalities with ADHD special education classes and in five pair-matched municipalities without such classes. Selection of the ten municipalities was based on the results from a nationwide survey (response rate 76%) aimed at investigating how Swedish municipalities organise schooling for ADHD students. Interview data was analysed with the use of a theoretical framework presented as a typology table describing mindsets more or less in line with either the neuropsychiatric paradigm or inclusion. The perceived neuropsychiatric influence on ADHD students’ schooling seemed to affect educational leaders’ decision making, leading to different schooling for ADHD students in different municipalities. The findings, presented as municipality profiles, are discussed in relation to the notion of inclusive education and alternative educational paths leading either towards inclusion or exclusion.     

The urban and the natural in education reform: the development of Hamburg Schullandheime (rural school hostels) in the 1920s

ABSTRACT

The desire to be close to nature and live in tune with it grew as industrialisation, urbanisation and the impact of technology became increasingly ubiquitous at the turn of the twentieth century. Throughout Europe, model schools were established in rural environments. These private reform schools could not solve the problems of public urban schools. Founded on the initiative of teachers and parents, the Schullandheim (rural school hostel) emerged as a new form bringing urban education and schooling close to nature after the First World War in Germany. Even if related pedagogic activities developed at that time in other countries there is no evidence for comparable institutions. Besides tracing the development of Schullandheime, the article shows how the school hostel idea was embedded in the contemporary educational discussion about the influence large cities had on youth and explores the educational and cultural differences within the school hostel movement through the use of visual material.     

Rethinking inequalities between deindustrialisation,schools and educational research in Geelong

Inequalities have historically been conceptualised and empirically explored with primary reference to the human. Both measurements of educational inequalities through the production of data about students, teachers and schools, and ethnographic explorations of inequalities in the spoken accounts of human actors in schools can elide affective histories and material geologies of the earth that entwine with societal inequalities, and political questions of the relation between particular human bodies and the earth. In this article, we question: What might it do to rethink the concept of educational inequalities beyond human relations, from within a specific geographical territory? We seek to rethink inequalities including but exceeding these human relations; we argue that inequalities between humans, and between humans and the more-than-human, are materially generated and perpetuated. We offer three theoretical trajectories that consider the affective, spatial and material dimensions of inequality to rethink the relations between inequality, deindustrialisation and schooling. Educational research is implicated in the (re)production of inequalities, as well as having the potential to be part of the production of more equitable relations.     

Socioeconomic background,education, and labor force outcomes: evidence from a regional US sample

This paper examines the long-term association of family socioeconomic status (SES), educational, and labor force outcomes in a regional US longitudinal sample (N = 2264). The results offer insights into the mechanisms underlying the role of family SES in transitions from secondary schooling to early work experiences. It was found that the academic achievement gap associated with SES widens during secondary schooling due in part to course-level tracking. Family SES relates to college enrollment mainly via its association with academic gains in school, but also through family income and father’s occupational status. Family SES is weakly but significantly related to adult offspring’s earnings but more strongly related to occupational status. Educational qualifications and cognitive skills make independent contributions to the explanation of labor force outcomes.     

School attributes,household characteristics,and demand for schooling: A case study of rural Peru

Educational expansion, long a goal of many LDCs, has become a difficult policy to pursue. Growing populations, shrinking national incomes and higher marginal costs of schooling as schooling reaches more rural dwellers have caused policy makers to take a hard look at factors which influence educational demand and expansion. This paper examines the case of Peru where rural areas have yet to attain the nearly universal enrollment of urban areas. The study examines 2500 rural households to explore reasons why children do not attend school, drop out of school, and begin school at later ages. The study finds that the monetary costs of schools (fees and other costs) have a substantial influence on parental decisions regarding school attendance and continuation. Sensitivity analysis reveals that mother's education has a bearing on their children's educational participation, particularly in low-income households. Sensitivity analysis also reveals that school attendance of low income and female children are most strongly affected by simulated changes in school fees.     

Comenius,moral and pious education,and the why,when and how of school discipline

ABSTRACT

The present study provides an analysis of John Amos Comenius’s thoughts on moral and pious education, educational governance and school discipline as expressed in Didactica Magna. This is examined from the background of his view of education as a societal phenomenon, the purposes of different categories of knowledge for individual formation and the role of pedagogy in the upbringing of children. Theoretically, this paper expands on Michel Foucault’s ideas about governmentality and discipline, as well as on Henri Lefebvre’s spatial theories. The article argues that Comenius can be viewed as a significant contributor to the early modern shift towards new administrative techniques for school governance, transmitting the mode of disciplinary power into pedogogised and didactic forms. The article contributes to achieving more systematic knowledge for understanding the focused areas of schooling, the concept of discipline and the pedagogic premises of disciplinary practice in an early-modern European educational context.     

The radical transformations and deep continuities of a decade: Turkish educational policy, 1938–1950

Turkey witnessed many educational and cultural policy innovations between 1938 and 1950. Realising strictly secular practices against religion and traditional culture pre-1946, political elites of the time aimed to construct a humanistic culture unique to Turkey. Educational policies were considered the most efficient tools in reaching this ideal. Despite the adverse economic conditions of the time, western cultural institutions were adopted without reservation for modernisation. It was throughout the same time period that a number of other innovative projects such as the village institutes, western translations, new journals, Turkish encyclopaedism, and physical education for the entire public were undertaken. However, as these developments were devoid of a solid historical and sociological foundation, they were forced to change under the new world order post-1945. Despite the changing perspectives on religion, history and cultural life, the policies of the ?smet ?nönü era succeeded in carrying the heritage of the Kemalist era to our day. The true dynamics behind this success are the educational practices of the 1940s and their formal and hidden curricula and rituals.     

Stories of Smartness and Whiteness in School Pictures and Yearbooks

This article explores the way that discourses of smartness and whiteness are produced and reproduced in schooling. Using an approach grounded in narrative research, I explore the convergences and contradictions between my own educational autobiography and the representations of schooling found in my school pictures and yearbooks. In my analysis, I argue that white supremacy played an important role in the construction of my own story of smartness throughout my primary and secondary schooling experiences. I also argue that yearbooks form powerful “artifacts of smartness” (Hatt, 2011 Hatt, B. (2011). Smartness as a cultural practice in schools. American Educational Research Journal, 49(3), 438–460. doi: 10.3102/0002831211415661[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], p. 448) that can be used to interpret and interrogate personal experiences as well as larger societal discourses of smartness and whiteness in schooling.     

10 School decentralization and empowerment

School results for children of poverty ‐ those forced by that poverty to live in inner‐city neighbourhoods ‐generally indicate educational failure at a much higher rate than is seen for students nurtured by wealthier school districts. This failure in school severely limits chances of social and economic upward mobility, which translates into a waste of human capital for the nation's business‐industrial‐political complex, and dashed hopes, dreams and self‐esteem for the individual. Parents and concerned citizens from across socio‐economic strata, long aware of the general inadequacy of schools in poor communities, have demanded improvement, often seeking it through legal and political means. Important strategies among the various federal, state and local school reform efforts to make schooling a meaningful process for all students, and particularly the minority poor, are decentralization and citizen/parent empowerment, the focus of this chapter. The movement to decentralize school governance ‐ an effort to place control into the hands of the people being served ‐ has gained momentum and exists in some form in most large‐city school districts today. An extension of administrative decentralization, citizen/parent empowerment is seen as one of several factors, including teacher and administrator preparation, curriculum renewal, school financing, and school restructuring, vital in the improvement of schools. A look at the meaning and scope of decentralization, operationalized through citizen/parent empowerment, and its probable effectiveness in improving school outcomes indicates that, alone, it is insufficient to ensure positive academic and social performance in school.     

The Responsive State and Teachers

Important developments in the Danish political situation are described. Emphasis is upon the relations between changes in politicians’ understanding and how the emergence of what has been called the ‘Responsive State’ might influence schooling and teachers’ work. Three changes of educational policy in Denmark are particularly relevant: (1) since 1991 a new system of govemment for schools; (2) an agreement, signed in 1992, redefining the contractual status of teachers; (3) a new school act of 1993, operational since August 1994, designed to reform the broad aims of the schooling System and the design and content of the curriculum. Broader political trends to these particular policy shifts are reviewed and discussed. They can be seen as a heavy attack on teaching as a profession; they seek to increase the influence and power of parents and politicians at the level of the local community and reduce further the influence teachers have on their own work. It is important to consider these policies against a consideration of how teachers themselves perceive and define their conditions of work. Three investigations are presented. Teachers are concerned about: (a) democratic educational values, (b) their students and their own qualifications, and (c) relations with parents to whom they feel accountable.     

Professional movements,local appropriations,and the limits of educational critique: the cultural production of mixed messages at an urban middle school

Although critical ethnographers have explored in some depth the ways that social critique informs how youth assess their schooling experiences, the implications of social critique by educators themselves have been of much less interest. Yet, numerous professional educational movements have been wrought from social critique or, at the very least, from critique of school practices that fail to contribute to more equitable social outcomes. Featuring one middle‐school classroom contextualized by such movements in the field of education, this article presents an analysis of student appropriations of the messages embedded in a year‐long community service‐learning project. The project engaged students in democratic action framed by the question: Do our voices count? It is argued that while students embraced a newfound political agency through this work, the lack of opportunity to question individualism, the structural dimensions of urban poverty and their own relative privilege in the school ultimately produced social divisions rather than social critique.     

Inferential statistics and the use of administrative data in US educational research

While the use of inferential statistics is a nearly universal practice in the social sciences, there are instances where its application is unnecessary and potentially misleading. This is true for a portion of research using administrative data in educational research in the United States. Surveying all research articles using administrative data published in Educational Researcher and American Educational Research Journal between 2011 and 2013, we find that over half use inferential techniques to help interpret results despite the use of population data. To the extent that these practices and findings are replicated and interpreted in the United States and elsewhere, this can lead to the undervaluing of potentially meaningful patterns and trends.     

Power Struggle,Submission and Partnership: Agency Constructions of Mothers of Children with ADHD Diagnosis in Their Narrated School Involvement

The contemporary education paradigm highlights the interdependency of home and school expertise. This discourse analysis study examines the narrated agentive possibilities of 18 Finnish mothers of children diagnosed with ADHD to influence and be involved in their child's schooling. Mothers' strong involvement endeavor is premised on their expertise concerning ADHD, distrust of teachers' adequate knowledge of and attitude towards their child, and anxiety for their child's wellbeing. However, our analysis reveals a gap between the mothers' narrated potential agency to fight for her child's well-being and their actual capability to be involved as intended, due to unequal institutional power relations between home and school. Educational responsibility, and the promise of recognition the diagnosis holds in educational social practices are discussed.     

Radical change through radical means: learning power

The history of US schooling is a remarkable tale of expanding educational opportunities in the midst of educational inequality. Despite cultural commitments to equality and justice, the US educational system continues to provide clear and consistent advantages for white and wealthier Americans and disadvantages for low-income, students of color. This paper explores why efforts to equalize education have fared so poorly and how US schools and society might become more equitable and just. Our conclusions are straightforward: Equity reforms rarely take hold because they rely on conventional, technical approaches to policymaking and educational change. Instead, equitable, high-quality schooling for all students will likely fare better with social movement activism that addresses the societal norms and politics which cement the status quo. At the heart of such activism is a process we call “learning power.” (The ideas presented here are presented more fully in Jeannie Oakes and John Rogers, Learning Power: Organizing for Education and Justice (New York: Teachers College Press, 2006).) An earlier version of this paper was presented as the 3rd Annual Distinguished Lecture on Educational Change for the Special Interest Group on Educational Change at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association Meeting, San Francisco, California.

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Introduction to Section III: Deweyan Growth in Practice

At present, the structures, practice, and discourse of schooling are anchored to a “commercial spirit” that understands students, educators, and parents as economic operators trading competitively in human capital and to a discourse of failure that is disabling those who seek to understand and enact John Dewey's notion of education as democratic practice. Here Barbara Stengel illustrates both the commercial spirit in public schools and the discourse of school failure across two geopolitical settings: Shanghai, China, and urban U.S. schools. She argues that framing the educational enterprise in terms of economic success and failure makes it difficult for educators to address Dewey's vision of democracy and education substantively. Stengel concludes with an acknowledgment that, regardless of putative political commitments, these two public school systems are schooling — though not often educating — the same neoliberal subject, but that Dewey's vision of democracy and education nonetheless remains critical and compelling.     

Historicizing the Future: Educational Reform, Systems of Reason, and the Making of Children Who are the Future Citizens

Educational reform and reformist research are not merely about school improvement. They embody a field of cultural practices that constitutes the objects of schooling – the teacher who administers the reforms to the child and the distinctions and differentiations about who the child is and should be. Our interest is in the rules and standards of reason assembled through the cultural practices of school reform. Reason is a cultural practice functioning to enact a change in the conditions of people but also invests people with particular capacities and capabilities. This investiture of capacities and capabilities produces particular human kinds or categories of the determinant qualities of the individuals schools administer. Using studies of educational governance and social inclusion/exclusion in Europe and on US educational reform, the discussion focuses on the overlapping practices of system management and curriculum reforms that map different human kinds. One human kind is the child as a lifelong learner, an individual whose qualities entail actively and flexibly participating in communities through problem-solving strategies. The characteristics and qualities of the lifelong learner are differentiated from those who do not embody the norms of participation –the child left behind. The study of the systems of reason that govern the objects of reflection and rectification in school reforms is a strategy to consider the politics of reform, change, and social inclusion and exclusion.