Exploring Latino/a college students’ transition experiences: An ethnography of social preparedness and familial support

This ethnographic case study examined first-year, first-generation, low-income Latino/a college students’ social experiences and familial support during their transition from a charter high school to four-year universities. Through interviews and observations, we found that maintaining communication and building relationships among high school and college peers, high school faculty and staff, and college professors were essential to navigating the educational system; also, having a family that supported their academic work to allow students to only focus on their coursework was important.     

Hesitant hopes: How a comprehensive approach to learning impacts on the transition hopes of marginalised young people in an alternative learning programme in regional Australia

Concerns have been raised internationally about whether alternative learning programmes are producing low-skilled labourers for rapidly disappearing twenty-first-century jobs. Researchers claim that learners in alternative programmes are more at risk due to the focus on low-level vocational and basic skill attainment, with a lack of formal academic pathways available to them. This article questions whether and in what ways an alternative learning programme supports young people to achieve successful transitions to sustainable social mobility for informed citizenship through a holistic approach to learning; or if class stratification is being re/enforced through systems’ accountability discourses. Hesitant hopes in alternative learning are explored through an ethnographic study of one alternative learning programme across five sites in regional Australia. Contextually, not-for-profit community agencies provide physical infrastructures as well as youth workers and volunteers, while a publicly funded School of Distance Education provides teacher oversight of the curriculum. Findings suggest that the theme of ‘hesitant hope’ is constructed through the analysis of the discourses of supporting wellbeing, life skill development and academic learning. These discourses facilitate further analysis of the concept of social mobility, suggesting a conceptual starting point for an engaging critique of the differing perspectives on how support could be providing these marginalised young people with a sense of hope for a socially mobile future.     

Supporting African refugees in Greater Western Sydney: a critical ethnography of after-school homework tutoring centres

This paper discusses the Refugee Action Support Partnership Project between the University of Western Sydney, The Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation and the NSW-Department of Education and Training (DET). The critical ethnographic method is used to evaluate the after-school homework tutoring centres as a vehicle of literacy development and youth transitions. Given the nature of strife and unrest in the African Continent, refugee children may have been unable to attend school before coming to Australia, or obtained only interrupted schooling at best. Since parents are unfamiliar with the education system and because many do not speak English, they cannot help their children as they would wish to, and children may be left to deal with difficulties alone. The School of Education at UWS offers service learning programs like the after-school homework tutoring centres, to deliver effective and sustainable support to schools so that refugee students can feel safe and begin to learn.     

Following the action in action learning: towards ethnomethodological studies of (critical) action learning

Action learning is a pedagogical practice that helps participants learn by talking about their workplace action with fellow participants (‘comrades in adversity’) in their action learning set. This paper raises questions about the action in action learning, such as: how do members of an action learning set learn from and through each other? How do they learn through their developing conversation and interaction?

To answer such questions, I argue that, ‘ethnomethodology’ (the study of ‘member's methods’ or ‘folk methods’ for doing any kind of practical action) is useful for showing the intricacy of the practical learning process in action learning, as in learning in action, more generally. The paper illustrates the conversational and interactional work of members doing things and learning together in action (for example discovering things in science and in board meetings); and argues that this approach may also be used to study action learning in practice.     

Critical reflections of action research used for professional development in a Middle Eastern Gulf State

This article describes and critically reflects on an action research project used for professional development purposes in a Middle Eastern Gulf State. The aim of the project was to improve professional development experiences for a group of in‐service teacher educators, who were English as Second Language advisers. The initial discussion highlights different ideological and methodological approaches to action research and identifies core characteristics that were framed to evaluate the project. Second, the background to the local context is described followed by the action research project, the methodology and outcomes. Using an evaluative framework, the subsequent discussion describes the successes of this project. These include encouraging reflection in a collaborative environment, promoting a culture of learning and supporting the participant’s reconstruction of professional knowledge situated in practice. Finally, there is a critical reflection around a number of challenges, tensions and questions that emerged from the project, centred on the loss of core democratic values underpinning action research. These concerns highlight power relationships and the ownership and control of research, which become more apparent in mandatory situations and hierarchical contexts.     

Writing culture; inscribing lives: a reflective treatise on the burden of representation in native research

This paper complicates the contested assumptions surrounding native research by exploring the burden of representation placed on native researchers because they are seen as insiders. This particular issue of representation is important for native researchers to consider, especially in instances where the research is on an understudied or politically charged group, because of the ways in which the socio-political climate influences both the telling and the reading of such research. Drawing on the author’s personal struggles as a Pakistani researcher conducting ethnographic research with Pakistani immigrants in the United States in the post-9/11 climate, this paper explores and critiques the role of the native researcher and the issues involved with representing understudied groups. Specifically, the paper focuses on authenticity, positionality, audience, and accountability. Thus, the paper is a call for researchers to be more reflective and to think more deeply about their positionality and its impact on the various constituents as they research and write. To encourage such reflexivity, the article provides a set of questions for researchers to consider at different stages of the research and writing process.     

Cultivating critical global citizens through secondary EFL education: a case study of mainland China

This paper examines the enactment of critical literacy pedagogy in secondary English language teaching in the face of globalisation. This qualitative case study signals that global citizenship education (GCE) and English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching can converge through offering equitable and globally contextualised learning opportunities. The overarching themes presented here challenge the dominance of instrumentalist orientations of EFL education in mainland China today while mobilising pedagogical choices that affirm students' local and lived experiences in relation to international socio-political issues. Findings provide EFL educators nuanced insights into how critical global literacies are extended through critical understandings of literacies, interconnections from a personal to a global level, and opportunities for social actions on multicultural issues, thus fostering globally competent and bilingual learners who critically engage with the contested terrain of an increasingly globalised world.     

Indigenous graduate research students in Australia: a critical review of the research

Over the last decade, there has been a steady increase in the number of Indigenous graduate research students in Australia, yet research and pedagogy has not kept pace with changes underway in the sector. From an extensive search of literature published between 2000 and 2017, 15 papers (representing 10 research projects conducted by seven teams or authors) were identified that addressed Indigenous graduate research student experience. Overall, the literature tends to focus on identifying barriers to completion, noting in particular the impact of financial difficulties, social isolation and racism. A research degree is a key site for the assertion and legitimation of Indigenous knowledges, and it is here that Indigenous students are navigating tensions between legitimated disciplinary practices of the centre and the peripheral status of Indigenous knowledges. We, therefore, adopt Herbert's ‘centre–periphery’ model to interpret the research, arguing that this framework explains the focus on barriers, the neglect of pedagogy centred on academic excellence and student strengths, and research relationships between students and Indigenous communities. Our review identifies the need for a systematic research agenda specifically focused on Indigenous student success at the graduate research level, and looking internationally in order to assess the performance and strategies of Australian higher education providers in comparison to international institutions meeting the aims of First Nations research communities. This approach, we suggest, should move beyond an analysis of the nature of enablers and barriers to focus on Indigenous Higher Degree by Research success.     

Beyond the poverty of national security: toward a critical human security perspective in educational policy

This article examines the intersecting logics of human capital and national security underpinning the corporate school reform movement in the United States. Taking a 2012 policy report by the Council on Foreign Relations as an entry point, it suggests that these logics are incoherent not only on their own narrow instrumental terms, but also more importantly in terms of progressive ideals of human and educational flourishing. The article proceeds to draw on discussions within the fields of international relations and critical security studies in order to think through what it might mean to reframe educational policy within the terms of human security rather than human capital and national security. It further explores both the possibilities and distinct limitations of extant human security discourses and policies in relation to global neoliberal governance and biopolitics. The article concludes by advocating for a critical human security framework in educational policy along three conceptual lines: (1) A Human beyond Human Capital; (2) Symbiotic Parallelism; and (3) Altersecurity. Ultimately, it suggests that human security for educational flourishing might offer insight into transcending the idea of security altogether.     

Engagement and learning through social software in finance: a retrospective on the Trading Room experience

The introduction of a social software blog space called the Trading Room in an undergraduate finance unit generated a great deal of activity to support student learning. A subsequent evaluation of this innovation, viewed through the lens of Activity Theory, demonstrated that students perceived high value in the opportunity it provided for them to reaffirm theories, obtain individualised feedback and benchmark their work against others. While assessment is generally seen as the carrot and the stick of learning; students in the study reported that they would still participate in reading and posting to the Trading Room even if there was no assessment requirement. Students did not see any value in the environment as a purely social space, reporting that they saw it primarily as a professional educational community. It would appear that just as there are different communities in the real world social space, there are also different types of communities in the online space.     

A matter of scale: multi-scale ethnographic research on education in the United States

ABSTRACT

In recent years, cultural anthropologists conducting educational ethnographies in the US have pursued some new methodological approaches. These new approaches can be attributed to advances in cultural theory, evolving norms of research practice, and the affordances of new technologies. In this article, I review three such approaches under the rubric ‘multi-scale ethnography’. Each approach responds to the desire to understand cultural forms that extend beyond single sites and the capabilities of single researchers; each pursues cultural forms that ‘travel’ across spaces, levels, and times. The three approaches are multi-sited ethnography, meta-ethnography, and comparative case study. I view these approaches not as replacements for older forms of ethnography but as complements that extend the contextualisation and generalisability of traditional ethnography.     

Impact on student teachers' conception of learning and teaching from studying a course in educational psychology

This study investigates changes in the conceptions of learning and teaching among undergraduate student teachers. A qualitative content analysis of essays using metaphors to describe learning and teaching written by 256 students at the beginning and end of an educational psychology course was used as the main research procedure. It was found that there was an increase in the share of students that see learning and teaching from a cognitive-constructivist perspective and a decrease in the share that see learning and teaching from a behaviourist perspective by the end of the course. In addition, the study revealed that the coherence in the nature of the metaphors describing learning and teaching increased by the end of the course. However, there was practically no increase in the number of essays describing learning from a socio-constructivist perspective, a fact that points to a need to pay more attention to the manifestations of learning in different communities of students, that is, to a relevant knowledge that teachers need in their everyday work.     

Learner subjects in study abroad: discourse of immersion,hierarchy of experience and their subversion through situated learning

This article investigates different kinds of learner subjects that study-abroad programs produce. It is based on discourse analysis and ethnographic fieldwork in May–September 2011, involving three students from a US college studying abroad short term in Europe. The discourse of immersion in study abroad valorizes a learning-by-doing, individual, reflective learner subject who learns alone by gaining everyday experience outside the classroom and by reflecting on it. Some students subverted this discourse and became group and classroom-based learner subjects; nonetheless, they all became reflective learner subjects. This article proposes critical analysis of the discourse and links that reflectivity to critical pedagogy.     

Undergraduate research as a student engagement springboard: Exploring the longer-term reported benefits of participation in a research conference

ABSTRACT

Background: Undergraduate research is evident in many forms across higher education: in journals, at conferences and on research placements. It is widely reported that undergraduate research can encourage the development of discipline-specific and transferable communication skills and, in some cases, a more complex development of higher-order critical appraisal. Recent studies of extracurricular undergraduate research conferences have also found that participants report a development of self-authorship and an appreciation of the conference as liminal and transformative space. With many published studies measuring immediate feedback surrounding conference events, there is also a need to explore participants’ reflections over a longer term period of time.

Purpose: This small-scale project investigated participants’ self-report of whether and in what ways participation in a non-assessed, extracurricular undergraduate research conference had impacted their academic and professional practices, one year after their involvement in the conference.

Method: The qualitative study took place over two academic years with participants from an undergraduate conference which was held annually. The investigation adopted an action research methodology and completed two cycles of research. Data were collected firstly through an online survey with open questions, yielding feedback from 44 respondents. Focus groups were then conducted with nine of these students to explore this data further. A thematic approach was used to analyse the data.

Findings: The two cycles of data collection and analyses resulted in the identification of four central themes: (1) general positive impact on studies or career; (2) the development of presentation skills and personal confidence; (3) the development of research skills and perspectives; (4) an increased engagement with extracurricular opportunities.

Conclusions: Overall, our analysis identified that participants reported a development in communication skills and an enhanced relationship with the concept of ‘research’ and self-authorship. Students’ report that participation directly led to increased engagement with additional extracurricular activities is particularly noteworthy, as it contributes something new to the growing body of literature surrounding undergraduate research. More widely, the study suggests the potential for undergraduate conferences to act as springboards for increased extracurricular engagement.     

Establishing enabling conditions to develop critical thinking skills: a case of innovative curriculum design in Environmental Science

This paper considers a curriculum design motivated by a desire to explore more valid pedagogical approaches that foster critical thinking skills among students engaged in an Environmental Science course in South Africa, focussing specifically on the topic of Citizen Science. Fifty-three under graduate students were involved in the course, which was run over a two week period. Data were generated from several sources, including individual student evaluations, a focus group discussion, lecturer reflections and summative assessment results. During the course, the development of critical thinking skills was scaffolded by different thinking approaches to the possibilities and problematics of student-selected case studies, followed by a collaborative re-examining of ‘what is known’ about Citizen Science. Spiralling engagement with various resources harnessed the diversity of the class, as they drew on their personal and disciplinary backgrounds. The insights highlight possibilities for alternative higher education teaching models for emerging subjects such as Environmental Science, where the competencies required of graduates, such as critical thinking and coping with uncertainty, differ significantly from traditional ‘science’ competencies, and therefore require a departure from traditional teaching methods.     

Neoliberalism is not a theory of everything: a Bourdieuian analysis of illusio in educational research

Despite the frequency with which the concept of neoliberalism is employed within academic literature, its complex and multifaceted nature makes it difficult to define and describe. Indeed, data reported in this article suggest that there is a tendency in educational research to make extensive use of the word ‘neoliberalism’ (or its variants neoliberal, neo-liberal and neo-liberalism) as a catch-all for something negative but without offering a definition or explanation. The article highlights a number of key risks associated with this approach and draws on the Bourdieuian concept of illusio to suggest the possibility that when as educational researchers we use the word ‘neoliberalism’ in this way, rather than interrupting the implementation of neoliberal policies and practices, we may, in fact, be further entrenching the neoliberal doxa. That is to say, we are both playing the neoliberal game and inadvertently demonstrating our belief that it is a game worth being played. In so doing, this article seeks to extend understandings of what illusio means within the context of educational research.     

冷酷无情特质与大学生网络欺负行为的关系: 道德推脱的调节作用

为探讨负性生活事件对青少年网络欺凌行为的影响,以及愤怒反刍和网络去抑制在这一影响中的作用,采用青少年生活事件量表、愤怒反刍量表、网络欺凌行为问卷和网络去抑制量表对610名青少年进行问卷调查。结果表明：其一,在控制性别和年龄后,负性生活事件显著地正向预测青少年的网络欺凌行为。其二,愤怒反刍在负性生活事件与网络欺凌行为之间存在显著的中介作用。其三,网络去抑制在愤怒反刍与网络欺凌行为之间起到显著的调节作用;青少年的网络去抑制水平越高,愤怒反刍对网络欺凌行为的正向预测作用越强。这一研究结果对减少网络欺凌行为的干预措施提供了新的视角。

     

Exploring young children's performance on and acceptance of an educational scenario-based digital game for teaching route-planning strategies: a case study

Researchers suggest that game-based learning (GBL) can be used to facilitate mathematics learning. However, empirical GBL research that targets young children is still limited. The purposes of the study is to develop a scenario-based digital game to promote children's route-planning ability, to empirically explore children's learning performance in route planning through the game, and to probe children's technology acceptance of the game. A total of 71 children participated in the study, and both qualitative and quantitative approaches were used, including an interview analysis as well as performance and content analyses of learners’ route-planning tasks. The findings showed that the game had a positive effect on children's learning of route-planning strategies, that children's route-planning strategies were improved with the support of the game, and that children demonstrated high technology acceptance toward the game. This study may be of importance in offering insight into children's GBL.     

Improving the educational experience of children and young people in public care: a Scottish perspective

The context for this paper relates to the policy and practice implications of efforts to achieve social justice for Scotland’s 12,000 children and young people in the care of local government authorities. The paper is located within a growing evidence base of the educational experience of young people in care and leaving care. The data on attainment and exclusion from school in particular are reviewed and confirm that looked‐after children in Scotland, as elsewhere in the UK, typically leave education with significantly fewer school leaving qualifications than is now the common expectation for young people in their age group and are significantly more likely to lose time in school due to exclusion. However, the review also shows the devastating impact of being in care on young children’s attainment in reading, writing and mathematics. The implications of the data reviewed are discussed in relation to the concepts of social justice, resilience and the educationally rich environment.