Education and countering violent extremism: Western logics from south to north?

Abstract

This paper explores the way education and conflict have become entangled during the post-9/11 ‘war on terror’ response to ‘radical Islam’ at home and abroad. The paper charts the complex ways that education has been deployed to serve Western military and security objectives in multiple locations in the global south and how these strategies have now returned to the ‘ West’ in the form of ‘countering violent extremism’ interventions. Drawing on Foucault’s concept of the ‘boomerang effect’ I will explore whether and how education techniques and strategies deployed abroad in pursuit of imperial interests return to the West and are deployed to monitor, control and suppress marginalised communities in a form of ‘internal colonialism’. Finally, the paper brings the two sections together in the Findings to explore commonalities and divergences.     

Transferable skills within research degrees: a collaborative genre‐based approach to developing publication skills and its implications for research education

Recognition is increasing that Ph.D. graduates require transferable skills for employment within or outside academia, and professional written communication skills form an important subset which contributes to many other skill categories. Writing journal articles for publication is a key task within candidatures and research workplaces, so intrinsic motivation for developing the required skills is high in both contexts. This paper describes a publication skills workshop approach based on research findings from genre analysis and methodologies current within the English for Specific Purposes area of Applied Linguistics. Quantitative evaluation of workshops presented in research workplaces in China and Australia, and in university departments, highlights participants' positive responses to the approach. Qualitative data analysis indicates that the workshop features participants valued most highly related to its genre‐based, collaborative and hands‐on nature. Implications are drawn for the effective development of desirable graduate attributes within research education programmes.     

Instruction or pedagogy? The need for a transformative conception of education

Greater governmental control over the curriculum and an increasing emphasis on education as instruction towards pre-determined outcomes have generated new interest in the question whether schools should only instruct or also have a pedagogical task. In this paper, it is argued that schools do have a pedagogical task but that this task should not be understood as the teaching of norms and values. A transformative conception of education is presented in order to argue that the pedagogical task, conceived as a concern for the whole person of the student, is the proper and all-encompassing task of education.     

Silence as borderland: a semiotic approach to the “silent” pupil in nineteenth-century vocal education

Abstract

At the heart of the nineteenth-century educational soundscape lies a paradox. Whilst “modern” classrooms generally strived for orderly silence, the goal of its educational practices was the production of competent “citizens”. Middle-class boys in particular were expected to acquire a voice fit for business, the professions, or even (political) public speech whilst quietly listening to a teacher. This silence within the educational institution has generally been understood as an element of discipline. In this paper I want to examine the paradox of the silent classroom and the speaking citizen. I will focus specifically on those instances where the clear goal of education was vocal sound (i.e. fluent speech, civilised pronunciation, and song) and look at how silence was mobilised by educators. I will argue that the silences employed in these educational practices were not (only) tools of order and discipline, but rather means to create a “borderland” where the leap between childhood and its uncivilised noises, and adulthood and its rational speech, could be made.

I will draw upon the interpretations of silence as “in between” signs as it has been developed by semioticians to analyse a corpus of sources consisting mainly of French, German, and English pedagogical literature focusing on the development of children’s voices. Reframing the place of silence in “institutionalised” education allows us to delve deeper into the specific ways in which “discipline” (re)produced and articulated dichotomies of power.     

The adjustment of national education systems to a knowledge‐based economy: a new approach

In his article ‘Globalisation, the Learning Society, and Comparative Education’, Peter Jarvis recommends lifelong learning in the period of globalisation as a topic ripe for scholarly research. In particular, he argues for the examination of the extent of lifelong learning around the world and its relation to different levels of employment. This article contributes to this line of inquiry by analysing how education policies facilitate adjustment to economic change and examining how advanced industrialised countries (AICs) compare in their promotion. Principal component analysis is used to construct indices for education systems that reflect these two objectives, and the results reveal considerable cross‐national variation. The Nordic countries appear well‐positioned to cope with changed skill needs. A closer look at the cases of Denmark and Italy portrays how a national education system can facilitate or hinder adaptation, respectively.     

“Troops to Teachers”: implications for the coalition government’s approach to education policy and pedagogical beliefs and practice

On taking power the coalition government embarked on what many commentators believe is a radical programme of public policy reform. Under Michael Gove, education policy has become totemic to those arguing that Britain’s classrooms are mired in academic mediocrity and behavioural failure. One policy response by the government has been to propose fast-tracking ex-armed services personnel into schools in England as teachers, especially in inner-city areas. This paper examines the educational and pedagogical merits of this proposal and the underlying beliefs that underpin it. Based on a critical evaluation of the literature, it argues that rather than representing a genuinely radical and innovative attempt to tackle educational underachievement, the Troops to Teachers initiative is deeply reactionary. One, based on discredited pedagogical philosophies which fail to address what the educational community believes a “good” education is, devalues teaching as a profession and ignores the socio-economic factors that primarily determine academic performance.     

Developing “deliberate analysis” for learning mathematics and for mathematics teacher education: how the enactive approach to cognition frames reflection

We illustrate and exemplify how the idea of reflection is framed by the enactive concept of “deliberate analysis”. In keeping with this frame, we do not attempt to define reflection but rather work on the question of “how do we do reflecting?” within such a frame. We set out our enactivist theoretical stance, in particular pointing to implications for how we can learn from experience and showing the role of “deliberate analysis”. We then describe, drawing on education literature, what is generally seen as the purpose of reflection and review some existing conceptualizations in mathematics education, pointing out where we draw distinctions. To illustrate how we do reflecting, we offer excerpts from two lessons of an expert teacher and the writing of a prospective teacher. We exemplify how reflecting as deliberate analysis leads to a way of working with teachers supporting them in handling multiple views and ambiguity, their actions being contingent upon their students’ actions in learning mathematics.     

Towards a shift in perspective for inclusive education research – a continental approach

With a starting point in the tradition of geisteswissenschaftliche Pädagogik, this article presents a challenge to inclusive education research to engage a Continental perspective on educational research. The motivation is to entice inclusive education researchers to begin to ask educational questions of inclusion, as opposed to inclusive questions of education. Recent years has seen a call to re-think inclusive education research and this paper attempts to answer this call by turning to a Continental perspective and the emphasis on an at least relative autonomy for the theory and practice of education. The article explores the relationship between Continental and Anglo-American educational theory, and why they seem to have developed in such distinct directions. Beginning with the Anglo-American perspective, it is outlined how pedagogy and the so-called educational interest became replaced by the scientific standards dominant in other academic disciplines. This is countered by a look at the continued endeavours in the Continental spheres to formulate specifically educational criteria for educational processes. This leads to a negative aim in the form of arguing against neo-liberal policy and the politicisation of inclusive education, and a positive aim in the form of an argument for a move towards constructing a pedagogical ideal of inclusion.     

In support of the cognitive‐developmental approach to moral education: a response to David Carr

This article examines real‐life moral conflicts from the perspective of the ethic of care. Fifty‐six (Time 1) and 57 (Time 2) real‐life dilemmas provided by students representing different fields of study were analysed in terms of level of care reasoning according to Skoe's Ethic of Care Interview. The results showed that antisocial temptation and transgression dilemmas tended to invoke lower levels of care reasoning than conflicting‐demands and social‐pressure dilemmas. Participants reporting temptation dilemmas had the least developed care reasoning. The results suggest that subjects identified at different care levels perceive different types of real‐life moral conflict, and that the function of care reasoning varies according to the type of moral conflict.     

An interdisciplinary approach to environmental and sustainability education: developing geography students’ understandings of sustainable development using poetry

Education for sustainable development (ESD) persists as an important concept within international policy and yet, despite considerable debate, there remains a lack of consensus as to a pedagogy for ESD in schools. This paper presents findings from a study investigating how an interdisciplinary approach to ESD in England developed one class of 16- and 17-year-old geography students’ understandings of sustainability. The research used students’ drawings of sustainable cities alongside questionnaires and semi-structured interviews to explore their understanding of sustainable development within a constructivist, case study framework. The study found that the use of poetry within a geography lesson developed students’ appreciation of the social and economic dimensions of sustainability, although their focus persisted around the environmental. As such, it is argued that an interdisciplinary approach to ESD encourages students to engage more critically and affectively with the concept of sustainable development, thereby developing a more holistic appreciation of it.     

Designing the ideal school as a transformative process: an approach to promoting teacher identity in pre-service teachers

This paper presents an approach to planning academic courses for pre-service teachers and for researching development of teacher identity. The approach was implemented in a course, conducted in an Israeli Master Teach program, designed to foster pre-service teacher identity transformation. The research described here addresses two questions: (1) To what extent does the approach contribute to the understanding of teacher identity formation? (2) Using this approach, how can pre-service teacher educators support teacher identity transformation? Using a metaphorical tool, students designed their ‘ideal school’ at the beginning and at the end of the course. Identity transformation was evaluated by comparing their designs. Demonstration of this approach methodology is presented through an analysis of the designs of one female student. Findings highlight the potential of this approach to reveal and cope with obstacles inhibiting transformative learning: narrow, imbalanced, inconsistent, and shallow perspective; rigid patterns of thinking; and lack of emotional awareness.     

Revising Amartya Sen’s capability approach to education for ethical development

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether Amartya Sen's capability approach can suggest an appropriate theory of education for ethical development. Many advocates of Sen's capability approach insist that his approach is superior to rival theories of education, including the human capital theory. This is because Sen emphasizes the purpose and various roles of education for achieving substantial freedom while rival theories focus on the instrumental aspects of education. A focus on rival educational theories often results in the negative effects seen occurring in colonial education. In principle, we agree with the advocates of Sen’s capability approach. However, we doubt that Sen’s emphasis is sufficient for guaranteeing that his capability approach is the appropriate theory of education for application in the context of ethical development. It does not have theoretical completion, and it gives no guidance as to conflict resolution concerning the roles, or value, of education. Nor does it give guidance as to how to implement pedagogical strategies. This incompletion allows economically instrumental values to dominate intrinsic values and non-economically instrumental values, as seen with the educational Millennium Development Goals. This prioritization is what has occurred in colonial education through the application of human capital theory. We suggest that in Sen’s capability approach, firstly, the meaning of the intrinsic value of education should be clarified; secondly, the non-economically instrumental roles of education should be explicated in the context of development; and finally, the priority of the intrinsic and the non-economically instrumental roles of education value should be taken over the economically instrumental values. In this revised theory, people’s substantive freedom is achievable through education, people’s aboriginal identities and values remain intact, and developing countries take seriously pedagogical strategies.     

Organisational self-evaluation and teacher education for community relations in a transforming society?

During 2004, the School of Education at the University of Ulster embarked on an innovative three-year project designed to embed community relations objectives within initial teacher education. With the advent of more peaceful times in Northern Ireland, this was a precipitous time for initial teacher educators to review the preparation given to beginner teachers for teaching in an increasingly pluralist society emerging from conflict. The present paper reports on one very specific and time-limited element of the broader project. That is, development work designed to investigate the possibilities of using processes of self-review and evaluation as a lever for improvements in initial teacher education for community relations. Following a brief contextualisation, the background to, and the development of, a set of materials designed to support rigorous and systematic self-review of all aspects of provision in a university-based initial teacher education department is described. The Community Relations Index for Initial Teacher Education (Cr-ITE) was envisaged as being of use to initial teacher education establishments in order to help teacher educators take responsibility for rigorous learning from their practice, whilst placing inclusive values at the centre of organisational development. The final section includes further critical reflection on the role of organisational self-review in transforming teacher education for inclusion in a society emerging from longstanding communal conflict.     

Engaged outreach: using community engagement to facilitate access to higher education for people from low socio‐economic backgrounds

Despite ongoing equity initiatives, there is still a clear discrepancy in regards to access to higher education for potential students from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. This paper reports on an action research initiative that has developed a model of engaged outreach as an alternative approach to traditional university outreach. Engaged outreach uses the principles of higher education community engagement to develop stronger relationships between universities and their local communities for the purposes of increasing aspiration and access to higher education. The project was designed using a reflective, collaborative process with local Pacific Island immigrant communities living in an area of high social deprivation in southeast Queensland, Australia. Research progressed in three key stages, which together form the basis of the proposed model of engaged outreach. While it is acknowledged that the success of engaged outreach will depend on its implementation as a long‐term strategy, preliminary results from this pilot project suggest that it demonstrates real potential to address this important but seemingly entrenched issue in Australian higher education.     

In the shadow of Sputnik: a transnational approach to Menzies support for science education in Australia, 1957–1964

Abstract

This paper examines prime minister Robert Menzies decision to support science education in Australian schools in 1963. This was a landmark shift in policy for the federal government, but in many ways mirrors the decision of Eisenhower who brought down the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) in 1958. The paper uses a transnational approach to offer a new way of looking at the 1963 decision by focusing on the need for science education and the environment which supported science advocacy rather than the traditional interpretation of political expediency to court the Catholic vote.     

A mixed-methods approach to developing an understanding of teachers’ attitudes and their enactment of inclusive education

This research sought to develop an understanding of teachers’ attitudes, sense of self-efficacy and approach to enacting inclusive education in their classrooms in two diverse countries. A mixed-methods research design guided the data collection and analysis. This article focuses on how quantitative and qualitative research approaches were used sequentially and how the findings were finally merged to provide more comprehensive insight into different aspects of teachers’ sometimes contradictory attitudes and approaches to implementing inclusive education. The meta-inferences presented here indicate that merging measurements and meanings can shed light on how teachers’ attitudes and self-efficacy within the implementation of inclusive education are multi-faceted, non-linear and connected to their cultural–historical contexts.