Who Needs Critical Agency?: Educational research and the rhetorical economy of globalization

Current critical pedagogical scholarship has theorized the epistemological and social intersection between globalization and educational technology according to two distinct positions. For some, this intersection offers new liberatory knowledges and opportunities that can subvert social homogenization and economic disparity. For others, this relationship is just another phase of neoimperialism that should be politically and ideologically resisted. In contrast, we argue that the intersection between globalization and educational technologies is rather a manifestation of larger economic and logical forces, and that resistance to such circumstances can neither be purely ideological or social. Instead, we contend that such a theoretical and pedagogical foreclosure dialectically actualizes conditions for real change—particularly when it complicates educational research technologies and their impact on epistemological multiplicity.     

Is the Dragon a Suitable Symbol for China?

Recently there has been a heated discussion on whether we should continue to use the dragon as the symbol for our China.Some claim that the dragon is no longer a suitable symbol for China. Whereas others don't think so. A professor Wu in Shanghai who holds the view that the dragon is no good a symbol gives the following reasons.Firstly,the dragon is an evil     

Is There a Role for Executive Functions in the Development of Mathematics Ability?

ABSTRACT— This article examines the role of working memory, attention shifting, and inhibitory control executive cognitive functions in the development of mathematics knowledge and ability in children. It suggests that an examination of the executive cognitive demand of mathematical thinking can complement procedural and conceptual knowledge-based approaches to understanding the ways in which children become proficient in mathematics. Task analysis indicates that executive cognitive functions likely operate in concert with procedural and conceptual knowledge and in some instances might act as a unique influence on mathematics problem-solving ability. It is concluded that consideration of the executive cognitive demand of mathematics can contribute to research on best practices in mathematics education.     

Knowledge for what? Wales,militarisation and the endless promotion of the knowledge economy

The ‘knowledge economy’ has become the buzzword of development policy in the early twenty‐first century. Nations and regions around the world are all told that they must transform themselves into knowledge economies to survive and prosper. This article uses the example of Wales and its recent embrace of a massive military privatisation project in the name of the knowledge economy to illustrate how political and business elites use knowledge economy discourse to build legitimacy for their own development agendas and interests. The ideological work that knowledge economy discourse performs is based on its claim that knowledge should be seen primarily as a factor of production, along with land, labour and capital; its promotion of the need for networking, teamwork and partnership; its insistence that social and economic advancement be based on talent, education and skill; and most of all, its presumption that knowledge, education and learning are inherently and unquestionably goods in and of themselves.     

Education’s role in the economy: towards a new perspective

The economics of happiness is a developing field of inquiry that is arousing more and more interest among public policy-makers. This article discusses some of the educational implications that stem from this new field of inquiry. The article argues that the economics of happiness shows that the present educational focus on enhancing productivity is insufficient in and of itself and that greater emphasis should be placed on how education can help to transform wealth into happiness. It also maintains, however, that it would be inadvisable to directly derive the role that education should play in the economy from the findings of the economics of happiness. The current educational aim of enhancing productivity, it is concluded, must be complemented by an educational emphasis on informing, guiding and even shaping people’s economic preferences.     

Is the National Professional Qualification for Headship Making a Difference?

This article investigates the data from a national survey of headteachers of maintained schools in England conducted during 1999 by means of a self-completion postal questionnaire to see whether there was any evidence to support the hypothesis that respondents who had taken part in the National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH) felt better prepared than their predecessors for the post of headteacher. The survey sought to establish the perceptions of English headteachers with regard to their state of readiness on taking up the role. Where respondents reported themselves as well prepared or extremely well prepared for aspects of their role they were asked to attribute their perceived state of readiness to training, experience, or a combination of the two. In addition respondents were asked to complete open-ended questions which asked them to identify activities and support which would help the induction of newly appointed headteachers. The findings reported in this paper do not draw on these qualitative responses.     

Is the Door-in-the-Face a Concession?

The Door-in-the-Face (DITF) sequential message strategy was investigated in a three-study analysis of existing experimental findings. The current study predicted there would be a positive relationship between concession size and compliance rates in DITF studies. Study 1 included 25 comparisons where size of concession was quantifiable as measured by percentage reduction from initial to target request in the DITF condition. Study 2 data relied on a panel of undergraduate students to provide an index of concession size in 12 additional observations. A third study validated the panel procedure of rating concession size and also provided 9 additional independent observations from the pool of published studies on DITF. Results from each study indicated a positive relationship between concession size and effect size (r = 0.35, 0.55, 0.68, respectively). Study findings provide support for reciprocal concessions explanation for DITF effects.     

Is the liberal defense of public schools a fantasy?

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we offer a Leftist critique of standard liberal defenses of the public school. We suggest that the standard arguments employed by mainstream liberal defenders of the public school are generally inadequate because they fail to provide a credible representation of their historical object, let alone effective remedies to our current problems. Indeed, many of these narratives, in our view, are grounded in fantasies about what public schools, or teaching and learning, are or could be, as much as they are grounded in the historical realities of public schools or the realities of so-called privatization. We speculate whether the self-identification of the proponents of this cause as ‘progressive’ is not part of this ideological construction and if the underlying political agenda is not in fact more conservative.     

Is There a Role for Mathematical Disciplinarity in Productive Learning for the Workplace?

This paper situates mathematical content and process knowledge within the construct of broad occupational competence. It is critical of many developments in vocational mathematics curriculum and pedagogical practice in Australia over the last decade or so, especially the trend towards the de-institutionalisation of disciplinary knowledge. This has been accompanied by a chronic lack of professional development for many involved in vocational education to enable development of this mathematical knowledge. Meanwhile, workers' actual and potential mathematical knowledges remain largely unrecognised, whilst irrelevant, often infantile, pedagogic texts form their subjectivities as doers rather than knowers, always in need of more training to adapt to ever-changing technologies of workplace plant and management. It argues that to attempt to satisfy government and industry demands for a creative, problem-solving workforce?to say nothing of workers' entitlement to democratic participation?there is a need for mathematical disciplinarity beyond current practice.     

Marginalization of democratic values: a gendered practice of schooling?

Contemporary Swedish debate is much occupied with young men's attraction to anti-democratic ideals and the fact that they seem to learn less than girls about democratic values in school. Within politics, voices have been raised in favour of putting more effort into the schooling of young people's—especially boys'—social competence and democratic understanding. This paper analyses present school practice and discusses how schools go about handling issues of democracy. This will be done by reference to empirical results from two Swedish studies carried out in the 1990s. The presentation will focus in particular on the marginalization and gendered fostering of democratic values in school. It will also touch upon the implications for the kind of masculinities and femininities reproduced.     

Evaluating the impact of the new National Award for SENCos: transforming landscapes or gardening in a gale?

This study, authored by Dominic Griffiths and Rachel Dubsky, both of Manchester Metropolitan University, considers the impact of the new National Award for Special Educational Needs Coordinators (NASENCo) in one English local authority. Data on the impacts upon both SENCos' personal professional development and upon their schools are drawn from semi‐structured interviews with six SENCOs, their headteachers and one colleague from each of their schools. Factors that appear to have enhanced or modified the impact of the training are identified. The article discussed, firstly, the emerging theme of SENCos' own perceptions of their role, and then the implications of the study's findings for future NASENCo course design.     

Is a cerebellar deficit the underlying cause of reading disabilities?

This study investigated whether children with dyslexia differed in their performance on reading, phonological, rapid naming, motor, and cerebellar-related tasks and automaticity measures compared to reading age (RA)-matched and chronological age (CA)-matched control groups. Participants were 51 children attending mainstream English elementary schools in Quebec. All participants completed measures of IQ, word and nonword reading fluency, elision, nonword decoding, rapid naming, bead threading, peg moving, toe tapping, postural stability, and muscle tone. Results from both group contrasts and analyses at the individual case level did not provide support for claims of motor–cerebellar involvement in either typical or atypical reading acquisition. Results were more consistent with a phonological core process account of both typical reading and reading difficulty. Phonological deficits for children with dyslexia compared to RA-matched controls were, however, only evident in group contrasts. Findings thus also have important implications for identifying at-risk readers among their same-aged peers.