The aims of special education schools and units in Kenya: a survey of headteachers

The paper reports a questionnaire survey of headteachers of special schools and special units in Kenya, focusing in particular on their educational aims. The study is located in the broader context of special educational provision and developments in Africa. These include the colonial legacy, the influence of indigenous and traditional concepts of education and disability, and national policies engaging with issues of curriculum and inclusion. The aims the headteachers said were important were wide-ranging and included conventional academic achievement, personal and social development and citizenship, alongside skills of personal care and the control of difficult behaviour. However, the relative emphasis given to different aims suggests that the importance of traditional aims of special education in terms of control, containment and care still outweigh those of a broad and balanced educational provision. Surprisingly, there was relatively little emphasis on the importance of preparation for employment. The analysis suggests that although there have been rapid developments in the provision for special educational needs in Kenya, there remains a gap between the ambitions of national policy and actual provision at school level.     

The farm as an educative tool in the development of place attachments among Irish farm youth

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on the educative role of the farm in the development of relationships between young people and the homeplace they grew up on. The paper is based on qualitative interviews with a cohort of 30 Irish university students (15 men and 15 women) brought up on Irish family farms who would not become full-time farmers. The farm acts as an educational tool through which broader cultural and familial norms of land ownership, succession and affiliations with the land are transmitted to the next generation. This is manifested through, for example, the creation of foundational stories about their forebearers’ influence on the physical appearance of the farm. The resulting place attachments are of profound depth and serve a key role in the succession process in helping to build a sense of duty and responsibilisation into the next generation’s relationship with the landholding.     

Nurturing identity formation in adolescence through narrative learning: a dialogue between the pedagogies of media literacy and religious education

ABSTRACT

In these last four decades or so, adolescence became understood as the time when young people ask fundamental questions about themselves, each other, the world, and one’s past, present and future life that seek unity of purpose and coherence. For most young people the digital media are popular modalities through which they seek, consciously or unconsciously, meaningful answers to such questions. Multimodal spaces are sites for adolescent identity construction, a reality that prompted media educators to focus more on youth as authors of multimodal productions that provide opportunities to create narratives of self. RE has been increasingly justified by the support it provides students to become subjects of life, and the potential to provide opportunities for meaning-making. This essay explores how these functions of RE become more possible through the creative pedagogy of MLE and the digital technologies it utilizes for storytelling, especially photography and film-making which can engage the processes of interpretation and meaning-making, imagination and critical reflection. The creativity of MLE can be positively utilized in RE for meaning-making and identity formation. This paper draws upon the Maltese context in which RE is more of a confessional nature (CRE). This model could significantly benefit from such an endeavour.     

Tibetan students at an interior university in China: negotiating identity,language, and power

ABSTRACT

Using Norton’s conception of identity and Harré and Moghaddam’s positioning theory, the current study examines how a group of Tibetan students’ situated context affects their identity (re)construction in a traditionally non-multiethnic interior university in China. Drawing from interview, biographies, document, and artefact data, our findings suggest that the construction and negotiation of ethnic Tibetan students’ identities is a complex, power driven, and unstable process. In particular, the participants’ identity positioning at the host university is inextricably linked to stereotypical images of Tibetans, linguistic integration in the interior academic environment via English, Putonghua, and Tibetan language, and larger institutional practices. Tangible pedagogical implications are discussed, such as providing critical multicultural and multilingual education at the university are discussed.     

Spaces of contest for religious education reform in comparative perspectives: Scotland and Malawi as cases

Educational reforms, particularly in a contested subject such as Religious Education (RE), have unsettled boundaries principally because actors demand or expect different outcomes of these reforms. In the cases of Scotland and Malawi the present paper examines how different stakeholders have engaged with RE reforms. It thus ascertains whether, if at all, there are major points of difference on salient issues that underscore the micro-politics of RE reform in radically diverse national contexts, one African (Malawi) and other European (Scotland). It concludes that despite the complexity of RE as a school subject and subtle differences in national contexts in which it is debated and constructed, there is greater similarity on issues that underpin the micro-politics of RE reform in transnational contexts.     

Learning is an ontological process: Jarvis and theories of Christian Religious Education in dialogue

Abstract

Both Jarvis and theories of Christian Religious Education (CRE) emphasise that learning develops the whole person, yet they differ in their understandings of how and why this is the case. Jarvis’s experiential learning theory begins ‘from below’ with experience, whereas many approaches of CRE begin with the end result: individuals themselves. By bringing the two into dialogue this paper offers critical insights into Jarvis’s work through an exploration of three conceptualisations of the whole person: biography, ontic self and wisdom. The discussion provokes and engages with questions focusing around the nature of experiential learning, how the whole person might be conceived and what the relationship is between learning and teaching in human becoming. The role of reflection in ‘forming’ people is then considered, together with its spiritual attributes. As a relational process, it also has a spiritual dimension, something which Jarvis, in his role of colleague, supervisor, mentor and friend, has frequently exhibited.     

Argumentation in Science Teacher Education: The simulated jury as a resource for teaching and learning

In this article, we focus on the contributions that a simulated jury-based activity might have for pre-service teachers, especially for their active participation and learning in teacher education. We observed a teacher educator using a series of simulated juries as teaching resources to help pre-service teachers develop their pedagogical knowledge and their argumentation abilities in a physics teacher methods course. For the purposes of this article, we have selected one simulated jury-based activity, comprising two opposed groups of pre-service teachers that presented aspects that hinder the teachers' development of professional knowledge (against group) and aspects that allow this development (favor group). After the groups’ presentations, a group of judges was formed to evaluate the discussion. We applied a multi-level method for discourse analysis and the results showed that (1) the simulated jury afforded the pre-service teachers to position themselves as active knowledge producers; (2) the teacher acted as ‘animator' of the pre-service teachers' actions, showing responsiveness to the emergence of circumstantial teaching and learning opportunities and (3) the simulated jury culminated in the judges’ identification of the pattern ‘concrete/obstacles–ideological/possibilities' in the groups’ responses, which was elaborated by the teacher for the whole class. Implications from this study include using simulated juries for teaching and learning and for the development of the pre-service teachers’ argumentative abilities. The potential of simulated juries to improve teaching and learning needs to be further explored in order to inform the uses and reflections of this resource in science education.     

Teacher identity in the context of literacy teaching: Three explorations of classroom positioning and interaction in secondary schools

This article presents the results of three separate studies of literacy teaching and learning in the U.S. that explore the social functions of language, specifically focused on the identity development of literacy learners and teachers. Each study offers a detailed account of how literate identities are constructed and enacted and the positive and negative consequences that occur for teachers and students when they are enacted. Taken together, these three studies demonstrate how teachers' and students' understandings of identity can promote or inhibit literacy teaching and learning.     

Creating foundations for collaboration in schools: Utilizing professional learning communities to support teacher candidate learning and visions of teaching

Despite widespread acknowledgment of the power of professional collaboration, the norm in most schools is teachers working in isolation. Our study examined the impact of multiple layers of professional collaboration intentionally integrated into a one-year preservice teacher education program working in two elementary schools. Analysis of 23 teacher candidates' written reflections, focus group interviews, and classroom observations indicated that supported by collaboration with colleagues, they developed the skills and commitment to teach each student for understanding. Based on our research, we propose a shift in teacher education toward collaborative inquiry about teaching and learning within school/university partnerships.     

The teacher as moral educator: comparative study of secondary teachers in Catholic schools in Australia and Ireland

This paper considers the role of the teacher in relation to moral education in Catholic schools in Australia and Ireland. Literature pertaining to faith-based schooling, the moral role of the teacher and moral education across the curriculum in both countries is outlined. The paper draws on a small-scale study involving a survey with 154 respondents and individual interviews with nine teachers. Some interesting country differences emerged that are indicative of cultural settings. These include pedagogical practices, the nature of teacher–student relationships and levels of awareness of schools' founding charisms. Some implications for moral education in faith-based schools are identified.     

Boys as writers: perspectives on the learning and teaching of writing in three primary schools

Boys' attitude to writing is widely perceived as an issue in English primary and secondary schools. Prior research has identified a link between negative attitudes to writing and lower achievement and raised the issue of the stereotyping of boys as underachievers in literacy. The study reported here suggests that if we are to understand the problems associated with the underachievement of boys, we should take into account boys' perspectives on their experiences as literacy learners. In this study, boys aged 8–11 drawn from three London schools in the UK, were interviewed in small groups annually over 3 years of their primary schooling. The boys' teachers were also interviewed separately. These interviews generated insights into the teachers' views of the boys and the boys' views of themselves as literacy learners, especially as writers. The data indicated the boys were highly sensitive to the social situation in the classroom. The boys responded best to their literacy learning when their teachers treated them as individuals, valued their ideas and incorporated strategies for developing learner agency into their daily classroom practice. This article concludes that a teaching approach that includes consulting children about what helps or hinders their learning and a fresh teacher focus on gender issues would increase gender awareness.     

The peculiarities of teaching information and communication technology as a subject: a study of trainee and new ICT teachers in secondary schools

Abstract

This article reports on teaching information and communication technology (ICT) as a subject. It arises out of research carried out with ICT trainee teachers during their initial training and their first years of teaching. The backgrounds of four cohorts of new ICT teachers are described along with levels of retention in teaching. The associations that trainee and new teachers make with their subject are then explored. It was found that specialist ICT teachers see ICT as a practical subject offering pupils scope for variety and control over their learning. A key, and they felt unique, feature of ICT was its ever-changing nature. The research explores the planning and teaching of ICT and features of ICT subject knowledge. The article concludes by highlighting the continuing shortages of specialist ICT teachers in school and the need to support the career development of those teaching ICT.     

The forgotten schools. Current status of special schools for pupils with social,emotional and behavioural difficulties in Germany: a complete national survey

The article reports on a survey of special schools for children with social, emotional, and behavioural difficulties (SEBD) in Germany. The schools were asked by standardised mail questionnaire about their organisational structures. The rate of return was 77% and a total of 397 schools were included in the interpretation of data. The questionnaire asked for several items to analyse the structural elements and organisational compositions of the schools. Rather than measuring the effects of instruction and treatment in the separate school settings, the present study is basic research aiming at stocktaking of the current organisational status of these schools that have barely been the focus of research. The number of structural problems that SEBD schools in Germany have to face is enormous, according to the findings. It is arguable whether optimal service delivery and support to the pupils is possible under the general conditions revealed by the present study, e.g., inadequate number of teachers and other staff members (and thus insufficient staff for child guidance), only a few schools offering full‐time schooling services, and in only a few instances do we find inter‐agency collaboration.     

研究型教学在古代文学课程中的应用与实践——以《古代小说史专题研究》为例

以《古代小说史专题研究》为例,开展研究型教学有效解决了教学中存在的文学史与小说史协调互补的问题、教学时间短与教学内容多的矛盾、学生主动性不强依赖心理重等问题。提出研究型教学目标是创新精神的培养和研究方法的掌握,具体介绍了研究型教学的具体实施的开始、展开、评价三个教学流程,以及研究型教学的效果及推广意义。     

Conceptual process as a function of age and enforced attention in learning-disabled children: Evidence for deficient rule learning

Adapting a modified reception paradigm, three bidimensional rules (conjunctive, disjunctive, conditional) and two instructional conditions (enforced attention vs standard rule learning) are used to test the assumption that deficient rule learning rather than inattention is responsible for poor learning with learning-disabled children. Main findings indicate learning-disabled children are deficient on binary conceptual rule tasks for three age groups (6 to 7, 8 to 9, 12 to 13) compared to normal children matched on sex and IQ regardless of experimental instructions. For both groups, learning is retarded by rule complexity while rate of learning diminishes with increasing age. Data reflect a truth-table logic at all ages for both groups, although there is evidence that disabled children perseverate with a rule-learning hypothesis characteristic of younger nondisabled children. Results are consistent with the hypothesis that rule learning is deficient in children with learning disabilities.     

Holocaust Memorial Day in schools - context,process and content: a review of research into Holocaust education

The Holocaust was officially remembered in Britain for the first time on 27 January 2001. This is to be an annual event and it is intended that it will provide a focus for work in schools. The paper reviews the findings of research into Holocaust education and discusses the implications for teachers intending to respond to this important initiative.     

The conditions for establishment of an ideological dilemma: antagonistic discourses and over-determined identity in school music teaching

This article presents an analysis of video documentation of music teaching in Swedish schools. The article is based on a larger research project, funded by The Swedish Research Council, the purpose of which has been to study how market aesthetics and students’ everyday culture are applied to the teaching of music. The introduction presents a background for the study's focus on music teaching in relation to issues of student influence. Next, the theoretical and methodological starting points are presented. With discourse psychological microanalysis as a point of departure, the ideological dilemma that has emerged in the analysis of the videos is then identified and discussed. In addition, the different types of subject positions contained in the studied discursive practice are problematized. The article concludes with a discussion of a number of factors that contribute to the establishment of ideological dilemmas in school practitioners of music education.     

Fallacies affecting policy and practice in the teaching of English as a foreign language in state primary schools in Asia

This article discusses the impact of the worldwide trend to introduce English as a foreign language (EFL) into primary schools at ever younger ages. This trend has gained momentum in recent years, affecting millions of children in countries throughout Asia. A policy decision of this kind has far-reaching implications but it is often made without consideration of the availability of human and material resources for its implementation. The result is that children may end up learning little or no English, frustrating the intentions of national governments to develop English proficiency amongst the wider population which is, in turn, supposed to contribute to economic development. Drawing on evidence from India and Thailand, this article questions the economic rationale for introducing English into primary schools and argues that decisions on the starting age at which to teach English should, instead, be considered from an educational perspective, taking into account system constraints.