Leaping Out of Our Skins: Postmodern considerations in use of an electronic whiteboard to foster critical engagement in early literacy lessons

Postmodern theory is used to consider literacy instruction with and without an electronic whiteboard to investigate what it means to move beyond using technology to replicate older models of classroom structure that may be historically situated but that also limit or at least, do not support engagement in ways that may be possible through use of new technologies. Using postmodern theory in this regard is a way in which to consider again the thoughts and practices that tend to construct identities and ideologies in ways that work against true engagement in literacy tasks, lead to subjection and demonstration of acquiescence in place of engagement that leads to participation and critical engagement. Critical engagement as opposed to gaining and maintaining student attention to task are considered in this paper. Thinking about use of the electronic whiteboard from a postmodern perspective cautions us about careful use of this technology to avoid sending messages to students about them and their role in literacy development, the classroom, and in society.     

技术批判理论视域下《美国国家教育技术计划》文本分析

技术的不断进步对教育领域相关政策的制定起着越来越重要的作用.《美国国家教育技术计划》是提高技术在教育中应用的纲领性文件.从技术批判理论的视角出发,通过文本分析的研究方法,揭示出技术影响下蕴含在教育领域中一种追求效率的技术理性思维,具体表现为基于数据分析的真理判定、基于技术系统的社会秩序、基于技术素养的教育目的.文章借鉴技术批判理论的观点,试图探求解决当下教育政策文本中过于追求技术理性的问题,实现理性与艺术的结合.据此,对我国教育技术政策制定提供一定的启示,包括关注时代合理性诉求,反思人文不合理问题,权衡技术与人的关系.     

传播媒介的消极偏向：由批判三部曲解读波兹曼的媒介批判理论

尼尔·波兹曼是媒介环境学派中坚定的批判主义者,其批判三部曲分别考察了过度娱乐、童年变迁和技术影响三大命题,提出了“媒介即隐喻”、“童年的消逝”以及“技术垄断”等独具特色的批判理论。站在技术研究视角下纵观波兹曼的批判历程,贯穿其中的是他对媒介技术负面影响的持久关注,他始终将研究的重点放在了新技术形式带来的消极偏向上,“形式决定内容”是其理论的基点。     

An Immanent Critique of Critical Pedagogy

In this essay, Quentin Wheeler‐Bell aims to reframe recent attempts to rethink the core principles of critical pedagogy. He argues that these attempts have been unsuccessful because they reproduce a deeper problem — specifically, an identity crisis — within critical pedagogy. The source of this problem, he contends, is that those working in this tradition have, over time, become more distant from and forgetful of its roots in critical theory; as a result, critical pedagogy is now in a state of dilution and fragmentation in which critical pedagogues are unable to bring the plurality of critical education approaches together theoretically around a set of shared principles. In order to address this problem and begin to reframe the core principles of critical pedagogy, Wheeler‐Bell first briefly sketches the debates around Max Horkheimer's classic essay “Critical Theory and Traditional Theory,” focusing on why critical theory grew into an interdisciplinary tradition situated between philosophy and social science. Then he explains why the recent attempts to rethink critical pedagogy rely upon a problematic, albeit dominant, narrative of the critical education tradition — a narrative that only tacitly recognizes a connection between critical education and critical theory. This dominant narrative contributes to the identity crisis within critical education because it supports a collective memory loss regarding the importance of both philosophy and social science to critical theory. Finally, Wheeler‐Bell attempts to develop a thin definition of critical education: one that connects critical education back to its roots in critical theory, while respecting the plurality of critical education approaches.     

Learning to work in the creative and cultural sector: new spaces,pedagogies and expertise

The paper questions the link that policy‐makers assume exists between qualifications and access to employment in the creative and cultural (C&C) sector. It identifies how labour market conditions in the C&C sector undermine this assumption and how the UK’s policy formation process inhibits education and training (E&T) actors from countering these labour market conditions. It demonstrates how non‐government agencies (‘intermediary organizations’) are creating new spaces to assist aspiring entrants to develop the requisite forms of ‘vocational practice’, ‘social capital’ and ‘moebius strip’ (i.e., entrepreneurial) expertise to enter and succeed in the sector. It concludes by identifying a number of: (a) new principles for the governance of E&T at the national level; (b) pedagogic strategies to facilitate ‘horizontal’ transitions into and within the C&C sector; and (c) skill formation issues for all E&T stakeholders to address.     

Pedagogy in Common: Democratic education in the global era

In the context of the increasingly transnational organization of society, culture, and communication, this article develops a conceptualization of the global common as a basic condition of interrelation and shared experience, and describes contemporary political efforts to fully democratize this condition. The article demonstrates the implications for curriculum and teaching of this project, describing in particular the importance of fundamentally challenging the interpellation of students as subjects of the nation, and the necessity for new and radically collaborative forms of political and pedagogical authority that can more powerfully realize the imaginative potential of educators and students alike as global democratic actors. In this effort, familiar progressive educational ideas (e.g. the importance of the continuity of the curriculum, and the meaning and purpose of experimentalism) are interrogated and rearticulated. The article concludes with a discussion of the unique ways in which education can contribute to constructing a democratic society in the global era, and how the central aspects of such a pedagogy in common can also suggest essential principles for the organization of social movements in this context.     

Education policy: explaining,framing and forming

This paper presents a new heuristic device for the analysis of educational policy. Through an examination of the Evaluative State and the work of Brian Fay, the paper considers the way in which educational policy is subject to rational and linear forms of policy action and implementation. To counter this, positioning theory is deployed to consider the way in which we are produced both by discourse and the language of the ‘moment’ in discursive acts. Using the work of Gee, the paper contends that policy texts and policy Discourse ‘themselves form policy, that is, they position policy-explanation and policy-framing within the bounds of the institution and so give policy form’. Problematically, such mechanisms may succumb to the ‘death of subject’ and accordingly I offer a third method by which we might conceive of education policy: the discursively produced position call. Subsequently, I propose a tri-partite theory for the examination and understanding of policy: policy-explaining, the production of policy texts; policy-framing, the ways in which all can be positioned by texts and Discourse to produce the meanings imbued upon policy; and, policy-forming, the impact of moment-by-moment conversational acts for their production of the policy text itself, that is, the ways in which policy is locally formed rather than locally mediated.     

Critical thinking in criminology: critical reflections on learning and teaching

Fostering critical thinking abilities amongst students is one component of preparing them to navigate uncertain and complex social lives and employment circumstances. One conceptualisation of critical thinking, valuable in higher education, draws from critical theory to promote social justice and redress power inequities. This study explored how students’ critical thinking developed in a discrete core unit of criminology. Second and third year students were invited to participate in the research. Participants wrote critical reflections on how their thinking about crime and criminal justice had developed throughout the unit. Analysis of responses indicated that certain topics were salient to students, offering a way to engage them in deeper thinking. Students’ critical reflections showed evidence of personally relevant meaning-making, including the development of more nuanced thinking about crime and justice, and more compassionate rationales for aspiring to careers within the field. Implications for learning and teaching critical thinking in criminology are discussed.     

A reconnaissance study as a sine qua non factor for status quo change among senior phase technology teachers

ABSTRACT

This article is based on a preliminary action research (AR) study conducted with selected schools in Limpopo. It intends to report on the progress made and research problem identified during the reconnaissance/preliminary study. The aim of this preliminary research is to ascertain whether the findings conform to the main research question of the overall research. The study focused on senior phase Technology teachers at four identified schools, who are teaching grades 8 and 9 in Limpopo. This investigation entailed the administering of a questionnaire, conducting interviews and engaging in an observation activity. This was a small-scale study, for fact-finding purposes, before the main rollout of AR commences. It was evident from the study that teachers lacked capacity to teach Technology as a subject. The teachers lacked Technology pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK) and were not confident in engaging with practical activities, in their assessment of the learners and with compiling Technology learning programmes. These identified challenges serve as the main drive of the study. It is imperative to engage in an emancipatory paradigm or critical theory as a way to intervene in the challenges faced by Technology teachers.     

A limited,apolitical, and open Paulo Freire

Paulo Freire’s work is often characterized and used in terms that seek to produce widespread political and economic changes across societies. Peter Roberts, however, in his book Paulo Freire in the twenty-first Century, offers readers a much different way of approaching Freire’s work. Throughout his book, Roberts presents Freire as recognizing the limitations of educational initiatives, as not seeking specific macro-political objectives, and as emphasizing openness to alternative discourses. These themes weave throughout each chapter of the book, in which Roberts examines a wide range of topics, from Freire and Dostoevsky to reason and emotion to political correctness to Freire and the Tao Te Ching. In this review essay, I engage a number of purposes. I elucidate and trace these three themes as they weave throughout and support the various topics that Roberts examines in his book. I illustrate how Roberts’s treatment of these themes challenges many of the interpretations of Freire’s work found within the critical literature, and, through this critique, it offers readers new ways of thinking about Freire’s thinking. Lastly, I discuss how Roberts’s thoughts suggest new ways that Freire’s work, and critical education in general, might begin to make more meaningful and practical inroads into public education and might develop new avenues of scholarship on Freire’s work.     

马克思哲学唯物主义的批判意蕴

马克思的哲学唯物主义 ,不仅是对社会历史生活的科学分析 ,更是对社会生活过程的批判。马克思对旧唯物主义的批判 ,使他的唯物主义与辩证法相一致 ,使唯物主义具有了批判意蕴 ,并将自己的批判理论与伦理道德式的批判理论区别开来。因此 ,将马克思哲学形而上学化 ,以求获得新的理论批判张力 ,是对马克思哲学唯物主义的误读。     

Let’s be critically honest: towards a messier counterstory in critical race theory

This paper utilizes tools of critical race theory to interrogate the racial politics of the everyday. The authors contend that this type of critical policy analysis can yield understandings of/about the world that are too often silenced or ignored altogether. This paper argues that critical race theory does not aim to tell a “truer” account of reality, but a more honest one. Therefore, critical race scholars need not ask permission – nor seek forgiveness – for their counterstories, but hold themselves accountable to communicate stories and narratives that are not only honestly critical, but critically honest.     

略论法兰克福学派的社会批判理论

本文通过对法兰克福学派社会批判理论的四个代表人物的思想的阐述,从而得出其社会批判理论的精髓即对工具理性的批判、对发达工业社会的批判和对历史唯物主义的批判。     

Turbulence in St. Louis County: School Transfers,Opportunity Hoarding,and the Legacy of Brown

ABSTRACT

In the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregated schools unconstitutional, and the process of school desegregation fell mostly to Black children. For over 35 years, Black families in St. Louis City have been using school transfers to cross boundaries in order to send their children to higher performing, predominately White schools in suburban St. Louis County in search of “a better education.” Relying on turbulence theory and Critical Race Theory (CRT), this study uses a media framing analysis to examine how newspaper articles described school transfers to the broader public between 2007 and 2017. Findings indicate that the articles described Black and White school districts as being affected by varying levels of turbulence and conflict. Findings also outline examples of opportunity hoarding by White schools and districts. The original focus of the Brown case was the lack of equitable resources in Black schools, and this study reignites questions about exclusion, privilege, and the choices made by Black families to receive educational equity.     

Thinking whimsically: queering the study of educational policy-making and politics

This paper discusses employing queer theory (QT) and queer legal theory (QLT) for critical policy analysis as applied to education. In doing so, the authors will highlight how both QT and QLT can empower analyses to look beyond the identity politics of a particular time period or space and toward potential reforms in curriculum, pedagogy, and institutional supports for students, teachers, and staff. A central point is that understanding the institutional and cultural practices that frame orientation, class, race, and sex/gender can lead to policy changes that benefit all students, teachers, and staff. The paper concludes with a discussion of venues in need of both QT and QLT-informed research.     

种族批判法学的后现代性分析

美国的种族批判法学是20世纪80年代后期从批判法律研究运动中分离出来的一股新的法学思潮。种族批判法学的后现代性主要体现在其法律实体观和法学方法论两个方面。具体说来，体现在种族批判法学概念的多元性、种族批判法学对法律中立性的质疑以及种族批判法学的方法论等几个方面。     

The dark mirror of capital: on post-neoliberal formations and the future of education

ABSTRACT

This paper examines how transformations in political economy and digital technology point toward potential post-neoliberal futures. Outlining the contours of a crisis of neoliberal hegemony, the authors explore how technological developments have contributed to political economic dynamics of market failure and oligarchic capture, resulting in new forms of digital precarity. As evidence, the paper examines a specific post-neoliberal discourse called neoreactionism (NRx), which has developed out of the distinct culture of Silicon Valley. NRx represents a specific vision for resolving conflicts inherent to neoliberalism by intensifying oligarchic capture and the acceleration of technology. While NRx is a techno-authoritarian discourse that exists largely outside of mainstream academic discussions, it is indicative of how transformations in late capitalism are fueling the rise of anti-democratic consciousness and identification. In response, the authors conclude with suggestions for developing post-neoliberal approaches to educational studies that are able to challenge these troubling reactionary trends.     

马克思社会批判理论疏微

批判性是植根于马克思主义哲学中的一种深刻的反思模式。马克思思想的创造与发展,是在批判性的论辩中实现的;马克思思想的生命与活力,也是在科学批判的过程中得以体现和验证的。马克思的社会批判理论在整个马克思主义哲学研究中具有重要的地位。近年来,学界对这一问题的探讨取得了显著的成果。但这些探讨都是从某一侧面对马克思的社会批判理论进行论述,缺乏对这一思想的系统梳理,不利于对马克思思想的全面理解。鉴于此,对马克思社会批判理论的论述做一整理,将有利于进一步推进马克思社会批判理论研究的深入与发展。     

A critical discourse analysis of Gisela's family story: a construal of deportation,illegal immigrants,and literacy

In this paper, I use critical discourse analysis to analyze a student's narrative about the arrest, incarceration, and deportation of her mother to Mexico. The student, Gisela, was a fifth grader in my classroom during the 2008/2009 school year, and I encouraged the students to collect family stories from their relatives. Gisela created this story, and she wrote and illustrated this with the help of her father, student peers, and me. I draw on Gloria Anzaldúa's constructs of nepantla and nepantlera, narrative analysis, and systemic functional linguistics to show how Gisela's construed this story to create a powerful and creative narrative that disrupted autonomous forms of literacy along with the excluding and damaging discourses circulating about immigrants in our community.