The social construction of time in contemporary education: implications for technology,equality and Bernstein’s ‘conditions for democracy’

Abstract

This article discusses how the introduction of technology has led to a fundamental shift in the relationship between education and time. As a means of analysing the extent of such changes on pupils from different backgrounds, I use Bernstein’s ‘conditions for democracy’ as a framework for evaluating the impact new understandings of time in education are having on disadvantaged social groups in England. I conclude that Bernstein’s framework presents a useful way of illuminating the complex interplay of personal agency and the external environment. Consequently, here we see that new definitions of time in education, specifically with regard to synchronous versus asynchronous learning, have resulted in new inequalities for those in deprived areas.     

Music on the move: methodological applications of Bernstein’s concepts in a secondary school music context

In 2002 Parlo Singh outlined Bernstein’s theory of the pedagogic device, elaborating the potential in Bernstein’s complex theoretical framework for empirical research. In particular, Singh suggests that Bernstein’s concepts provide the means of making explicit the macro and micro structuring of knowledge into pedagogic communication. More recently, Power has noted that use of Bernstein’s ideas remains relatively unrepresented in the literature. This paper makes a case for the use of Bernstein’s ideas as a particularly rich resource for educational researchers. It provides illustrations of a number of concepts as part of a methodological procedure in a research project examining the approaches to curriculum and pedagogy of six secondary school music teachers within the dialectic of western art music and popular music. Through utilisation of Bernstein’s concepts of knowledge discourses, recontextualisation, and regionalisation, the study is able to identify, describe, and shed light on a key problem for music education and education generally: developing the pedagogical means for the utilisation of informal knowledge as a pedagogic resource within the secondary school curriculum. In turn, the music context suggests a number of extensions to Bernstein’s concepts.     

The history of education in the 1980s

ABSTRACT

This paper uses Basil Bernstein’s work on pedagogic discourses to examine a largely neglected facet of the history of vocational education – the liberal studies movement in English further education colleges. Initially, the paper discusses some of the competing conceptions of education, work and society which underpinned the rise and fall of the liberal studies movement – if indeed it can be described as such. The paper then draws on data from interviews with former liberal and general studies lecturers to focus on the ways in which different variants of liberal studies were, over time, implicated in inculcating certain forms of knowledge in vocational learners. Whilst it is acknowledged that liberal and general studies always represented contested territory and that it was highly variable both in terms of content and quality, the paper argues that, at least under certain circumstances, liberal studies provided young working-class people with the opportunity to locate their experiences of vocational learning within a critical framework that is largely absent from further education today. This, it is argued, can be conceptualised as an engagement with what Bernstein described as ‘powerful knowledge’.     

Higher expertise,pedagogic rights and the post-truth society

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses the nature of higher expertise in society and the role of higher education in constituting that expertise. It is argued that higher expertise relies on disciplined norms against which expert activity can be evaluated, and such norms are the basis not only for knowledge communities in higher education but also for other societal institutions. However, expertise in these communities and institutions is challenged by ‘post-truth’ developments that are fuelled by the marketisation and commodification of expertise, and by a collapse in deference and trust throughout society to which expert institutions and communities have not yet adequately responded. The consequences for higher education can be usefully explored via Durkheim’s discussion of the social organisation of religion and magic. Bernstein’s pedagogic rights of enhancement, inclusion and participation are subsequently examined to offer insight into how higher expertise may be sustained in such a context.     

Teaching about Cuba: The concientization of a US teacher-researcher

In this paper the author offers a reflective perspective of her experiences while conducting research in Cuba in 1995 and 1996, and upon her return to the United States, teaching Cuban culture and history in a public school. In particular, she discusses the challenges surrounding her positioning, location, and accountability as author, researcher, teacher, and comparative educator. She explores the interaction of cultural identities faced as a researcher from the United States and the ideologically charged ironies that teaching Cuban history and culture evoke in an American middle school. Moreover, she chronicles her shifting perceptions of cultural identity and interfacing with the opposing responses between suspicion and acceptance in both countries. While negotiating between these two cultures, the repositioning on the continuum of critical pedagogy offers insight into the problems inherent in these situations.     

Language Codes and Classroom Practice

Abstract

Bernstein has argued, through nearly 30 years of writing about language codes, that there is an ‘opposition’ (or at least a ‘radical discontinuity') between the modes of communication which predominate in schools and those to which many pupils are accustomed. Briefly, he has maintained that schools are ‘predicated upon elaborated codes’. This claim is re‐examined, partly in the light of Paul Atkinson's recent structuralist critique of Bernstein, and mainly by reference to evidence from classroom research which suggests more readily a predominance of restricted (or perhaps quasi‐elaborated) codes. While the processing of ‘decontextualised’ information is undoubtedly a central feature of formal schooling, it is argued that an essential defining feature of elaborated codes as Bernstein himself presents them is that meanings are transmitted in ways which give access to the grounds for accepting them and which are therefore open to being challenged. It remains an unusual classroom in which pupils find opportunities for disturbing a body of received knowledge.

Unlike Bernstein, I do not assume that the classroom is normally ‘predicated upon elaborated codes and their system of social relationships’. Making deliberate reference to his own analysis of open and closed role systems, I would typify meanings in the ‘regulative’ context as being realised largely through imperatives and through positional appeals in a restricted code, and describe pupils as having to ‘step into’ a predetermined set of instructional meanings and ‘leave it relatively undisturbed’. It is surely an unusual classroom in which pupils find frequent opportunities for ‘disturbing or changing’ a body of received knowledge, and so of ‘achieving meaning’ on their own terms.

(Edwards 1981, p. 291)

     

The legacy of a pioneer of female education in Ireland: tercentennial considerations of Nano Nagle and Presentation schooling

ABSTRACT

This article examines some of the legacy of the Irish education pioneer Nano Nagle, foundress of the Presentation congregation of nuns. The congregation spread rapidly in the nineteenth century, not only in Ireland but also in Newfoundland, India, England, Tasmania, Australia and continental North America. This year, Presentation schools globally mark the tercentenary of Nagle’s birth, and it is therefore timely to consider approaches to writing about her life and her contribution to education. The article discusses existing biographical studies of Nagle and argues that a more nuanced study of this educator and her legacy is possible, through the careful and systematic use of convent archives and oral histories. The article considers how such research can offer new perspectives on the agency and innovation of individual teaching Sisters, and on ways in which these women became resilient and adaptable, in order to function effectively within a patriarchal Church.     

Retention challenges for indigenous Peruvian college students on Beca 18 scholarship and strategies to improve their experiences and academic success

ABSTRACT

This paper analyzes challenges indigenous Peruvian college students face in completing their studies, based on field research that included interviews with Peruvian higher education leaders, administrators, researchers, and faculty, and a review of published research. Since 2012, the government of Peru has sponsored Beca 18, a comprehensive scholarship designed to attract and support students from underrepresented populations, namely impoverished and largely indigenous communities. While the program has provided opportunities to thousands of students from all provinces, the struggles they have mirror those of other indigenous students around the world, including discrimination, unpreparedness, and attrition. The analysis pinpoints areas in which lessons from international scholarship and success strategies with other indigenous populations may enhance the success of the Beca 18 scholarship program and the experiences of its students. It discusses the critical role higher education institutions play in developing future leaders through future identity formation.     

Diferencias de clase social en la orientación al significado

RESUMEN

Continuando estudios emprendidos dentro del marco de la teoría sociolingüística de Bernstein sobre el habla de los niños en distintos contextos, este trabajo investiga diferencias en la orientación hacia el significado.

Se encuentran diferencias de clase social por lo que se refiere a la distinción teórica básica entre significados relativamente dependientes del contexto y significados relativamente independientes del contexto.

Estas diferencias se sitúan en el contexto de la relación entre la experiencia de contextualización primaria del niño en la familia y los principios de recontextualización de la escuela. Se sugiere que en los niños de clase media existe congruencia entre estos dos tipos de experiencias.

Consideramos que los resultados proporcionan más apoyo a la teoría de la reproducción cultural de Bernstein.     

A loving epistemology: What I hold critical in my life,faith and profession

This piece of scholarship was delivered as a key note address forthe Campus Ministers' Association Faith Seeking Understanding Lecture in March of 1999. The content of the lecture, as the title indicates, first shares an exploration of what Julie held critical in her life, faith, and profession and how she arrived at these understandings. Subsequently, it illustrates how Julie used her personal and professional experiences and her Christian faith to articulate the components of an epistemology - a loving epistemology - that drove her research, teaching, and service within the field of educational administration as well as her work in wider communities.     

Eccentric subject,impossible object: A 1 poststructural reading of Hannah Cullwick

The paper explores poststructural figures of identity via a reading of a collection of texts by and about a Victorian maidservant, Hannah Cullwick. Drawing on Donna Haraway's figure of the trickster or shape changer and on the theorizing of the ''subaltern'' subject in postcolonial writing, the paper challenges readings of Hannah and her life that offer her up as an exemplary figure of suffering or heroic womanhood. Instead, it is proposed that Hannah can be seen as an ambivalent and transgressive figure of difference and in - between - ness . The paper gestures towards some implications for the handling of first-person narratives in qualitative research. The ''Hannah Cullwick'' texts include her diaries and those of her secret lover and, later, husband, an eminent barrister, together with the commentaries of their respective editors. Reference is also made to a photographic essay and to contemporary scholarly works about Hannah and her life.     

Difference as privilege: identity,citizenship and the recontextualisation of human rights in Japan’s social studies curriculum

ABSTRACT

While global human rights knowledge has become a central facet of curricula used to shape multicultural societies and develop cosmopolitan citizenry, such knowledge is shaped by sociopolitical context. Japan has a long history of incorporating human rights concepts into its citizenship curriculum; however, this curriculum is produced in a political context where there is resistance to extending rights to minorities and the disadvantaged, and where there are renewed attempts to emphasise traditional Japanese cultural values through education. Potential tensions have been recognised, yet little has been written about educational knowledge as end product. Based partially on Basil Bernstein’s concepts, a mixed-method approach utilising computer-based analytical techniques was used to examine the structure and content of human rights knowledge within upper-secondary Contemporary Social Studies textbooks representing Japan’s official curriculum. This article will argue that the curriculum establishes an inconsistent standard toward rights that undermines respect for individuals.     

Towards a Slow scholarship of teaching and learning in the South

ABSTRACT

Although the concept of a scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) has emanated from the global North, it is a relevant and useful concept in the global South. The concept was initiated in the 1990s in the US. The original emphases in the seminal Boyer Report, on the integration of various forms of scholarship, the importance of intellectual thought and the collaborative nature of teaching have been subject to various distortions, in part due to the depredations of neoliberalism and performativity. We argue that Slow scholarship, which has resonances with Boyer's notions of the scholarship of teaching and learning provides much potential for reconceptualising SOTL in the South. These claims are explored via a case study set in South Africa, where academic developers at eleven higher education institutions covering the range of institutional types were interviewed.     

HEFCE,QAA, TQA,IA, SARTOR ... and (possibly) Dearing

Abstract

The Science and Engineering Foundation Programme at Loughborough University has been running since October 1991. It has a heterogeneous intake of approximately 100 students. The author is responsible for the physics input to the Programme. This provides 25% of the Programme for almost all the students. The varied educational profile of students entering this course necessitated a radical rethink of course design for the author. She chose to concentrate initially on one aspect of her teaching — that of running tutorials — and used Mackinnon's cycle of reflection to assist in these deliberations. The result was both an improvement in the learning environment for students and a growing awareness on her part of the necessity to persist with the reflective process to ensure continued enhancement of the student learning experience. Reflection was found to be an important technique with wide application both within and outside the educational sphere.     

Wall displays-children‘s reactions

Our writers so far have emphasised the concepts, skills and values which can be fostered through topic work. Vivienne Little discusses the role of drama in encouraging historical understanding. She gives some lucid and expertly-documented examples of how children can be helped “to realise that people read about history books were real and had experiences and feelings …” Interestingly, her ideas on the importance of children's “play” and the centrality of narrative (“the essence of history”) extends points raised by Liz Thomson in the Spring issue of 3–13 .     

Threshold concepts as ‘jewels of the curriculum’: rare as diamonds or plentiful as cubic zirconia?

ABSTRACT

The framework of threshold concepts has been used across several disciplines in higher education. Although the literature surrounding the identification of threshold concepts and their nature has flourished, their conceptualization has seemingly diverged across disciplinary lines, which should be recognized by educational developers who work with multiple disciplines. Inspired by a failed implementation of one framing of threshold concepts in Engineering, this article compares the conceptualization of threshold concepts in Engineering with their framing in Writing Studies and Information Literacy by drawing on Bernstein’s notion of knowledge structures. Recommendations for educational developers are provided and situated within the framework of ‘ways of thinking and practising’ (WTP).     

Beyond Lip-service: An Operational Definition of “Learning-centered College”

Faculty, staff, and student perceptions of high-quality learning experiences were explored using focus groups attempting to define a “learning-centered” college. Common themes emerged suggesting that a successful learning community requires faculty-student collaboration, effective communication, critical thinking skills, reciprocal respect, faculty passion for learning, high expectations of both students and faculty, a variety of teaching and assessment strategies, and student engagement in and responsibility for learning. All groups stressed the need for learning opportunities outside the classroom in both intellectual and social situations. These themes provide a conceptual framework for future campus initiatives, which has broad relevance for other institutions. William C. Bosch is Retired Director of the Center for Learning and Teaching. He received his M.S. in Computer Science from Syracuse University, and his interests include teaching and learning in higher education and educational technology. Jessica L. Hester is an Assistant Professor in Theatre and received her Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests are American theatre history and dramaturgy. Virginia M. MacEntee is Assistant Professor in Curriculum & Instruction. She received her Ed.D. in Early Childhood Education from Nova Southeastern Florida University; and her interests include special education, authentic learning, and classroom technology. James A. MacKenzie is Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences. He received his Ph.D. in Molecular Medicine from Wake Forest University School of Medicine; and his interests include molecular and cellular biology, physiology, and human health and disease. T. Mark Morey is Professor of Psychology and received his Ph.D. at Depaul University. Research interests include stress, trauma, and coping. James T. Nichols is Instruction/Reference Librarian and Distance Learning Librarian. He received his M.A. in Library and Information Management from the University of Denver; his interests include information literacy. Patricia A. Pacitti is Coordinator of Math and Science Services for the Office of Learning Services. She received M.A.s in Mathematics and Statistics from Pennsylvania State University; and her interests include developmental education, curriculum design, and classroom technology. Barbara A. Shaffer is Coordinator of Reference Services and an Instruction Librarian at Penfield Library. She received her M.L.S. from Syracuse University, and her interests include information literacy and online learning. Paul B. Tomascak is an Assistant Professor of Geology and Geochemistry. He received his Ph.D. in geology from the University of Maryland; his research interests include applications of elemental and isotopic systematics to understanding solid Earth and Earth surface processes. Suzanne P. Weber is Associate Dean of the School of Education and Professor of Science Education. She received her Ph.D. in Population Ecology from Syracuse University; her current interests include assessment of student performance and program effectiveness in higher education. Rosalie R. Young is Associate Professor in Public Justice. She received her Ph.D.in political science from Syracuse University, and her interests include family mediation and the ability of the poor to access the legal system. All authors are currently members of the Committee on Learning and Teaching at State University of New York at Oswego.     

Out of Silence

Abstract

The author examines her uncle's life and death by using narrative and social construction theory to deconstruct both her family's and the socio-cultural stories of mental illness.     

Commentary on Stone and McMichael,Whitaker, and Amada

Abstract

This commentary discusses policy issues relating to the delivery of mental health care on university and college campuses, as seen in the context of national health care policy issues.     

About Creativity,Giftedness, and Teaching the Creatively Gifted in the Classroom

In this case study the author explored a teacher's beliefs about creativity and gifted‐ness and investigated the classroom practices of this teacher of gifted students for 20 years. Seven semi‐structured and 2 open observations were carried out in her classroom, and 2 prefigured interviews were conducted with her. She believed that creative children are those who are “free thinkers” and have “imaginative intelligence.” The thin line between an academically gifted child and a creatively gifted child is built by “imagination,” “emotional intensity,” and “curiosity.” In creative writing, she tried to implement activities such as learning to write poetry, personal narratives, research reports and essays posing solutions to real world problems, and mystery stories decorated with similes, metaphors and imaginative expressions. In reading, students analyzed characters, problems, places and times in stories and novels, and then rewrote stories.