The qualitative imagination: neoliberalism, ‘blind drift’ and alternative pathways

In this paper, we argue that the non-positivist origins that provided the impetus for the qualitative imagination over the past half century in educational research has undergone subtle, but nevertheless profound change and transformation as neoliberal forms of governmentality have increasingly colonised social and educational research. We examine contemporary responses and challenges to this process from within and outside the academy. It is our contention that unless educational researchers critically engage with these new methodologies, particularly as they are generated by and through social movements, qualitative research is likely to become subject to what CW Mills (Mills) referred to as ‘blind drift'.     

‘Finding Foucault’: orders of discourse and cultures of the self

The idea of finding Foucault first looks at the many influences on Foucault, including his Nietzschean acclamations. It examines Foucault’s critical history of thought, his work on the orders of discourse with his emphasis on being a pluralist: the problem he says that he has set himself is that of the individualization of discourses. Finally, it addresses his work on the culture of the self which became a philosophical and historical question for Foucault later in his life as he investigated the historical form of relations between subjectivity and truth in Western philosophy since Antiquity and how philosophy as an activity taught about the care of the self. The conclusion suggests some ways that students might approach his work as they proceed in finding Foucault and their own selves.     

Planning,re-bordering and setting times: a comparative analysis of European and Latin American ‘education spaces’

The article compares educational regionalisation in Europe and Latin America. This analysis unveils the influence of three social phenomena in the two case studies, namely power, fields of activity and knowledge. Mostly, it focuses on the initiatives led by the European Union and the Organisation of Ibero-American States in order to implement large strategic, multi-government educational plans in each continent. The actions of international political players, the theories (or ‘ontologies’) embedded in these devices and the consequences for sub-national politics are observed.     

‘Snapchat’, youth subjectivities and sexuality: disappearing media and the discourse of youth innocence

Research on youth subjectivities and disappearing media is still in its infancy. Ephemeral technologies such as Snapchat, Frankly and Wickr offer young people opportunities for discursive agency, harnessing teenage discourses of social positioning. These media facilitate social mobility in teen peer contexts by providing a medium for dynamic and shifting relationships. The transmission of digital images can enable a social flexibility that has a significant impact on youth subjectivities where discursively constructed relational identities are brokered through cyber technologies. We tackle the question ‘what discourses are evoked and produced in the discussion of disappearing social media?’ by exploring two parents’ accounts of their children’s use of this media. We also examine a discourse of innocence that surrounds teens’ use of social media and, in particular, ephemeral applications, by sexting and cyberbullying. We engage in the debate on the use of ephemeral social media to consider the discourses influencing youth subjectivities and the nature of networked publics.     

Between ‘enrichment’ and ‘endangerment’: ‘cultural diversity’ and the politics of belonging in the Berlin school choice discourse

Even though choice is not officially a feature in the German primary school system, some parents intervene in determining which school their child attends. Especially in urban contexts, the informal school market is growing. This demand is based on promises with respect to a certain quality of education as well as on issues that prevail in certain inner city schools. In looking at Berlin, as a global city, this article shows how contrary school choice practices gain traction in the face of ‘cultural differences’ that those practices produce discursively. Cultural semantics are activated with regard to the composition of the student body, when parents chose schools with a bilingual profile, but also when parents engage in the practice of ‘group enrolment’ into schools in inner city hotspots perceived as problematic. Our research shows how school choice practices may become acceptable despite being a public taboo, if parents argue by appeal to ‘cultural differences’.     

The logic of history in ‘gap’ discourse and related research

The Closing the Gap in Indigenous Disadvantage policy emerged in 2008 following the National Apology to the Stolen Generations. The policy articulates one of its purposes as being to address historical injustices. On the other hand, policy reform is naturally oriented to the future in its aims to improve and develop. These temporal tensions are the analytical focus of this article. Through examining the way in which the logic of ‘history’ is engaged in Australian Indigenous policy and related ‘gap’-oriented research, a range of political effects are illuminated. It is argued that the logic of history is deployed in three key ways: (1) history as over; (2) history as a single presence; and (3) history as context. In mapping these different orientations to history in the policy and literature, the following questions are asked: how might history be better understood as operating in the present and what sort of transformational possibilities might this afford?     

‘They’ve got all the knowledge’: HIV education,gender and sexuality in South African primary schools

Drawing on data derived from two socially contrasting primary schools in Durban, this paper focuses on how gender and sexuality feature in the teaching and discussion of HIV/AIDS. A detailed analysis of two ‘life‐skills’ lessons in the two schools shows that, despite the social differences between the schools, discussions of gender and sexuality remain muted. Discourses of childhood innocence make it difficult for teachers to provide comprehensive knowledge of sex, sexuality and gender in the primary school ‘life‐skills’ lessons. Implications for teacher training are suggested briefly in the conclusion.     

Students’ perceptions of assessment: a comparative analysis between Portugal and Sweden

This paper aims at investigating students’ perceptions about assessment, especially the ways in which it is put into practice. Data were collected through questionnaires in different programmes in Portugal and Sweden. In total, 173 students from Portugal and 72 from Sweden participated in the study. Findings showed that students had similar ideas about assessment, such as verification of knowledge and learning, tests and grades. Their experiences of assessment methods used varied in the two countries, which can partly be explained by differences in national education systems. A learner-oriented perspective is prominent in the use of assessment methods, but at the same time student influence on assessment is perceived as low in both countries. Implications of the findings are analysed, namely issues regarding a learner-oriented perspective and the effectiveness, influence, trust, times and methods of assessment.     

Feminist philosophy of science: ‘standpoint’ and knowledge

Feminist philosophy of science has been criticized on several counts. On the one hand, it is claimed that it results in relativism of the worst sort since the political commitment to feminism is prima facie incompatible with scientific objectivity. On the other hand, when critics acknowledge that there may be some value in work that feminists have done, they comment that there is nothing particularly feminist about their accounts. I argue that both criticisms can be addressed through a better understanding of the current work in feminist epistemology. I offer an examination of standpoint theory as an illustration. Harding and Wylie have suggested ways in which the objectivity question can be addressed. These two accounts together with a third approach, ‘model-based objectivity’, indicate there is a clear sense in which we can understand how a standpoint theory both contributes to a better understanding of scientific knowledge and can provide a feminist epistemology.

The Best of Times,the Worst of Times: the ‘post’ in ‘postmodern’

As teacher educators we are in perhaps one of the most demanding of professions in terms of constant upgrading of qualifications and updating of skills and knowledge, keeping abreast of new developments in education. As we question the relevance of what has become traditional discourse to inform our practice (such as Marxism on the Left of the political spectrum and various forms of discourses of the Right) we raise serious questions as well in reference to the ideological basis for academic boundaries that have become established, that have in effect structured the way in which we have been taught, the way we have engaged in learning, and in turn, the way we engage in our own practices of teaching and learning in our dealings with subject disciples and knowledge formations. It is now that we are seriously criticizing such discourses as having ignored the socially constructed nature of what is taught, how it is taught, and not only the underpinnings of the way they are evaluated, but how they are actually valued. This paper points to some of the implications of postmodernism for practioners.     

‘Ethnographic dazzle’ and the construction of the ‘Other’: revisiting dimensions of insider and outsider research for international and comparative education

This paper presents some initial ideas on how the theoretical concepts of the ‘insider’ and the ‘outsider’ might be re-examined in an era where advances in comparative, qualitative research methodologies seek to be more inclusive, collaborative, participatory, reflexive and nuanced. Earlier essentialist definitions of the outsider as detached and objective, and the insider as culturally embedded and subjective, are re-examined and set within an international research and teaching context that recognises the increased migration of people, ideas and educational policies. It is argued that, in the context of such change, it has become more difficult to categorise and label groups and individuals as being ‘inside’ or ‘outside’ systems, professional communities or research environments. Such essentialist notions, which often underpin the production of large-scale, international datasets of pupil achievement, need to be challenged so that more complex understandings can inform not only new methods of research design, research ethics, data collection and analysis, but also the creation of new knowledge, giving more validity to related education policy making. We recognise that individual and group identities can be multiple, flexible and changing such that the boundary between the inside and the outside is permeable, less stable and less easy to draw. The concept of a ‘third’, liminal space may have the potential to encourage new meaning which is constructed on the boundary between worlds where historical, social, cultural, political, ethical and individual understandings meet.     

‘Powerful knowledge’ curriculum theories and the case of physics

A stream of debate (including a previous special issue of this journal (25(1) 2014)) has made claims not just for ‘bringing knowledge back in’ as the framing underpinning of the school curriculum, but that subjects associated with disciplinary and disciplined knowledge forms have a particular power and that these characteristics are important to preserve in curriculum frameworks. This paper draws on a major Australian research project studying school and university physics in the context of these arguments to revisit the issue of the ‘discipline’ of physics and the curriculum logics for physics. Given that disciplines are social in origin and changing and expanding over time, can school curriculum be logically derived from the discipline to which they relate? Are questions about student engagement only questions about pedagogy and not curriculum? Does a focus on disciplinary knowledge mean that the role of school in forming identities and values is avoidable as a significant feature of what the curriculum does? The findings from the project are used both to illustrate and test these questions, and to challenge some over-simple assumptions about the verticality of this form of knowledge for education purposes.     

The role of the ‘Other’ in reflection,knowledge formation and action in a late modernity

Reflection has long been an aspiration in education, from Aristotle’s Nicamachean Ethics, through Bacon’s (1605 Bacon, F. 1605. The Advancement of Learning, London: Everyman.  [Google Scholar]) Advancement of Learning and later articulated by John Dewey. Schön’s reflective practitioner underpins the ethos in the professional training of teachers in the UK. This paper reviews approaches to reflection in learning and argues that we require a model of learning sensitive to the complex interaction between theory, practice and reflection that take place in social contexts and relationships with others. Following a critical review of the literature it argues for a social model of experiential learning connecting themes in contemporary social theory. The paper considers learning in sociological and philosophical terms rather than as simply a cognitive or psychological process.     

Education,technology, and the ‘new’ knowledge economy: views from Bongoland

The concept of bridging the digital divide between Africa and the rest of the world draws symbolically on nineteenth century diffusion theories of linear progress and twentieth‐century theories of modernization and development. This paper examines information and communication technology (ICT) policies and public‐access postings on http://www.bongoland.net. Bongoland evokes a quality of life that is hectic, frustrating, and slightly crazy. Where the language of policies envisions that technology will improve life in Bongoland, users’ postings suggest that technology reinforces regional hierarchies. This essay argues that, despite the disarticulation of past and present at narrative levels in policy, the past and the present emerge as related in Bongonians’ online postings.     

The Council of Europe’s citizenship conception in ‘Education for Democratic Citizenship’: a critical discourse analysis of two textbooks

This paper presents a neocommunitarian conception of citizenship identified in two textbooks of the programme ‘Education for Democratic Citizenship’, organised by the Council of Europe. Critical discourse analysis is applied to the key themes of the textbooks T-Kit 7: Under construction: Citizenship Youth and Europe and Compass Manual enclosing citizenship and human rights discourses, respectively. An intra-disciplinary discussion follows drawing on critical political economy. The findings of the analysis are that the textbooks exhibit an abstract representation of social reality as well as moral relativism stemming from neoliberal communitarianism. The identification of the neocommunitarian conception of citizenship reveals the power of citizenship education today.     

The ‘making’ of knowledge society in Rwanda? Translations,tensions and transformations

In the year 2000, Rwanda launched an ambitious long-term development strategy intended to render a fundamental transformation from an agrarian to a knowledge society by 2020. Knowledge society, however, could be viewed as a ‘floating signifier’ open for a wide range of interpretations. Guided by a policy translation perspective the aim of this article is to examine the ‘making’ of knowledge society in Rwanda. The article analyses how the government's notion of a projected knowledge society and attempts to manage globalisation to the benefit of Rwanda have translated into a set of educational policy priorities. This article further exposes various tensions that emerge in these translation processes, intimately linked to the country's deep poverty, complex political situation and high-flying ambitions.     

The origin of counting: A study of the early meaning of ‘one’, ‘two’ and ‘three’ among Basque- and Spanish-speaking children

This study examines the beginning of the conceptual understanding of the first number-words and what role language can play in developing the notion of numbers. To that end, 2?- and 3?-year-old Basque and Spanish monolingual children's (N = 131) basic numeracy skills are analysed by means of two different experimental procedures: Give-N (in which children are requested to gather sets of objects) and How-Many (based on the ability to count collections). The paper accounts for differences as regards the performance in the Give-N procedure between children with different linguistic backgrounds. In accordance with previous research, this finding can be related to the dissimilar ways by which languages (Basque and Spanish, in this case) express grammatical number, supporting the idea that language plays a definite role in the emergence of the earliest set-size meanings of ‘one,’ ‘two,’ and ‘three’ number-words. Eventually, the work attempts to contribute to the growing body of evidence that shows that the meaning of the count-list appears from mapping numerals onto numerical cognitive representations produced by early core systems of numbers.