‘Responsibility in mobility’: international students and social responsibility

Enhancing the educational experience and social connectedness for international students is the responsibility of different involved parties among whom international students themselves and host institutions play a key role. However, the question of how the condition of cross-border mobility has shaped and re-shaped international students’ responsibility towards the home and host country and other social relationships that have been formed via their mobility experiences is often neglected. This paper examines the social nature of international students’ responsibility. It is derived from a research project funded by the Australian Research Council that includes fieldwork and semi-structured interviews with 155 staff and international students from 25 institutions in Australia over 4 years. Using positioning theory as a conceptual framework, the study shows that it is important to take into account the tangible aspects of transnational mobility in understanding international student responsibility rather than merely locating their responsibility in simple cultural, personal or institutional parameters. The study suggests the important roles of host institutions and community in creating conducive conditions and opportunities for international students to exercise responsibility as social members and intercultural learners. Enhancing student social responsibility and capacity for enacting responsibility is essential for nurturing meaningful transnational citizenship.     

‘So,how does one define a friendship?’: Identifying friendship among students using AAC in inclusive education settings*

The characteristics of friendships among children who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) are not well understood. Research on friendships among children without disabilities has identified similarity to each other as a key characteristic among friends. The aim of this study was to identify and describe the friendships between students using AAC and fellow students in Norwegian mainstream public schools. Participants were students using AAC in first to fourth class, fellow students, parents, and staff. Data were analysed using a constructive grounded theory approach. The participants provided diverse reports about the friendships, although all students using AAC reported having friendships at school. The friendships were described by parents and staff as superficial and students using AAC were seldom perceived as playmates by fellow students. The results indicated that friendships between students using AAC and fellow students were often unilateral. The results are discussed along with the implications for future research.     

‘Empty signifiers’ and ‘dreamy ideals’: perceptions of the ‘international university’ among higher education students and staff at a British university

This paper reports on a mixed-methods case study investigating how higher education staff and students understand, experience and envision the ‘international university’. As it is becoming clear that international student mobility is not in itself a panacea for universities seeking to internationalise, ‘internationalisation at home’ and ‘global citizenship’ are increasingly permeating university policy documents and mission statements. However, little is known about how students and staff on the ground perceive and experience these concepts. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected at one British university through focus groups (N = 19) and through an online survey (n = 148). Findings revealed a conventional mobility-focused understanding of the international university among students and staff, and a great deal of cynicism as regards ‘internationalisation at home’ and ‘global citizenship’. We discuss implications for practice and a research agenda.     

Gifted ‘n the ‘hood: Gender and giftedness as predictors of social risk among low-income students

Research abounds on adolescent poverty and on gifted education, but these fields are seldom considered together. This study explores trajectories of aggressive behavior (i.e., weapon carrying) of impoverished, gifted youth. Results indicate that gifted students engage in lower levels of weapon carrying than non-gifted students. Gifted and non-gifted girls’ trajectories are parallel across age.However, weapon carrying among gifted and non-gifted boys does not differ during early and late adolescence, but it does during middle adolescence. These differences can perhaps be explained by examining impulsivity and temperament trajectories by gifted status. Impulsivity for boys and quick-temperedness for girls is lower during early and middle adolescence for gifted students than for non-gifted students, but not during later adolescence. Quick-temperedness for boys and impulsivity for girls does not differ by gifted status during early and late adolescence, but it does during middle adolescence. These findings suggest that some characteristics of giftedness are manifest during early adolescence (perhaps even before enrollment in a gifted program). However, other giftedness characteristics appear only during middle adolescence, after students have enrolled in the gifted program. Implications of these findings for how gifted education programs can impact aggression, and ways to optimally structure these programs, are explored.     

The International Baccalaureate and ‘growth scepticism’: a ‘social limits’ framework

The number of schools offering the programmes of the International Baccalaureate (IB) hit 3000 in July 2010. Since 2004 the IB has aimed for further growth within a ‘wider access’ and ‘greater impact’ paradigm. A further 7000 schools are expected to be involved by 2020. However, there is now considerable concern about growth, especially within the ‘international school movement’ who see it as compromising quality. This recent phenomenon can be termed ‘growth scepticism’ in the same way economic growth is now questioned as desirable. This paper charts this development and argues there is room for a much wider framework of analysis, viewing the global growth of the IB within a social and moral lens. This paper takes the economist Fred Hirsch’s 1976 Hirsch, F. 1976. The social limits to growth, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar] book The social limits to growth as its core theoretical framework, linking growth to potential social externalities such as increased competition and the commercialization of society.     

Teacher: students’ interpersonal relationships and students’ academic achievements in social studies

Background: The classroom is a social system in which the teacher and the students interact as organizational members. The quality of classroom relations is dependent on the activities of both the instructor and the students. Several environmental conditions and circumstances often tend to either improve or depress the academic performances of students in defiance of their natural academic endowments. Aim: This study was to identify the relationship between teacher–students’ interpersonal relationships and students’ academic achievements in social studies. Methods: The work used the ex post facto design and a sample of 1954 Junior Secondary School (JSS) III randomly drawn from 50 Government Secondary Schools in Calabar Educational Zone of Cross River State, Nigeria. Two instruments were used: The Teacher–Students’ Relationship Questionnaire and a 50-item multiple choice questions in social studies set using the JSS social studies syllabus and validated by test experts. The data were analysed using the Pearson product moment correlation analysis (r). Product moment correlation analysis (r) is used in finding the relationship between two variables X and Y, if these variables are continuous and are obtained from the sample. Outcomes: There was a significant relationship between teacher–students’ interpersonal relationship and students’ academic achievements in social studies. As a researcher, this means much for me. Students themselves are classroom observers. They are aware, to a great extent, of their own academic standing in the classroom as well as those of others. Some examples of the strategies students use to evaluate their own academic standing include the tasks they are given, grouping strategies implemented in the classroom (e.g. ability grouping) teacher feedback and information regarding ability, the responsibilities that teachers provide students with and the quality of teacher–students relationships. Conclusions: The major conclusion forwarded by this research was that there was a significant relationship between the teacher–students’ interpersonal relationship and students’ academic performances in social studies. This has a serious implication for me and others, viz, a good human relationship is one of the lubricants of high productivity. Teachers should therefore galvanize cordial relations between themselves and students. All teachers, including this researcher, should bear in mind that a healthy interpersonal relationship is one indispensable instrument of high productivity and achievement in all fields of human endeavour including the education industry.     

Interrelations among university students’ approaches to learning, regulation of learning, and cognitive and attributional strategies: a person oriented approach

This study investigated the relationships among approaches to learning, regulation of learning, cognitive and attributional strategies, stress, exhaustion, and study success. University students (N = 437) from three faculties filled in a questionnaire concerning their self-reported study behaviour, cognitive strategies, and well-being. Their interrelations were examined in a variable- and a person-oriented way. Latent class clustering was used for clustering students into homogeneous groups. Three groups of students were identified: non-academic, self-directed, and helpless students. Helpless students reported higher levels of stress and exhaustion than non-academic or self-directed students. Self-directed students had the highest GPA. Our findings demonstrate the usefulness of combining cognitive and emotional aspects for investigations of students’ learning.     

‘An experiment is when you try it and see if it works’: a study of grade 7 students’ understanding of the construction of scientific knowledge

The research reported here focuses on grade 7 (12‐year‐old) students’ epistomological views prior to and after exposure to a teaching unit especially developed to introduce the constructivist view of science. A clinical interview was used to assess students’ understanding about the nature of scientific knowledge and inquiry. Students’ initial epistemological stance is that scientific knowledge is a passively acquired, faithful copy of the world, and that scientific inquiry is limited solely to observing rather than constructing explanations about nature. We found that it is possible to move students beyond this initial view.     

Being ‘at’ university: the social topologies of distance students

This paper considers how online, distance students enact the space of ‘the university’, in the context of the rise of distance education within a traditional, ‘elite’ institution. Aiming to provide insight into how students translate into distance the space of a university which has traditionally had its basis in conventional on-campus education, it locates itself within the ‘new mobilities’ paradigm (Urry in Mobilities. Polity Press, Cambridge, 2007), drawing on four different kinds of social space delineated by Mol and Law (Soc Stud Sci 24(4):641–741, 1994) and Law and Mol (Environ Plan D 19:609–621, 2001) in order to analyse narrative and visual data generated with distance students at the University of Edinburgh. The paper shows that the material campus continues to be symbolically and materially significant for a group of students who may never physically attend that campus. Distance students, we find, need their own version of the ‘spatial certainties’ of bounded, campus space. Yet, in exploring the ‘new proximities’ of online distance education, we also argue that to define institutional and academic authenticity solely in terms of this bounded, ‘regional’ space is inadequate in the face of the other topologies which also come into play throughout distance students’ accounts of what it means to be ‘at’ university.     

‘Not necessarily a bad thing …’: a study of online plagiarism amongst undergraduate students

Whilst the copying, falsification and plagiarism of essays and assignments has long been a prevalent form of academic misconduct amongst undergraduate students, the increasing use of the internet in higher education has raised concern over enhanced levels of online plagiarism and new types of ‘cyber‐cheating’. Based on a self‐report study of 1222 undergraduate students, this paper explores the nature and patterning of online plagiarism amongst students in UK higher educational institutions. The data find around three‐fifths of students self‐reporting at least a moderate level of internet‐based plagiarism during the past 12 months, with significant differences in terms of gender, educational background and—most notably—subject discipline. Students’ online plagiarism was also found to correlate strongly with their self‐reported levels of offline plagiarism. The data therefore highlight the need to contextualize online plagiarism in relation to the wider ‘life‐world’ of the contemporary university student and, in particular, the role of the internet in their everyday non‐academic lives. The paper concludes by discussing how university authorities may go about addressing internet‐based plagiarism in the contemporary university setting.     

When ‘Muslim‐ness’ is pedagogised. ‘Religion’ and ‘culture’ as knowledge and social classification in the classroom

The article presents a curriculum‐sociological study of ‘religion’ in the classroom. More specifically, it is a study, inspired by Bernstein, Foucault and Bourdieu, that examines various forms of identity politics tied to ‘religion’ and ‘culture’ as these concepts unfold in the classroom in relation to knowledge production and social classification. Categories such as ‘Muslim’ and ‘Danish’ are tentatively broken down in a study of the classroom as a locus for knowledge production and the production of social difference. What knowledge of religion is produced? What spaces for subjects? What ways to be a pupil? And in what ways do ‘Muslim‐ness’ and ‘Danishness’/‘Christian‐ness’ figure in the social economy of the class? The classroom is studied as a micro‐political arena for relations and politics concerning minorities and majority. In this sense, ‘religion’/‘culture’ may be seen partly as knowledge clusters and partly as subject‐producing technologies colouring and shaping bodies. These knowledge clusters, in turn, are coloured by the social economy associated with the agents’ bodies, making it a productive and potent part of social classification. Categories such as ‘Muslim’ and ‘Danish’/‘Christian’ are in themselves to be understood as processes of social classification and distribution. Hence, ‘religion’ may be understood as a class‐producing practice as the latter is transformed and produced in the pedagogical field of practice.     

‘Peer social capital’ and networks of migrants and minority ethnic youth in England and Spain

This article discusses friendships and peer groups of migrant and minority ethnic youth in schools in England and Spain, and critically considers them in relation to existing notions of ‘peer social capital’ and bridging (heterogeneous) and bonding (homogeneous) peer networks. The article argues for an extended understanding of peer social capital and discusses the complex composition and outcomes of bridging and bonding peer networks. It critically discusses both facilitators and barriers to friendships experienced by migrant and minority ethnic youth in schools, and considers them in relation to school practices.     

On semiotics and subjectivity: a response to Tony Brown’s “signifying ‘students’, ‘teachers’, and ‘mathematics’: a reading of a special issue”

In this response we address some of the significant issues that Tony Brown raised in his analysis and critique of the Special Issue of Educational Studies in Mathematics on “Semiotic perspectives in mathematics education” (Sáenz-Ludlow & Presmeg, Educational Studies in Mathematics 61(1–2), 2006). Among these issues are conceptualizations of subjectivity and the notion that particular readings of Peircean and Vygotskian semiotics may limit the ways that authors define key actors or elements in mathematics education, namely students, teachers and the nature of mathematics. To deepen the conversation, we comment on Brown’s approach and explore the theoretical apparatus of Jacques Lacan that informs Brown’s discourse. We show some of the intrinsic limitations of the Lacanian idea of subjectivity that permeates Brown’s insightful analysis and conclude with a suggestion about some possible lines of research in mathematics education.

Congruence between students’ and teachers’ goals: implications for social and academic motivation

This study examined student–teacher goal congruence and its relation to social and academic motivation. Based on a sample of 97 ninth-graders, high levels of goal congruence for each of the four goals measured (prosocial, responsibility, learning, performance) was positively related to student interest in class and perceived social support from teachers. In addition, learning goal congruence was related to adaptive control beliefs (i.e., higher levels of internal control beliefs and lower levels of powerful others control beliefs). The implications of goal congruence for understanding student social and academic motivation are discussed.     

‘Me and maths’: towards a definition of attitude grounded on students’ narratives

The attitude construct is widely used by teachers and researchers in mathematics education. Often, however, teachers’ diagnosis of ‘negative attitude’ is a causal attribution of students’ failure, perceived as global and uncontrollable, rather than an accurate interpretation of students’ behaviour, capable of steering future action. In order to make this diagnosis useful for dealing with students’ difficulties in mathematics, it is necessary to clarify the construct attitude from a theoretical viewpoint, while keeping in touch with the practice that motivates its use. With this aim, we investigated how students tell their own relationship with mathematics, proposing the essay “Me and maths” to more than 1,600 students (1st to 13th grade). A multidimensional characterisation of a student’s attitude towards mathematics emerges from this study. This characterisation and the study of the evolution of attitude have many important consequences for teachers’ practice and education. For example, the study shows how the relationship with mathematics is rarely told as stable, even by older students: this result suggests that it is never too late to change students’ attitude towards mathematics.     

‘The conference was awesome’: social justice and a mathematics teacher conference

Professional development comes in many forms, some of which are deemed more useful than others. However, when groups of teachers are excluded, or exclude themselves, from professional development opportunities, then there is an issue of social justice. This article examines the experiences of a group of teachers from a Māori-medium school who attended a mathematics teacher conference. By analysing the teachers’ sense of belonging through their ideas about engagement, alignment and imagination, we are able to describe how different kinds of relationships influence the inclusion/exclusion process. This leads to a discussion about what can be done by the teachers as well as conference organisers to increase these teachers’ likelihood of attending further conferences in the future.     

Stigmatic beliefs toward a person with Alzheimer’s disease among high-school students: Does majority–minority status make a difference?

Research in the area of public stigma and Alzheimer disease (AD) is attracting increased attention in the last years. However, studies are limited to assessing the topic among adult persons. The aims of this study were to assess stigmatic beliefs toward a person with AD in high-school students and to examine whether majority–minority status is associated with stigmatic beliefs beyond other correlates of stigma.

A total of 460 high-school students aged 14–15 participated in the study. Approximately half (55.1%) were female and the rest male. The majority of participants were Jewish (64.6%) and the rest were Israeli Arabs. Students completed a self-administered structured questionnaire assessing public stigma, ageism, knowledge about AD, and familiarity with AD.

Results showed that high-school students reported relatively low levels of stigmatic beliefs toward a person with AD. Additionally, the majority–minority status had a unique contribution to the explanation of stigma, with Arab high-school students reporting higher levels of stigma toward a person with AD in comparison to Jewish students.

Our results stress the importance of developing intervention programs to reduce stigma toward persons with AD at an early age. These programs should be tailored to the cultural values and needs of specific groups.     

Discourse in a small class: the ‘diverge-converge pattern’ and ‘relaxed freedom’

In an attempt to uncover differences in student behavior as a function of class size, the author observed a small class and a large class for 15 hours each and conducted interviews with eight students who were members of both classes. Two trends emerged from these qualitative data. First, a ‘diverge-converge’ pattern was evident in the small class (absent from the large class) in which students were much more able to get back on task after becoming off-task or off-topic. Second, the atmosphere in the smaller class was more relaxed and had a very conversational tone.