The shifting financial aid system in Spanish University: grant-recipients’ experiences and strategies

In 2012 Spain inaugurated a reform of its higher education financial aid system inspired by three principles: cost-sharing, increasing academic performance and school efficiency. This reform has shifted the aim of the system from equality of access to a type of meritocracy that can be defined as class-biased, as it is only applied to low-income students who require scholarships to fund their university education. After contextualizing this changing Spanish financial aid system, the life-experiences of grant-holders are discussed, based on in-depth interviews with scholarship recipients. Our analysis shows how the hardships and constraints that these low-income students endure during their university education have been toughened after the reform. The paper concludes that the reform increases and naturalizes the social inequalities that traditionally exist between youths of different social classes when planning, accessing and staying in university, as the critical sociology of education has shown recurrently.     

The amoeboid neo-liberalism and the rising state commercialism in education

Recently, the pros and cons scholars of educational marketization all refer to the enormous influences affected by neo-liberalism. Without doubt, it occurs to the related researches that the function and characters of market will create a decisive impact on education development. Nevertheless, according to this authors＇ study, neo-liberalism is not the way as it was, it is because the role of the state has been shifted from shrinking back to swelling out in terms of the ways of manipulating policies. The state is no longer the rolled back actor as a small government following the original neo-liberalism context, but becomes an invisible hand behind serial discourses and standards making. This study has taken England for an example to review the spread of marketization in education, especially under New Labor＇s authority. Context and developed discourses on neo-liberalism are analyzed before examining the related policies in England. The result of the research argues that, though neo-liberalism still firmly wins its high value in running education, it has been through an ingenious change in terms of spreading processes. Under New Labor＇s authority, serial legitimate discourses from public sector were released and formed another new ideology. The boundary of public and private sector of running education, especially in secondary education, has been redefined. This change has turned England into a new type of ＂neo-liberalism＂ territory. Based on the involvement of public sector in manipulating serial privatizations, it reveals the phenomenon of ＂state commercialism＂.     

New Directions for School Effectiveness Research: Towards School Effectiveness Without Schools

School effectiveness research has made a number of valuable contributions to educational research over the past three decades. However, its validity is threatened by a number of evolutions that question the continuing centrality of its basic research object, the public school. Moves towards more flexible school organization such as networks of schools, a broader role for schools reconceptualized as community centers, the emergence of new providers outwith the public sector, the increasingly internationalised nature of research and moves towards greater use of distance learning and home schooling all mean that this focus may rapidly become outdated, potentially making school effectiveness research irrelevant.In this paper we will discuss the consequences of these evolutions for school effectiveness research and argue that, rather than lessening the need for effectiveness research, they increase the imperative for this type of research, as long as it is broadened to educational effectiveness in its broadest sense whether it takes place in the traditional public school or not, and is conducted in an empirical and open-minded way.     

The roots and routes of environmental and sustainability education policy research – an introduction to a virtual special issue

This article introduces the themes of a virtual special issue (VSI) of Environmental Education Research (http://explore.tandfonline.com/content/ed/ceer-vsi) focused on policy research in environmental and sustainability education (ESE). The broad purpose behind preparing the VSI was to consider the challenges involved in linking particular concepts of environment and sustainability with key themes in educational policy, and how this remains a heavily contested practice. Examples drawn from two decades of studies published in the journal show how these might be illustrated, addressed, problematized and possibly transcended. The introduction traces how ESE researchers have dealt with key trends, complexities and issues in the policy-practice-research nexus both conceptually and empirically. It also illustrates how researchers within the field might reimagine and reinvigorate policy research on ESE, and how working with researchers from other fields who offer different perspectives, ideas and expertise might aid the cross-fertilisation of a complex terrain of ideas, policy and practice. In so doing, we hope the accompanying VSI inspires renewed interest into the (at times, fickle) relationship between ESE, and the dual worlds of possibility and tension that take place both within, and surrounding, their fields of policy and research.     

教育研究、教育的科学研究与我们的选择——我国教育研究的现状分析与趋势研究

教育研究,特别是教育的科学研究的重要性已为世界各国所公认。在概念上,教育研究和教育的科学研究是有区别的。就教育的科学研究而言,国际教育界已经形成了一套通行的研究方法:提出问题、形成研究假设、搜集资料、分析资料、检验假设并形成研究结果。我国教育研究与世界教育研究相比,存在很大差别,具有群众性参与、行政参与和以思辨为主等特点。一方面,可以说,我们形成了中国特色的教育研究体系,另一方面,在中国加入世界的进程加快的大环境下,我们不得不遵从教育研究的通行规则和方法。提倡基于科学的教育研究,规范研究方法,提高研究质量应该成为我们的选择,从而使教育的科学研究真正地科学化,为教育实践和教育政策制订提供真实可靠的依据。     

教育政策研究的社会性别视角的缺失

社会性别视角的缺失是近年来我国教育政策研究中存在的一大问题。从教育政策研究中社会性别视角缺失的现象入手,分析其产生的原因并提出解决方案,以期在未来的教育政策研究中社会性别视角能够得到更好的运用。     

加强教育科学研究积极推进教育创新

推进教育创新必须加强教育科学研究 ;没有高水平的教育科学研究就很难有高水平的教育 ;高水平的大学要出教育思想、办学理念、教育理论 ;要加快教育决策的科学化、民主化、法制化进程。     

教育实习对学前教育本科生职业选择的影响

本研究采用质性研究方法,通过目的性抽样,聚焦11位学前教育本科生的教育实习经历。研究发现:教育实习使学前教育本科生对幼师职业产生了坚守或逃离的两种选择。从认知层面看,学前教育本科生在教育实习前后对幼师职业的理解和对幼师职业自我胜任感的认识产生了变化;从情感层面看,教育实习中的“重要他人”帮助学前教育本科实习生加深了对幼师的职业情感。整体上来说,一方面实习生在教育实习中遭遇了“上课”和“带班”的双重挑战,另一方面实习生又在“指导教师”的专业指导下及“儿童群体”的情感感召下,增强了对幼师职业的认同和热爱,进而促进了对幼师的职业承诺。     

教育民族志:含义、特点、类型

教育民族志是教育研究的基本方法、取向和成果呈现形式之一。此研究在解说民族志含义的基础上,对教育民族志的基本特点和主要类型作了分析。     

简议"教育叙事"研究

本文从基础英语教学研究的视角简要阐述了教育叙事研究产生的背景、概念、以及开展此项研究的意义。     

教育政策分析的范式特征及其研究路径

教育政策分析的范式特征包括四个方面:教育政策分析是一个科学性、综合性和应用性的研究领域;教育政策分析既是技术又是艺术;教育政策分析是从问题发现到问题解决的全过程;教育政策分析是描述的,而且也是规范的。教育政策分析的研究路径包括政治学路径、经济学路径、社会心理学路径、马克思主义路径、系统科学路径和现象学路径。     

A sociological analysis of Australia’s NAPLAN and My School Senate Inquiry submissions: the adultification of childhood?

Growing consensus in popular and academic commentary suggests the lived reality of Western childhood differs considerably from its dominant cultural construction as an innocent period free from adult responsibilities. Sociologically, this disjuncture is conceptualised as adultification. Adopting a critical theoretical lens, we question if Australian high-stakes standardised testing and reporting, National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) and My School, evidences adultification of childhood experience in primary and secondary schools. Qualitative critical analysis of 270 submissions to NAPLAN’s 2010 Senate Inquiry demonstrates adultification in Australian schools, with children subjected to developmentally inappropriate expectations, pressure, stress and precocious knowledge in response to NAPLAN testing and reporting. Adultification, we argue, is a side-effect of individualisation, managerialism and neo-liberal government policy played out in Australian schools and exposing children to the harsh realities of political, economic and social life. De-politicalisation and de-marketisation of children is argued as urgently needed to foreground a critically considered ‘best practice’ when promoting or measuring educational progress and performance.     

教育科学研究中量的研究之反思

量的研究是教育科学研究领域最基本的范式之一。自它起源之日起,量的研究就在教育科学各门学科理论和教育实践研究过程中得到了广泛的应用。但任何一种研究方法都不是十全十美的,在使用中也会存在一些误区。研究者在教育科学研究中使用量的研究方法时应注意它的局限性,寻求最恰当的使用范围,不断提高自己的综合素质,积极整合教育科学研究中量的研究和质的研究。     

教育研究中量化与质性方法之争的当下语境分析

20世纪80年代以来,西方教育研究领域中颇为激烈的量化与质性研究范式之争,其表是方法论之争,其里却有着浓厚的政治立场与意识形态冲突色彩。正是因为这种激进立场的介入,人们过于夸大了两者间的范式差异,而漠视了其中存在的相容性。教育与其他社会科学研究所面对的社会现实是主观建构与客观型构的统一,量化与质性方法并不存在必然对立,而是具有相容性和相互补充解释的作用。