Globally mobile middle class lives in government secondary schools

ABSTRACT

Schooling has long been studied for its role in class formation and reproduction, Australian government secondary schools have also traditionally been associated with ‘the local’ and with ‘nation building’. Some schools might now also be engaged with ideas of the ‘the global’ not only through policy practices and priorities, but also through the social dynamics of migration and movement. In globalizing times neither class formation nor schooling can be thought of simply in national terms. They are connected to globalizing forces yet cannot be divorced from their national specificity. We suggest that within Australia recent and historical emphases on skilled migration are pivotal to considering local connections to global middle class circuits. We argue for new approaches to studying the school experiences of global middle-class families and students, through a focus on transnational connectivities, generational dynamics, family and social life, rather than on more ‘culturalist’ approaches and national comparisons.     

Learning the routines: "professionalization" of newcomers in secondary school

Education systems are expected to enhance both social regulation and emancipation of school students. The contradictions between these aims are visible in the everyday life at school in tensions between control and agency. These tensions are explored in this article by analysing the first two weeks in secondary school, on the basis of ethnographic data collected in the project "Citizenship, Difference and Marginalization in Schools: with Special Reference to Gender." Multilayered processes and practices are involved in the induction of new students. Banal instructions in the "official school," the construction of differences and continuities in the "informal" school, and the ways in which bodies of students are placed in the time-space paths in the "physical" school are explored. The authors ask how school students are taught to become "professional pupils" routinized in the everyday life of their new schools, and how students themselves construct competences through negotiation, withdrawal, or resistance.     

A Feminist Perspective on Moral Education

Abstract

I argue that the just community approach is the best available values education programme in the high schools for meeting the primary goal of feminism, the elimination of injustices due to sexism. In order to eliminate sexism, I suggest we look beneath educational policies and practices to the social and value structures of schools as institutions. Through excerpts from interviews with students, I describe the social and value structures of a democratic community which form the basis of the just community programme.     

Limits and potentials of social networking in academia: case study of the evolution of a mathematics Facebook community

The use of social networking services has rapidly increased in recent years, especially by university students. Some authors assert that they have educational potential in terms of promoting collaborative learning practices among undergraduate students which enhance engagement and understanding. This possibility is particularly relevant to mathematics learning, because university communities are frequently experienced as isolating and performance-oriented. This case study reports on the use of Facebook to support mathematical communication and more participative learning identities within a UK university mathematics department. It describes how the reactive formation of a student-led Facebook community became a source of conflict within the wider academic social community and how this conflict was eventually resolved. While it raises questions about the extent to which Facebook can encourage open collaborative learning within the wider context of student aspirations in a competitive climate, it notes its potential for fostering cross-cohort student support in a subject which frequently induces anxiety in its students.     

Effects of Inquiry-Based Teacher Practices on Science Excellence and Equity

Abstract

Within science education reforms, a pedagogical shift from a teacher-centered, textbook-based instructional paradigm to a student-centered, inquiry-based model is called for. Despite strong theoretical grounding, there is limited empirical evidence that these reforms will achieve national goals of academic excellence and equity. The author used hierarchical linear models to estimate the extent to which 5 inquiry-based teacher practices promote achievement of all students (excellence) and reduce gaps in achievement among students with different demographic profiles (equity). Findings suggest that teacher practices that improve overall academic excellence simultaneously are as likely to contribute to greater inequities among more and less advantaged students as they are to close persistent achievement gaps.     

Bilingual Vine making: problematizing oppressive discourses in a secondary Chicanx/Latinx studies course

ABSTRACT

This article presents the critical digital literacy practices of Latinx bilingual youth in the United States enrolled in a secondary ethnic studies course. Despite the expansion of digital tools in classrooms, empirical studies on the pedagogical affordances of such tools, and how they enhance youth’s critical digital literacies and understandings of themselves remain scarce. The author relies on participant observation, interviews, and the analysis of writing within a unit that incorporated students’ twenty-first century language and literacy practices via Vine’s social media platform to explore issues of power and privilege within an exacerbated sociopolitical climate. Findings reveal the ways in which students drew on a range of fluid linguistic and literate practices to make meaning of themselves, problematize oppressive dominant discourses, and negotiate more desired identities and literacies. Attention to young people’s translanguaging and multimodal codemeshing practices on social media platforms can harvest critical insight about what constitutes twenty-first century critical digital literacies.     

Research Abstracts and Bibliographies

ABSTRACT

In the last 15 years, social and community cohesion have become key concepts in European social, migration, and education policy. Although their definitions often remain ambiguous, social and community cohesion typically refer to harmonious coexistence of individuals of all cultural backgrounds within a community. Frequently connected with education at the elementary and secondary level, they are regarded a desirable outcome of compulsory schooling. Drawing on longitudinal data from 2 schools in England, the authors analyze the interplay between national policies of community cohesion and local level practices. In a discussion of the findings, the authors show that, despite the gaps between national policy and local practice, parental and community members’ involvement in school and family education are efficient tools to enhance community cohesion at the local level.     

Fair and equitable assessment practices for all students

This paper focuses on promoting fairness and equity in student assessment practices. The researchers used questionnaires and interviews and the study encompassed a total of 3312 individuals representing a range of stakeholders. The paper is presented in two parts: fairness and discrimination, and challenging policy and practice. Five key principles emerged. Educators must strive to address the personal impact of assessment practices on individual students and their families. Assessment must be differentiated to accommodate the ability, social, cultural and linguistic background of students. All members of school communities must challenge the complacency associated with accepting indefensible assessment practices. The frequency, intensity and intrusiveness of assessments must not be overwhelming for students and their families. Finally, assessment must not be used to counter inappropriate student behaviour or reward desired behaviour. Implications for practice are presented. Additionally, the authors describe changes to policy and practice that occurred as a result of the study.     

Learning and the development of social identities in the subjects Care and Technology

This article discusses the way in which social identities structure the learning processes of students in two subjects in the Dutch secondary school curriculum—Care and Technology. It analyses interviews with 23 students and their teachers with a view to explaining the disappointing results in these subjects in terms of breaking through gender and class‐related preferences and learning outcomes. The subjects Care and Technology refer to social practices with which groups of students identify in different ways. On the other hand, students also appear to make active use of these subjects in their identity development. The authors argue for explicitly combining the notion that learning is peripheral participation in social practices with analyses of the power relationships that structure those practices. Also, the question should be addressed of how the relative autonomy of the school can be used for organizing learning experiences in such a way that the constraints of social position and identity are reduced, and the restrictive character of social identities is challenged.     

高校自主招生公平与效率的实证研究——基于学生学业发展的视角

高校招生改革具有"牵一发动全身"的重要战略意义,其动向兼具人才选拔的教育功能与代际流动的社会功能。本研究从2019年中国本科教与学调查数据里选取18所实施自主招生的高校(样本量=1888),基于学生背景及其在校表现对高校自主招生的实施效果进行评价。回归结果表明:从社会公平来看,自主招生政策更有利于农村生源,这反映了从2012年启动的贫困地区定向招生专项计划初见成效,但女生与家庭第一代大学生的自招表现有待提升;从择优录取的效率来看,控制高考分数之后,自招生在本科期间获得奖学金这一指标上优于统招生,但自招生对就读高校的推荐度却低于统招生。     

Potential of the social media as instruments of higher education marketing: a segmentation study

The importance of social media as platforms of social interaction, communication and marketing is growing. Increasing numbers of businesses in various industries have already integrated or plan to integrate social media applications into their marketing programs. Higher education institutions show increased interest in the potential of social media as a marketing tool. Particularly important is the potential of these tools to reach and attract future students. An important issue for research is to understand how potential students use social media and what their role is in the decision making process of choosing a program of study, a University, or College. This paper identifies market segments among future students based on the use of the social media and examines the impact of the social media on the choice of a higher education program and institution.

The study is based on data collected by means of a national survey among future university students in the Netherlands. Future students are pupils from the last two years of secondary education. Market segmentation was carried out based on the use of social media, by means of a cluster analysis and a factor analysis; the latter proved to be the best choice since it produced more differentiated market segments.

The findings indicate the existence of three distinct segments in the population of future students in the Netherlands on the basis of social media use. Another major finding of the study is that future students are mostly interested in social interaction and information seeking when using social media, while the content contributed by this group is limited to photo and video sharing. Compared to traditional communication channels social media still play a secondary role in the students' choice.

While penetration of social media is extremely high among future students, the impact of these in the choice of study and institution is relatively low compared to more traditional forms of university marketing. This paper provides university marketers with a useful insight into the developments in the market and discusses various options and opportunities for engaging social media as effective marketing tools.     

Inclusive and democratic practices in primary school classrooms: A multiple case study in Spain

ABSTRACT

Background: In order to offer all students the opportunity to progress and grow to their full potential, teachers must positively recognise and value the different expressions of diversity of all the class members. One of the biggest educational challenges that teachers face today is how to address classroom practices from a truly inclusive and democratic perspective.

Purpose: The main aim of this study was to explore, in a Spanish context, how primary school teachers articulate and implement inclusive and democratic practices in their classrooms.

Design, sample and methods: The methodological design of this study was situated within a qualitative research approach. A multiple case study structure, comprising three case studies, was utilised. Data collection was carried out via interviews, classroom practices inventories, scientific observation and analysis of documentation. The study was carried out over three academic years and had three phases. Data were analysed thematically.

Findings: In the three cases analysed, the analysis identified different possibilities in terms of the implementation and articulation of pedagogical differentiation (the structures, content, process and product) and democratic classroom management (collaborative culture, a shared leadership, democratic participation and school linked to environs).

Conclusions: The analysis highlights the need to support the formation of a critical citizenship within inclusive contexts, as well as the need to develop a sense of belonging to the educational community.     

Online teaching in the digital age

Past research has considered the reflective practices of the teacher as an important activity in the learning cycle. Some of it has introduced the term ‘reflective teacher’, showing that such practice has become increasingly important.

This paper discusses literature related to various means of collecting feedback from students, the socio-technical approach to management information systems (MISs) and reflective models. It documents the reflective practices that the author followed while teaching an MIS distance education course.

The findings of this research show that actively reflecting on feedback collected from students could improve teaching quality and lead to better understanding for students in future cohorts.     

Critical Chinese as an Additional Language education in Australia: A journey to voices,courage and hope

This article addresses key topics of Chinese as an Additional Language (CAL) education and classroom pedagogical practices. It reports on a 3-year ethnographic study within Australian schools to discuss dialogic pedagogical practices and students’ aspirations. Based on Freire’s conceptualisation of conscientização and banking education, the purpose of this article is therefore to unpack a journey to voices, courage and hope of a cohort of socially, linguistically and economically disadvantaged students in Western Sydney, one of the most culturally diverse regions in the country. Their experiences, responses, dreams and understanding of CAL education in multicultural Australia were thus captured. Our data shows that critical CAL education might point to some avenues for the educational equity agenda. By arguing that emancipatory and critical practices could enhance students to achieve consciousness and collective self-transformation, we aim to make a contribution to the literature on CAL and languages education, which all too often isolates from broader issues in educational theory. The article also adds to the limited research that engages with CAL classroom data. Our critical approach to CAL education illuminates the intersections between language and social inclusion. Considering the worldwide growing upheaval and scepticism around CAL education, we call for writing inclusive languages education and related pedagogical practices into the social inclusion agenda in Australia and internationally, for the teaching and learning of all additional languages.     

Feminism and neo/liberalism: contesting education’s possibilities

ABSTRACT

Feminist theorists critiqued classical liberalism for the gender binaries embedded in social, political and economic theory and everyday social relations. Neoliberalism economises the social and political based on autonomous individualism, equating equity with choice, naturalising the market as the mechanism to allocate social goods and education while disregarding constraining discursive and material contexts. Neoliberalism also co-opts the feminist desire for agency through notions of choice. The paper tracks the historical conditions in Anglophile states that nurtured neoliberalism’s uptake with its focus on human capital theory, rethinking the dominant educational discourse of twenty-first-century skills using Yeatman’s democratic framing of social liberalism and Nussbaum’s capability approach. Feminists argue for a just and civil democratic society that dissolves binary thinking and focuses on relationality, rights and responsibility.     

Equity and marketisation: a brief commentary

Beginning with a reflection on the Participation and Equity Program (PEP) in Australia in the 1980s, this response describes the distinctive ideological shift from a social democratic to a market conception of equity in education over the past three decades. This shift has been accompanied by changes in the techniques of educational governance, from the collaborative approach of the PEP, which emphasised the importance of trust in teachers as professionals, to new managerialism focused on efficiency and accountability. Market reforms in education have continued to use such traditionally socially democratic notions as equity, but have been enormously successful in re-articulating their meaning. A commentary is provided on the papers in this Special Issue and their collective analysis of governmental strategies that have led to this re-articulation of equity; the extent to which these strategies have been successful; the consequences they have had on students and school communities, and for the work of teachers and schools; and possibilities for creating new approaches in education that undermine the seemingly hegemonic neo-liberal imaginary and work towards a more progressive democratic view of educational equity.     

改革大学语文教学,提高学生写作能力——以职业学院为例

针对部分大学生怕写作文的现实情况,较为全面地分析了相关原因,包括社会原因、语文课程建设方面的原因等。以职业学院为例,提出改革大学语文教学、提高学生写作能力的具体措施,包括:妥善解决少数学生厌学的问题;注重大学语文课与文学素质类选修课的结合、阅读训练与写作训练的结合、口语训练与写作训练的结合;在作文教学中注重学生的思维训练;改进大学语文考试方法,培养学生自学能力;借助网络加强大学生文化素质教育。     

Tales from three countries: reflections during COVID-19 for mathematical education in the future

How can school mathematics prepare citizens for a democratic society? Answers to this question are not static; they change as society and its problems change. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic with its corresponding disease COVID-19 presents such a problem: what is needed to navigate this complex situation that involves, among other things, mathematics? Using the essay genre, we use three narratives from three countries—Italy, the USA (California), and Germany—to reflect on the goals of teaching mathematics during this crisis and examine aspects of each country’s standards for mathematics education. These three stories are framed by the authors’ backgrounds, experiences, interests, their country’s situation, and response to the pandemic. We first present the three narratives and then examine common issues across them that might provide insights beyond this current crisis, for preparing students to become active citizens. In particular, we focus on three issues: (1) developing a positive mindset toward mathematics to engage with and reflect on real-world problems, (2) improving interdisciplinary connections to the sciences to better understand how science professional practices and insights are similar or different from everyday practices, and (3) considering interpersonal and collective matters beyond the individual.

     

Estranged students in higher education: navigating social and economic capitals

ABSTRACT

Family is widely regarded as a cornerstone of student support. When family support exist as an essential form of social capital making, rupture of family ties places students in a disadvantageous position. This paper focuses on estranged students’ accounts of their experiences of higher education, highlighting how capital dynamics shape their academic trajectories. Based on interviews with 21 estranged students, our research uncovers different dimensions of estranged students’ struggles and successes as they move through academia. This paper explores the social imagination that surrounds the university student, or ‘student experience’, as resting upon family support. The authors propose that widening participation policies and practices need to be more attuned to the realities that mark estranged students’ experiences, as they are not only impacted by the scarcity of either economic or social capital, but also by the instability of interrelated capitals that contribute to precarious and volatile experiences.     

Combating low completion rates in Nordic welfare states: policy design in Norway and Sweden

ABSTRACT

Low completion rate in upper secondary education is seen as a big problem in the Nordic countries. School failure has shown to dramatically increase the risks for unemployment and labour market exclusion with severe consequences for both society and the young person. This paper analyses national policy measures to combat low upper secondary education completion rates in Norway and Sweden, often regarded as representing a social democratic welfare model and a universalistic transition regime. The analysis demonstrates that although this issue has received extensive political attention, the two countries display somewhat different policy designs. The Norwegian approach is proactive and targeted while the Swedish policy is more general and directed towards reforming organisational structures in upper-secondary education. In sum, our analysis demonstrates that national governance structures shape and influence policy design in the context of an increasingly diversified Nordic social democratic welfare state regime.