Becoming Teachers for Social Justice: Raising Critical Consciousness

This article shares processes and practices which foster students’ critical consciousness. Critical consciousness, the core of social justice teaching, is a heightened awareness of the world and the power structures that shape it. Teachers can become forces for equity and change by: challenging students to reflect critically on their beliefs and the sources of these beliefs; using text to guide students to look outwards and discover the perspectives and challenges of others; selecting texts purposefully to heighten student awareness of issues of power and equity; teaching students to read texts critically, listening carefully for the points of view of others often ignored or silenced; creating space for dialogue beyond text; and finally, making the world their classroom, blurring the boundary between schools and communities as students research the world and take steps toward change in ways that recognize and re-value our common humanity. Becoming teachers for social justice entails moving students through intentional processes and practices to foster critical consciousness in the hope of effecting change.     

Portrait of Filipino teachers’ classroom practices: traditional or constructivist?

The intent of this qualitative study is to narrate (Brodkey, (1987a). Education Quarterly, 18, 67–76; Written communication, 4, 25–70; Qualitative communication research methods. (1987b). Lindlof, (1995). (pp. 172–174): London Sage Publications) the master teachers as aggregate sample subjects’ pedagogical understanding and classroom practices. A qualitative analysis of the classroom activities and journal entries of 13 teacher-participants in the Basic Education Curriculum core learning areas is included. Findings reveal that the subject participants’ pedagogical practices still verging toward the formal suggest a traditional inclination. However, the importance of change should be realized. Various concepts of teaching and learning, today, are imperative. Teachers must be resocialized on their new roles and make their students have a more active role in the teaching-learning process.     

What shapes the self-esteem of elderly Filipinos working beyond the retirement age? A structural equation model (SEM)

Previous studies have indicated that major transitions in life such as retirement or exit from working life may contribute to the normative decline in self-esteem. A growing trend on elderly’s labor force beyond retirement invites the conduct of more empirical studies on the dynamics of self-esteem among the elderly group. Anchored on the Self-Determination Theory, this study is an attempt to test a model that examines the impact of social support, health promotion, activities of daily living and anxiety on the self-esteem of a select group of Filipino elderly working beyond the retirement age. Two-hundred eighteen (218) working elderly from the capital of the Philippines participated in this exploratory study. Data gathered from a multi-aspect questionnaire were analyzed using SPSS version 19 and AMOS version 19. Results of structural equation model (SEM) indicated that social support; activities of daily living and health promotion have direct effects on self-esteem, thus supporting the hypotheses. A direct relationship exists between elderly activities of daily living and their social support and anxiety. Notably, an inverse relationship exists between elderly anxiety and factors such as health promotion and self-esteem. The emerged model in this study could serve as valuable tool for nurses in enhancing nursing care aimed at promoting the psychological-well-being and occupational health among the elderly.     

The Impact of Globalization on Teacher Education: The Philippine Perspective

This qualitative study is an attempt to describe how administrators, teachers and researchers in a select group of teacher education institutions (TEIs) in the capital of the Philippines collectively view globalization. Specifically, concepts of a globalized teacher education, impact of globalization in teacher education, and problems of teacher education in the context of globalization were the delineated factors investigated in this study. A total of 23 respondents comprising 13 university teachers, 6 deans and 4 educational researchers were asked to participate in an audio-taped interview and written responses. Data yielded by the interview were transcribed and categorized based on saliency, meaning and homogeneity. Clearly, this study has disclosed efforts initiated at both pre-service and in-service education levels in response to the challenges of globalization consistent with the collective view of the various sectors. This research segment is part of a research project submitted to the Asia-Pacific Education Policy Research Initiative/KEDI (AP-EPRI/KEDI) and funded by the World Bank/GDN.     

Race is nowhere and race is everywhere: narratives from black and white South African university students in post‐apartheid South Africa

This paper examines the life history narratives of a group of 12 black and white male and female undergraduate students at a historically white Afrikaans medium university, now undergoing its own transformation in post‐apartheid South Africa. Conceptualizations of identity and discourse across four elements of context, setting, situated activity and self are employed to examine their accounts. Three framing discourses, comprising the official storyline of a rainbow nation and new higher education policies, the formal storyline of institutional change, and the informal space of relationships and interactions are used to analyse student narratives in terms of how they produce, reproduce and transform race and identity. What emerges is a complicated picture in which identities cannot be simply read off either from the official discourse or from colour and culture as the levels of discourse articulate and collide with a history of racial separateness and context and setting, with particular identity effects.

What varieties of men and women now prevail in this society and in this period? And what varieties are coming to prevail? In what ways are they selected and formed, liberated and repressed, made sensitive and blunted? (Mills, 1959 Mills CW (1959) The sociological imagination (London, Oxford University Press) [Crossref] [Google Scholar], p. 7)     

Can students within higher education learn to be resilient and,educationally speaking,does it matter?

This paper presents a critical appraisal of resilience and its associated concepts within the context of higher education. It addresses wide‐ranging definitions of resilience, encompassing endurance and adaptability, and seeks to understand how these definitions impact on the learning experiences of students. As theoretical and empirical work on resilience has burgeoned in terms of adolescent experiences of education, the rise of interest has not been matched by that in studies of adult learning, particularly within university settings. This is despite the growing importance of retention studies, which have clear and important links to how well students manage their learning ability in adversity. Realization of the potential embodied in this concept to alter for the better, together with ways of conceptualizing learning and teaching, however, will remain constrained unless teachers within higher education pay attention to the resilience narratives that individual students present, and how teaching strategies can affect their learning trajectories. The paper examines some factors that impact on students’ learning within higher education, and theorizes how teaching and assessment may be adapted to promote resilience in all its forms.     

Correction to: Cultural divides in acceptance and continuance of learning management system use: a longitudinal study of teenagers

Educational technology research and development - In the abstract, the second “FG” in the sentence below should be “SG”: The sample was classified into three cultural...     

Production blocking in brainstorming arguments in online group debates and asynchronous threaded discussions

Educational technology research and development - Online group debates hosted in asynchronous threaded discussions can facilitate critical thinking between discussants (and increase deeper...     

How do tutors use data to support their students?

ABSTRACT

Despite widespread enthusiasm, evidence of the effectiveness of learning analytics remains mixed. One possible explanation for this is that insufficient attention has been paid to the contexts in which it is introduced. We report here on a small-scale study into the prior use of data and communications technologies by tutors, who comprise a key user group in The Open University’s tuition model. Tutors interviewed reported using a complex set of data sources and information tools, and creating local/personal tools and methods for keeping track of students and their interactions with them.