Translations of new public management: a decentred approach to school governance in four OECD countries

Despite the prevalence of corporate and performative models of school governance within and across different education systems, there are various cases of uneven, hybrid expressions of New Public Management (NPM) that reveal the contingency of global patterns of rule. Adopting a ‘decentred approach’ to governance (Bevir, M. 2010. “Rethinking Governmentality: Towards Genealogies of Governance.” European Journal of Social Theory 13 (4): 423–441), this paper compares the development of NPM in four OECD countries: Australia, England, Spain, and Switzerland. A focus of the paper is how certain policy instruments are created and sustained within highly differentiated geo-political settings and through different multi-scalar actors and authorities yet modified to reflect established traditions and practices.     

Students' Understandings of Gravity in an Orbiting Space-Ship

We report on an investigation of students' ideas about gravity after a semester of instruction in physics at university. There are two aspects to the study which was concerned with students' answers to a carefully designed qualitative examination question on gravity. The first aspect is a classification of the answers and a comparative study of the ways the problem was tackled by two large groups of students who had different backgrounds in physics and were exposed to different teaching styles. The second aspect is to investigate how students link concepts to solve the problem. We used a phenomenographic analysis of student responses to extract patterns of reasoning and alternative conceptions behind the solutions. We found no differences between the classes of answers given by students in the two courses. Our analysis also identifies a hierarchy in the complexity of the hypothetical reasoning pathways, which we interpret as reflecting the ways in which students may link concepts and resolve conflicts as they solve the problem. The hypothetical reasoning pathways may help educators to develop instructional material or lecture room dialogue in order to tease out key issues. An unexpected finding is that there is a discrepancy between our conclusion that the two groups of answers are similar and the distribution of marks awarded by the examiner – which implies that the quality of the answers is different for the two groups.     

Now you’re making it up,brother: Paul Robeson,HUAC, and the challenge of institutional narrative authority

In the mid 1950s, the House Committee on Un-American Activities was a rhetorical colossus. Within the closed doors of a hearing, committee members displayed a rhetorical mastery of procedural, topical, and logical moves that left even the best-prepared witnesses sputtering. HUAC used institutional narrative authority as a major rhetorical resource. This strategy rhetorically produced a narrative “reality” conducive to achieving institutional goals. Having established the “official” version of events, the committee situated further argumentation within a value hierarchy that placed national security above “secondary” values that witnesses attempted to invoke in their defenses. A notable exception to the committee's rhetorical dominance came in the 1956 testimony of Paul Robeson, an African American singer and activist who had been called before the committee to answer for pro-Soviet statements he made while traveling abroad. Using a number of rhetorical tactics to disrupt the institutional narrative, Robeson was able to recontextualize his comments within an interpretive framework of racial justice in America – a debate the committee was less prepared to handle. This article contributes to ongoing studies of institutional rhetoric, especially rhetorical argumentation that takes place within institutional settings.     

Romanticism,representations of religion and critical religious education

Geoff Teece has recently (in BJRE, 27, 2005, pp. 29–40) come to the defence of modern religious education and contended that many of the criticisms brought against it are based on mistaken interpretations. More particularly, Teece accuses Andrew Wright of misinterpreting the position of Professor John Hick and of failing to appreciate the intellectual resources that Hick provides for the construction of a critical form of religious education. He attempts to correct Wright’s interpretation of Hick, and by extension to undermine Wright’s indictment of the influence of modernity on religious education; and he attempts to illustrate how Hick’s religious pluralism can make a contribution to discussions about critical religious education. The aim of this paper is to advance the case for critical religious education and to outline something of the form and nature it should take. It begins with a short discussion of the nature and commitments of modern religious education, indicating the sense in which they are deficient. It then moves on to consider Teece’s appeal to the thought of John Hick, which is judged to be misinterpreted and inappropriate. The paper concludes with the articulation of a set of four heuristic principles that give substance to the vision of critical religious education.     

Video diary: a method for exploring learning dispositions

This paper presents an innovative method for qualitative research in education. The video dairy technique was developed and used alongside other qualitative methods to map the socio‐cultural landscape of primary‐school children's learning dispositions prior to their transfer to secondary school. The larger project comprised a case study of a group of children transferring from one Year 6 classroom to their local comprehensive secondary school, with particular reference to their learning of mathematics. Theoretically framed by Pierre Bourdieu's sociological tools, the study explored the impact of three fields—school, family and peer group—upon children's learning dispositions and trajectories at this school interface. The alternative perspectives afforded by the diary entries highlighted the inter‐relatedness of the three fields of interest, often in ways that had not been anticipated or considered. I will explain practical aspects of the process and consider some of the challenges that might be experienced by researchers using video diary techniques.     

哥伦比亚大学:4+4扩展地址空间

我们在使用内核2．4．18的Linux操作系统下实现了4＋4。4＋4的源代码从公开渠道获得。在进行4＋4实现的过程中，一个核心目标就是对内核和应用程序的最小改动。因此，我们没有对内核本身进行任何改动，所有的4＋4功能都是通过内核模块以及相应的用户空间守护进程来实现的，这样，可以从一个运行的内核中自由地载入或卸载这些模块。由于我们的最小改动的实现，网络牺牲了一部分性能。     

Looking for leadership: the potential of dialogic reflexivity with rural early-career teachers

Many early-career teachers (ECTs) begin their teaching careers in rural and remote schools in Australia, and do not stay long, with consequences for their own lives, and for their students, schools and communities. By understanding how first-year ECTs navigate personal (subjective) and contextual (objective) conditions, opportunities to disrupt patterns of ECT attrition may be found. This paper explores the online longitudinal reflections from two rural ECTs. Margaret Archer’s three dimensions of reflexivity were used to analyse what personal, structural and cultural resources were activated by ECTs as they discerned and deliberated the costs of being a rural ECT. The potential for school leaders and mentors to support rural ECTs through dialogic reflexivity, that is the opportunity to discern and deliberate priorities with others, is identified as a role that is significant for ECT support but not straightforward. Prompts for dialogic reflexivity are proposed.     

Teaching poetry

The two articles which follow suggest ways in which teachers can encourage young readers to read poetry with greater pleasure and understanding. The articles complement each other, not least because Andrew Stibbs had a hand in both of them. The first piece discusses various approaches with illustrative detail; the second provides a list of suggestions.Andrew Stibbs taught in English secondary schools for fifteen years and is now a Lecturer in Education at the University of Leeds. He has published articles on English teaching and on children's literature (some of them inCle), poems, andAssessing Children's Language (Ward Lock Educational, for the National Association for the Teaching of English).     

Mobile phone use in two secondary schools in Tanzania

Mobile phone technology in Tanzania has grown rapidly but there is insufficient data on its application in schools. This paper aims to show how students in the first and third year (F1 and F3) teachers in two rural secondary schools perceived its use. F1 and F3 students completed a questionnaire. Teachers and students in F1 and F3 discussed the uses and misuses of mobile phones in separate focus groups. Although they served similar areas the two schools differed in students’ use – and awareness of misuse – of mobile phones. Most students had access to a mobile phone, but were not permitted to bring them to school. Few teachers could see a positive use for the technology in the curriculum. There is an urgent need for pedagogical resources to support the introduction of mobile technology into classrooms but equally it is crucial that any such introduction is through a process of engagement with the concerns of students, teachers and the wider community with frank discussion about both the dangers and the potential benefits of using mobile phones in learning.