Policy enactments in the UK secondary school: examining policy,practice and school positioning

This paper presents a first attempt in an ongoing research study of the policy environments in four UK secondary schools to examine policy enactment, where ‘enactment’ refers to an understanding that policies are interpreted and ‘translated’ by diverse policy actors in the school environment, rather than simply implemented. The paper is divided into two parts. The first part presents an audit of the policies encountered in four case study schools in the south‐east of England. The second part looks at one current English government policy, namely personal learning and thinking skills, and how this is taken up in two of the case study schools. In this way, the paper not just explores why a policy is adopted but also illustrates the capacity for school‐based policy elaboration, where schools produce their own ‘take’ on policy, drawing on aspects of their culture or ethos, as well as on the situated necessities.     

Look closer: the alertness of people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities during multi-sensory storytelling,a time sequential analysis

Introduction: Multi-sensory storytelling (MSST) is a storytelling method designed for individuals with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMD). It is essential that listeners be alert during MSST, so that they become familiar with their personalised stories. Repetition and the presentation of stimuli are likely to affect the alertness of listeners during MSST. Previous studies have only examined the overall level of alertness during MSST. This study focuses on changes in alertness over time during storytelling. Method: In this study, 27 direct support people read an MSST book 20 times with a person with PIMD. The 1st, 5th, 10th and 20th storytelling sessions were recorded. The relation between alertness and the active presentation of stimuli is analyzed using a time-window sequential analysis. We examined changes in alertness levels by comparing the four different storytelling sessions. Results: Higher levels of active alertness were observed when stimuli were actively presented. Alertness was not constant within storytelling sessions, and was related to the presentation of stimuli. Actively presented stimuli were associated with larger fluctuations in alertness. Discussion: Storytellers should present stimuli actively and for longer periods, in order to increase the alertness of listeners during storytelling.     

The politics of teaching as an occupation in the professional borderlands: the interplay of gender,class and professional status in a biographical study of trainee teachers in England

A lack of esteem for teachers and the teaching profession is a central tenet underpinning policy reforms put forward by the 2010 UK Government White Paper ‘The Importance of Teaching’. This article argues that the policy problem and solutions presented in the White Paper lack awareness of the historical and social positioning of teaching. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 32 London-based secondary teacher training students from various social class and ethnic backgrounds, this paper asks how the profession is perceived and what sort of choice it is for the trainees. It employs a Bourdieusian lens and concepts of social and cultural capital to examine the interplay of gendered, classed and ‘raced’ biographies in relation to individuals’ decisions to become teachers. Understanding the social world as ‘accumulated history’, as Bourdieu does, stresses that experiences and outcomes are rooted and collected in a series of historical structures and functionings. The paper argues that the ambiguous status of the profession is both a function and an effect of its conceptualisation as feminised. It also asks whether the weak professional standing of teaching has further destabilising consequences in the present political moment where a string of neoliberal and neoconservative policy reforms reshape the profession.     

Predicting Students’ Skills in the Context of Scientific Inquiry with Cognitive,Motivational, and Sociodemographic Variables

Research on predictors of achievement in science is often targeted on more traditional content-based assessments and single student characteristics. At the same time, the development of skills in the field of scientific inquiry constitutes a focal point of interest for science education. Against this background, the purpose of this study was to investigate to which extent multiple student characteristics contribute to skills of scientific inquiry. Based on a theoretical framework describing nine epistemological acts, we constructed and administered a multiple-choice test that assesses these skills in lower and upper secondary school level (n?=?780). The test items contained problem-solving situations that occur during chemical investigations in school and had to be solved by choosing an appropriate inquiry procedure. We collected further data on 12 cognitive, motivational, and sociodemographic variables such as conceptual knowledge, enjoyment of chemistry, or language spoken at home. Plausible values were drawn to quantify students’ inquiry skills. The results show that students’ characteristics predict their inquiry skills to a large extent (55%), whereas 9 out of 12 variables contribute significantly on a multivariate level. The influence of sociodemographic traits such as gender or the social background becomes non-significant after controlling for cognitive and motivational variables. Furthermore, the performance advance of students from upper secondary school level can be explained by controlling for cognitive covariates. We discuss our findings with regard to curricular aspects and raise the question whether the inquiry skills can be considered as an autonomous trait in science education research.     

Conceptions of student talent in the context of talent development

This paper reports from a case study of a ‘talent class’, a special development programme for talented pupils, established in a Danish municipality. It analyses student backgrounds and motives for joining this talent class programme, which is seen in relation to ordinary schooling in Denmark. Drawing on Bourdieu, the paper links social background resources and success in school via the concepts of habitus and capital; it views talent as the product of an investment of time and cultural capital, which is easily accumulated by children of resourceful families. Based on the analysis and its discussion of school talent, the paper proposes a typology of talented students, encompassing the distinguished, the quiet, the versatile and the industrious students. For each type of talent, a student narrative illustrates the link between social backgrounds and student approaches and understandings of their own talents.     

Toward Effective Teaching and Learning: stories of primary schools'environmental science interest and action

This article provides some stories of primary school teachers' and students' experiences of implementing new science teaching and learning strategies through an action research process that have also led to more environmental education occurring in the schools' curriculum. The stories have been constructed from the coordinators' journals, observations and interviews with the teachers and students in the schools. The teachers in the schools are consciously engaged in an action research-based model of curriculum change in science teaching and learning. The stories also acknowledge the critiques of critical theory in environmental education and the possibilities for a socially critical approach in environmental education within a context of the limited opportunities for both science and environmental education in primary schools.