Recognising Women in Environmental Education Pedagogy and Research: toward an ecofeminist poststructuralist perspective

In the past, women have been overlooked in most environmental education programmes through being subsumed into the notion of ‘universalized people’. However, women have a distinctive contribution to make to environmental education pedagogy and research which needs to be foregrounded. This article reports on research into the gaps and silences present in policies, pedagogy and research in environmental education from a feminist perspective. This research has been inspired by feminist critiques of critical pedagogy and the potentialities of feminist poststructuralist methodologies. In particular I focus on the silencing of marginalized perspectives in environmental education policy development, as well as in research conducted from the perspective of the dominant positivist research methodologies, and argue for the possibilities for new directions when poststructuralist pedagogies and research methodologies are used in environmental education.     

Holiday Play for Children with Disabilities in England: Access,Choice and Parents’ Views about Integration

Families with children with disabilities can feel isolated during school holidays and concerns exist that they face greater difficulties than families of children without disabilities in finding enriching activities for their child. In the context of national policies that encourage integrated play, local service commissioners in England require evidence on what sort of short breaks parents and children prefer. The parents of 99 children with disabilities and 43 children without disabilities attending various holiday play schemes in summer 2010 completed mailed questionnaires. Parents of children with disabilities reported more difficulty getting information, less choice of schemes and further distances to travel than parents of children without disabilities. Although 72% of parents of children without disabilities and 55.5% of parents of children with disabilities stated integrated schemes would be suitable for their child, open text comments provided weaker support. Variety of provision is required to meet all needs and preferences.     

Doing without believing – enacting policy in the English primary school

ABSTRACT

This paper explores how six English primary school teachers enact assessment and attainment-focused policy and asks what this performative policy work does and whether it shapes or requires a new kind of primary teacher subjectivity. The paper draws on a small study of policy enactments in two primary schools in Greater London in order to discuss two dimensions of policy enactment that emerged from our data: first, shifting assessment regimes in primary schools which create an enactment environment of second-guessing policy; second, a shift in focus from the individual child to targeted groups that raises questions about more traditional primary school values. The paper concludes with a reflection on the effects of contradictory values and practices and how this policy context creates a form of ‘doing without believing’ in the English primary school.     

The Black Women’s Gathering Place: reconceptualising a curriculum of place/space

ABSTRACT

This article de-centres imperialist, capitalist, patriarchal traditions of critical approaches in Curriculum Studies via an examination of experiences shared at The Black Women’s Gathering Place (BWGP), a non-traditional space where a diverse, intergenerational group of Black women engage with each other through the sharing of stories. In the BWGP, we enact components of Pinar’s [2004. What is Curriculum Theory? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum] concept of currere, simultaneously re-entering our collective and individual pasts and re-imagining our futures in an effort to reconcile our public and private selves. Taking up tenets of Black feminist theory, theoretical framings of hidden curriculum, and components of Ng-A-Fook’s [2007. An Indigenous Curriculum of Place: The United Houma Nation’s Contentious Relationship with Louisiana’s Educational Institutions. New York, NY: Peter Lang] ‘Curriculum of Place,’ we reconceptualise a curriculum of place/space that negotiates dominant norms expressed in social environments. In this space, we validate traditional knowledges upheld in communities of Black women across the Diaspora. The BWGP allows us to argue for a re-presentation of extant knowledge by and about Black women.     

Headship as policy narration: generating metaphors of leading in the English primary school

ABSTRACT

This paper explores how doing headship may be considered as a form of policy narration. A key role of the headteacher as policy narrator is to tell/sell a story about their school to themselves, their staff and the outside world of parents, inspectors and other stakeholders. The accounts they construct will depend to some extent on their perspectives, commitments and personal-professional identities as well as an interplay between national priorities and situated contexts. They will also depend on who they are speaking to and what they take to be a ‘professional’ response in relation to their policy work in school. Drawing on in-depth interviews with two experienced English primary school headteachers, Hazel and George, and Lakoff and Johnson’s claim [1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press] that metaphors are not just linguistic devices, but technologies of reasoning and understanding, this paper explores the ways in which headteachers deploy different tropes to explain what it is that they do. Metaphors of leadership explored include headship as branding, persuasion and not dropping the ball as well as fighting and parenting although there is an absence of any direct political critique in these two accounts.     

Who benefits from dyadic teacher–student interactions in whole-class settings?

To what extent can teacher–student dyadic interactions modify the hierarchy of student performances within a single class? To answer this insufficiently researched question, the authors conducted two parallel studies involving 33 Grade 5 classes in France (759 students) and 15 Grade 5 classes in Luxembourg (243 students). Interactions were observed during whole-class lessons. Posttest scores were analyzed using multilevel models controlling for five level-1 variables and two level-2 variables. The authors did not find any effect of dyadic interactions on relative student performance in mathematics or in language (French or German), in France or in Luxembourg. This result is interpreted in terms of both the public character of dyadic interactions in whole-class settings and the class management functions of these interactions.     

Parent-child interaction as a dynamic contributor to learning and cognitive development in typical and atypical development / Influencia dinámica entre la interacción padre/madre-hijo y el aprendizaje y el desarrollo cognitivo en el desarrollo típico y atípico

Abstract

Converging evidence suggests that parent-infant interaction is one of the most crucial formative influences on child development. In neurodevelopmental disorders, however, different timings and trajectories of development may add a layer of difficulty to the existing challenges of dyadic interaction. The current study therefore set out to compare the specific aspects of dyadic interaction (i.e., responsiveness, directiveness, attentiveness, positive affect, liveliness, mutuality and engagement) between parent-infant dyads with Down syndrome, Williams syndrome and typical development. Video clips of parent-infant play interaction were rated using a validated tool, namely, the Social Interaction Measure for Parents and Infants. Significant effects emerged with respect to infant group on the quality of dyadic interaction, with the multiple comparison tests revealing differences between atypically and typically developing infant-parent dyads. The findings are discussed in relation to the effects of dyadic interaction on the linguistic and socio-cognitive development of atypical children.