Education for transformation: an evaluative framework to guide student voice work in schools

In the context of neoliberal and neoconservative educational reforms, student voice work is faced with a number of potential difficulties in creating the conditions, skills and dispositions necessary for student empowerment. One of the key challenges is evaluating whether student voice initiatives are effective, relevant and transformative. Through a systematic literature review of contemporary student voice literature from the past 10 years, the article proposes an evaluative framework to measure the extent to which student voice contributes to socially transformative educational practices in primary and secondary schools This framework suggests that transformative voice work should be dialogic, intergenerational, collective and inclusive, and transgressive. It argues that the interaction of these four themes forms a set of principles or building blocks which collectively underpin transformative student voice work. The purpose of such an evaluative framework is not to provide a normative benchmarking tool, but rather, to serve as a reflective dialogical tool that could guide teachers and students towards genuine transformation of institutional structures and individual practices as well as informing policy makers, practitioners and researchers.     

Participatory capital: Bourdieu and citizenship education in diverse school communities

A priority toward creating ‘active’ citizens has been a feature of curricula reforms in many income-rich nations in recent years. However, the normative, one-size-fits-all conceptions of citizenship often presented within such curricula obscure the significant differences in how some young people experience and express citizenship. This paper reports on research that explored the citizenship perceptions and practices of New Zealand social studies teachers and students from four diverse geographic and socio-economic school communities. Attention was drawn to the scale of their citizenship orientations and participation (local/global). Drawing on Bourdieu’s conceptual triad and his species of capital in particular, the author posits that the differences observed between school communities can be usefully explained by a concept of participatory capital. The paper concludes with some reflections on the implications for young people who fail to access the ‘symbolic’ global participatory capital associated with much contemporary citizenship education.     

Negative Jealousy-Related Emotion Rumination as Consequences of Romantic Partner,Cross-Sex Friend,and Sibling Jealousy Expression

Negative jealousy-related emotion and rumination are examined as consequences of a close relational partner's jealousy expression. Specifically, relationship type (i.e., sibling relationships, cross-sex friendships, and dating partners) and three of Guerrero et al.'s (1995 Guerrero , L. K. , Andersen , P. A. , Jorgensen , P. F. , Spitzberg , B. H. , &; Eloy , S. V. ( 1995 ). Coping with the green-eyed monster: Conceptualizing and measuring communicative responses to romantic jealousy . Western Journal of Communication , 59 , 270 – 304 . [CSA] [Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) forms of jealousy expression (i.e., distributive communication, integrative communication, and negative affect expression) are compared according to negative jealousy-related emotion and rumination following a hypothetical partner jealousy expression situation. Siblings and dating partners reported experiencing more intense negative emotion than cross-sex friends after partner jealousy expression. Further, participants reported ruminating more after their partners used distributive communication compared with integrative communication or negative affect expression to express jealousy. Emotional intensity did not vary according to type of jealousy expression and rumination did not vary with regard to relationship type. Practical and theoretical implications for the study of negative emotion, rumination, and partner jealousy expression are discussed.     

Serial Argumentation Goals and Their Relationships to Perceived Resolvability and Choice of Conflict Tactics

The present study utilized a scale that measured Bevan, Hale, and Williams' (2004) serial argumentation goals and associated these goals with the perceived resolvability of the serial argument and serial argument conflict tactics. College students reporting on current and former dating partnerships completed a written survey containing close-ended items. Six of Bevan et al.'s (2004) ten original goals again emerged from data analyses, and the four remaining goals combined to form a single goal. These seven serial argument goals were related to perceived resolvability and conflict tactics in generally expected ways.     

Dumbing Down America: The War on Our Nation’s Brightest Young Minds (And What We Can Do to Fight Back). Delisle,J. (2014)

A study was conducted to assess the levels of moral development in gifted adolescents. The participants attended a one month intensive summer institute in which they were administered the Defining Issues Test (DIT) which measures levels of moral development. The results indicated that the students received scores above the norm for their age range. Implications and further considerations for educators are discussed.     

Another Way on? A Search for an Alternative Path into Learning for People with a Learning Difficulty or Disability

This article explores alternative routes into further education, and the subsequent attainment of qualifications, for people who experience barriers as a result of a learning difficulty and/or disability. The two distinct avenues considered at the outset were the use of information technology (supported, where necessary, by adaptive technology) and the implementation of more flexible approaches to learning. Robert Bevan undertook the research reported here in a college in the East Midlands as part fulfilment of his MA (Action Inquiry) at Nottingham Trent University. As he engaged in more depth with students and their views via questionnaire and interview, this researcher began to construct a more subtle and student-centred map of the possibilities.     

An Analysis of Primary School Children's Accounts of Classroom Interaction

The ethogenic paradigm refocuses the attention of researchers on the capacity people have to make an account of their actions, their thinking and their experience. This capacity is deemed to be essentially human and therefore at the heart of research endeavours which seek to understand the nature of man. The process of accounting, then, becomes a central concern both in terms of an analysis of the process itself, and in terms of the knowledge people have of the social worlds of which they are members.

This paper is about the social world of childhood, as told to me by a group of primary school children with particular reference to their accounts of life in the classroom. The children reveal a complex knowledge of the rules of social interaction. They are aware of rules relating to their membership in the culture of childhood, the rules of adult culture, in which they experience partial membership, and the rules relating to interaction between these ‘cultures’. Their dual membership in childhood and adult cultures influences their interpretation of teacher behaviour and their interpretation of the process of education. Much of their talk revolved around interactions which explored and confirmed the existence of these various sets of rules. Knowing how to be competent members of the classroom (in terms of both the teacher's agenda and their own agenda) was a primary concern of these children, and teachers who prevented such competence by changing or breaking the rules were treated to reciprocal disruptive behaviour. At the same time the children were capable of playing with and merging these rule sets to create humourous and aesthetic moments in the classroom. Furthermore, because they constantly explored the dimensions of the rules operating in any one situation, they were able to cope with a variety of teachers who had different conceptions of the rules of teacher‐pupil interactions and of the educational process.