Governmentality and the Sociology of Education: Media,educational policy and the politics of resentment

This paper argues that theorizations of the state which are sensitive to both its durability and its permeability, and theorizations which can account for the massive interconnections between local and global forces as well as different material and discursive sites are missing from contemporary work in the sociology of education. Drawing on Foucault's notion of 'governmentality' as a key resource for addressing this impasse, the authors highlight the constant fabrication of racial identity through the production of the pure space of racial origins or 'resentment'—the process of defining one's identity through the negation of the other. This dynamic, the article maintains, now informs key discourses both in popular culture and education. The authors conclude that these processes operate in tandem in the prosecution of the politics of racial exclusion in our times, informing key policy debates, including those around affirmative action and bilingual education.     

Keeping their attention: Classroom practices associated with behavioral engagement in first grade mathematics classes in China and the United States

This study investigated variation in students’ behavioral engagement across mathematics classes in China and the United States. Student behavioral engagement was examined along with two aspects of the classroom (group size and teacher instructions given about classroom behavior). Video observational data were collected and coded over 1051 time intervals in 35-minute mathematics sessions in Chinese classrooms (n = 8) and comparable American classrooms (n = 7). Latent growth analyses revealed that overall, behavioral engagement declined over time, although the drop-off was dramatically sharper in American classrooms relative to Chinese classrooms. In addition, larger group size and the timing of teacher instructions (given before versus after the behavior) were significantly associated with increased engagement. This study revealed compelling cultural differences as well as patterns in student and teacher behaviors associated with students engaging in on-task behaviors in the classroom. Implications for ways to promote effective classroom behavior are discussed.     

In Transition: Experiences of Parents of Children with Special Needs at School Entry

Pre-school children with special needs face a complex transition to school, requiring additional administrative, social and educational support. In this study, parents of 40 children with special needs reported on the transition to school experience of their 4–6-year-old child. They completed a measure of impact of the child’s disability on their family and an assessment of the quality of services experienced. Individual, semi-structured interviews contextualized these evaluations. Twenty children (pre-transition) were in preschool; 20 had already started school (post). Post-transition parents reported less average disability impact on family, generally lower perception of quality of care than pre-transition ones, and long waiting periods for school-based support. Most parents, however, reported satisfactory linkages between prior-to-school services and school. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that, despite the current climate of support for early child development, barriers for satisfactory transition to school still exist, and are largely due to low effectiveness of existing policies.     

The Effects of Instruction on Students' Generation of Self-Questions When Reading Multiple Documents

The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of instruction on students' generation of questions when reading multiple documents. Participants were 151 undergraduate students who were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: a treatment condition that received question generation instruction and a control condition that did not receive question generation instruction. All participants read four primary-source documents and were asked to generate up to 10 questions based on those documents. Results indicate that students generated significantly fewer higher-order integration questions without instructional support. These results are replicated with an alternative document set to demonstrate that the effects found were not due to the specific historical topic.