The impact of the first COVID-19 lockdown in the UK for doctoral and early career researchers

Higher Education - Doctoral researchers and early career researchers (ECRs) are crucial to producing scientific advancements and represent the future of academic leadership. Their research...     

French teachers' intentions to use accommodated materials in learning and assessment

The implementation of inclusive practices in mainstream education remains particularly difficult in the French context and is influenced by various factors including the types of disability labels, and the type of assessment practices that are used. Indeed, how student disability is labelled could impact teacher attitudes by notably disfavouring students labelled with autism. Moreover, normative assessment is strongly linked with selection at schools—a function that works against teacher attitudes towards inclusive education. This article reports on a study in which we examined teacher intentions to use materials accommodated to special educational needs students, as a function of special needs labelling. Specifically, this refers to the use of labels for either a disability or special educational need, in connection to tasks associated with learning or assessment. The results of our study revealed that, for both types of labels, the intentions to use accommodated materials are lower when teachers are asked to assess student competence than when prompted to teach this competence. These findings are discussed with consideration to the incompatibility between selection in schools—which is aligned with the principle of meritocracy—and efforts to promote inclusive education practices.     

Globalisation,modernisation and competitiveness: A critique of the new labour project in education

In this article, the author begins by examining the ubiquitous concept of 'globalisation' - a key theme of the New Labour Government. He question whether developments named as such are as widespread as proclaimed and whether the assumptions underlying the concept are misleading and occlude more than they reveal. The author concludes that, rather than 'globalisation' being viewed as a new epoch, the global movement of capital, which informs and underpins the globalisation thesis, might more accurately be described as an ongoing process, one which began 400-500 years ago. 'Globalisation', however, he suggests, is used ideologically to justify the New Labour programme, or the 'Third Way', which has two major anchors; competitiveness and modernisation. The former entails an economy in which everyone works, where the need for the untrammelled expansion of the free market is promoted as natural and inevitable and where there is the requirement for flexibility in the labour market and for low wages, in the context of the diminution of the welfare state. Since Keynesian demand management has been abandoned, one of the few strategic levers available to the New Labour Government to achieve these ends is to police the education and training of the workforce in the economy and in the educational market-place. This is all carried in the spirit of the 'essential modernisation' of British capitalism.     

Conductive Education: towards an 'educational model'

Caroline Coles, Headteacher of Horton Lodge School in Staffordshire, and Liz Zsargo, Lecturer in Conductive Education at Keele University, consider the development of Conductive Education (CE) in the UK, and place it in the context of some of the sociological analyses of disability. They argue that CE can provide the basis for an educational model of disability (in which disability is seen as a result of a complex interaction between the environment and the individual), that all children have the right to an education suitable for their needs, and that a lack of access to an appropriate education can be a disabling factor.     

A praxeological perspective for the design and implementation of a digital role-play game

This paper draws on an empirical work dedicated to discussing a theoretical model for design-based research. The context of our study is a research project for the design, the implementation and the analysis of Insectophagia, a digital role-play game implemented in secondary schools. The model presented in this paper aims at conceptualizing researchers’ and practitioners’ relationships with the notion that knowledge development takes place at a meta-didactical level when the participants develop a shared practice and a shared discourse on practice (a common praxeology). This is done through collaboration and teacher-centered design of innovative learning settings. This model emerges from a double approach: (1) a literature review on collaborative research in education and, (2) an analysis of the verbal interactions of practitioners and researchers involved in the project. The study emphasizes the development of knowledge among participants. It also emphasizes the importance of knowledge brokering for filling the gap between research and practice and thus, for the adoption of digital technology by practitioners.     

Participatory concepts of multidisciplinary/professional working on an Early Childhood Studies degree course in the UK

This paper aims to explore democratic values in higher education pedagogies, as related to an Early Childhood Studies (ECS) degree course in an English university. It seeks to find out what constitutes a multi-disciplinary course from both student and tutor perspectives. It is contextualised by the concepts of participation embedded in the idea of multi-professional team work, in order to establish how these ideas could contribute a strong ethical focus to the concept of multidisciplinary study. The study was designed within the paradigm of participatory action research and findings suggest that, although students make links between different disciplinary discourses, tutors feel that their professional identity and knowledge can be constrained by the course structure. The paper suggests that more work needs to be done on the validation of early childhood courses to allow opportunities for multi-professional working to be modelled.