Inviting discomfort: foregrounding emotional labour in teaching anthropology in post-apartheid South Africa

This article examines the potential and limitations of Megan Boler's ‘pedagogy of discomfort’ in a post-apartheid yet heavily racialised South Africa. Taking an ‘ethnographic sensibility’ to anthropological teaching, this paper sketches the social and historical context of discomfort produced by everyday classroom practices at a historically privileged university. This paper argues that new patterns of thought, if achieved at all in the course of learning through ‘discomfort’, are deeply embedded within uneasy social relationships.     

Combining Reflective Logs with Electronic Networks for Professional Development among Distance Education Tutors

The provision of a professional development programme for distance tutors can be problematic because of the need for flexibility to cater for a variety of working practices, or to overcome the hurdles imposed by geographical remoteness. At the UK Open University, online networks are widely in use for teaching and learning, and we are actively exploring their potential for professional development. This paper describes the Supporting Open Learners in A Changing Environment project, which has piloted a reflective approach to professional development using a log to structure reflection, which is then shared with others in a computer conference. Our evaluation of tutors’ perspectives of the project indicated that all participants found the experience stimulating and helpful for identifying and sharing issues of student support, although some found the process unexpectedly time consuming. We believe there is considerable potential for such an approach to networked reflection among distance tutors, provided the issue of tutor time can be addressed.     

Histories Beyond the Boundaries

Abstract

The paper outlines the origins of the author’s interest in sports history within the 1970s anti-apartheid sporting boycott and the parallel expansion of historical scholarship to incorporate social and radical histories. The place of sport in forming histories of empire and gender, as well as in cultural areas of memory, place, print culture, and consumption are canvassed along with observations on the future of sport history. In the light of the ‘paradox of play’ which simultaneously places sport at the centre and in the ephemeral margins of modern society, it is suggested there is no secure ground for this area of study.     

Teacher-as-knowledge-broker in a futures-oriented health and physical education

The concept of brokering is usually aligned with a business model of an intermediary helping the customer/client with their decisions/choices. As knowledge becomes increasingly accessible, and of varied origins, quality and veracity, the number of professionals engaged in knowledge brokering is simultaneously increasing. This paper considers if teachers should also regard themselves and become skilled as knowledge brokers. Set in the context of proliferating websites, blogs, products and services available for access/purchase by health and physical education (HPE) teachers and their students, questions about what is knowledge, where it is generated and how it is filtered and evaluated are raised as a prelude to suggesting that it may be time for HPE teachers to act as effective knowledge brokers consistent with the pressures and practices of neoliberalism.     

An evaluation of evaluation

Conclusion The present evaluation procedures are useful if looked at as secondary data; if they are seen as broad and essentially complementary to the main business of schooling — student learning, and not as the primary outcome of schooling.When they are seen as direct or primary representations of the quality of programs, they are fraudulent and misleading. Moreover, they are dangerous to the humanistic image of man and our evolving understanding of the learning process.It is the heightening of this danger, currently being fostered by federal grant programs, accountability movements, industrial focus, and the national testing program, that makes it crucial to take a stand, now.We who are engaged in schooling activity are being made over by the pressures of our contemporary milieu. As I see it at present, the evaluation signs of the times can only lead, in the long run, to a process whereby we shall become middlemen technicians in schools that perform a service-training function.Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of North Carolina (Greensboro).     

A cross-cultural investigation of the use of teaching styles

Teacher beliefs are a major influence on teacher actions. Because context influences beliefs, it was the purpose of this study to explore teachers' beliefs about Mosston's Spectrum of Teaching Styles from an international perspective. Over 1,400 teachers from 7 countries completed a survey related to their self-reported use of and beliefs about various teaching styles. Data suggested a shared core of reproduction teaching style use. The use of and beliefs about the production styles of teaching were more varied. Teachers' use of styles was significantly related to their beliefs about the styles.