Social issues

Rachel Theilheimer teaches early childhood education at Borough of Manhattan Community College in New York City. Emma C. Winger has just completed fifth grade at P.S. 84 in Manhattan.     

Assessment in special schools: national early assessment procedures and pupils attending special schools in England

An implicit assumption that fostering inclusion means having shared systems encompassing the needs of all children is evident in many aspects of policy development over the past decade. Reflecting this, the implementation of ‘baseline assessment’ schemes (i.e. testing at around age 5 years) is a statutory requirement on all state-maintained special and mainstream schools in England since 1998. Our argument is that the enthusiasm for commonality has obscured the need to question the value and validity of baseline assessment schemes for children with special educational needs (and possibly some others such as children having English as an additional language). We illustrate this position with reference to data from our recent study on baseline assessment in England. The study encompassed survey data from a national sample of 982 schools, of which 107 were special schools. Between them, these special schools used 42 different baseline assessment schemes. Comparisons between our mainstream and special school respondents indicated that there were similarities in the nature and perceived value of the schemes used. However, special schools were less satisfied with their schemes. We suggest that a reappraisal of the nature and purpose of baseline assessment for pupils with special educational needs warrants greater critical debate. Without this, there is a danger that a stress on commonality, veiling an inclusion orthodoxy, will ultimately be counterproductive.     

Gender positioning in teacher education in England: New rhetoric,old realities

This article presents data from a series of life-history interviews with female student teachers of physical education. The intention is to forge links between the experiences of female student teachers, and their 'gender positioning' within the micro-politics of teacher education and the wider discourse that informs these interactions. On first entering teaching these women tended to adopt or enter 'survival mode', which endorsed particular professional identities that were consolidated by a form of instrumental rationality. These professional identities were closely tied to conventional conceptions of masculinity, and legitimated and contributed to, the reinforcement of particular gender inequalities in teacher education. The analysis suggests that a liberal discourse of equal opportunities masks the institutionalisation of social 'otherness' and inequality and supports the 'essentialisation' of male and female identities.     

Helping the One You Hurt: Toddlers’ Rudimentary Guilt,Shame, and Prosocial Behavior After Harming Another

This study explored the role of guilt and shame in early prosocial behavior by extending previous findings that guilt‐ and shame‐like responses can be distinguished in toddlers and, for the first time, examining their associations with helping. Toddlers (n = 32; M_age = 28.9 months) were led to believe they broke an adult's toy, after which they exhibited either a guilt‐like response that included frequently confessing their behavior and trying to repair the toy; or a shame‐like response that included frequently avoiding the adult and seldom confessing or attempting to repair the toy. In subsequent prosocial tasks, children showing a guilt‐like response helped an adult in emotional distress significantly faster and more frequently than did children showing a shame‐like response.     

Now I am NObody,see me for who I am: the paradox of performativity

This paper draws on data collected from young white middle class women experiencing eating disorders to highlight what we refer to as the paradox of performativity in schools. In interviews with these young women on their schooling experiences, their narratives convey both a critique of the social conditions of their schooling and their subjugated subjectivities, yet claim they are unable to ‘voice’ that critique within schools, or to resist performativity. In this paper, we explore this ambiguity and the implications it has for the subjectivities of young women. Such stories vividly reveal the painful and complex processes they endure in an effort to conform to performative cultures. The limits and possibilities of their ‘voice’ within these contexts, we suggest, reveals how performative discourse intersects with and is mediated by the embodied knowledge that both teachers and students bring to these educational encounters.     

The body made flesh: embodied learning and the corporeal device

Over recent years there has been growing appreciation of the body’s corporeal significance in how children learn in educational settings. ‘The body’ has been conceptualised from a variety of perspectives that we characterise as: ’the body without flesh’, ‘the body with fleshy feelings’ and ‘the body made flesh’. We reflect on these perspectives with reference to the model of embodied action used in our ongoing research on relationships between education and disordered bodies, outlining what they might differently offer in terms of understanding body/mind/culture relationships. We suggest that Basil Bernstein’s notion of the ‘pedagogic device’, when reworked around the concept of a ‘corporeal device’, may provide one way of better conceptualising such relationships avoiding some of the fault lines and dualistic thinking inherent in other perspectives. If, as sociologists or school practitioners, we are to address the agency of ‘the body’ in cultural reproduction and better understand how the corporeal realities of children influence their sense of position, value and self, then we will need to deal with both the ‘physical’ and the ‘phenomenal’ universes of discourse, and the ‘somatic mediations’ of lived experience. This will mean giving as much attention to the biological dimensions of embodiment as its discursive representation currently receives.     

Normative cruelties and gender deviants: The performative effects of bully discourses for girls and boys in school

Since the 1990s the educational community has witnessed a proliferation of ‘bullying’ discourses, primarily within the field of educational developmental social psychology. Drawing on ethnographic and qualitative interview data of primary and secondary school girls and boys, this article argues that the discourse ‘bullying’ operates to simplify and individualise complex gendered/classed/sexualised/racialised power relations embedded in children's school‐based cultures. Using a feminist post‐structural approach, this article critically traces the discursive production of how the signifiers ‘bully’ and ‘victim’ are implicated in the ‘normative cruelties’ of performing and policing ‘intelligible’ heteronormative masculinities and femininities. It shows how these everyday gender performances are frequently passed over by staff and pupils as ‘natural’. The analysis also illustrates how bully discourses operate in complex racialised and classed ways that mark children out as either gender deviants, or as not adequately performing normative ideals of masculinity and femininity. In conclusion, it is argued that bully discourses offer few symbolic resources and/or practical tools for addressing and coping with everyday school‐based gender violence, and some new research directions are suggested.     

Invisible experiences: Understanding the choices and needs of university students with dependent children

This paper analyses the results of a research project on the experiences and learning needs of students with dependent children in a 1960s university. The findings are based on semi‐structured interviews with university services and academic staff, as well as a questionnaire survey among students with dependent children and follow‐up in‐depth interviews with a sample of 18 of these students. The paper shows that, for those surveyed, future employment opportunities and being a role model for their children were the main motivations for entering higher education and that their choice of university was highly spatially restricted by their caring responsibilities. It also discusses the main issues students faced once at university, including time and timing, finance, childcare, confidence, sense of belonging and skills. The paper highlights how gender and other biographical characteristics influence parents' experiences and includes suggestions for lessening the barriers they face while at university.