Templates,typologies and typifications: neoliberalism as keyword

ABSTRACT

Neoliberalism as a concept, ideology, or theoretical lens has emerged in the last couple of decades as a monolithic presence in education research, and the social sciences more broadly. We bring two aims to this Special Issue: to critique the rigour of neoliberalism as a theoretical framework utilised within education research; and second, to explore and propose an alternative to neoliberalism as a critical frame of analysis. This paper will postulate three-waves of neoliberalism, specifically ordo-liberalism, radical liberalism, and post-neoliberalism. We challenge ‘big-N’ neoliberalism; conceptualisations of neoliberalism as homogenous and monolithic; and, demonstrate how neoliberalism interacts with particular milieus of time and space. In reflection of Williams but also Foucault’s tracing of ‘discursive formations’, neoliberalism as a keyword points to a genealogy of power which requires further excavation. The notion of an assemblage, enabling mutations and contra configurations, may offer a way forward.     

Secondary school teachers’ perceptions of students’ problem behaviours

Much of the research into behaviour problems and school interventions has focused on primary school‐age children. In the primary school setting, the behaviours that cause the most concern to teachers are frequently occurring but relatively minor behaviours such as calling out and interrupting the learning of others. These minor problematic behaviours have been shown to respond to low‐level interventions that are presented as written advice. The behaviours that secondary school teachers perceive as problematic, and the preferred method of intervention, have received comparatively little attention in the research. An investigation of the behaviour problems that high school teachers find most troublesome was conducted in this study. It was found that similar behaviours were reported as troublesome in the secondary school classroom compared with the primary classroom, although differences were demonstrated across year levels. Teachers were also surveyed about their preferred method of intervention/assistance for these behaviour problems. This information about intervention approaches informs the development of strategies for assisting classroom teachers.     

Supporting students with Tourette syndrome in secondary school: a survey of staff views

Tourette syndrome is a neurological condition involving involuntary movements and sounds (tics) and is thought to affect as many as 1% of school‐aged children. Some young people with Tourette syndrome experience educational difficulties and social difficulties. Current clinical guidelines suggest educators can play an important role in maximising learning potential and reducing the negative impact of this condition on students' social adjustment. Secondary school staff (N = 63) with responsibilities for special educational needs or disabilities completed a survey about support strategies for students with Tourette syndrome. Participants were first asked to suggest potentially helpful strategies and then rated how easily 17 recommended strategies could be implemented in school. The survey participants suggested a range of support strategies that were categorised as (1) promoting knowledge and understanding in school, (2) helping the student to cope with his/her tics, (3) supporting the student's learning and (4) providing social and emotional support. All the recommended support strategies were rated as being easy to implement (or already in place) by the majority of respondents (e.g., increasing staff awareness and regular communication with home). The strategies that were identified as being least easy to implement were those requiring extra staff input (support from teaching assistants and individual/small group working). Additional challenges to providing support were also identified by the participants (e.g., getting input from outside agencies).     

Widening participation creatively: creative arts education for social inclusion

University participation among students from low socio-economic backgrounds in Australia is low and nationwide strategies are in place to help bridge the gap. This article presents a preliminary evaluation of a creative arts-based outreach program to raise awareness and aspiration for university study among students from low-income backgrounds. The program is part of a national Australian federally funded initiative, the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program. It reviews an outreach advertising program facilitated by a Brisbane university. We argue that arts education has a particular role in provoking attitudinal change, due to the self-reflective, meaning-making and expressive characteristics of arts-based disciplines. In evaluating the advertising program, the value of creativity and trust as techniques of student engagement is considered. Evaluation occurred in two outer suburban high schools in Brisbane (a State capital city), using surveys and ethnographic fieldwork. The findings support an engagement model that employs creativity and uses student facilitators (undergraduate and postgraduate) to deliver the program, to meet the program's aims.     

Selfies,relfies and phallic tagging: posthuman part-icipations in teen digital sexuality assemblages

Abstract

Inspired by posthuman feminist theory, this paper explores young people’s entanglement with the bio-technological landscape of image creation and exchange in young networked peer cultures. We suggest that we are seeing new formations of sexual objectification when the more-than-human is foregrounded and the blurry ontological divide between human (flesh) and machine (digital) are enlivened through queer and feminist Materialist analyses. Drawing upon multimodal qualitative data generated with teen boys and girls living in urban inner London and semi-rural Wales (UK) we map how the digital affordances of Facebook ‘tagging’ can operate as a form of coercive ‘phallic touch’ in ways that shore up and transgress normative territories of dis/embodied gender, sexuality and age. We conclude by arguing that we need creative approaches that can open up spaces for a posthuman accounting of the material intra-actions through which phallic power relations part-icipate in predictable and unpredictable ways.     

The impact of attaining the Welsh Baccalaureate Advanced Diploma on academic performance in bioscience higher education

Since the introduction of the Welsh Baccalaureate Advanced Diploma Qualification (WBQ) in 2003, an increasing number of students are applying to higher education institutions (HEIs) with this qualification. The advanced-level WBQ is regarded as equivalent to one General Certificate of Education A-Level (GCE A-Level). This study assesses the impact of attaining the WBQ in addition to three GCE A-Levels on overall university degree performance in comparison to attaining four GCE A-Levels, in three cohorts of undergraduate students (Year 1?=?318, Year 2?=?280, Year 3?=?236) studying Biosciences from 2005 to 2011 at a UK HEI. Binary logistic regression was used to compare the academic attainment of students who had achieved four GCE A-Levels to those who had achieved three GCE A-Levels in addition to the WBQ. Comparisons were also made between students who had achieved three GCE A-Levels and those who had achieved three GCE A-Levels in addition to the WBQ. The results suggest that students who achieved the WBQ qualification in its current form, in addition to three GCE A-Levels, performed less well academically in undergraduate studies than those who achieved four GCE A-Levels. Furthermore, this effect was still present when the balance between coursework and examination was considered, and when students who had achieved the WBQ in addition to three GCE A-Levels were compared to students who had achieved three GCE A-Levels.     

Where Do All the STEM Graduates Go? Higher Education,the Labour Market and Career Trajectories in the UK

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Problems with the supply of highly skilled science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workers have been reported by employers and...     

Raising standards in American schools? Problems with improving teacher quality

The quality of the teacher workforce is a subject of perennial concern in many developed countries. In the United States, through the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, the federal government has a mandate for reform of teacher education that is unprecedented in its scale. Essentially the Act demands that every teacher of core academic subjects must be deemed to be highly qualified in every subject they teach by the end of the 2005–2006 academic year. This paper considers the impact that NCLB's teacher quality mandate is having in US schools. By drawing upon school-level data for the state of California, we examine the progress that this state is making towards meeting NCLB's mandate and also the role that teacher quality can play as a determinant of school success. The findings suggest that overall California has a well-qualified and highly experienced teacher workforce which is relatively equitably distributed among the states’ institutions. On the other hand, the distribution of California's students appears to be less fair, with students from poorer homes and certain ethnic backgrounds being disproportionately represented in the state's least wealthy and least successful schools. In addition, the finding that it is student background factors rather than teacher quality characteristics that are the key determinants of school success, also brings into question the extent to which requiring teachers to improve their subject content skills will really help close the achievement gaps in California's schools.     

Body pedagogies,P/policy,health and gender

Schools within a ‘knowledge economy’ nurture and endorse particular ‘corporeal orientations’, that is to say, ascribe value, meaning and potential to ‘the body’ (particular bodies) in time, place and space. Such processes reflect wider (national and global) socio‐economic trends. In contemporary culture, these processes increasingly celebrate particular virtues—‘flexible identities’, the manifest aspects of ‘performance’ and ‘corporeal perfection’ (usually defined as ‘the slender ideal’). Calling on the voices of a number of young women (aged 11–18) the article illustrates how these processes can intersect to seriously damage some people's health, perhaps especially those of young women and girls. The analyses suggest that the expectations of a ‘knowledge economy’ relating to the body and health enter the school system through two forms of P/policy: ‘formal’, state‐sanctioned, usually legislated education Policy; and ‘informal’, mainly medical and health institution‐based, state ‘approved’ but non‐legislated, pseudo policy initiatives often merely reflecting expectations and pressures laundered through the popular media. Together, these P/policies define not only formal education but increasingly encode other aspects of school life, in effect, making ‘pedagogy’ everyone's concern, everywhere. The article highlights the relentless and inescapable nature of pedagogical activity in the Totally Pedagogised Micro Societies (TPMS) which schools have become.