The reform of post‐16 education and training and the lessons from Europe

Abstract

With the future shape of Britain's post‐16 education and training still undecided policy makers are increasingly looking abroad for new models to follow. The educational debate has become internationalized. As in the late 19th century it is the pressure of economic competition from Europe which has galvanized British interest in the relative ‘success’ of training in countries such as France and Germany.

This paper examines the current use and misuse of comparative examples in British debates over reform. It analyses the systems of vocational education and training (VET) in France, Germany, and Sweden and assesses what lessons, if any, we can draw from them for the reform of British VET.     

比较教育研究在全球化时代的意义和作用

本文缩编自格林教授的一篇早期论文①,旨在提炼其有关当代比较教育研究的理论与观点,以期对改善和提高我国比较教育研究的质量和水平有所助益。本文主要聚焦三个问题:全球化如何改变着教育?因全球化而引发的教育变革对比较教育有何启示?比较教育研究如何做到真正意义上的比较?     

如何随时随地和别人交谈

I never wanted to be anything but a broadcaster, a talker. And for 40 years, I＇ve been doing just that. To me, the ability to talk well is one of the great pleasures in life and can bring with it some of life＇s greatest rewards, I＇m not saying it＇s always easy. The vast majority of people would rather jump out of an airplane without a parachute than sit next to someone they＇ve never met at a dinner party. But the more you work at it, the easier it will be. To get you started, here are my five basic ingredients for learning how to talk to anyone, anytime, anywhere.     

The Enjoyment of Formal and Informal Recreation and Leisure Activities: A comparison of school‐aged children with and without physical disabilities

Despite the fairly extensive literature on the developmental benefits of youth's participation in organised, out‐of‐school activities, little is known about the participation of school‐aged children with physical disabilities in formal recreation and leisure activities, both in comparison with their participation in informal activities and with children who are typically developing. Enjoyment of formal and informal activities was examined for 427 children with physical disabilities and 354 children without disabilities, aged 6–14 years. It was predicted that children without disabilities would report significantly greater enjoyment of formal than informal activities, whereas this would not be the case for children with disabilities. This prediction was confirmed. Children with disabilities also participated in significantly fewer formal and informal activities, and participated in these activities less intensely than did children without disabilities. The mechanisms responsible for psychological engagement, enjoyment, and the developmental benefits of participation in activities are discussed, along with implications for research and clinical practice.     

The Bologna process and its impact on higher education at Russia’s margins: the case of Kaliningrad

Embracing the Russian Federation since 2003, the Bologna process is no longer exclusively confined to western European countries. As early as 1999, Vladimir Putin declared the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, wedged between Lithuania and Poland, as a potential pilot region for intensified cooperation between Russia and the EU on a number of policy areas, including higher education. In this paper, we study whether the Bologna process has served to underpin these ambitions. With a view to the EU, we will ask to what extent the European Union has proffered a model or directly influenced the path for transformation of Kaliningrad’s higher education system. We argue that a number of Kaliningrad-based actors in higher education have recognized the salience of European models and the need to work closely with partners from the EU, while Moscow only allows for marginal discretion in terms of Kaliningrad’s higher educational policy.

Exploring ‘learning lives’: community,identity, literacy and meaning

This article explores the term ‘learning lives’ by reporting on three research projects conducted by members of the Oslo‐based research group TransActions. By stressing the term ‘learning lives’ within a range of social ‘educational’ contexts, the article aims to look at learning within and across different learning sites exploring the positioning and repositioning of learner identity across these different ‘locations’. We emphasise how the individual learner relates to other people and objects, drawing on deeper trajectories or narratives of the self as it exists within and outside the immediate learning contexts. We pay attention to processes occurring between people which we find significant for the individual's identity, literacy and learning. By doing so we hope to make explicit the mobilisation of resources within and across specific contexts, in the ‘learning lives’ of Norwegian youngsters.     

Developmentally Effective Experiences for Promoting Self-Authorship

ABSTRACT—Many national studies have identified types of experiences that are associated with enhancing college students' learning. This study contributes to the small but growing body of research on transformative educational experiences that assist and enable college students to develop ways of understanding and being in the world that help them adapt and respond to life's complexities and prepare for future civic, occupational, and family roles. The focus of this exploratory study is on those experiences that had a positive impact on college students' development toward self-authorship ( Baxter Magolda, 2001 ; Kegan, 1994 ). Using interview data from the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education, we analyzed 300 selected experiences from 174 students. We found that students' approaches to interpreting and understanding their experiences was the major student characteristic that affected their learning (the effect of the experience). We then mapped these findings onto a sequenced developmental curriculum designed to promote self-authorship.     

Psychometric Characteristics of the Revised Procrastination Inventory

The Procrastination Inventory developed for use with doctoral students in clinical psychology was modified for use with ABD students and doctoral graduates in a College of Education. The original Procrastination Inventory contained 43 items with 11 subscales. The structure of the revised measure was analyzed both through factor and Rasch analyses and three subscales that were more generalized were found instead of the eleven originally posited. The three subscales were: (1) procrastination, 20 items, alpha = .88, (2) perfectionism, 9 items, alpha = .64, and (3) graduate school comfort, 6 items, alpha = .59. Eight items were deleted after Rasch and factor analyses, resulting in a 35-item scale. Validity was demonstrated by the measure's ability to predict dissertation completion and through correlations with related measures. The Procrastination Inventory is useful in the study of attrition from doctoral programs, particularly at the dissertation stage.     

Inviting Conversations? Dialogic difficulties in the corporate university

The paper experiments with, and reflects on, the limited possibilities for collaboration and communication across disparate groups within the university setting. The authors respond to the strong imperative to bring management, academics and support staff together, and so move beyond the entrenched positions and interests that those groups often display. They highlight the implications that this may have for collaborative academic publication. The text of the paper works as a research exercise in which each author's contribution constitutes data as well as providing reflections upon their own distinct identity and its consequences for communication in universities. The authors argue that attempts to enact ‘better communication’ is in many senses a failed project, but that it is this very fact which makes the experiment instructive. They conclude that calls to collaboration must acknowledge the fact that such relationships will always be relations of power, and are therefore not easily negotiated or understood.