Critical literacy: Beyond reason

In this paper, I argue that critical literacy is essentially a rationalist activity that does not sufficiently address the non-rational investments that readers bring with them to texts and tasks. I begin by looking at playful advertising texts that work with humour and the transgressive in order to consider the role of pleasure rather than reason. Then I examine the force of powerful identifications in relation to reason to show that educational interventions cannot ignore them. Finally, I tentatively suggest that we may need to find ways to combine socio-cultural and psycho-analytic theory in order to imagine new directions for pedagogy in the critical literacy classroom.     

Young children’s reading for pleasure with digital books: six key facets of engagement

This paper offers a new characterisation of young children’s (2–8 years) reading for pleasure (RfP) with digital books. This characterisation is rooted in a re-contextualisation of Anna Craft’s conceptualisation of twenty-first century childhoods in Creativity and education futures (Stoke on Trent, Trentham, 2011) and a review of the literature concerning young children’s RfP with digital books. The paper develops Craft’s (2011) work by considering the ways in which digital books can resource the ‘4Ps of digital childhood’ in reading for pleasure. Six facets of reader engagement, nested within Craft’s (2011) 4Ps, are presented: affective, creative, interactive, shared, sustained and personalised reading engagements. It is argued that this characterisation of young children’s reading engagements can enrich our understanding of the affordances of digital books in relation to RfP in the twenty-first century. The paper thus offers an important new contribution, going beyond established work in the field, which typically explores digital books in relation to children’s learning, product design or developmental outcomes.     

Teacher stance in creative learning: A study of progression

This paper reports focused findings from a qualitative scoping study undertaken in four sites in England focusing on progression in creative learning (PICL) (February 2005–January 2006), funded by Creative Partnerships, a national development programme. The study sought to explore how progression in creative learning can be described in two curriculum areas. The paper introduces the analytic framework which emerged from the study, and summarises some of the key findings, with a particular focus on teacher stance, taking this slice of analysis further than is done in the original research report and discussing in particular teachers’ attitudes toward creative learning and toward teaching for creative learning.     

Private Education in Poland: Breaking the Mould?

The burgeoning private sector is perhaps the most tangible of the changes in education which followed the upheavals of 1989/90 in Central and Eastern Europe. This article sets out to analyse the growth of private education in Poland and its contribution to the ongoing processes of democratisation and educational development. The authors argue that the euphoria of the period immediately following the overthrow of one-party communism encouraged unrealistic expectations of educational reform. Their analysis of private sector schooling in Poland suggests that its development has occurred in a haphazard fashion, reflecting the uncertainties of a society undergoing a painful process of transition. Symptomatic of this has been the failure to establish a clear regulatory framework for the private sector – an omission which has undermined the credibility of private schools. Nevertheless, the authors argue that the development of private sector schooling in Poland has brought diversity and a degree of innovation to a system previously almost devoid of either. There is now an urgent need for the evaluation and dissemination of private sector initiatives, which can serve as examples for future educational decision-making in Poland.     

The Adaptation of Chinese Split-Site Business Students to British Classrooms: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

Chinese business education differs from British business education in many respects. On the whole, it focuses on the acquisition of theoretical knowledge, whereas British business education places far more emphasis on soft management skills and team-work. This paper examines a split-site business degree program offered by a Chinese international school and a British business school, and explores the attitudes and expectations of the Chinese participants and their Chinese and British lecturers from an “English for specific purposes” perspective. The study conducted classroom observation, semi-structured interviews, and a questionaire survey, and identifies areas of difficulty for Chinese business students in the UK, in particular regarding their beliefs about teacher and student roles, their learning priorities and learning strategies, and their “goal-oriented” approach to discussion, which is at odds with the more collaborative and exploratory Western discussion strategies. The findings have implications for pre-sessional and in-sessional English course design, the management of split-site business degree programs, the teaching of Chinese students, and the enhancement of learning experiences generally in international business programs.     

Peace education and peace education research: Toward a concept of poststructural violence and second-order reflexivity

Peace and conflict studies (PACS) education has grown significantly in the last 30 years, mainly in Higher Education. This article critically analyzes the ways in which this field might be subject to poststructural critique, and posits Bourdieusian second-order reflexivity as a means of responding to these critiques. We propose here that theory-building within PACS education is often limited by the dominance of Galtung and Freire, and that, while the foundational ideas of positive and negative peace, structural and cultural violence, conscientization, reflexivity and critical pedagogy are still relevant today, they nevertheless need to be combined in new ways with each other, and with Bourdieu’s notions of habitus and field, to adequately respond to poststructural critique. Thus, we call here for greater field-based reflexivity in twenty-first century PACS.     

Approaches to learning,evaluations of teaching,and preferences for contrasting academic environments

Previous research has demonstrated that the academic environments provided by departments in higher education have direct effects on students' approaches to studying. But other studies have indicated that these effects are mediated by the students' own perceptions of those environments. Here two studies are reported which explore the relationships between approaches to learning, or study orientations, and perceptions of the academic environment. Those perceptions are measured in two distinct ways, one which minimises the effects of differential perceptions, and one which highlights them. Factor analyses of the responses of three groups of students taking engineering and psychology are used to clarify the nature of the relationships between study orientations and perceptions of the academic environment. It is found, as in earlier studies, that there are relationships which associate deep approaches with perceptions of relevance, and surface approaches with a heavy workload. But here it is also shown that students with contrasting study orientations are likely to define effective teaching in ways which reflect those orientations. Implications both for the design of feedback questionnaires and for the improvement of teaching and learning in higher education are discussed.     

Is There a Role for Executive Functions in the Development of Mathematics Ability?

ABSTRACT— This article examines the role of working memory, attention shifting, and inhibitory control executive cognitive functions in the development of mathematics knowledge and ability in children. It suggests that an examination of the executive cognitive demand of mathematical thinking can complement procedural and conceptual knowledge-based approaches to understanding the ways in which children become proficient in mathematics. Task analysis indicates that executive cognitive functions likely operate in concert with procedural and conceptual knowledge and in some instances might act as a unique influence on mathematics problem-solving ability. It is concluded that consideration of the executive cognitive demand of mathematics can contribute to research on best practices in mathematics education.