Learning through culture: seeking “critical case studies of possibilities” in the history of education

Abstract

In Radical Education and the Common School (2011), Michael Field and Peter Moss argue for a radical alternative to the failed and dysfunctional contemporary discourse about education and the school with its focus on markets, competition, instrumentality, standardisation, and managerialism. They argue that it is necessary, if we are to progress “social alternatives” in education, to construct micro-histories of schools that have developed as “real utopias” through radically revising their practice. They call these micro-histories “critical case studies of possibilities”. In To Hell with Culture (1963), the art educator and anarchist Herbert Read returned to a theme he had been exploring since the early 1930s – the purpose of education. For him, “education” implied many things, but he saw modern practice as “socially disintegrating”. Instead, Read offered an alternative to the dominant discourse about education under capitalism in the 1960s which would create “that collective consciousness which is the spiritual energy of a people and the only source of its art and culture”. To what extent was Read’s conception of education an ideal, a dream unfulfilled? Following Fielding and Moss this paper will seek to trace “critical case studies of possibilities” drawn from the past which reflect the fundamental connection identified by Read between school learning, “collective consciousness”, art, and culture.     

Science at the Crossroads? The Decline of Science in Australian Higher Education

The Australian Government has stressed the important role universities play in producing knowledge workers to service the needs of the technology-driven new economy. The massification of Australian higher education from 1989 rapidly increased the stock of university-educated people in all disciplines. Although university science enrolments also grew, analysis reveals both that the growth rate has been considerably less than the sector average, and that there has been a serious decline in the number of students being trained in the enabling sciences: chemistry, mathematics and physics. Recent Government policies are unlikely to reverse this critical decline.     

The Secondary School Prospectus and the Challenge of Special Educational Needs

There is an analysis of a sample of secondary school prospectuses with a focus upon special educational needs [SEN]. The background context is the Parent's Charter which promises information and choice, and the official governmental regulations for the content of the prospectus. The general analysis examines the prospectus in terms of its methodological status, quality of production, school policies, rules, uniform, extra‐curricular activities, examination results and staff qualifications. The SEN section first addresses the absence of school policy statements and explores the depiction of approaches, the nature of the SEN pupil, the pupil with physical disabilities, a textual analysis of schools’ SEN terminology and strategies for SEN.     

Beginning Elementary School Teachers and the Effective Teaching of Science

Journal of Science Teacher Education -     

Introducing technology education: Using teachers' questions as a platform for professional development

This paper explores the issues and concems identified by a small group of teachers implementing technology ideas using the national document,A Statement on Technology for Australian Schools (Curriculum Corporation, 1994a), represented in four key questions they posed as a result of reflection upon their existing ideas and practices, early in the study. These same issues and concerns framed their later experiences as the study progressed. The case study of one of the teachers is used, to illustrate how the teachers implemented technology education working from their own perspectives and tackling issues and concerns that made sense to them. By reviewing the teachers' own questions about technology implementation, it is becoming, clear that what may be important for professional development in technology education is related to the questions that the teachers themselves are asking about their own, beliefs and practices.     

Transnational Media Management: Western News Organizations’ Web Operations in China

In 2008, China surpassed the United States as the largest Internet market in the world. This study examines how four prominent Western news organizations respond to this new era of Internet publishing. A series of in-depth interviews with senior managers at The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Reuters, and The New York Times revealed how these news organizations serve Internet users in China through their Chinese-language Web editions—how they overcome geographic, language, cultural, and political barriers to explore this remote market. These cases demonstrate the viability of different operating models and the challenges and opportunities facing these media organizations as they manage transnational news operations in this seemingly lucrative market.     

Coaching efficacy research: learning from the past and looking to the future

Coaching efficacy (CE) represents the extent to which coaches believe they have the capacity to affect the learning and performance of their athletes, and the CE model details antecedents, dimensions and outcomes of CE. Based around the CE model, the present paper had two main aims. First, to present a comprehensive and critical review of the research underpinned by the CE model. Studies were categorised by whether they investigated antecedents, outcomes or athletes’ perceptions of their coach. Twenty-one published studies were identified for the review. Overall the review provides support for the main tenets of the CE model, with researchers establishing links between CE and many of the antecedents and outcomes proposed in the model. The second aim was to assimilate findings from the review, limitations in the CE model and relevant conceptual models to present a revised CE model. Whilst retaining the essence of the original model, the revised model also incorporates explicit processes linking coach beliefs and athlete perceptions, antecedents of athlete perceptions and an intrarelationship source of CE. It also incorporates specific categories of coach behaviour and athlete-/team-level outcomes. The paper concludes by identifying limitations in the literature and review, and by proposing key directions for future research.     

The Development of the Olympic Narrative in Chinese Elite Sport Discourse from Its First Successful Olympic Bid to the Post-Beijing Games Era

Abstract

As a phenomenon exogenous to China, the Olympics have been proactively interpreted in the local context since China’s entry (and subsequent re-entry in 1984) into the Olympic movement. With China’s increasing involvement in promoting three bids to host the Olympic Games, two of which were successful, respectively, in 2001 and 2015, the nature of the discourse of key stakeholders in relation to Chinese elite sport has both reflected and reshaped the meaning of the Games to Chinese elite sport. This paper examines the discursive construction process of the Olympics in the Chinese elite sport system by key stakeholders through analyzing statements of political figures on sport and Olympic phenomena, Chinese elite sport policy documents, and the commentaries of leading Chinese sport academics. The analysis of discourse highlights two main features in the construction of the Games in official accounts during the period under investigation. The development of these two themes reflects the nature of the Chinese Olympic discourse, manifests the political power over the interpretation of the Olympics in Chinese context, and continues to characterize the on-going major themes in Chinese elite sport policy.