Sharing sociological stories: reflections on teaching sociology in prison

This paper reflects on an education programme aimed at addressing aspects of the diverse and disrupted educational backgrounds of women in a local prison. The programme, which has been primarily sociological in content, is designed to give participants some idea of what university education involves, but without any of its formal requirements. It has not run altogether smoothly. The problems encountered have prompted this reflection on the storytelling nature of the interaction between educator and participants, that is, on the narrative nature of both the lectures being given and the women's responses to them. This is explored in terms of Tennant's () notion of the situated self in adult education. It is argued that, where prison education is commonly a site of conflict between educational models aimed, at one limit, at correcting individual pathology and, at the other, at analysing oppressive social structures, the narrative approach adopted in this programme offers participants a middle way—an opportunity to reflect on the self in a way that locates their own experiences within wider social structures. The approach rests, however, on the ability of participants to construct narratives of their lives in relation to wider public narratives. It is argued that the different responses of young and older women to the programme (resistant and enthusiastic, respectively) may have arisen, at least in part, from their differential abilities to craft life stories in the context of the programme.     

Implications of the New Common Assessment Framework and Lead Professional Working for Pastoral Care Staff in Schools

The common assessment framework (CAF) and lead professional (LP) working are being introduced into all local authorities in the next 2 years as part of the Every Child Matters agenda. This article describes some elements of an evaluation of 12 pilot trials. It was found that schools and pastoral staff in particular played a major part in the trials. The majority of the research participants thought that this was a worthwhile initiative and examples were collected of successful implementation of the scheme. However, issues of missing skills, lack of time and limited practical support for staff in schools were highlighted. It is suggested that these issues may be magnified in the full-scale implementation of CAF and LP work. Considerable effort by pastoral staff and education managers will be required if this 'good idea' is to deliver improved outcomes for children in need.     

Phronesis in Musical Performance

ABSTRACT This paper suggests a much more serious purpose for an education in music-making than play or pleasure or even the training of professional musicians. It presents and explicates a possible connection between musical performance training and the development of practical wisdom. Music in performance constitutes in effect a form of virtuous conduct, where one learns through doing and thereafter comes to love and to be capable of wise practical judgement. Excellence in this field requires the exercise of a species of reasoning and judgement analogous to Aristotelian practical wisdom, and develops the distinctive qualities of character and vision of the practically wise person.     

Masculinity,Violence and Schooling: Challenging 'poisonous pedagogies'

ABSTRACT This paper has three major purposes. The first is to point to the connections between male to male, male to female and adult male to child physical and 'sexual' violence and such matters as masculinity, marginality, sexuality, intimacy and age. The understandings that arise from this discussion will be used to offer an interpretation of the connections between schooling and violence. In this context Alice Miller's ideas about 'poisonous pedagogies' will be applied to schooling. The second purpose of the paper is to identify the major orientations of mainstream, sociocultural and feminist anti-violence pedagogies and to offer an implicit critique of them, drawing from the ideas developed in the first section of the paper and from research about responses to gender reforms in schools. The third purpose of the paper is to identify the contours of an alternative anti-violence pedagogy. This will both draw from the above and from narrative therapy.