‘Active Citizens’: the case of school governors

ABSTRACT

This article reviews current and historical debates about active, participant citizens and related conceptions of citizenship. In particular it focusses on the prospects for the participation of citizens in the administration of public bodies. It discusses critically the notion of participative citizenship and active citizenship as articulated by Douglas Hurd (when Home Secretary) and also the version contained in the report of the Speaker's Commission on Citizenship. The article then draws upon research conducted for the Volunteer Centre, by the National Foundation for Educational Research and that by Brehony and Deem which is funded by an Economic and Social Research Council Grant (R000 23 1799), on voluntary activity and school governors, respectively. The applicability of the concept of active citizenship to the oversight of schools by school governing bodies is then considered alongside recent work in the United States. The article then considers the constraints upon active citizenship which prevent many governors from participating as much as the role demands and it ends with a reference to the tension between those who see governing bodies as an arena for democratic accountability and the active participation of citizens and those who view them principally as a means by which the local state is weakened and its functions increasingly transferred to the voluntary sector.     

Teacher Acceptability of Functional Assessment-Derived Treatments

This study examines whether teachers find a treatment clearly linked to a functional assessment more acceptable than treatments based on arbitrarily selected reinforcers. We randomly assigned 111 elementary school teachers to 3 experimental conditions. In all conditions, a problem vignette was read that included the same functional assessment summary but varied according to whether the treatment recommendation was linked to the assessment results. A one-way analysis of variance revealed significantly higher pretreatment acceptability ratings and likelihood of use for the treatment linked to assessment. Implications of these results for school-based consultation are discussed.     

Intellectual self-mutilation

[The] business man is generous to a fault, but one thing he does demand of all teachers and lecturers and journalists: if we're going to pay them our good money, they‘ve got to help us by selling efficiency and whooping it up for rational prosperity? And when it comes to these blab-mouth, fault-finding, pessimistic, cynical University teachers, let me tell you that during this golden coming year it's just as much our duty to bring influence to have these cusses fired as it is to sell all the real estate and gather in all the good shekels we can. Sinclair Lewis. Babbitt.     

Walanbaa warramildanha: The impact of authentic Aboriginal community and school engagement on teachers’ professional knowledge

The conundrum of Indigenous education in Australia is that there are multiple, highly contested and polarising narratives that vie to inform both public and policy debate about how to construct effective schooling of Aboriginal students. Two of these contested discourses, which are seen to drive much of this debate, highlight the complexity of concerns—one which is essentially aspirational in its intent but unperceptive to the realities of Aboriginal student achievement and a second data focused discourse that is managerial and evaluative in its focus to disclose policy and pedagogic failures on student outcomes. The first has posed the politically more palatable proposition that there has been a slow, sometimes faltering but inexorable improvement in Aboriginal education, while the second highlights a mounting body of qualitative data that document an overall failure by school systems to lift Aboriginal student education achievement. The author recognises the complex and historical nature of the multilayered ‘issues’ that sit at the heart of Aboriginal underachievement. He argues that one of those underpinning issues that has plagued Aboriginal education centres on the depth of the socio-cultural disconnect between Aboriginal students and their communities, and teachers. He also argues that, too often, teachers are appointed to schools with limited social, political and professional knowledge about the particular needs and aspirations of Aboriginal students such that it impacts on their capacity to establish authentic connections to students. The research on which this article is based sets out to provide an understanding of both the nature and dynamics of community and school engagement in sites with high proportions of Aboriginal students. The study aimed to investigate teachers’ capacity to develop authentic pedagogic practices that are responsive to the educational, cultural and aspirational needs of Aboriginal students. In particular, the research highlights how the relational dynamics between schools and Aboriginal people have been deeply affected by colonial histories of exclusion and systemic disadvantage, pervasive school discourses of marginalisation and in particular an ignorance about holistic needs of Aboriginal students at school and the resultant negative relational interactions between schools and Aboriginal families. This multisite ethnographic study was undertaken with Aboriginal community members, teachers and school principals in 2012 as doctoral research. It was conducted within a relational landscape characterised by an enduring socio-cultural dissonance between schools and their Aboriginal communities. The study focused on examples of authentic collaboration and purposeful interactions between Aboriginal communities and schools that were shown to support teachers in building deeper understanding that enhanced their cognisance of the wider needs of Aboriginal students. The findings in this article highlight that when authentic engagement between Aboriginal people and schools occurred, it appeared to positively impact the teachers’ professional knowledge and created a consequent interest within these communities to engage with their schools. The research further identified that in each site the Aboriginal participants articulated an interest in developing authentic school collaborations that would enhance student outcomes. These findings suggested that teachers need to honour, understand and actively reflect on community history, contexts and aspirations to develop the skills and knowledge to address the particular socio-cultural and educational needs of Aboriginal students.     

Opinion Versus Knowledge: The Influence of Testimony Format on Children’s Judgments in Morally Relevant Contexts

Research Findings: To test children’s use of testimony of others, 3 – 9 years (N = 227) made judgments about a potential peer transgression in which the intentions of the protagonist were ambiguous, after hearing two different forms of testimony. The 2 forms of testimony were (a) opposing opinion-based testimony from an adult authority versus a peer consensus group and (b) knowledge-based testimony (eyewitness testimony) that was counter to the participants’ initial judgments. Findings revealed that when testimony was presented in an opinion-based format, children were likely to side with the opinion that reflected their own interpretation of the peer encounter, regardless of whether the opinion came from a peer consensus or an adult authority. However, when knowledge-based testimony was introduced in support of the opposite of children’s initial interpretation of the ambiguous peer encounter, children most often changed their initial judgment to align with the new testimony. That is, children used knowledge-based testimony but not opinion-based testimony to evaluate a potential transgression. Practice or Policy: These findings demonstrate that the way in which testimony is delivered to children has a direct influence on their decision making about peer interactions and has relevance for teacher–student discourse in the classroom.     

Health informatics program design and outcomes: Learning from an early offering at a mid-level university

Curriculum development is particularly challenging in computing-related disciplines as the computing industry changes more quickly than most. As information technology degrees have become relatively pervasive, some institutions that offer information systems degrees have recognized a need to develop specialist studies in information systems. This detailed case study shows the forces related to a successful implementation of new Health Informatics degrees. The case describes both an unsuccessful and then a successful attempt at essentially the same curriculum development. Although the case includes some local political factors, these represent typical considerations that a curriculum developer is likely to encounter.