Private Communication Between Students in the Classroom in Relation to Different Classroom Features

The aim of this study is to present an overview of communication patterns between students during ordinary lessons in a compulsory school system. The results, based on observations of 70 lessons, reveal that every lesson is filled with internal communication between students. Even if this interaction is mostly out of teachers’ conscious control, it is not random. The results do not provide any evidence to support an assumption that chatter between peers will increase in larger classes. The students’ participation in private interaction may to some extent depend on their position in the classroom. However, some factors of greater importance and highly relevant to peer interaction are the age of students (school level) and the form of work. The study demonstrates both the intensity of students’ private communication during ordinary lessons and also the relationship to some contextual factors. These contextual factors can be seen as educational means which teachers can use or misuse in their pupils’ ‘identity‐seeking process’. When teachers place children at different desks, and when they choose a special form of work, they are creating interactive arenas for their students. These arenas are important elements in the developmental setting which the school offers each individual child.     

Participation and participatory planning in educational systems

A conference on participatory planning in education was held in January of this year sponsored by the Country Educational Planning Programme of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Reporting and interpreting a wide range of country experience, the complete papers to this conference will be published in July, from which the following paper by Kjell Eide is drawn, with the authorization of the author and of OECD.Chairman of the Governing Board of the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation. Numerous publications in the field of educational planning and policy.     

The political economy of post-secondary education: a comparison of British Columbia,Ontario and Québec

A policy sociology approach is taken to examine the connections between neo-liberalism, post-secondary provincial education (PSE) policy in Canada and the impact of those policies. Our thesis regarding the broad political economy of PSE is that over the last two decades the adoption of this ideology has been a major cause of some dramatic changes in these policies and has brought about a fundamental transformation of PSE in Canada. The discussion builds on a comparative, multiple, nested case study conducted at the provincial (Québec, Ontario and British Columbia) and national level. Through the analysis of key provincial and federal documents, the team concludes that five themes dominated the PSE policy-making process. These themes are Accessibility, Accountability, Marketization, Labour Force Development and Research and Development. In discussing these themes, we illustrate their impact on and within the three provincial PSE systems: BC, Ontario and Québec. In the conclusion, we place the changes in their political and economic contexts and explicate the intended and unintended consequences of these policy priorities. We argue that the pressure for access has led to the emergence of new institutional types, raising new questions about differentiation, mandate and identity and new lines of stratification. A trend toward vocationalism in the university sector has coincided with ‘academic drift’ in the community college sector, leading to convergences in programming and institutional functions across the system, as well as competition for resources, students, and external partners. Unprecedented demand has made education a viable industry, sustaining both a proliferation of private providers and a range of new entrepreneurial activities within public institutions. Levels and objectives of public funding have swung dramatically over the period. Public investments in PSE, in the form of capital grants and tuition subsidies, have alternately expanded and contracted, being at some times applied across the board and at others targeted to specific social groups or economic sectors. Likewise, policymakers have treated PSE at times as a mechanism for social inclusion and equality, at others as an instrument for labour force development, and at yet others as a market sector in its own right.

Recurrent education policy in Sweden: A moving target

The initiative to establish a programme of recurrent education in Sweden arose from a government commission appointed in 1968. The idea received strong support from certain sections of the Swedish trade union movement, who saw it as a way of sharing the benefits of education more equitably among the population. The scheme, however, ran into opposition and was never implemented as a comprehensive strategy. In the 1980s, with the shift of emphasis towards the private sector and the rapid development of information technology, the idea of recurrent education reappeared, although not explicitly acknowledged as official policy. During this period there was a rapid expansion of courses sponsored by employers. Under the present government, recurrent education has ceased to play an important role in education policy. The author argues that these shifts in priorities illustrate how education, and especially adult and recurring education, acts as an arena for ideological struggle.

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Zusammenfassung Eine 1968 eingesetzte Regierungskormmission leitete die Aufstellung eines Programmes über periodische Weiterbildung in Schweden ein. Die Idee fand großen Anklang in verschiedenen Teilen der schwedischen Gewerkschaftsbewegung, die sie als Weg zu einer gerechteren Verteilung der mit Bildung verbundenen Vorteile unter der Bevölkerung ansahen. Der Plan stieß jedoch auf Widerstand und wurde nie als umfassende Strategie angewandt. In den 80er Jahren taucht die Idee periodischer Weiterbildung im Zuge der Änderung der Gewichtung zum pivaten Sektor hin und der schnellen Entwicklung der Informationstechnologie wieder auf, obwohl sie nicht ausdrücklich als offizielle Politik anerkannt wird. Während dieser Periode verbreiteten sich schnell von Arbeitgebern gesponsorte Kurse. Unter der gegenwärtigen Regierung spielt die periodische Weiterbildung keine wesentliche Rolle mehr in der Bildungspolitik. Der Autor argumentiert, dieser Wechsel der Prioritäten zeige, wie Bildung und besonders die periodische Weiterbildung und die Erwachsenenbildung als Arena für einen ideologischen Kampf diene.

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Résumé L'initiative d'instaurer un programme de formation permanente en Suède fut prise par une commission gouvernementale créée en 1968. L'idée fut fortement soutenue par une fraction du mouvement syndical suédois, qui voyait en elle un moyen de faire profiler plus équitablement la population des bienfaits de l'éducation. Le projet rencontra cependant des résistances et ne fut jamais réalisé en tant que programme général. En raison de l'accent donné davantage au secteur privé et de l'évolution accélérée des techniques de l'information, l'idée de formation permanente réapparut dans les années 80, sans pour autant devenir une mesure officielle. Cette période vit une expansion rapide de cours financés par les employeurs. Sous le gouvernement actuel, la formation permanente a cessé de jouer un rôle important dans la politique pédagogique. L'auteur démontre que ces changements de priorités illustrent que l'éducation, et en particulier la formation des adultes et la formation permanente, fait fonction de champ de bataille idéologique.

     

Editorial

This article focuses on evidence regarding cross-national patterns of participation in adult education and an interpretation of these patterns from an institutional and public policy perspective. The interpretation follows from the perspective that sustaining high and widely distributed levels of investment in the development and maintenance of skills over the lifespan of individuals is to a large extent interconnected with a high-level of non-market coordination via institutional arrangements and/or specific public policy measures. Such arrangements and measures are seen to alleviate coordination problems that otherwise lead to underinvestment in skills and/or inequity in the distribution of access to education and training and hence skills. Consequently, it is argued that institutional contexts and public policy measures condition participation patterns in adult education, and are thus worthwhile to understand better for the purposes of informing policy.     

Students’ Ability to Apply Their Knowledge in a Gaming Exercise: An Exploratory Study

This paper reports on a study exploring master students’ ability to apply their knowledge when solving an internal pricing problem in a supply chain. Analyses of 33 negotiation progress reports and 8 recordings of discussions demonstrate that most of the students were not able to apply relevant concepts and models to guide their handling of the task. The main reason for the variability in performance was the significant differences in the students’ general problem-solving abilities. Most students did not perform a thorough task analysis or develop a solution strategy before they met for negotiations, and they did not keep track of their task performance. The implications for teaching are highlighted, and directions for further research are proposed.     

The Global Report on Adult Learning and Education (GRALE): Strengths,weaknesses and future directions

International Review of Education - One of the core outcomes of the Sixth International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA VI) held in 2009 was the Belém Framework for Action (BFA). Its...     

Assessing the status of lifelong learning: Issues with composite indexes and surveys on participation

International Review of Education - A quick review of national policy documents reveals how lifelong learning has evolved as the key principle for a comprehensive education and learning strategy...