At the Interface of School and Work

The current emphasis that organisations are placing upon knowledge and the corresponding attention that workplace epistemological values are receiving within the educational community has resulted in an interesting convergence of discourses—school-based and work-based. Even as workplaces are tending toward abstraction over practice—based knowing, schools are being nudged into doing the reverse. The result of this ferment is that traditional barriers between these kinds of knowledge are being removed. As can be seen from workplace examples, it is possible for liberal learning to be in the service of instrumental ends. So too schools may come to see more clearly the value of situatedness and team-work in the transaction of liberal learning. More generally, we see also new possibilities for retreat from received views about the worth of practical knowledge.     

Educating for an Inclusive World: Lessons Learned From A Globally Networked Human Rights and Disability Course for Social Work and Law Students

This article examines an innovative model of online international education regarding disability through a human rights perspective piloted through a collaboration between Universidad LaSalle, Mexico, and University at Buffalo, United States. The course is organized around a pressing global human rights and development issue. Its objective is to promote effective practice with persons with disabilities through cross-national, cross-disciplinary, human-rights based education; strengthen students’ sense of global engagement; and foster cross-cultural expertise and competence with diversity. The implications for effective professional education in law and social work are discussed. The article also examines pedagogical strategies and presents case study materials, identifies key disability rights themes common to both nations and cultures, and explores how distance learning technology is implemented in the course. A preliminary assessment of this newly piloted approach is also presented, based on data from students, as well as the implications for teaching and practice.     

Designing a Bridging Discourse: Re-Mediation of a Mathematical Learning Disability

Students with disabilities present a unique instructional design challenge. These students often have qualitatively different ways of processing information, meaning that standard instructional approaches may not be effective. In this study I present a case study of a student with a mathematical learning disability for whom standard instruction on fractions had been ineffective. With regard to theory, I draw on Lev Vygotsky’s framing of disability and then use Anna Sfard’s conceptualization of mathematics as a discourse to design a fraction re-mediation that provided a bridge from the student’s discourse to the canonical mathematics discourse. This bridging discourse was used in 5 videotaped re-mediation sessions with the case study student. A fine-grained analysis of the re-mediation sessions traced the ways in which the student’s discourse shifted over time, which enabled her to solve problems she had previously been unable to solve. This study provides a proof of concept for reconceptualizing remediation and illustrates the potential utility of a bridging discourse to help students who have a history of failure gain access to the canonical mathematics discourse and content.     

Becoming a tutor: student scaffolding in a game-based classroom

Student interaction in school contexts is a topic that has been researched from many different perspectives. However, the role of students as tutors scaffolding other peers is not normally addressed, since studies are usually focused on the teacher. Moreover, considering the many technologies that can support students’ work nowadays, studies describing specific practices are still needed in order to understand the many possibilities and constraints that can emerge from the use of these tools in the field of education. This exploratory case study aims to extend research on scaffolding between students, presenting data from an ethnographic study where a commercial video game was introduced as part of the curricular activities. Analytically, the scaffolding metaphor is the departing point to describe in detail how the scaffolding process took place, focusing on its purposes and on the role of students as tutors. Our findings reveal how students offered mostly procedural scaffoldings, performing tutor functions such as highlighting relevant features, reducing levels of freedom or controlling the frustration. Results highlight that students can perform scaffolds, and this should be considered as part of the classroom design, making this process visible. Moreover, specific features of the video game enhanced these interactions, which should also be considered when designing game learning environments in the future.     

KANT'S CONCEPTION OF RESPECT AND AFRICAN AMERICAN EDUCATION RIGHTS

Immanuel Kant envisioned a kind of respect in which one recognizes each human (1) as being not fully comprehensible by any human understanding, (2) as being an end in him‐ or herself, and (3) as being a potential source of moral law. In this essay, Gregory Lewis Bynum uses this conception of respect as a lens with which to examine African American education rights on three levels: the individual level (the level of individual persons' moral experience and moral significance), the community level (the level of the formation and sustaining of social groups that have value for humanity), and the global level (the level of a universal community of humanity). Bynum's goal in this examination is to strengthen our practical understanding of African Americans' right to education defined, in accordance with international human rights documents, as the right to an education that supports the full development of the human personality in a manner that respects students' “cultural identity, language, and values.”     

Evaluating the reflexive practices in a learning experience

Reflexivity is a primary requirement for professional work. Our aim was to describe a methodology suitable for detecting the development of reflexive practice through the analysis of 59 Master’s degree students’ journals. We explore the use and changes of reflexive practice in relation to the settings and activities of the course using analysis of the mental language: We analyse how the reflexive practice is characterized, how it evolves through time and how it can be promoted. Data analysis shows that reflexivity is not monodimensional but multidimensional. Reflexive practice increases during the course: The different dimensions vary over time according to different organizational and educational conditions. This methodology allows us to formulate new hypotheses about which elements of the setting and process are effective in supporting participants’ reflexive practice.     

White working class achievement: an ethnographic study of barriers to learning in schools

This study aims to examine the key barriers to learning to raise achievement of White British pupils with low‐income backgrounds. The main findings suggest that the worryingly low‐achievement levels of many White working class pupils have been masked by the middle class success in the English school system and government statistics that fail to distinguish the White British ethnic group by social background. The empirical data confirm that one of the biggest groups of underachievers is the White British working class and their outcomes at each key stage are considerably below those achieved by all other ethnic groups. One of the main reasons for pupil underachievement, identified in the case study schools and focus groups, is parental low aspirations of their children’s education and social deprivation. It is also perpetuated by factors such as low‐literacy levels, feelings of marginalisation within the community exacerbated by housing allocation, a lack of community and school engagement, low levels of parental engagement and lack of targeted support to break the cycle of poverty and disadvantage, a legacy of low aspiration that prevents pupils from fulfilling their potential across a range of areas. The study concludes that the main obstacle in raising achievement is the government’s failure to recognise that this group has particular needs that are not being met by the school system. The government needs to recognise that the underachievement of White British working class pupils is not only a problem facing educational services but profoundly a serious challenge. Policy implications and recommendations are discussed in the final section.     

Issues in the development of children’s centres on nursery and primary school sites

This paper explores the development of children’s centres in England between 2004 and 2008, focusing on the newly created centres that have been located on primary and nursery school sites. Using both an analysis of policy documents and interview data from three urban local authorities, we examine the use of premises and the differing priorities of centre staff and school heads, particularly in relation to the balance of services between early years education, childcare and family support. We also explore governance issues, focusing especially on patterns of accountability. In so doing, we also examine the tensions that exist between children’s centres located on primary and on nursery school sites and the schools themselves.