On the need to repoliticise environmental and sustainability education: rethinking the postpolitical consensus

This article draws attention to the possibilities of the ongoing philosophical discussion about cosmopolitan universal values in relation to the normative challenges in environmental and sustainability education (ESE). The purpose of this paper is to clarify the philosophical problems of addressing universally sustainable responsibilities and values in ESE. Our arguments draw inspiration from the work of three poststructuralist scholars: we explore how Butler develops her claim that universal assertion requires a cultural translation, how Mouffe exposes the political in universal claim and how Todd argues that education needs to introduce students to a political language that enables them to critically reflect on their own and other groups’ values and actions. In the concluding part, we suggest the following guidelines for rethinking ESE: unmasking the political dimension, re-politicising education, seeing beyond the relativist and objectivist divide and using passion as a moving force.     

A Journey from STEM to STEAM: A Middle School Case Study

ABSTRACT

This article examines the initial journey of a middle school in South Carolina from a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) curriculum to a STEAM (STEM + art) curriculum. This is the first of a three-year longitudinal study that investigated the perceptions of the effectiveness, relative importance, and sustainability of a STEAM curriculum in which the arts animated learning on a daily basis for both teachers and administrators during the first year of implementation beginning in the fall 2014. The article also investigates the response that the faculty of a STEM-oriented middle school had to the induction of STEAM curriculum training.     

Effecting School Change: The Halton Approach

ABSTRACT

Two related but distinct questions are often asked by educators as they try to make their schools more effective. These are: “Which of the many activities that we do have greater benefits for students?” and, “How can we make our schools better than they are now?” The first question focuses specifically on the impact of schools on student outcomes and the characteristics of effective schools, whereas the second addresses the implementation of change and school improvement. This article addresses the research related to these two questions and describes the application of this research in a large school district in Ontario, Canada.     

Reviews

Vivienne Gross, Hackney Child and Family Consultation Service, Child Abuse and the School's Response: A Workshop for Professionals Involved with Ghildren/Young People from Nursery to Further Education by Eve Brock. Harlow, Essex: Longman, 1992. 22pp. ISBN 0 58210060 7, £25.00

Louise O'Connor, Roehampton Institute, Social Education and Personal Development Studies in Primary Education by Delwyn and Eva Tattum. London: David Fulton, 1992. 194pp. pb ISBN 185346 110 5, £12.99

Sue Smedley, Froebel Institute College, Stress in Teaching by Jack Dunham. London and New York: Routledge, 1992. 200pp. hb ISBN 0 415 06634 4, £35, pb ISBN 0 415 06635 2, £12.99

David Thomas, Department of Education University of Liverpool, Learning Support for Young People in Transition: Leaving School for Further Education and Work by Jean McGinfy and John Fish. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. 116pp. pb ISBN 0 335 09765 0, n.p.     

Subjected to review: engendering quality and power in higher education

Both feminism and quality assurance movements have attempted to deconstruct and reconstruct the academy. Both have called for more transparency in procedures, accountability from elite professional groups and the privileging of the student experience. Both are globalized systems calling for transformation. However, it is questionable as to whether these two forces for change can form strategic alliances, or whether indeed they are in oppositional relationship. As a dominant regime of power in the UK academy today, quality assurance both exposes the micropolitics of gendered power in organizations and creates its own structures and systems of power. Quality assurance is part of the modernization process of the public services. However, gender equity is not a performance indicator in UK quality audits. In this paper, I interrogate the gendered implications of quality assurance, with particular reference to the assessment of teaching and learning in the UK (the Quality Assurance Agency's Subject Review). Drawing on empirical data and conceptual critiques, I will argue that quality assurance, as a regime of power, is gendered in its conception and practice.     

Change and Equity in Higher Education

In this article, I explore the dynamic relationship between political and organizational change in higher education. Change is interrogated in relation to policies and discourses of New Right reform, mass expansion, new managerialism, equity and post‐modernist theories of power, with questions raised about the interconnection of demographic changes, consumer entitlement and equality of opportunity. I consider the extent to which economic, intellectual and socio‐cultural changes intersect. Equity is examined in relation to the democratic rhetoric of enhanced access and connections are made between equality and quality by questioning the changing nature of the product being accessed by new student populations.