‘Cos um it like put a picture in my mind of what I should write’: an exploration of how home–school partnership might support the writing of lower‐achieving boys

This article outlines how home and school working together supported the writing of lower‐achieving boys. It describes an activity in which parents and children selected artefacts at home to inspire writing in school. This model of home–school partnership permitted different levels of parental involvement and also allowed the child to take a key role in the process. The activity made a positive impact on the writing of low‐achieving boys in terms of the amount and quality of writing produced and also in relation to confidence and motivation to write. Oracy played an important part in the process. Parents gave support through talk in the home and children orally presented their artefacts and discussed how they planned to write about them in school. The importance of the teacher in supporting the writing process through talk is also discussed.     

Philosophy of Education and the Gigantic Affront of Universalism

Universalism in philosophy, argue Penny Enslin and Mary Tjiattas, tends to be regarded as an affront to particular affiliations, an act of injustice by misrecognition. While agreeing with criticisms of some expressions of universalism, they take the view that anti‐universalism has become an orthodoxy that deflects attention from pressing issues of global injustice in education. In different ways, recent reformulations of universalism accommodate particularity and claims for recognition. Defending a qualified universalism, they argue, through a discussion of the Education for All campaign, that the present focus on recognition should be widened to address redistribution and representation as elements of global justice in education. In her response to Enslin and Tjiattas, Sharon Todd expresses sympathy for their aspiration towards a ‘qualified universalism’, but she seeks to go beyond the dichotomy of universalism versus anti‐universalism by way of a discussion of aspects of the work of Judith Butler. Butler's emphasis on cultural translation offers a way, it is claimed, to think about the universal that transcends the oppositional relation between culture and commitment to universals. In the light of this she advocates an approach that involves neither universalism nor anti‐universalism but ‘critique of universality’. Thus, the task of translation, on Butler's account, prevents universality from being a standard or home‐base from which we can judge the world and turns it instead into an ongoing struggle for intelligibility. In their rejoinder, Enslin and Tjiattas reject any charge that their own account has fallen into a simple dichotomisation of universalism and anti‐universalism, and reaffirm their commitment to a form of universalism in which (a) partial or contextual considerations count in ethical deliberations, and (b) values and principles are subject to reflexive renegotiation in democratic deliberations, which provides the means of their justification and the source of their legitimacy. This yields, they claim, a non‐standard form of contractualism that is both culturally sensitive and open‐ended. They suggest in conclusion that the debate between themselves and Todd raises questions about whether the analytical and continental traditions can concede one another's place in the philosophy of education.     

The Pedagogy of Counseling: A Critical Examination

This article examines current literature on the pedagogy of counseling. The authors offer a critique of current counselor education practices and suggest constructivist methods for educating reflective practitioners.