Future themes of mathematics education research: an international survey before and during the pandemic

Educational Studies in Mathematics - Before the pandemic (2019), we asked: On what themes should research in mathematics education focus in the coming decade? The 229 responses from 44...     

Different Schools as Narrative Communities: Identity Narratives in Threefold

The last decade identity is often and very fruitfully conceptualized as “narrative identity.” Neither for individuals nor for groups is identity a given beforehand anymore. On the contrary, identity has to be constructed in an inductive way continuously. Three qualitative research methods are applied to explore in an inductive way the school's narrative identity, combining the individual and the group processes of narrative identity construction. Our data reveal a close relationship between autobiographical critical incidents in teachers' and principals' commitment to the school's identity.     

Book Review

This book is a good example of the contribution a clear conceptual analysis can make to highlighting and clarifying problematic thinking about real issues in education. In the literature there are different claims of varying strength and plausibility which require very careful sorting. David Carr demonstrates such careful sorting in the difficult field of ethics and maps some paths for fruitful thinking about professionalism in teaching. 'The distinctions of Peters and others between education and teaching, theory and practice, and intrinsic and instrumental value, stand in need of more careful mapping and refinement' which could enable us to steer clear of 'educationally pernicious conclusions' (p. 179). Carr succeeds in doing just this.     

Child guidance,dynamic psychology and the psychopathologisation of child-rearing culture (c. 1920-1940): a transnational perspective

ABSTRACT

The historiography of child guidance has focused primarily on the United States, where it first developed before travelling across the English-speaking world. The rapid expansion of child guidance in the interwar years was enabled by private philanthropy, which provided fellowships to foreign professionals to study in the United States. This article focuses upon the transnational transfer of child guidance, the dynamic psychology on which it was based, and the accompanying psychopathologisation of child-rearing culture to a non-English speaking country, the Netherlands. First, it discusses the development of child guidance and the reception of dynamic psychology in the United States and Britain. Next, it analyses the transfer to the Netherlands. It turns out that the Dutch did not copy the American model, but adapted it to fit their conditions and created a more diverse child guidance landscape, in which educational psychology played a less important role than child psychiatry.     

Supporting the development of the bilingual lexicon through translanguaging: a realist review integrating psycholinguistics with educational sciences

European Journal of Psychology of Education - In this review, we evaluate the claim that translanguaging in the classroom supports the development of the bilingual lexicon by enhancing...     

Situating graphs as workplace knowledge

We investigate the use and knowledge of graphs in the context of a large industrial factory. We are particularly interested in the question of “transparency”, a question that has been extensively considered in the general literature on tool use and, more recently, by Michael Roth and his colleagues in the context of scientific work. Roth uses the notion of transparency to characterise instances of graph use by highly educated scientists in cases where the context was familiar: the scientists were able to read the situation “through” the graph. This paper explores the limits of the validity of the transparency metaphor. We present two vignettes of actual graph use by a factory worker, and contrast his actions and knowledge with that of a highly qualified process engineer working on the same production line. We note that in neither case the graphs were transparent. We argue that a fuller account that describes a spectrum of transparency is needed, and we seek to achieve this by adopting some elements of a semiotic approach that enhance a strictly activity-theoretical view.     

How do STEM-interested students pursue multiple interests in their higher educational choice?

Interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) has lately received attention in research due to a gap between the number of STEM students and the needs of the labour market. As interest seems to be one of the most important factors in deciding what to study, we focus in the present study on how STEM-interested students weigh multiple interests in making educational choices. A questionnaire with both open-ended and closed-ended items was administered to 91 STEM-interested students enrolled in a STEM programme of a Dutch University for secondary school students. Results indicate that students find it important that a study programme allows them to pursue multiple interests. Some students pursued multiple interests by choosing to enrol in two programmes at the same time. Most students chose one programme that enabled them to combine multiple interests. Combinations of pursued interests were dependent on the disciplinary range of interests of students. Students who were interested in diverse domains combined interests in an educational programme across academic and non-academic domains, whilst students who were mainly interested in STEM combined only STEM-focused interests. Together these findings stress the importance of taking a multiple interest perspective on interest development and educational choice.     

Monitoring child health: school doctors at work in a Dutch rural area (1930–1970)

From 1948 the World Health Organization expected child hygiene to include mental health. This article discusses the way school doctors adapted their activities and concerns accordingly in the mid-twentieth century in an agrarian-industrial area of the Netherlands. In spite of an improvement in pupils’ physical health they shifted their attention only to a limited extent towards mental health. Nevertheless, it became an important aspect of their work, as they stimulated activities they conceived of as promoting both physical and mental health, such as gymnastics and swimming. Their key interest concerned mental deficiency and the promotion of special schooling. In this respect they played a very active role, to the extent of producing ‘feeblemindedness’ and learning disabilities. At the same time the school doctors clung to their traditional ideal of supporting the school’s effectiveness by trying to reduce possible dangers threatening pupils’ learning capacity and, increasingly, their mental well-being.