Critical place as a fluid margin in post-critical environmental education

Positive claims about place pedagogy in education are problematized through this small-scale interpretive study of internationally mobile students’ experiences of outdoor environmental education. Of specific interest in this empirical study of learners’ pedagogically constructed experiences of place are the fluid subjectivities, cultural dispositions, environmental consciences, and ecological assumptions they already bring ‘globally’ to the ‘place’ of the educational intervention, and the hybrid ‘splaces’ we conclude they then temporarily embody – at least, during and after the experience. The study empirically advances an ongoing need for post-critical inquiry in environmental research by incorporating a range of theoretical and conceptual resources that work the boundaries, ‘margins’, and tensions that lie somewhere ‘in-between’ the spatially projected place/local and planet/global discourses.     

Revisioning Fairness as Social Justice in Early Childhood Education

Early Childhood Education Journal - Young children’s ideas of fairness have been studied in a range of laboratory settings with findings that children see fairness as equal distribution of...     

Using information and communications technology as a pedagogical tool: a survey of initial teacher education in Scotland

Abstract

In common with other parts of the United Kingdom, teacher education in Scotland is facing a period of rapidly changing demands with respect to the use of information and communications technology (ICT), together with high levels of investment, rising expectations, and increased scrutiny and accountability. In this article, we present an account of a national survey of the ICT skills and attitudes of students entering and exiting from the teacher education institutions in Scotland in the session 1996-97. The students are extremely positive in their attitudes, their enthusiasm for ICT use in education is high and their aspirations clear – they expect ICT to permeate their professional work now and in the future. Their experiences during their period of training fall considerably short of their expectations. We discuss the reasons for some of the difficulties and consider the challenges faced by tutors in initial teacher education courses who must now ‘model the message’ of a learner-centred approach to the education of their students.     

Using Student Samples in Criminological Research

Professors have long relied on the assistance of their students in various aspects of the research process. For example, students often contribute in their role as research assistants and as co‐authors on scholarly papers and presentations. They also participate in another important way—as samples in their professors’ research projects. In criminology and criminal justice, student samples are often used in behavioral studies, tests of criminological theories, pilot tests of methodologies, and in evaluating attitudes toward crime and justice issues. This article provides an overview of the types of studies that have used students as samples in criminological research. Attention is given to the strengths and weaknesses of using such an approach, and implications for continuing to use students in criminological research are discussed.     

Mathematical models for academic webs: Linear relationship or non-linear power law?

Previous studies of academic web interlinking have tended to hypothesise that the relationship between the research of a university and links to or from its web site should follow a linear trend, yet the typical distribution of web data, in general, seems to be a non-linear power law. This paper assesses whether a linear trend or a power law is the most appropriate method with which to model the relationship between research and web site size or outlinks. Following linear regression, analysis of the confidence intervals for the logarithmic graphs, and analysis of the outliers, the results suggest that a linear trend is more appropriate than a non-linear power law.     

Postmodern Challenges and Modern Horizons: education ‘for being for the environment‘

This article argues that a ‘humanly‐constructive’ critical theory of environmental education called ‘a critical ecological ontology for educational inquiry’ provides a necessary complement to the ‘socially‐critical’ perspective. This humanly‐constructive curriculum theory focuses on our individual and collective ‘being‐in‐the‐world’. It invites learners, teachers and researchers to study how their ‘lived experience’ of socio‐environmentally problematic circumstances is shaped and stretched globally by various economic and technological imperatives. In so doing, ‘a critical ecological ontology’ highlights the personal politic required for a socio‐ecological praxis. Of particular relevance to the socio‐ecological politic ‘for being’ are interpretations of postmodern agency that emerge from three practical applications of ‘a critical ecological ontology’. This dialogue of theory and practice is necessary in the critical curriculum project of environmental education