The Art of the Impossible? A Case Study and Reflections on the Experience of Art in a Rural Kenyan Primary School

The arguments for, and justification of, the value of teaching art in school have been made previously, but contextually these are often situated in Western affluence. This article explores the issues with a strikingly contrasted setting. The rural school in the study is approximately 30 minutes' drive from the nearest town, and the pupils are drawn from the surrounding rural bush area which is itself developmentally and materially poor in comparison to the UK. In school, the poverty seemed initially to relate to a lack of educational resources, but the reality experienced in the classroom may have also been linked to other issues. These included the desperate preoccupation with survival in difficult climatic conditions, a postcolonial legacy and the delicate balance of utilising resources without waste. What conclusions might then be drawn about the teaching of art? Utilising the work of others who have considered the issues in Kenya, this small‐scale ethnographic case study is presented with personal reflection and observations. The author would be pleased to hear from others with similar experiences or who have recognised additional issues in seemingly challenging circumstances.     

Building a Successful Adult Life: Findings From Youth-Directed Research

Abstract

Although transition outcomes for youth with disabilities have shown some improvement and transition support practices have been identified, many young people continue to face transition barriers that preclude their full participation in key adult life activities. While research efforts have largely been professionally driven, there is emerging literature suggesting that the use of participatory, empowerment methodologies may bolster the identification of appropriate research methods and useful solutions to problems, as well as promoting the application of findings to accomplishing practice and policy improvements. The purpose of this study was to use a youth-directed, participatory action methodology to investigate youths' perceptions of the value of transition promotion experiences identified as effective by professionals, and to examine the level at which youth with disabilities participate in those experiences. A survey was developed and administered to 202 young people with disabilities by leaders from the National Youth Leadership Network. Findings indicated that youth generally endorse the importance of validated transition promotion practices; however, they reported having limited opportunity to participate in them. Implications related to the use of participatory action methodologies and needed practice and policy improvements are discussed.     

Making sense of the development of inclusive practices

Schools in England are currently being asked to pay greater attention to the issue of educational inclusion. This paper reports some of the findings of a collaborative action research Network that was set up to address the implications of this trend. The Network involves teams of university researchers in working with practitioners in order to encourage the development of inclusive practices. As a result of this work, it is argued that the development of such practices is not about adopting ‘recipes’ of the sort described in much of the existing literature. Rather, it involves social learning processes that occur within a given workplace. The paper attempts to provide deeper understandings of what these processes involve. To assist in this analysis use is made of the idea of ‘communities of practice’, as developed by Etienne Wenger, focusing specifically on the way he sees learning as a characteristic of practice. It is argued that the development of inclusive practices involves collaborative working arrangements; that they can be encouraged by engagement with various forms of evidence that interrupt ways of thinking; and that the space that is created through such interruptions can enable those involved to recognize overlooked or, indeed, new possibilities for moving practice forward.     

Approaches to the teaching of STS in science education

The Science, Technology and Society movement is a movement within higher and school education that seeks to bring the science education of students at these respective levels more closely to their needs as members of increasingly technological societies.

As far as school science education is concerned, two parallel developments have been occurring since the mid 1970s. The first is an evolving conception of the ways in which these interactions between Science, Technology and Society may be dealt with in science education. The other is the development of text and other curriculum materials that provide assistance for teachers wishing to teach science with these emphases. This paper outlines these two developments and brings them together by using an epistemological typology from the first to classify the varieties of curriculum materials now available.     

Exploring the roles of grief and grieving in coping with lifelong change

This paper explores the value of the concept of grief as one way to make sense of individual's reactions to change. The discussion acknowledges that change is always from something, not just to something. In an environment that is increasingly expected to involve lifelong change, there is an urgent need for individuals to develop capacities to ‘move with’ change. The paper identifies a number of strategies to assist individuals and groups acknowledge and grieve change-included loss, strategies which support sustainable ‘moving on’.     

Transformative learning theory: a neurobiological perspective of the role of emotions and unconscious ways of knowing

Transformative learning as explained by Mezirow in the field of adult education has been criticized as a process that is overly dependent on critical reflection, such that it minimizes the role of feelings and overlooks transformation through the unconscious development of thoughts and actions. This paper further substantiates these concerns by exploring the emotional nature of rationality and unconscious ways of knowing (implicit memory) from the field of neurobiology and psychology and offers a physiological explanation of the interdependent relationship of emotion and reason and the role of implicit memory in transformative learning theory. Recent research not only provides support that emotions can affect the processes of reason, but more importantly, emotions have been found to be indispensable for rationality to occur. Furthermore, brain research brings to light new insights about a form of long-term memory that has long been overlooked, that of implicit memory, which receives, stores, and recovers outside the conscious awareness of the individual. From implicit memory emerges habits, attitudes and preferences inaccessible to conscious recollection but these are nonetheless shapes by former events, influence our present behaviour, and are an essential part of who we are. Finally, based on these new insights for fostering transformative learning is discussed, revealing the need to include practices inclusive of ‘other ways of knowing,’ and more specifically, from the study of emotional literacy and multiple intelligences.