Dewey and Culture: Responding to ‘Extreme Views’

Dewey famously believed that we learn through experience, through which we build up habits. Education should be about developing good habits. Experience for Dewey, is not an individual possession but grows out of social interaction, which always takes place in a given culture. Dewey's views on culture are significant in relation to a current issue in education in England, namely the legal requirement for teachers to report students who express ‘extreme views’, under the Prevent Strategy. The article first gives the current context in recent policy implementation in England and discusses how it raises ethical dilemmas which profoundly affect what it means to be a teacher. This is then illustrated through a vignette, a narrative of a newly qualified teacher living a dilemma raised by the policy. Consequences for the development of democratic education and education for democracy emerge from considering Dewey's views on experience and culture in relation to the teacher's dilemma. The conclusion suggests some ways forward in the face of the difficulties raised by the Prevent strategy reporting requirement.     

Does Action Research Have a Future? A Reply to Higgins

This paper presents a view of action research (AR) as a valuable way in which teachers can pose fertile questions and engage in inquiry with transformative possibilities. This counters claims of its being at best a sterile method of teacher research and at worst a perilous trap for teachers.Chris Higgins has argued that AR has lost its original intention of empowering teachers and sealing the theory practice divide. He claims that it has degenerated into a method devoid of thought. In its social science versions, it is harmful to the teacher–student relationship and teachers have been mislead into an impoverished idea of professional development. The impossible challenge for action research is to recover its original intention; impossible because the landscape of educational policy militates against it. The authors challenge Higgin's deep pessimism, his versions of AR and his negative account of the intellectual capacity of teachers. We argue that AR does empower teachers, integrates theory and practice and is alive and well, even though conditions in schools are not optimum. This argument is exemplified with numerous illustrations of actual AR projects, which evidence teachers’ participatory and collaborative work, in which they engage in positive change. There is scope for teachers wishing to develop ‘customised’ AR projects of their own in current conditions which have transformative potential in changing the practice of the individual teacher. This in turn supports building and participating in a ‘community of practice’, which strengthens the communal endeavour to contribute to good teaching and good education.     

Towards Universal Primary Education: investments, incentives, and institutions

The UN Millennium Project Task Force on Education and Gender Equality, an expert advisory group commissioned by the UN Secretary‐General, was asked to examine how dramatic improvements in education can be achieved in the developing world. The task force investigated the problems of low enrolment, early drop‐out and poor learning outcomes that so profoundly affect many children in the developing world. The experiences of both countries that have achieved important successes in rapidly scaling‐up access to primary education, and countries that have made only slow progress, shed light on the priorities for the leadership in both developing countries and donor agencies. The task force developed specific recommendations about overcoming demand‐ and supply‐side constraints to greater primary school completion; and about how international donors and technical agencies can stimulate and support country‐led progress, with financial resources that are linked to performance.