Banking on the Present: The Ontological Rhetoric of Neo-Classical Economics and Its Relation to the 2008 Financial Crisis

This essay performs a rhetorical criticism of neo-classical economics, with particular attention to its methodological influence on a number of faulty mathematical models that lay at the epicenter of the 2008 financial crisis. Going beyond Goodnight and Green's mimetic conception of economic rhetoric, which positions rhetoric as a site of mediation between symbolic and material spirals, we argue that the rhetoric of neo-classicism is best understood as an “apparatus” that attempts to suture two ontologically incommensurable conceptions of time that we term intensive and extensive. We further argue that the hinge of this rhetorical apparatus centers on a kairotic tactic of arbitrage, which theoretically posits, at the same time that it negates, ontological market failure. We end by exploring rhetorical alternatives to neo-classical economics that take the internally contradictory structure of arbitrage to its emergent conclusions.     

Reframing HRD: insights from research on the development of exemplary managers

This article questions the common wisdom of the HRD profession by comparing it to the results from six studies on the important developmental and learning experiences of successful managers. Managers in the studies tell us that although planned formal and informal employer‐based training and school‐based training contributed to their development, much of their learning occurred outside of the areas of planned institutional control. Instead such factors as challenging job experiences and assignments, relationships with peers and bosses, learning in the community, family upbringing, personal life experiences, characteristics of the organisational environment, and specific strategies for learning from experience were named as contributors. According to these findings, we are investing all of our targeted resources in only apart of managerial learning and development. Weargue that it is difficult to address these other areas because we view humans as a resource to control for the purpose of maximising profit and enhancing economic development. The result of this reductionistic view of human resources is that our practice is neither cost nor time effective. The implications for HRD practice and research are discussed.     

Limitless provocations of the ‘safe’, ‘secure’ and ‘healthy’ child

This paper arose amongst the making and showing of a film and questions whether there are possibilities for interrupting powerful discursive frames that work at producing ‘the normal child’. Traditionally there has been a lack of interest in the use and critique of visual culture in educational research. Perhaps this lack of interest provides fertile opportunities to know something of the structure of education as a discipline, the rules that structure it and its deep grammar; it may also open up opportunities for disciplinary boundary-crossings where fields that embrace visual culture, such as photography and filmmaking, can bring their playfulness across binaries, including notions of certainty/ambivalence, to qualitative research in education. By turning to art theory, our aims are to interfere with our utopian longings that steadfastly cling to educational notions of the child.     

From Curriculum to Activism: a graduate degree program in literacy to develop teachers as leaders for equity through action research

This article presents findings from a 2-year reflexive action research study of a cohort-based Master's degree program in literacy for practicing teachers. Questions revolved around whether and how the program brought about changes in candidates' conceptions about literacy, expertise in literacy, and leadership/activist skills to foster equity in their classrooms and schools. Faculty used data from action research to make cyclical changes to the program each semester. Data sources included candidate interviews, e-mail correspondence, course notes, classroom observations, questionnaires and a survey. The candidates own evolving action research projects within their schools also became data sources. A qualitative analysis suggests that the program was generally successful in meeting its goals. The elements of the program contributing to its success were: the evolving program design based on action research data; the collegiality of the cohort; broadening conceptions of literacy; learning action research; and developing leadership skills. Factors contributing to factors around which candidates failed to meet these goals are also explored.     

Mathematics anxiety in young children: Concurrent and longitudinal associations with mathematical performance

This study explored mathematics anxiety in a longitudinal sample of 113 children followed from second to third grade. We examined how mathematics anxiety related to different types of mathematical performance concurrently and longitudinally and whether the relations between mathematics anxiety and mathematical performance differed as a function of working memory. Concurrent analyses indicated that mathematics anxiety represents a unique source of individual differences in children’s calculation skills and mathematical applications, but not in children’s geometric reasoning. Furthermore, we found that higher levels of mathematics anxiety in second grade predicted lower gains in children’s mathematical applications between second and third grade, but only for children with higher levels of working memory. Overall, our results indicate that mathematics anxiety is an important construct to consider when examining sources of individual differences in young children’s mathematical performance. Furthermore, our findings suggest that mathematics anxiety may affect how some children use working memory resources to learn mathematical applications.     

Recognizing and Managing Countertransference in the College Classroom: An Exploration of Expert Teachers’ Inner Experiences

Teacher countertransference refers to conscious and unconscious, negative or positive emotional reactions to certain students that arise from the teacher’s own areas of personal conflict. Our investigation of 14 expert teachers’ countertransference experiences in the college classroom, yielded several themes. Countertransference triggers included challenging behaviors (e.g., student disengagement from learning, hostility, manipulation). Countertransference reactions included frustration, the questioning of one’s own judgment, and identification with students. Participants managed countertransference by seeking social support, maintaining their professionalism, thinking before responding, practicing self-reflection, building relationships with students, and drawing upon personal characteristics (values, empathy, conceptualization skills) and teaching experience. We suggest implications for teaching and recommendations for research.     

Student-parents and higher education: a cross-national comparison

During its time in office, the UK’s Labour government gave a strong message that having caring responsibilities for a young child should not be seen as a barrier to engaging in education and training. Its widening participation strategy included a specific commitment to increasing the number of mature students in higher education (HE) – students who are more likely than their younger peers to have caring responsibilities for dependent children. Furthermore, considerable resources were devoted to encouraging teenage mothers to return to education and training soon after the birth of their child. Nevertheless, despite this policy focus, there have been relatively few studies of the experiences of ‘student-parents’ within HE. This paper draws on findings from a cross-national study (funded by the Nuffield Foundation) to explore the support currently offered by UK universities to students who have parental responsibilities for one or more children under the age of 16. It compares this support to that offered by Danish institutions, to assess whether differences in ‘welfare regime’, the structure of the HE system and pervasive assumptions about gender relations have any discernible impact on the way in which student-parents are both constructed within institutional cultures and assisted by institutional practices.     

Teachers’ experiences of engagement with and in educational research: what can be learned from teachers’ views?

In this paper, we explore what is known about teachers’ engagement in and with educational research with a special emphasis on teachers’ voice evoking their experience of participating in research. This will draw upon international contexts in order to suggest ways of utilising the benefits of research in practice. Our review is framed around five key themes between which there are interesting links. The first theme is purpose and consequence, which highlights the dimensions of teachers’ control and autonomy. This is related to the second theme—teachers’ learning and affective response. The third theme, agency, addresses the contextual factors influencing teachers’ experience of research, which opens up the fourth theme concerning the degree of trust and collaboration that is experienced by teacher researchers. The final theme is contradiction. This phenomenon is understood in the context of socio-cultural theory in that the teacher researcher is evolving practice and questioning the focus on aggregate examination results/targets and its associated technology. While the available evidence of teachers’ experience of research is overwhelmingly positive, providing an acceleration of professional understanding and new perspectives, which re-invigorates those teachers who do engage, it is not always experienced as such. Overall, we underline the importance of dialogic approaches and ecological agency, which relate to teachers’ multi-dimensional perceptions of and participation in research.