Education as/against cruelty: On Etienne Balibar's Violence and Civility

The issue of violence and strategies for its attenuation present perennial conundrums for those seeking to reduce the quantity of avoidable suffering in the world. Despite the best efforts of committed practitioners, activists, and scholars, violence its various forms remain rife at all levels of social life. Paradoxically and tragically, at times, the proliferation of violence accompanies those very efforts aimed at its eradication or resolution. Education – understood in its narrower sense as a set of formal institutions as well in its broader sense as a ubiquitous sociocultural process – is perhaps exemplary of this paradox, being cast variously as a cause or instrument of violence on the one hand, and as a panacea to violence on the other. In this essay review of Etienne Balibar's Violence and Civility: On the limits of political philosophy (2016), I draw on the author's imaginative attempt to theorise the relationship between different forms of violence and link this to existing scholarship on violence more broadly, and studies that consider the role of education within economies of violence more specifically.     

Health-education policy interface: the implementation of the Eat Well Be Active policies in schools

While grappling with their traditional core business of imbuing students with official curricular knowledge, schools have simultaneously, increasing demands to take on health promotion responsibilities. This paper examines the mandated implementation of the Eat Well Be Active (EWBA) Action Plan and its subsidiary ‘Smart’ policies in schools in the state of Queensland, Australia. Within the context of health promotion, the interaction between the health and education policy interfaces was explored. In particular, we paid close attention to the responses of the schools and their staff to the convergence of various health policies within their institutions. Drawing on Bernstein's concept of field, this paper reports our analyses of responses within the reproduction field to the imperatives of the Smart policies. The results suggest that there exists a disjunction between the recontextualising and reproduction fields in terms of the EWBA policy intent and implementation.     

Motivational predictors of young adolescents' participation in an outdoor adventure course: A self-determination theory approach

Abstract

Outdoor education is emerging as a compulsory component of the school curriculum in Singapore. As more and more young people are involved in outdoor education programmes, the motivational factors that influence students' participation in outdoor activities is an important area of study. The purpose of this study was to use the self-determination theory framework to examine post course satisfaction level among young adolescents. A total of 314 secondary school students aged from 12 to 16 years took part in the survey. Results showed that external regulation negatively predicted self-reported satisfaction whereas intrinsic motivation positively predicted participants' satisfaction levels of the course. It is highlighted that young adolescents should not be coerced into outdoor education programmes. They should be provided with a meaningful rationale for participation, given some autonomy for decision-making and to have a positive and enjoyable experience during the programme.     

The Open College is nearly open

You see so many missed opportunities along the road, so why haven't we been given any time for reflection before? Why is it that we tend to forget that aspect, when talking about quality?     

Personal strengths and perceived teacher support as predictors of Singapore students’ academic risk status

Abstract

This study explored the relative salience of students’ personal strengths and teacher support in predicting academic risk status. The participants were Secondary One (S1, Grade Seven) students from Singapore who scored below the cohort’s mean score in a national test administered at the end of primary education, and were identified as low risk (n = 309) or high risk (n = 396), based on their S1 achievement score in the English Language subject. Logistic regression analysis was conducted with academic risk status as criterion variable and the following potential predictors: students’ background variables (i.e. socio-economic status, cognitive ability and initial achievement), personal strengths, teacher–student relatedness, and teacher autonomy and competence support. After controlling for the effects of the students’ background variables, teacher trust emerged as the strongest (negative) and most stable predictor of high-risk status; teacher alienation and teacher–student communication were found as significant positive predictors of students’ placement in the high-risk group.     

Gender Difference,Misconceptions and Instruction in Science

The study examined into the relationship between gender and students' misconceptions in science. Two different groups were treated with two different teaching strategies, namely, teaching strategy 1, which is basically didactic in nature, and teaching strategy 11, which incorporates students' misconceptions and applies the Generative Learning Model. Two groups of secondary three students (N=26,27; randomly sampled), underwent 6 weeks of instruction, with the respective strategies mentioned above. Each group consisted of male and female students, the numbers of which resulted from the grouping based on their academic achievements. A constructed and validated diagnostic instrument was used as a means to measure the effectiveness of these two teaching strategies. The findings showed that gender differences did not relate well to students' misconceptions in science. The implications of this finding are discussed.     

Home-based parental involvement amongst Pakistani families in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

Ethnic minority parents often appear to be less involved in school functions and activities than their culturally dominant counterparts. Their invisibility is usually assumed due to a lack of either interest or parental capacity to oversee their children’s education. However, the simplistic equation between parental involvement in children’s education and their participation in school is largely informed by middle-class cultural norms that ignore diversity. Data drawn from home visits and in-depth, semi-structured interviews amongst Pakistani parents and children in Hong Kong reveals that the involvement of these parents only seems less visible because it is largely based at home rather than in schools. The parental involvement of this ethnic minority is influenced by socio-economic and cultural factors that separate school from home, divide parental responsibilities by gender, and set expectations for children with primary reference to the parents’ own experiences. These research findings on how such characteristics shape the outcomes of parental involvement can inform school practices to build more effective home-school collaboration and enhance children’s academic achievement.     

A framework for fostering a community of practice: scaffolding learners through an evolving continuum

This paper proposes a framework of an evolving community of practitioners along a simulation, participation, and codetermined interactions continuum. Simulation, participation, and codetermined interactions are three models of learning, which describe how learners can be brought through a scaffolded process within a community experience. The framework also focuses on the processes rather than on the outcomes or products of a community. In this paper, we describe a case study of a group of heads of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in schools being scaffolded through an experiential workshop to achieve learning outcomes such as ICT‐based project work (as product) and other constructivist dispositions of learning (as processes). The proposed framework is intended to be sufficiently broad so that learners are supported from simulation to codetermined interactions where autonomy of learners’ co‐construction efforts are encouraged and experienced.     

Extending the Cognitive Mediation Model: Examining Factors Associated With Perceived Familiarity and Factual Knowledge of Nanotechnology

This research—a pilot study on the cognitive mediation model (CMM) in Singapore—seeks to revisit and test the applicability of an extended CMM in the context of nanotechnology by examining perceived familiarity as a separate outcome variable in addition to factual knowledge. A cross-sectional survey was administered to a nationally representative sample of 719 adult Singaporeans. Results demonstrated partial support for the hypothesized CMM. First, elaboration was positively associated with both factual knowledge and perceived familiarity, whereas interpersonal discussions about science was associated only with familiarity. Results also showed differential relationships between attention to media platforms (traditional vs. new media) and reflective integration (composed of elaborative processing and interpersonal discussion); whereas attention to science reporting in newspapers and science television programs were associated with elaboration, media attention across all platforms were associated with interpersonal discussions. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.