Rethinking democracy and education: Towards an education of deliberative citizens

Neo-pragmatism focuses on communication as a democratic form of life. It therefore creates new visions for the relationship between democracy and education. Models for deliberative democracy inspired by neo-pragmatism are explicitly based on the need for education of citizens in deliberative capabilities and attitudes. The idea of deliberative democracy as an educational process is one where individuals bring different perspectives to on-going communication, which is here presented as an important way to interpret John Dewey, specifically his Democracy and Education. This approach to reading his work is compared initially with other and earlier ways of reading his work, i.e., the educational philosophies and movements of progressivism and reconstructionism.     

Linking curriculum theory and linguistics: the performative use of ‘equivalence’ as an educational policy concept

The linguistic turn has helped to create new methods within social and educational theory. This study draws attention to the constitutive force of political language and the performative dynamics of one essentially contested concept—equivalence—in Swedish educational policy at both the national and the local level. It illustrates the way in which different interpretations of the concept of equivalence produce different truths, the performative concept thereby becoming a way of advocating particular understandings of the purpose of education.     

Organising the Academy: New Organisational Forms and the Future of the University

Decreasing public spending, new accountability measures and calls for broader ranges of services to society have combined to encourage the reorganisation of European universities. Universities are asked to restructure themselves along lines suggested by corporate management. This paper examines this proposal by looking at four management models in the light of new and traditional universities. The paper discusses the principle of ‘heterarchical organising’, which has emerged spontaneously within the university, and argues that this appears to be a more appropriate model for university organisation.     

Performance capabilities and competencies at the undergraduate and graduate levels for performance improvement professionals

This quantitative study sought to identify the performance capabilities and competencies that organizations in the northern midwestern United States expect of future performance improvement professionals at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Eighty‐nine performance improvement professionals representing 89 organizations completed an online survey that captured the participants' perspective regarding undergraduate and graduate‐level performance capabilities, and undergraduate competency expectations. Results suggest that participants expect several training and development performance capabilities, a few organization developments, and no performance management performance capabilities at the undergraduate level. Several training and development capabilities, most organization development capabilities, and all performance management performance capabilities were expected at the graduate level. This definition is fundamental to support academic curricular development and the field of performance improvement.     

Assessing pupils’ intelligence through self,parental, and teacher estimates

This study examined the accuracy of self‐ and other‐estimated intelligence in relation to tested cognitive ability and gender. Three groups of raters were examined: 187 (102 male, 85 female; mean age 14.33 years, SD = .32) pupils of single‐sex comprehensive schools, 109 (55 mothers and 54 fathers) parents, and six teachers of the pupils. Pupils estimated their own overall IQ, while their parents and teachers estimated the pupils’ overall, mathematical, spatial, and verbal abilities. Self‐ and other‐estimates were compared to each other, and to the child’s psychometric test scores in verbal, quantitative, and figural/non‐verbal reasoning ability. Results suggested that participants were reasonably accurate at estimating pupils’ intelligence – teachers significantly more so than parents, and pupils significantly more so than fathers. Although both parents significantly overestimated their child’s IQ, this overestimation was more pronounced in fathers.     

Typical intellectual engagement as a byproduct of openness,learning approaches,and self‐assessed intelligence

Students (n = 328) from US and UK universities completed four self‐report measures related to intellectual competence: typical intellectual engagement (TIE), openness to experience, self‐assessed intelligence (SAI), and learning approaches. Confirmatory data reduction was used to examine the structure of TIE and supported five major factors: reading and information seeking, intellectual avoidance, directed complex problem solving, abstract thinking, and intellectual pursuits as a primary focus. These factors were significantly and positively associated with deep learning, openness, and SAI, and negatively related to surface learning. Other correlates of TIE were more factor‐dependent. In general, correlations suggested that TIE is related to, but different from, the other intellectual competence constructs examined. Results are discussed in relation to the typical performance approach to intelligence and the importance of TIE with regards to the intrinsic motivation to learn.     

Mainly Openness: The relationship between the Big Five personality traits and learning approaches

In order to examine the relationship between broad personality traits and learning approaches, 852 university students completed the NEO-FFI [Costa, P. T., Jr., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI): Professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources] and SPQ [Biggs, J. B. (1987). The Study Process Questionnaire manual. Victoria: Australian Council for Educational Research], which assess personality and learning approaches, respectively. Seven previous studies were used to generate hypotheses on the relationship between these two measures, but only the positive link between Openness to Experience and Deep learning was supported by both correlational and structural equation modelling tests. Openness was also found to be negatively linked to Surface learning, but other Big Five traits were not saliently associated with learning approaches. Results indicate that the overlap between learning approaches and personality traits is lower than previously suggested. Implications are discussed.     

The open access scientific journal: an empirical study

The open access (OA) model for journals is compared to the open source principle for computer software. Since the early 1990s nearly 1,000 OA scientific journals have emerged – mostly as voluntary community efforts, although recently some professionally operating publishers have used author charges or institutional membership. This study of OA journals without author charges shows that their impact is still relatively small, but awareness of it is increasing. The average number of research articles per year is lower than for major scientific journals but the publication times are shorter.     

The stretchiness of learning the digital mystery of learning in one-to-one environments in schools

The aim of the study is to generate knowledge of how teachers change their teaching and how pupils change their learning as a consequence of working in One-to-One environments in schools. The result shows that teachers and students are changing their relation to teaching and learning when school is digitized. The most important dimension of this change is that content related knowledge of the digitized learning in a one-to-one school, is a prerequisite for improved quality and better results in schools where digital artefacts are used. The results also show in what ways teachers must understand that knowledge is stretched between analogue and digital teaching and learning in the classroom.     

How Students Verify Conjectures: Teachers’ Expectations

Eight teachers were interviewed concerning how students verify conjectures. The study is a sequel to a previous study, “How Students Verify Conjectures” [Bergqvist, T. (2000). How students verify conjectures. Research reports in Mathematics Education 3]. Teachers’ expectations of students’ reasoning and performance are examined, and also how they wish students would work. The results indicate that the teachers tend to underestimate the students’ reasoning levels and that they believe that only a small group of students in each class can use higher level reasoning in mathematics.