Everyone's a Criminal? Reflections on Critical Reading in the Primary Classroom

Calls for children to be taught to read critically become ever louder. This article asks what teaching for critical reading might look like in the primary school. It presents accounts of two group reading lessons from a Year 3 classroom. It examines the interactions that take place: the questioning of the teachers and the responses of the children. It suggests that where children are given the power to make meaning for themselves, they are more likely to learn to read critically than those who are not.     

The Delphi method: gathering expert opinion in religious education

The ‘Does Religious Education work?’ project is part of the Religion and Society programme funded by two major research councils in the UK. It sets out to track the trajectory of Religious Education (RE) in secondary schools in the UK from the aims and intentions represented in policy through its enactment in classroom practice to the estimations of its impact by students. Using a combination of approaches, we are in the process of investigating the practices which determine and shape the teaching of RE in secondary schools through linked case studies, semi-structured interviews and a practitioner enquiry strand. In this article we focus on the first stage of the project where we used the Delphi method to elicit expert opinion on the aims and intentions of RE in secondary schools in Scotland, England and Northern Ireland. We outline the place of the Delphi process within the rationale of the project, discuss emerging themes and some of the issues arising from the use of this approach.     

Tronto's notion of privileged irresponsibility and the reconceptualisation of care: implications for critical pedagogies of emotion in higher education

This article takes on some of care theorist Joan Tronto's ideas on care and responsibility and asks what implications they have for critical pedagogies in higher education. The authors argue that Tronto's political ethics of care framework enriches the transformative potential of critical pedagogies, because it helps expose how power and emotion operate through (ir)responsibility. In particular, Tronto's notion of ‘privileged irresponsibility’ is analysed in relation to the gendered and emotional ideologies and practices that are constructed discursively and materially. It is argued that critical pedagogies of emotion grounded in Tronto's political ethics of care provide the concepts and openings to critically explore the emotions arising from failing to recognise different teachers' and students' needs and from engaging in practices of privileged irresponsibility. Also, critical pedagogies of emotion encourage students and educators to be attentive to their own emotional positions and practices with regard to caring responsibilities and (gendered and other) privileged irresponsibilities.     

Tools for pedagogical inquiry: the impact of teaching thinking skills on teachers

This paper explores the idea of thinking skills approaches as tools for pedagogical inquiry and in so doing seeks to develop the link between the promotion of inquiry‐based learning, which is a central tenet of thinking skills, and inquiry‐based teaching as an approach to professional development and school improvement. The first part of the paper examines the impact of teaching thinking skills on teachers by drawing upon a systematic review of research evidence. The second part of the paper sets the characteristics identified in the context of research into teachers’ development and considers the contribution of a pedagogy based on thinking skills approaches to continuing professional development.