Educational practice,student experience,and the purpose of education—a critique of ‘Pedagogy in Practice’

The focus of the present paper is a critical discussion of the recently developed concept Pedagogy in Practice (PiP) with the intention of improving the concept for future research. PiP aims to understand ongoing educational practice from the students’ perspective by interviewing groups of students about their understanding of learning. By emphasising ‘pedagogy’ and ‘practice’ and drawing from a theoretical foundation that takes practice and action as key concepts, PiP is an appealing alternative to research in student voice, to which it is closely related. However, a critical analysis of PiP in relation to its stated theoretical sources (Bourdieu, Bernstein, Dewey) shows that the approach contradicts these sources in key areas. In PiP students’ understanding of learning is taken as basic for improving educational practice, however, PiP is developed without an explicit notion of what education is for. This paper introduces a specific formulation of the purpose and functions of education based on the work of Gert Biesta, and outlines how a revised version of PiP might contribute to future empirical research in education.     

Nature watch

In our previous article ‘On observing the night sky’¹ we had introduced the reader to the stars and constellations and suggested how they may be observed. In this article we will provide a few technical details, which we had deliberately left out earlier and also introduce the reader to a number of the other remarkable objects that may be seen in the sky.     

Families as Educators for Global Citizenship: Five conundrums of intentional socialization

An international multidisciplinary Symposium on ‘Families as Educators for Global Citizenship’ was held in Budapest in December 1994, jointly convened by the Institute of Family & Environmental Research (London) and the Hungarian Sociological Association.

We based our work on two propositions: first, that families everywhere socialize their offspring for the norms and behaviour valued in their social systems; and second, that there are major changes going on a ‘global’ scale which are relevant to current socialization practices. We asked how changes in global culture and values impact on families and how families are responding. In the light of the importance of these questions and the sparseness of reliable answers, we suggest the need for research on families and the teaching/learning of social values: 1. How do families actually teach values: how much of it is intentional instruction, how much inadvertent teaching, as in association with language teaching and non‐intentional modelling ?

2. How do families reconcile their local traditional values with those emerging as part of global culture (i.e. the humanistic values of universal human rights, gender equity, respect for the environment, non‐violent conflict resolution and diversity).

3. How are personal identities formed which incorporate a global dimension, and how are conflicts in multiple identities (local, national, regional global) managed?

It is recognized that at present it is probably a minority interest to undertake intentional socialization for global values. However, we suggest that it will be increasingly recognized as important. For families seeking to instill such values, a number of conundrums are apparent. We have identified five for preliminary analysis.

     

Administrators' ratings of competencies needed to prepare preservice teachers for oral deaf education programs

Deaf education teacher preparation programs must prepare teachers to staff an increasing number of oral programs. A survey was conducted to determine which competencies administrators of deaf education programs rate as important for teachers in oral programs and to compare ratings of these competencies by oral school administrators to ratings made by administrators of comprehensive deaf and hard of hearing programs. Between the two groups of administrators, six areas of agreement about competencies were found. There were notable differences in the range of ratings between the two groups. These differences were attributed to the roles teachers assume in the two types of programs and the focus of instruction in each type of program.     

Computer-based course evaluation: an extended technology acceptance model

This study explored the antecedents of students’ intention to participate in computer-based course evaluation. The study proposed an extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) that integrated subjective norm and perceived relevance into TAM. Based on the responses from 149 business school students in Macao, the study identified the direct and indirect effects of subjective norm and perceived relevance on perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and students’ intention to participate in computer-based course evaluation. The results of structural equation modelling showed that subjective norm had a positive, strong and significant effect on perceived relevance that in turn affected perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. Besides, subjective norm and perceived usefulness had direct effects on students’ intention to participate in computer-based course evaluation. Thus, subjective norm played a major role in affecting Chinese students’ participation in course evaluation.     

Exploring School Principals’ Leadership Styles and Learners’ Educational Performance: A Perspective from High- and Low-Performing Schools

School leadership is fundamental to the educational functioning of schools and their improvements of results. The study employed a qualitative approach to explore school principals’ leadership styles and the educational performance of learners in high- and low-performing schools in Vhembe District, Limpopo, South Africa. The participants were purposefully selected from 10 secondary schools in terms of their performance. Focus group interviews were conducted with five teachers from each school. The interview data was transcribed and analysed, and identical patterns of coded data were grouped together under emerging themes. The overall results of the study indicated that the democratic leadership style together with the transformational leadership style contribute to high educational performance of learners. School principals from high- and low-performing schools employ a democratic leadership style and differ only in the sense that the latter are permissive or lenient towards learners’ behaviours or conduct. The study recommends that school principals engage teachers as members of a disciplinary committee in order to deal with those learners whose conduct is not conducive to successful teaching and learning. It is recommended that school principals from low-performing schools strengthen their democratic leadership by not being lenient to learners’ behaviour which is not conducive to successful teaching and learning.     

Perceived family functioning, marital status, and depression in parents of boys with attention deficit disorder

The present study examined the perceptions of parents of children with attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity (ADD/H) regarding their family environment and depression in comparison with a clinical and a nondisabled control group. Parents of children with ADD/H perceived their family environment as less supportive and more stressful than did either the clinical or the nondisabled controls. Specifically, ADD/H parents viewed their families as having lower levels of interpersonal relationships than did either of the control groups. Ratings of depression for each of the parent groups indicated a greater frequency of depressive symptomatology among the parents of children with ADD/H. In addition, more parents of ADD/H children were separated or divorced. Correlation coefficients computed for the entire sample suggest differences between mothers' and fathers' depression and differences in their perceptions of the family. Recommendations are made for future research as well as the development of treatment programs to incorporate work with the parents of children with ADD/H.