An Immanent Critique of Critical Pedagogy

In this essay, Quentin Wheeler‐Bell aims to reframe recent attempts to rethink the core principles of critical pedagogy. He argues that these attempts have been unsuccessful because they reproduce a deeper problem — specifically, an identity crisis — within critical pedagogy. The source of this problem, he contends, is that those working in this tradition have, over time, become more distant from and forgetful of its roots in critical theory; as a result, critical pedagogy is now in a state of dilution and fragmentation in which critical pedagogues are unable to bring the plurality of critical education approaches together theoretically around a set of shared principles. In order to address this problem and begin to reframe the core principles of critical pedagogy, Wheeler‐Bell first briefly sketches the debates around Max Horkheimer's classic essay “Critical Theory and Traditional Theory,” focusing on why critical theory grew into an interdisciplinary tradition situated between philosophy and social science. Then he explains why the recent attempts to rethink critical pedagogy rely upon a problematic, albeit dominant, narrative of the critical education tradition — a narrative that only tacitly recognizes a connection between critical education and critical theory. This dominant narrative contributes to the identity crisis within critical education because it supports a collective memory loss regarding the importance of both philosophy and social science to critical theory. Finally, Wheeler‐Bell attempts to develop a thin definition of critical education: one that connects critical education back to its roots in critical theory, while respecting the plurality of critical education approaches.     

Mapping the Steps toward Basic Understanding of Scientific Inquiry

Benchmarks for Science Literacy (AAAS 1993) lists for four gradelevels the steps by which students might achieve science literacy before leaving high school. These steps and the conceptual connections among them are now being mapped to suggest where anyone idea or skill comes from, what it is connected to, and where it leads. A set of 49 such strand maps appears in Atlas of Science Literacy (AAAS 2001). This paperdescribes strand maps in general and examinesthree draft maps titled Evidence and Reasoning, Scientific Investigations, and Scientific Theories, which together represent one section of Benchmarks Chapter 1, on scientific inquiry. The maps do not prescribe any particular curriculum, but can aid in planning a variety of curricula, analyzing instructional materials, assessing student understanding, and can be used in professional development for teachers.     

The Value of Fieldwork in Life and Environmental Sciences in the Context of Higher Education: A Case Study in Learning About Biodiversity

Fieldwork is assumed by most practitioners to be an important if not essential component of a degree level education in the environmental sciences. However, there is strong evidence that as a result of a wide range of pressures (academic, financial and societal) fieldwork is in decline in the UK and elsewhere. In this paper we discuss the value of fieldwork in a higher education context and present the results of a case study which illustrates its value to student learning and the wider student experience. We used qualitative and quantitative methods to compare the impact of two learning tasks upon the affective and cognitive domains of students. We designed two tasks. One task that included fieldwork, and required students to collect organisms from the field and make labelled drawings of them, and one task that omitted the fieldwork and simply required drawing of specimens that the students had not collected. We evaluated the students’ experience through structured and semi-structured questionnaires and written exercises. Students did not perceive the two tasks as being equivalent to one another. They reported that they enjoy fieldwork and value it (in the contexts of their learning at university, life-long learning, and in relation to their career aspirations) and felt that they learn more effectively in the field. Our students were better able to construct a taxonomic list of organisms that they had collected themselves, better able to recall the structural detail of these organisms and were better able to recall the detail of an ecological sampling methodology that they had personally carried out in the field rather than one that a tutor had described to them in a classroom setting. Our case study supports the growing body of evidence that fieldwork is an important way of enhancing undergraduate learning and highlights some key areas for future research.     

Can Wii Engage College-Level Learners? Use of Commercial Off-the-Shelf Gaming in an Introductory Statistics Course

Technological advancements and growing dependence on media outlets as sources of information compete for the attention of individuals born in a rapidly expanding digital age. As a result, educators using traditional, nondigital teaching methods struggle with keeping students engaged in the classroom. The present study assessed the extent to which a digitally enhanced learning environment can improve student involvement in learning. A traditional behavioral statistics lecture was supplemented with Nintendo Wii video gaming to increase student content knowledge comprehension and engagement with course material. A mixed Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) revealed that those in the video gaming condition improved significantly more than those receiving traditional lecture only. This research suggests that students can learn difficult conceptual material (i.e., statistics) through more novel, interactive teaching methods.     

Re–valuing the role of images in reviewing picture books

This paper discusses the narrative role of images in three prize–winning children’s books: ‘The Rabbits’ by John Marsden and Shaun Tan; ‘Joseph had a Little Overcoat’ by Simms Taback; and ‘The House that Jack Built’ by Gavin Bishop. It is argued that the contribution of images to interpretive possibilities of the narrative are typically not sufficiently addressed in reviewing picture books. In dealing with this aspect of images in picture books, an approach to ‘reading images’ as described in the book of that title by Gunther Kress and Thao van Leeuwen is suggested as a productive resource for reviewers and teachers.     

Developing a postgraduate work-based curriculum using an Intervention Mapping Approach

Advanced practitioner skill development has become an important focus in health service delivery as increasingly complex consumer needs, practice environments and national professional registration requirements impact on professional work practices. Increasingly, work-based or workplace learning experiences are being seen as an effective means for maintaining skill currency across working lives. Currently there is limited literature on pedagogical practices to support the educational and training requirements associated with development across a person's working life. This paper reports on an example of how an intervention mapping framework was used to guide the development, implementation and evaluation of a work-based praxis course for students in an interprofessional, online postgraduate mental health programme. The intervention mapping framework provided a stepped process to guide decision-making and allowed the incorporation of theory and evidence into the course design. This approach provided a stepped process to guide decision-making and allowed the incorporation of theory and evidence into the course design. While the use of the intervention mapping framework is often used within health promotion arenas, particularly for the effective design of health promotion educational programmes, it is argued that this framework can be utilised effectively when developing curriculum for use within higher education programmes.     

Non-prescribed spaces,creativity and narrative formation: a systems-based examination of a community art group exploring food poverty

ABSTRACT

This article describes a year-long participatory arts project carried out as part of a community–university partnership in the South of England. The research sought to examine the relationship between the ‘user-led’ ethos of the Brighton Unemployed Centre Families Project (BUCFP) and emergence within it of creatively working and self-managing groups, examining how an environment that did not adhere to a prescribed use of space might enable groups to make sense of their experiences. The research used ethnographic methods and a theoretical framework informed by systems theory, critical health psychology and narrative analysis to explore the group’s experiences of food poverty. The research demonstrates ways in which the group provided community members with a space in which to examine, define and make legitimate their experiences and how this can be thought of as an educational and community knowledge-building practice that has important implications, particularly for notions of well-being.     

Critique of the article by Visser and Jehan (2009): ‘ADHD: a scientific fact or a factual opinion? A critique of the veracity of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder’

This article seeks to evaluate and take further the discussion put forward by Visser and Jehan (Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties 14, no. 2: 127–40). It begins by focusing on the biomedical discourse, its dominance in the academic and professional literature and why the existence of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) as a medical category is questionable. This is followed by a discussion of other discourses including the sociological discourse and the bio-psychosocial discourse. The importance of multi-professional approaches in the identification, assessment and management of ADHD is highlighted, followed by an examination of what part the educational environment might play with regard to behaviours associated with ADHD. Attention is drawn to the need for continuing research and debate on this evolving concept.     

ADHD in schools: prevalence,multi‐professional involvements and school training needs in an LEA

As part of research undertaken by the first author, a survey of schools was carried out in one local education authority (LEA) in order to gather information about pupils diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). All mainstream and special schools and pupil referral units were approached and a response rate of 94% was achieved. In 151 schools there were 413 pupils reported as being formally diagnosed with ADHD. The survey results include details of prevalence, the balance of gender, age and special educational need (SEN) Code of Practice levels, issues of diagnosis and medication, co‐morbidity and school training needs. In addition, responses from two ADHD study days, one held during the survey data collection phase and the second following dissemination of the results, provided supplementary information regarding school training needs. Implications for inclusive educational practice are discussed with reference to: prevalence rates; multi‐professional identification, assessment and management of the disorder; the need for and nature of the training schools require.