In the field with two rural primary school head teachers in England

ABSTRACT

The research focuses on the complexities associated with contemporary rural primary school leadership. The paper draws on in-depth ethnographic research undertaken in two contrasting English rural primary schools and their surrounding community over a period of three years and in particular the experiences and perspectives of the two head teachers from these schools. The paper is conceptually informed by the work of Bourdieu [1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul] and his work around field, habitus and capital as a means of understanding practice. The paper contends that as the neo-liberal economic field increasingly contaminates the field of schooling so a contextual understanding of the complex and shifting social space which a head teacher occupies, including their habitus and the capital they deploy, is of central importance to understanding practice.     

Critical Conversations on Social Justice in Undergraduate Mathematics

Abstract

This article explores how critical conversations engage undergraduate mathematics faculty in a community of practice that enhances their knowledge about teaching and learning mathematics for social justice. More broadly, critical conversations are defined as a cooperative learning strategy that can be used to identify, explore, and respond to various interests and issues situated across differing values and beliefs. We present a case study of a critical conversation that took place at a 2016 Mathematics for Social Justice workshop organized by a group of junior faculty. Participant reflections situate perspectives that can help novice and experienced instructors design conversations about teaching mathematics for social justice. Specifically, individual and group reflections highlight the importance of: (i) framing and reflecting on the conversation; (ii) exploring implications and content connections; and (iii) identifying barriers. Implications for faculty members and mathematics departments are provided.     

Contact and Interactivity: Social Constructionist Pedagogy in a Video-Based, Management Writing Course

In this study of a management writing course delivered via interactive television (ITV) and video streaming (VS), we examine the impact of video-based media on the instructor's pedagogy. Using grounded theory as a methodological lens, we arrive at two core categories, contact and interactivity, and four subcategories, presence, control, dialogue, and liveliness. After a careful analysis of these categories, we claim that video-based delivery deserves attention because it represents a promising component of distance learning writing instruction. Video allows an instructor to reintroduce talking as a means of learning into the arena of distance education, which tends to be dominated by text-heavy, Web-based methods of delivery. In fact, the emergence of liveliness as a category suggests that, for distant students, active learning occurs during spontaneous discussions made possible by video components. Video-based media that complement text-based interactivity can support social constructionist pedagogy in distance learning.