Aspiring to include versus implicit ‘othering’: teachers' perceptions of inclusive education in Wales

Wales, one of the four nations of the UK, is currently undergoing major education system-level reform. From the curriculum, through to a new additional learning needs (ALN) system, there is a renewed focus on inclusive education. Research has shown the importance of teachers' attitudes towards inclusion in creating inclusive learning environments. This research study is based on data from a survey of teachers in Wales (n = 253) exploring their perceptions of inclusive education. Thematic analysis of open-text responses revealed that while teachers were able to articulate the ‘ideal’ of inclusion, these positive ideals were often caveated by both implicit othering of learners with ALN and by the explicit limitations of behaviour, training, and finance and resources. This article critically evaluates the implications of teacher perceptions of inclusive education in Wales, suggesting that without a change in teacher attitudes, the vision of an inclusive education system may be compromised.     

ON THE PUBLIC AND CIVIC PURPOSES OF EDUCATION

A bstract .  In this review essay, Kathleen Knight Abowitz discusses three recent books related to democratic public life and schooling: Susan H. Fuhrman and Marvin Lazerson's The Public Schools , Walter C. Parker's Teaching Democracy: Unity and Diversity in Public Life , and Kevin McDonough and Walter Feinberg's Education and Citizenship in Liberal-Democratic Societies . Abowitz details how each text is inspired by meanings of liberal democracy that evolved during the Enlightenment era, in which individual rights were constitutionally coded and equality came to be a powerful social and educational ideal, and how each book also takes up different sorts of Enlightenment traditions of public life and education, attempting to revitalize their meanings for public education today. Yet while these books are inspiring and instructive in numerous ways, they are also notable for the issues they fail to take into theoretical account, particularly the colonization of public spheres by the private and market-based spheres of commerce, and the ways in which increasing ecological crisis calls for new ways of conceiving our political and educational frameworks.     

Governance in Higher Education Corporations: A Consideration of the Constitution Created by the 1992 Act

This article argues that the constitutions of higher education corporations created by the 1992 Further and Higher Education Act are flawed. It argues that the constitutions were created with insufficient regard both for precedents for the creation of universities and also for emerging problems and principles of corporate governance. This resulted in a model of governance which maximised the role of the vice–chancellor or chief executive and 'independent members' of governing bodies, limited the participation of staff and students, and allocated a restricted role to academic boards. This article examines a number of the problems arising from inadequacies in governance in a number of post–1992 universities and their similarity with problems arising in further education colleges who shared common governance arrangements from the 1992 Act. This article compares these problems with governance problems in Australian universities and concludes that there is a need to reform the governance arrangements created by the 1992 Act.     

ACHIEVING PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Public schools are functionally provided through structural arrangements such as government funding, but public schools are achieved in substance, in part, through local governance. In this essay, Kathleen Knight Abowitz explains the bifocal nature of achieving public schools; that is, that schools are both subject to the unitary Public compact of constitutional principles as well as to the more local engagements with multiple publics. Knight Abowitz sketches this bifocal nature, exploring both the unitary ideal and its parameters, as well as the less understood forms of multiple, organic publics that come into being in response to localized problems in schools or districts. These publics often fail to realize their potential in the development of increased capacity for enhanced teaching and learning. The essay ultimately points to a practical application: that educational leadership of all types, and with some very specific kinds of habits and skills, is needed to help achieve public schools.     

The complexities and challenges of regional education hubs: focus on Malaysia

The race to establish regional education hubs is a recent development in cross-border higher education. This article briefly examines the rationales and strategies used by three countries in the Middle East and three in South East Asia which are working towards positioning themselves as regional education hubs. The different approaches and purposes among the six countries highlight the need for a typology of education hubs. Three types are proposed: the student hub, the training and skilled workforce hub, and the knowledge/innovation hub. The final section of the paper takes a closer look at Malaysia??s cross-border education initiatives and its actions to establish itself as a competitive education hub in a region where Singapore and Hong Kong have similar intentions. Whether Malaysia has the ability to make a quantum leap from being a student hub to becoming a knowledge/innovation hub remains to be seen and appears to be an optimistic outlook.     

Harnessing technology to improve formative assessment of student conceptions in STEM: forging a national network

Concept inventories, consisting of multiple-choice questions designed around common student misconceptions, are designed to reveal student thinking. However, students often have complex, heterogeneous ideas about scientific concepts. Constructed-response assessments, in which students must create their own answer, may better reveal students' thinking, but are time- and resource-intensive to evaluate. This report describes the initial meeting of a National Science Foundation-funded cross-institutional collaboration of interdisciplinary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education researchers interested in exploring the use of automated text analysis to evaluate constructed-response assessments. Participants at the meeting shared existing work on lexical analysis and concept inventories, participated in technology demonstrations and workshops, and discussed research goals. We are seeking interested collaborators to join our research community.