“Social Work Is a Profession,Not an Ideology”: A Qualitative Analysis of Student Perceptions of Social Justice Discussions in the Classroom

The purpose of this article is to describe student perceptions of their experiences around social justice discussions in the social work classroom through a qualitative, grounded theory framework. Student responses from a qualitative section of a survey were analyzed and sorted into three categories: perceived discrimination, heightened self-awareness/self-assessment, and future social work practice. Each of these categories was derived from comparable multiple themes stemming from the student responses. A conceptual model resulting from the analysis suggests that students who shared experiences of perceived discrimination during classroom discussions could develop an enhanced self-awareness, which would result in an added empathy for clients in their future social work practice. Suggestions for teaching strategies and directions for future research are also discussed.     

Twelve Years On: the new teacher training in the Netherlands

The author draws upon his experience as Director of one of the ‘new’ Dutch teacher training institutions, for lower‐secondary pupils, created after the Mammoth Act of 1968. Although outside the university system, they have been subject to university supervision, which led to some problems. The relationship, for example, is hierarchaic, and many universities and professors are interested only in the academic subject. There has been a progressive move away from university dominance.

Considerable effort has gone into the creation of an institutional strategy. While each of the ‘new’ colleges was free to choose its own approach, that adopted at the SOL Utrecht was radical. On the basis of the identification of the needs of future teachers, teams of specialists from different areas—for example, pedagogues as well as subject specialists —were brought together to plan, as a team, for the courses offered. This approach makes heavy demands on staff attitudes, which must be allowed for.

The school practice experience is important, and carefully planned for. Also, much use is made of audio‐visual media, including videotaping of lectures, once course content has been fixed.

The institution is committed to an integrated approach to the training of teachers.     

CCTV IN THE CURRICULUM

An aspect of work at the Dover ETC Service is the provision of CSE courses in photography, drama and graphic design. While discussing the difficulties of assessing such work, the author mentions the benefits that result from any such group project work, particularly the increased motivation of the less academically able students     

Voices from the East and West: congruence on the primary purpose of tutor feedback in higher education

While feedback in education is important, formative feedback that leads to improvement in students’ learning outcomes and emotional disposition is vital. This argument has been made repeatedly in the Western literature, both by researchers and by students participating in their research in higher education. This paper presents both affective and non-affective improvement as the most frequently occurring theme identified in a mixed-methods study conducted at a National Key University in mainland China, which investigated 232 Chinese students’ experiences and expectations of feedback from their Chinese tutors. This paper, thus, concludes that mainland Chinese university students and Western researchers and students likely agree on the primary function of tutor feedback. The desire for tutor feedback to also or chiefly play a formative role appears not to be a geographically or culturally specific phenomenon.     

Embodying life-long learning: Transition and capstone experiences

This paper discusses the principle of Transition as it has been conceptualised by the Curriculum Renewal in Legal Education project. The project sought to develop a principled framework for renewing the final year of tertiary legal education in Australia. Capstone experiences were chosen as the most appropriate mechanism for assisting final year students to manage the transition process. Thoughtfully designed capstones assist students to integrate and synthesise their learning over their entire degree programme, facilitate closure on the undergraduate experience, and assist students to transition from student to emerging professional. We discuss the importance of addressing final year students’ transitional needs and explain how the principle facilitates this process. Although the framework has been developed specifically for legal education in Australia its approach enables transferability across disciplines and institutions. The framework addresses criticisms that universities and law schools are not meeting the needs of final year students by preparing them for the transition to graduate life in a complex and uncertain world.     

Fight, flight and playing white: An examination of coping strategies adopted by Gypsy Traveller Adolescents in English secondary schools

This paper draws on findings from a longitudinal study of Gypsy Traveller¹ students attending English secondary schools. Analysis of over 400 interviews with 44 Gypsy Traveller students, their parents and teachers over a 5-year period identified several pull and push factors that impact on secondary school engagement and retention. Of these, cultural dissonance (a result of conflicting expectations between home and school) and social exclusion feature strongly. Students who relied on maladaptive coping strategies to deal with psychosocial stress associated with cultural dissonance and social exclusion tended to drop out of school early. These maladaptive strategies are referred to here as fight (physical and verbal retaliation and non-compliance), flight (self-imposed exclusion) and playing white (passing identity by concealing or denying one's heritage). Those who were retained in school to the age of 16 displayed more adaptive strategies such as cognitive re-framing, developing social support networks and adopting a bicultural identity.     

Evolution in educational change: A literature review of the historical core of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Journal of Educational Change</Emphasis>

This literature review explored educational change trends as reflected in the first 15 years of the Journal of Educational Change (JEC), from 2000 to 2014. The examination of 52 articles accounting for 61% of the Journal’s historical citations indicated that the JEC has evolved through five periods, which relate to ‘waves of educational change’ beyond the Journal itself. At the center of this development there has been a process of de-centering of Anglo-American perspectives on educational reform, pushed both by an increasing pessimism among U.S. and U.K. scholars regarding their countries’ reforms and by systematic evidence that other educational systems are achieving better student learning outcomes. The aforementioned evolution also shows a shift from more conceptual works by the field’s historical leaders toward more empirical research conducted by emergent scholars. After discussing the predominant concept of educational change, the major silences in the reviewed literature, and what this evolution in the JEC says about the field of educational change at large, the paper ends reflecting on challenges as a new generation of scholars begins to enter the conversation.