A critique of the teaching standards in England (1984–2012): discourses of equality and maintaining the status quo

This study presents a critical analysis of the state-prescribed teaching standards from 1984 to 2012 in order to reveal discourses of equality imbued within. Critical discourse analysis and critical race theory are employed to explore and explain how the discourses of equality are shaped by the prevailing political ideology of the state. Up to 2007, the analyses revealed the gradual emergence of two seemingly incompatible discourses: recognition of the difference within notions of appropriacy of curriculum input vs. the assertion of a homogenised knowledge valid for all. It is argued that because this tension remained unexamined in the documents, damaging assumptions of deficit were obscured, thereby effecting a failure to critique the hegenomic norms against which such deficit was assumed, with the ultimate effect of maintaining the status quo of inequitable outcomes. The standards of 2012 also operate to maintain the status quo, but do so far less discretely. Here homogeneity appears overtly approved through an overarching assimilationist agenda. Deficit is now more openly articulated as attached to those who need to assimilate. The paper concludes with ideas for an alternative transformative teacher education.     

Assessing the suitability of individual whiteboards for left-handed writers within the Early Years Foundation Stage

In 1998, when Teachers—meeting the challenge of change was published by the English Department for Education and Skills (DfES), one of the most fundamental reforms of the teaching profession was initiated—performance management. In 2005, all schools became subject to ‘Light Touch Validation’ of their performance management policy and procedures. At this significant time, this investigation seeks to explore the views and experiences of teachers in the first-named author's own school, which is a small special school. The author critically investigates the premise of performance management as promoted by the DfES and notes that the emerging literature on the topic focuses strongly on ‘mainstream’ schools where many of the research investigations have proved to be sceptical about the initiative. In contrast, through a survey and documentary analysis the author investigates the views and experiences of teachers in her own school and discovers a largely positive view and experience of performance management.     

Young Children's Response Tendencies Toward Yes–No Questions Concerning Actions

Two experiments investigated response tendencies of preschoolers toward yes–no questions about actions. Two hundred 2‐ to 5‐year‐old children were asked questions concerning actions commonly associated with particular objects (e.g., drinking from a cup) and actions not commonly associated with particular objects (e.g., kicking a toothbrush). The impact of delay and comprehension of questions were also investigated. Results revealed a consistent developmental transition: Younger children tended to display a yes bias whereas older children did not display a bias unless they faced incomprehensible questions, in which case they displayed a nay‐saying bias. Delay shifted children's responses in such a way that “no” answers were given more often. These findings hold important implications regarding the use of yes–no questions with children.     

School Leadership and System Leadership

School effectiveness and improvement research shows that leadership plays a key role in ensuring the vitality and growth of schools. Yet, there is growing appreciation (Elmore 2000, 2) that “public schools and school systems as presently constituted are simply not led in ways that enable them to respond to the increasing demands they face under standards-based reforms.” For Elmore (2000, 2) and others, the way out of this problem is “through the large scale improvement of instruction, something public education has been unable to do to date, but which is possible with dramatic changes in the way public schools define and practice leadership.”     

Two negatives don't always make a positive: Exploring how limitations in teacher knowledge and the curriculum contribute to instructional quality

This paper examines the contribution of mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) and curriculum materials to the implementation of lessons on integer subtraction. In particular, it investigates the instruction of three teachers with differing MKT levels using two editions of the same set of curriculum materials that provided different levels of support. This variation in MKT level and curriculum support facilitated exploring the distinct and joint contribution of MKT and the curriculum materials to instructional quality. The analyses suggest that MKT relates positively to teachers' use of representations, provision of explanations, precision in language and notation, and ability to capitalize on student contributions and move the mathematics along in a goal-directed manner. Curriculum materials set the stage for attending to the meaning of integer subtraction and appeared to support teachers' use of representations, provision of explanations, and precision in language and notation. More critically, the findings suggest that less educative curriculum materials, coupled with low levels of MKT, can lead to problematic instruction. In contrast, educative materials can help low-MKT teachers provide adequate instruction, while higher MKT levels seem to enable teachers to compensate for curriculum limitations.     

Troubling “understanding mathematics in-depth”: Its role in the identity work of student-teachers in England

In this paper, we focus on an initiative in England devised to prepare non-mathematics graduates to train as secondary mathematics teachers through a 6-month Mathematics Enhancement Course (MEC) to boost their subject knowledge. The course documentation focuses on the need to develop “understanding mathematics in-depth” in students in order for them to become successful mathematics teachers. We take a poststructural approach, so we are not interested in asking what such an understanding is, about the value of this approach or about the effectiveness of the MECs in developing this understanding in their participants. Instead we explore what positions this discourse of “understanding mathematics in-depth” makes available to MEC students. We do this by looking in detail at the “identity work” of two students, analysing how they use and are used by this discourse to position themselves as future mathematics teachers. In doing so, we show how even benign-looking social practices such as “understanding mathematics in-depth” are implicated in practices of inclusion and exclusion. We show this through detailed readings of interviews with two participants, one of whom fits with the dominant discourses in the MEC and the other who, despite passing the MEC, experiences tensions between her national identity work and MEC discourses. We argue that it is vital to explore “identity work” within teacher education contexts to ensure that becoming a successful mathematics teacher is equally available to all.     

Australia’s 1988 Bicentennial: national history and multiculturalism in the primary school curriculum

As in many countries, such as Germany, Turkey, the United States and Japan the history/culture wars of the past two decades have increased public interest in what is taught in schools. This has resulted in rigorous debates in the general community, encouraged and sustained through regular media coverage. Partly as a response to this, History has been designated as a separate subject in the first wave of planning and implementation of the Australian National Curriculum. Two of the reasons for this include first, to recognise the importance of teaching historical skills as a distinct subject; and second there is an ongoing bipartisan political interest in privileging history disciplinary knowledge and content to ensure that national history narratives are taught to students. To contribute meaningfully towards the development and implementation of a National Curriculum, it is important to understand past curriculum constructions, so that the disciplinary knowledge and content of history remains independent, and not subsumed within current (or future) political trends. Based on examples of national history from the Queensland Social Studies syllabus and government endorsed sourcebooks in the lead-up to the 1988 Bicentennial of British colonisation of the Australian continent, this article examines the influence and role of multiculturalism in History teaching in primary schools. Particular attention is paid to Indigenous representations and British heritages, as an example of two groups that have often been represented as binaries to each other throughout Australian history. An analysis of the curriculum materials illuminates the differences between multiculturalism and history—highlighting how the two are merged at the expense of accurate historical knowledge and concepts, particularly in the area of national history. This study will demonstrate that as a result of the infiltration of multiculturalism into history content within the Social Studies curriculum, historical knowledge becomes silenced in the school curriculum – resulting in vague and sometimes historically inaccurate information being presented to students; and the privileging of certain types of multiculturalism.