Developing partnership with parents in special schools: parental perspectives from Northern Ireland

From the 1960s, the development of home–school relationships in special schools has become increasingly important, culminating in the current official understanding of parents as partners. This paper traces the development of the relationship, setting out the challenges to partnership development from professional perspectives within education. A professionally located investigation was undertaken into parental experiences and perspectives to identify factors inhibiting and promoting effective partnerships. Using a mixed-methods approach, the views were explored of parents with children attending a special school in Northern Ireland. Findings strongly indicated the need for educators to pursue and engage with the views of parents, and to recognise the emotional context of these relationships at an interpersonal and organisational level, so that home–school relations can be realigned to support partnership. Implications are set out that will be instrumental in achieving this reconfiguration between the current official understanding of parents as equal partners and actual practice in some schools.     

How are UK Academics Engaging the Public with their Research? A Cross‐Disciplinary Perspective

This paper takes a cross‐disciplinary perspective in examining the views and practices of public engagement with research by UK academics. Using a mixed method approach consisting of a survey questionnaire and interviews, the paper identifies the range of audience groups that can potentially be engaged with by academics, and shows that some audiences are more relevant to particular disciplinary groups than others. The paper also identifies the various public engagement activities undertaken by academics and finds that some academics are using creative ways of engaging the public, such as using the services of public relations firms to help in disseminating their research in traditional media outlets, and also by using social media. Essentially, the study reveals that some academics feel the pressure of engaging particular audiences at the expense of those that are relevant to them and that, academics in the main, are opposed to the notion of mandating public engagement as part of appraisal systems.     

Understanding User-Librarian Interaction Types in Academic Library Microblogging: A Comparison Study in Twitter and Weibo

This research examined the ways in which academic librarians and users interact when using social media tools such as Twitter and Weibo as well as end-users' and librarians' perceptions of the types of interaction through social media. The study conducted an analysis of 1600 microblog posts sampled from twenty university library Weibo (Chinese Twitter) sites and twenty library Twitter sites in English-speaking countries. The results were compared using Chi-Square analysis. Results indicated that at present academic librarians in English-speaking countries use post information relevant to the library (news and events) and respond to information/research inquiries. And academic librarians in China are likely to use Weibo to communicate with users and to disseminate library news. Given the lack of previous research on how social media such as micro-blogging in general facilitates communication between librarians and library users in academic libraries between in English-speaking countries and China, this study provides valuable information concerning librarians' and end-users' interactions of information/knowledge sharing activities, which will enable libraries to be better positioned to promote user engagement through SNS usage.     

Literacy,speech and shame: the cultural politics of literacy and language in Brazil

This article examines the relationship between shame, literacy and social relations by analyzing shame narratives told to the author by youth and adult literacy students during a 24‐month ethnographic research project conducted in two Brazilian cities. Employing Bourdieu’s theoretical framework and literature from the anthropology of emotions, the article asks: What is accomplished through the micropolitics of shaming? What can it teach us about theories of literacy, language and power more broadly? The article shows how speech shaming in Brazil contributed to the cultural production of inequality by individualizing, psychologizing and embodying responsibility or blame for illiteracy. It argues that sociocultural theories of literacy, language and power need to account for the influence of emotions in communicative interactions.     

Global–local dynamics of curriculum policy development: a case-study from Singapore

Non-government education is often a highly emotive and frequently irrational area of educational debate, especially when it centres on the degree of government funding and support. Frequently people take fortified positions, being either for or against it, often on political grounds and often without taking into account the cultural contexts and complexities involved. The purpose of this article is to look beyond these confines. It is based on a research project focusing on ‘whole’ curriculum policy at the individual school level in non-government schools in a variety of English-speaking countries in the developed world. The article is in three parts. The first part outlines the conceptual framework employed to guide our research project on curriculum policy. The second part presents a case-study of Chinese High School (CHS) in Singapore. This is an exemplar of the type of case-study of curriculum policy in non-government schools being undertaken as part of our research. Also, it is an interesting case in its own right; while the school has developed a global orientation to its curriculum policy and has incorporated ‘the global’ into ‘the local’ extremely rapidly, this curriculum transition has not been without its tensions and costs. The third part of the article offers a discussion of the ‘bigger picture’ implications of the findings.     

Video production as a tool for raising educator awareness about collaborative teacher–parent partnerships

Background:?This article describes research undertaken with teachers working in a South African township school, where parental involvement is a persistent problematic issue.

Purpose:?The purpose of the study was to explore the use of video production as a tool for assisting teachers to explore their perceptions about parental involvement in education and how these perceptions impact on their relationships with parents.

Sample:?Nine teachers participated voluntarily in the study, seven from two different primary schools and two from the high school in the township. All the teachers were isiXhosa speaking and had grown up in communities similar to the one in which the school was situated.

Design and methods:?Following a participatory research approach, we guided the participating teachers to design and produce short videos about issues that they perceived to impact negatively on their teaching and learning. We then facilitated critical reflection on these videos, specifically exploring how they had portrayed the teacher–parent relationship in each case.

Results:?Through a content analysis of a structured focus group and their written responses to questions, we identified emergent themes that made it apparent that the participating teachers viewed parents in a negative light, indicating a lack of the respect that would be required for the formation and sustainment of co-operative relationships. These themes were then used to facilitate discussion to raise teacher awareness of how the teachers' perceptions of parents could hinder meaningful parental involvement.

Conclusion:?The article offers an example of how visual methodologies can be useful tools for beginning to raise teacher awareness around issues, as a precursor to helping teachers to take action to improve a given situation.     

Recognition of prior learning (RPL) policy in Australian higher education: the dynamics of position-taking

The Bourdieuian concept of ‘position-taking’ is applied in this analysis of recognition of prior learning (RPL) policy and practice in Australian higher education. Data from institutional documents and participant interviews indicate that, within RPL policy, the universities selectively employ prevailing discourses of ‘quality’ and ‘equity’ to reinforce or potentially improve their reputation and symbolic power in the field of higher education. There is no common consensus about either equity or quality across the sector, as each university interprets the two concepts for its own benefit. The evidence suggests that, despite rhetoric in government policy implying that both are equally important, quality is a far stronger discourse and policy imperative than equity in RPL policy and practice. Also, RPL policies and practices provide an insight into how the key policy priorities of equity and quality are addressed by universities, when applied to a specific educational process or practice.