Life skills for ‘real life’: How critical thinking is contextualised across vocational programmes

Background: This article presents an analysis of how critical thinking is contextualised in everyday teaching in three vocational education and training (VET) programmes: Vehicle and transport, Restaurant and management, and Health and social care.

Purpose: The main question addressed is: What knowledge discourses permeate different VET-contexts, and hence what kinds of opportunities for critical thinking do they offer students?

Method: The qualitative analysis draws on data from a four-year ethnographic project exploring learning processes that can be characterised as civic education in Swedish vocational education. The analysis presented here used data collected during 85 days of observations of teaching in six VET classes, interviews with 81 students and 10 teachers, and collected teaching material. To explore why some contextualisations provided more opportunities and encouragement for critical thinking than others, we applied Bernsteinian concepts of ‘horizontal and vertical knowledge discourses’ and ‘discursive gaps’.

Findings and conclusions: Overall, teaching that was observed focused primarily on ‘doing’. However, in all three programmes, the analysis identified that there were also situations that touched upon critical thinking. Three major themes were identified: critical thinking related to ‘Personal experiences’, ‘The other(s)’ and ‘Wider perspectives’. It appeared that the frequency and nature of such situations varied with the knowledge discourses permeating the programme. Furthermore, we discuss the manifestations of critical thinking in relation to the wider context of what Bernstein refers to as pedagogic rights; individual enhancement, social inclusion and development of the competence and confidence to participate in political processes.     

Target-driven reforms: Education for All and the translations of equity and inclusion in India

This paper critically examines the ways in which inclusion and equity are constituted through education development policies in India. Programmes implemented under global and national Education for All (EFA) policies have largely involved the quantification of ‘equity’ whereby schooling processes are measured against broad targets for school outcomes – focused mainly on student attendance, retention and academic achievement. Drawing on perspectives from Actor Network Theory, the paper puts forward the view of development reforms as ‘networks of translation’ in order to trace the shifts and vicissitudes of educational ideals. Reporting on ethnographic data of two reforms in the south Indian state of Karnataka, we show how narrow understandings of equity are produced through target-driven approaches to EFA. In doing so, the paper highlights the performative effects of education development policy and its potentially counterproductive consequences in contexts of poverty and marginalisation.     

The intention to leave education early among Irish Junior Certificate Students: Variation by school

Early school-leaving imposes costs on the individual and society, and is linked to factors including gender, family income and parental education, community deprivation, and academic history. In Ireland, the role of the school in shaping patterns of early school-leaving is unclear. Employing the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) from social psychology, variation by school among Junior Certificate students in the intention to leave early was assessed, along with characteristics of the individual school and its students. Twenty Irish second-level schools were selected by systematic random sampling. All students in Junior Certificate year were asked to participate, of whom 68.84% (1131) did. Participants completed a questionnaire on intention to drop out of school, three components of the TPB in relation to school completion, demographic details, and academic results. There was evidence of a within-school culture or group representation of the value of education shaping the students’ intentions around school completion.     

Diagrams of Europeanization: European education governance in the digital age

Abstract

European education governance is increasingly affected by and effectuated through digital means. This article presents an analysis of the way in which Europe is increasingly deploying digital technologies, and more specifically websites, in order to shape and communicate its education policies. Drawing on the notion of the diagram as the multimodal combination of texts and visuals into a single plane, the article scrutinizes two websites that play a central role in the production and distribution of policy data: first, the European Commission’s Directorate Education and Culture website presenting the Education and Training monitor; second, the Open Education Europa website stimulating the deployment of Open Education practices in Europe. Conceived as active devices, various diagrams on these websites are analyzed in view of the operations they perform. It is argued that these diagrams portray related interplays of absence and presence, enact specific spaces into being, and call for specific ways of taking action upon the reality they purport to represent. As such, diagrams have become an integral part of European education governance in the digital age.     

Establishing a Peer Client-Server Internet Architecture for Virginia's Schools

No abstract available for this article.     

A Teacher Who Left His Mark

Abstract

Discussion of the nature of critical thinking and the ways in which it can be enhanced has increased in recent years among social work educators, and yet little is known about the impact of MSW education on the critical thinking of students. This paper examines the nature of critical thinking, presents an adult cognitive developmental model, the Reflective Judgment Model (King &; Kitchener, 1994), which holds promise for enlarging social work's understanding of critical thinking and examines approaches to teaching which enhance critical thinking. The Reflective Judgment Model focuses on the development of assumptions about knowledge and the process of knowing as development occurs through adulthood. Specific implications for creating classroom and field learning environments are detailed, including characteristics of effective teachers and of effective assignments.     

An Educator's Guide to the Development of Advanced Practice Competencies in Clinical Social Work

The 2008 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards identified 10 core competencies that all social work graduates should master. MSW programs found themselves with a need to identify knowledge, values, and skill statements that reflected what concentration-year students were expected to know and be able to do. In 2009 a group of educators convened at the Council on Social Work Education in Alexandria, VA to develop a model of advanced practice in clinical social work. This article describes the work group's process; identifies and describes the resulting advanced clinical knowledge, values, and skills statements; discusses the key debates and issues that arose during the development of the statements; and concludes with the implications for social work education and practice.     

浅谈模型在物理学理论形成中的意义

还原论是主张把高级运动形式还原为低级运动形式的一种理论观点。通过对还原论的学习和研究,对模型和物理学理论之间的关系进行了深入的探究,并总结了模型在物理学理论形成中的作用及意义。     

对交通档案效益研究的现实思考

交通档案效益研究作为档案学科的一个新的研究领域,在指导思想层面特别需要依据时代背景和发展要求,进行理论和思辩的创新.从目前能够比照的相关问题看,应该在研究的价值审视、效益实现的基础平台、研究对象的结构性特征与诉求、效益评价的价值性基础以及效益管理维度等方面进行现实性思考,为研究路向提供理论之维.     

中超联赛联合产权的合作博弈研究

运用合作博弈分析方法,研究和解决中超联赛产权归属问题,为中超联赛健康发展提供理论支持。文章从利益相关者角度出发,剖析了足协、投资人拥有联赛产权的合理性,阐释了中超联赛产权的联合属性,并构建了中超联赛的联合产权制度分析框架。结论是:中超联赛其实是足协采取优超方案侵占其它利益相关者的权益;联合产权制度是足协、投资人相互谈判与重复博弈均衡解集的中心核。建立联赛联合产权制度,使中超联赛成为包含按有效贡献力形成的物质资本、人力资本的联合经济利益共同体,是中超联赛治理改革的最优选择。