Metaphors we’re colonised by? The case of data-driven educational technologies in Brazil

ABSTRACT

This article discusses issues concerning the spread of data-driven educational technologies in Brazil. Here, as elsewhere, educational technology continues to be promoted optimistically as the bearer of a panacea for historically-rooted social problems. Whilst some of these technologies have indeed contributed to important widening-participation programmes in the last two decades, widespread advocacy of technological ‘solutionism’, reflected in gradually stronger policy demands for efficiencies to be improved through ‘innovation’, has supported a relentless marketisation of the country’s educational systems. As transnational corporations position themselves to take control of key areas of these systems, threatening to restructure the whole sector, data-driven educational technologies provide the latest example in a series of ‘new’ ideas offered in an ever-expanding market. Based on the notion of ‘conceptual metaphors’, which encapsulate specific ways of perceiving, thinking and relating with the world, this article examines key metaphors underpinning discourses surrounding data-driven educational technologies in Brazil. In particular, the article analyses ways in which these specific metaphors may be promoting perspectives that ignore difference and obscure broader questions concerning education, thus contributing to the reproduction of previously existing problems and supporting new forms of colonisation.     

设计性物理实验教学模式研究与探索

分析教学模式的实质和特点,针对传统物理实验教学模式存在的问题,结合设计性物理实验特点,研究适合设计性物理实验的教学模式,并在教学实践中进行探索和实践,以提高学生的实验能力和综合素质。     

Contradictions of time in collaborative school research

The sustainability of research-based innovations in schools is constrained not only by systemic institutional barriers and inherent contradictions between schooling and research, but also by the related issue of time. This case study suggests that relative timescales, e.g., the collective activity of schooling over decades versus the individual actions of researchers over semesters or years, hinder the coordination and synchronization of schooling and research processes. Using cultural–historical activity theory and heterochrony, this analysis of data from a 4-year collaborative school-university research and development project suggests that, in spite of active support from school personnel, temporal conflicts undermined research activity and the sustainability of the innovation. At the same time, when researchers aligned their actions with the actions and timescales of school personnel, core elements of the innovation were appropriated into school practice.

Common legacy,different paths: the transformation of educational systems in the Czech Republic,Slovakia, Hungary and Poland

The goal of this work is to better understand the institutional changes in the educational systems of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. We demonstrate that the educational reforms implemented during the transformation introduced very different institutional arrangements in the four countries, despite the fact that their systems shared many common characteristics at the beginning of the 1990s. Differences between the national approaches to educational reforms are particularly reflected in the modes of education decentralisation, the level of school autonomy, accountability and funding mechanisms. We believe that different institutional arrangements may have contributed to the divergent achievements of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland in the PISA programme.     

论教育考试公正的内涵与实质

教育考试公正是教育考试的生命线,也是社会公正的重要体现。本文在讨论公正的一般内涵和实质基础上,着重研究教育考试公正的理论内涵和社会实质。文章认为,教育考试公正就是组考者通过考试使可能的应试者得其所应得,或者说使可能的应试者各得其所,其社会实质在于:它是教育公正的基本前提,是社会公正的重要体现,是社会资源合理分配的基础方式,是个人潜能合理开发的保证机制。文章提出,不能仅仅从教育考试本身来认识教育考试公正的必要性和重要性,而要从整个社会的宏观视野、站在人类更好地生存和发展的高度来认识教育考试公正问题。     

教育信息化建设规划主要原则的探讨

教育信息化日益成为教育、教学、管理水平和能力的标志,是提高教学、管理水平和能力的重要手段,也深刻地改变着教育的管理模式和管理理念,为教育现代化提供了必不可少的保障。如何在教育信息化建设过程中坚持科学发展观,把握信息化的规划原则,是信息化建设工作必须解决的问题,本文为此作出了探讨。     

开启梦魇的迷宫——残雪研究述评

残雪是谜,是一个现代艺术之谜,也是一个关于人的存在和世界本身的哲学之谜。在中国先锋学的里程表上,其本所成就的高度令人瞩目。但长期以来,残雪总是徘徊在艺批评视域的边缘,对其作品的研究亦一度深陷阐释的泥潭而无以自拔。正因如此,对整个残雪研究进行准确把握并做一种综合性的考察无疑有着重要的意义。本纵向梳理了近20年来的一百多篇相关论,从历时性的角度按年代把它分成三个阶段,同时对各个阶段的研究重心进行横向对比并反思其得失,试图在前人研究的根基上探寻更为宽广的阐释空间,以促进残雪研究的深入发展。     

刘天华对中国民族音乐改革的贡献

在五四运动中，刘一华先生以一个教育家和艺术家敏锐的洞察力和艺术的使命感对中国民族音乐进行了改革，在中西方文化碰撞中，以中国传统文化为基础，“借洋兴中”，弘扬民族音乐。他的美学观，对当代音乐教育改革有着深远的指示意义。     

Education on population matters in Europe: results from a comparative survey among students in five European countries

In 1996–1997, within the framework of the European Observatory for Population Education and Information, a comparative survey was conducted among students in final classes of secondary education in several European countries. On the one hand, the survey attempted to assess the effects of education on population in terms of knowledge acquired; the issues addressed in the questionnaire pertained to knowledge of demographic facts and trends (such as the ageing of Western societies and immigration). On the other hand it tried to ascertain students' opinions on demographic trends. What are young people's views on intergenerational solidarity, how tolerant are they towards immigrants, what are their views on recent changes in family structures? This knowledge is important since it is young people's attitudes and future behaviour that will help to shape both the social tissue and the economic prosperity of the European and world population. In this article we present a comparative analysis of survey results obtained in five European countries. We examined the question whether knowledge acquired in the course of scolarisation influences opinions. The results evidence a significant relationship between knowledge of the migrants' issue and attitudes of tolerance towards migrants. By means of multivariate analyses, the impact of factors such as social origin, study orientation and gender on both students' knowledge and attitudes, are investigated. We conclude that adequate educational training on population issues can have a significant positive impact on attitudes of tolerance.     

浅析校园文化对人才培养的作用

章通过对校园化的分析和研究，阐述了校园化对人才培养的重要作用，主要认为：校园化是学生从“大中学生”到“小大学生”过度的桥梁；校园化是联结个人与集体，学校与的纽带；校园化是青年学生走向成熟的重要途径，等等。