The teacher as an archetype of spirit

Many images of the teacher in the current literature on teaching and teacher reflectivity can be seen as aspects of the Jungian image of the teacher as an archetype of spirit. These images--the teacher as philosopher, prophet, Zen master, and priest--correspond to what I call dialogical, civic, ontological and incarnational spirituality, respectively. I examine the possibilities and perils inherent in each of these visions of teaching. I also show how viewing teaching in archetypal terms provides a way of including the spiritual domain in both the theory and practice of teaching. The pedagogical, biographical and political dimensions of a teacher's calling and practice are important. However, examining the spiritual dimension of teaching can add to and interact with these other dimensions in ways that will enrich an understanding of what it means to be a teacher.     

Personalized learning for the post‐mechanical age

This study describes an approach to learning and teaching that is structured as a project‐based context‐driven inquiry. The approach is positioned at the interface between knowledge‐generation and use, and grounded in a generic notion of responsibility for the future of bodily life. The intention is to move the debate beyond the exhausted language of rigid oppositions between the academic and vocational, the universal and contextual. The purpose is to identify and nurture a personal portfolio of competencies responding to the contemporary material condition of humanity. It is expressed in terms of the student's learning power, a manifold of new assessment criteria and methodological steps constitutive of what a student could achieve having progressed through a given course. This is an approach in which competencies are outcomes supported rather than led by subject knowledge. The course structure combines traditional instruction with innovative project and assessment components and also provides an opportunity for the student to get acquainted with an employment niche. The practical applications of this approach at university and secondary‐school levels have led to encouraging results for both staff and learners.     

Interrupting the gaze: on reconsidering authority in the museum

Thinking about the museum’s engagement in educational programmes is increasingly adopting a more critical perspective on the implications of a programme in authorizing and defining particular knowledge. While objects are still invoked to define history and culture and to underscore their authority, the museum’s claim to educational purposes is being questioned by the museum itself. This has resulted in changes to the ways in which student learning occurs within the museum. Using data gathered during a year‐long study of the changing role of a Canadian regional history and ethnology museum, this paper argues that the changing role of the museum prompts reconsideration of their roles not only as sites of knowledge but also as sites of knowledge‐production.     

Representing self‐in‐society: education for citizenship and the social‐subjects curriculum in Scotland

The documented social‐subjects curricula for Scottish 5–16 year olds are analysed for representations of ‘self‐in‐society’. Such representations are important in Scotland because it is expected that the new Education‐for‐Citizenship framework will in part be delivered through the social subjects. However, citizenship education is also relevant throughout the UK and beyond and our analysis of the social subjects has wider relevance.

An ideal‐type analysis was used on documents including national guidelines, examination syllabuses, examination papers, and assessor instructions. Our analysis suggests that in these documents: the self is seen as an abstract; people are understood by category; society is the sum of discrete institutions; self‐in‐society is fully defined; and this representation of society is not contested. This representation becomes increasingly exclusive with age/ability and may be linked to assumed modes of curricular division, teaching and assessment. We discuss how this overall picture might affect students’ sense of ‘agency’ in the light of citizenship education. We conclude that the social‐subjects’ curricular representation of self‐in‐society may not fully support the Scottish Education‐for‐Citizenship framework.     

Curriculum differentiation: multiple perspectives and developments in education

This paper examines curriculum differentiation (i.e. streaming or ability‐grouping). After placing curriculum differentiation in an international perspective, it outlines the main conclusions from empirical research on differentiation over several decades. Against this empirical background, it describes and considers the three specific orientations towards curriculum differentiation: a genetic perspective, a cultural perspective, and a sociological perspective. The insights from the various perspectives are integrated and expanded in a framework of curriculum theory, research, and practice.     

Conceptualizing ‘preoccupation’: evidence from attention‐seeker questioning

Human beings ought to use critical reflection to define and decide their courses of action. This paper examines the use of attention‐seeker questions in the framework of critical pedagogy purposely to study the way some Ugandan teachers are constrained in their practice by their lack of participation in developing the school curriculum. This enables one to explore and discuss curriculum overload, poor resourcing, and imposed curriculum as fundamental issues surrounding curriculum development in Uganda. The major conclusions are centred on putting teachers in charge of the curriculum. This involves making decisions on key issues during its design and its management, as well as training them for a critical approach. It is recommended that policy‐makers consider means for encouraging practitioner participation in developing curriculum theory and policy.     

Has John Hattie really found the holy grail of research on teaching? An extended review of Visible Learning

In this article the author reviews and discusses John Hattie’s book Visible Learning. In this book Hattie presents the results of a meta‐meta‐analysis on the conditions of successful teaching and learning in schools. Hattie’s work is based on more than 800 meta‐analyses, and these meta‐analyses are substantiated by more than 50 000 empirical research studies. Among the six groups of factors influencing successful learning in schools—student, home, school, teacher, curricula, teaching—the factor ‘teacher’ seems to have the strongest effect. Hattie not only evaluates empirical research but also places the results in a theoretical context of a theory of teaching and a certain concept of teacher professionalism. The author discusses Hattie’s approach to combine empirical research and conceptual work on teaching and on teachers’ work. The limits of meta‐analyses and future meta‐meta‐analyses are pointed out.     

Getting it ‘better’: the importance of improving background questionnaires in international large‐scale assessment

In addition to collecting achievement data, international large‐scale assessment programmes gather auxiliary information from students and schools regarding the context of teaching and learning. In an effort to clarify some of the opacity surrounding international large‐scale assessment programmes and the potential problems associated with less than optimal background questionnaires, this paper outlines how auxiliary student background data influence the black box of achievement score construction. This discussion is supplemented with a number of empirical examples that point to possible threats to accurate achievement estimation, including missing data treatment, poor scale reliability, and questionnaire respondents’ misunderstanding or inaccurate answers to the questions.     

Factors Associated with Disruptive Behaviour in the Classroom

This paper examines the relationships of pupils' on‐task orientation at school and their opposition to teachers with perceived cognitive competence, perceived relevance of schoolwork, and the belief that going against school norms increases peer status. The study was conducted as a survey among a national representative sample of 3834 pupils in Years/Grades 6 and 9 who were attending Norwegian schools. The results indicate that low perceived cognitive competence, perceived low relevance of schoolwork, and the belief that norm‐breaking behaviour elicits peer approval all increase the likelihood and incidence of off‐task behaviour and opposition towards teachers. Results also suggest a tendency for perceived cognitive competence and perceived relevance of schoolwork to be more important predictors of on‐task orientation than opposition to teachers, whereas the belief that breaking school norms increases peer status seems to be a more important risk factor for opposition to teachers than for off‐task orientation.