课程事件刍议

课程事件是儿童对人类生活的复演或展示,它体现了新基础教育课程改革的要旨,尽管它主要呈现在综合课程、活动课程中,却也难以排除对学科课程的影响。课程事件的进程起于情境、执行于过程解决、结束于反思与总结。它关注儿童的生活,关注儿童主体性与创造性的发挥,强调过程与结果的统一、生成与预设的统一。课程事件最终也体现出对解放理性的追求,因而也是创生型课程。     

Bringing democratic governance into practice: policy enactments responding to neoliberal governance in Spanish public schools*

This article explores different ways in which public primary schools sustain democratic governance structures created beyond those mandated by law in Spain. These new institutional designs, while not opposed to policy text requirements of having a governing body with representatives of parents, teachers and public administration, are being carried out against the grain of the hegemonic neoliberal managerial approach. The objective was to observe the different ways that some schools apply other institutional paths to the current governing bodies by aiming at widening decision-making not only to legal representatives but to all agents. Data come from focus groups, in-depth interviews and observations carried out in four public schools during fieldwork lasting two academic years. The findings show that while some schools are broadening current legal governing bodies, others generate ad hoc bodies transforming legal ones into new institutional arrangements.     

Into the Fire: Using Therapeutic Enactments to Bridge Early Traumatic Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse

While traditional forms of therapy focus heavily on a survivor's ability to tell his or her story, the very nature of traumatic memory can present a challenge since survivors of trauma often struggle to find the verbal language to describe the terrifying events that have occurred. In verbal therapies, survivors of childhood sexual abuse can be left in a state of re-experiencing the past as they face the overwhelming task of trying to find words for something that is often wordless. Researchers have identified the need to “bridge” the non-verbal and the verbal in trauma therapy. The purpose of this research is to examine the lived experience of using therapeutic enactment as a tool to address the fragmented and wordless memories of childhood sexual abuse. Using a case study research design, four women shared their stories of participating in a therapeutic enactment to address memories of their abuse. From these stories, four dominant themes emerged. These themes (re-connection to self and others, reclaiming voice, empowerment, and corrective re-experiencing) indicate an overall positive and reparative experience.     

英语课程实施创生取向的阻碍因素

新课程实施创生取向下建构主义英语教学理论目前倍受教育界推崇,但作为外语的英语课程在实施取向过程中存在着根本的阻碍因素,如文化、思维、语言内涵外延和语言环境等。应依据这些因素来重新审视课程创生理论对英语课程实施的指导意义。     

Policy enactments in the UK secondary school: examining policy,practice and school positioning

This paper presents a first attempt in an ongoing research study of the policy environments in four UK secondary schools to examine policy enactment, where ‘enactment’ refers to an understanding that policies are interpreted and ‘translated’ by diverse policy actors in the school environment, rather than simply implemented. The paper is divided into two parts. The first part presents an audit of the policies encountered in four case study schools in the south‐east of England. The second part looks at one current English government policy, namely personal learning and thinking skills, and how this is taken up in two of the case study schools. In this way, the paper not just explores why a policy is adopted but also illustrates the capacity for school‐based policy elaboration, where schools produce their own ‘take’ on policy, drawing on aspects of their culture or ethos, as well as on the situated necessities.     

Book reviews

Background: To help equip students with 21^st century competencies, one popular strategy adopted by governments and schools worldwide is to move from less formal to more engaging school environments through School-Based Curriculum Development (SBCD). In Singapore, the governmental call to Teach Less and Learn More has galvanised SBCD in schools nationwide. Schools have been given more autonomy and greater flexibility to develop diverse approaches in innovating their own curriculum frameworks.

Purpose: This study aims to provide a nuanced, retrospective account of the enactment of SBCD via Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-integrated, theme-based programmes in a primary school in Singapore. The research questions that guide this study are: (1) How do the school stakeholders enact SBCD? (2) How does the enactment affect the school stakeholders?

Method: This study looked into curriculum innovation using a retrospective lens and employed a case study approach to examine the enactment of SBCD in the school. Five focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted with the major stakeholders of the school, including two school leaders, ten key personnel and ten teachers across different subjects and grade levels. Thematic analysis of the data was undertaken.

Findings: Four themes and twelve associated sub-themes were identified from the analysis of the FGDs. The four themes include experimentation, support, growth and challenges. This whole-school approach to curriculum innovation had a clear focus on mobilizing the school community to tackle the uncertainties of implementing an innovative curriculum. The stakeholders played diverse but intertwined roles throughout different stages of the enactment process, producing strong collegiality amongst the stakeholders. This prevailing collegiality, as embedded in the active participation of the stakeholders in a multiplicity of collective sharing and learning practices, seems likely to help the school achieved desired outcomes.

Conclusions: The whole-school approach to curriculum innovation in the case school is promising from the perspectives of teaching-learning and student outcomes, but cannot provide a panacea for all the challenges encountered in the enactment process.     

社区志愿服务:有待强攻的德育课程创生领域

在我国学校德育过程中,学生社区志愿服务的缺失和不到位,已经严重影响到了他们的道德精神面貌及社会适应、择业就业等,突显了学校德育的软肋。将社区志愿服务纳入校本课程范畴,通过政策法规强化小中大学生社区志愿工作,是解决德育低效的关键。     

Improving the process of E-Government initiative: An in-depth case study of web-based GIS implementation

Research on E-Government has largely focused on understanding the “outcomes and outputs of the E-Government project” [Yildiz, M. (2007). E-Government research: Reviewing the literature, limitations, and ways forward. Government Information Quarterly, 24(3), 646–665.]. It is argued that the existing research on E-Government tends to oversimplify the phenomenon. To address the call, the current study focuses on the process of an E-Government initiative by loosely drawing on the ‘technology enactment framework,’ in conjunction with the ‘systems development life cycle’ approach. Using a case study orientation, this study describes in detail how a geographic information systems implementation project is conducted at a local government in the United States. Insights into E-Government initiatives are presented and discussed.     

Collaborative digital government in Mexico: Some lessons from federal Web-based interorganizational information integration initiatives

The use of information and communication technologies in government has been characterized as one powerful strategy for administrative reform. From recent experiences around the world, it seems clear that in order to enjoy some of the greatest benefits of digital government, the integration of information across organizational boundaries is necessary. However, these digital government initiatives face additional challenges, since the required level of interorganizational collaboration and trust is often not supported by existing institutional arrangements, organizational structures, and managerial processes. In fact, many institutions and administrative structures found in government contexts offer incentives for single-agency work only, which produces stove-pipe systems. Based on an extensive case study in the Mexican federal government, this paper explores how certain institutional arrangements and organizational structures can enable or hinder cross-agency collaboration and consequently, interorganizational information integration.     

Evaluation policy in education: the effects of international standards and performativity on Brazil’s postgraduate programmes of excellence

The educational reforms that began in the 1990s have changed Brazilian universities’ direction from welfare state institutions to market organisations. In postgraduate education, strategic alliances with international agencies, governments and corporations have become closer. At the same time, there has been a push for internationalisation of knowledge and more efficiency – with quality assurance and accountability systems. This study, based on the theory of ‘policy enactments’ proposed by Stephen Ball and collaborators, aims to analyse the interpretation and translation of Brazil’s postgraduate education programmes’ evaluation policy. The data are derived from interviews with co-ordinators of four Brazilian postgraduate programmes in education – all regarded by the Higher Education Co-ordination Agency, CAPES, as programmes of excellence and of international standard (during the assessment triennials of 2004, 2007 and 2010). The data analysis provided a critical understanding of the evaluation policy as policy enactment, and of the small margin for manoeuvre in decision-making in response to the policy and performativity’s effect on academic subjectivity and collective practice.