When transnational curriculum policy reaches classrooms – teaching as directed exploration

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to explore how education policy that is both enabled and constrained by transnational policy flows and national policy built up by social, cultural and historical traditions are enacted through curriculum at the classroom level. The focus is on how policy rationality embedded in the structure and content of curriculum is transformed into certain rationalities in classroom teaching. By understanding lessons as ‘curriculum events’, the study reveals a dominant classroom discourse of recitation and similar triadic communication patterns, which is in accordance with other classroom studies. However, in the article it is argued that the version of teaching that emerges in this study, interpreted in a broader context of an international standards movement, can be understood in terms of directed exploration based on the teacher’s role as an explorer of what the students know, think and understand in relation to the acquisition of knowledge prescribed in the curriculum’s knowledge requirements. Even though the form of recitation is well known, the reason for choosing this teaching repertoire is somewhat new and can be related to the teacher authoring a basic oral text in accordance with assessment standards.     

Anti-bullying procedures for schools in Ireland: principals’ responses and perceptions

The role of the principal is imperative in creating a school climate that nurtures differences and equality at the same time. Policy and legislation in Ireland dictates the responsibility of school principals in preventing and intervening in issues relating to bullying. The current research investigates the extent to which principals consider the impact of bullying on their students and the strategies they take to combat it in their schools. We consider how principals respond to bullying and what supports they feel are missing for them to adhere to relevant policy. A sample of 918 principals from a range of schools across Ireland completed an online survey. The results demonstrated some positive actions by principals such as the provision of anti-bullying policies. However, they also document areas that need more action such as increased access to counsellors and appointing a specific staff member to deal with and tackle bullying in each school. Guidance from the Department of Education and Skills in Ireland on the development and provision of an anti-bullying programme is called for. Results are discussed in light of the current Anti-Bullying Procedures established by the Department of Education and Skills and the Action Plan for Bullying 2013.     

To jump the wave or not: teachers’ perceptions of research evidence in education

This article presents a microanalysis of how a group of primary school teachers deals with research evidence in their work. Based on analysis of a group of Norwegian teachers’ interactions over issues of educational research and research-based knowledge, we find that teachers’ representations of educational research particularly center on the following issues: educational research being perceived as circular, ‘polyphonic’, and a matter of accommodation to their experience-based knowledge. These metaphors also shed light upon the dilemmas that arise when research evidence meets teachers’ more contextual knowledge. We conclude that teachers’ practice-based evidence may take new forms with an increased policy focus on research-based evidence, as well as bringing forth challenges for teacher work and professionalism.     

孟子的仁政学说与和谐社会的构建

孟子以人与禽兽之别来规定人性,强调人性为善的道德自觉。人的"类"意识内在地规定了人性具有善的可能性。统治者从这种善性出发,推行得民心的仁政,就成为一种必须的选择。仁政包含了政治、经济、教育、人事等具体内容,它强调稳定的政治秩序,突出"民"的主体地位,对我们社会主义和谐社会的构建具有重大借鉴作用。     

The “A” factor: Coming to terms with the question of legacy in South African education

This paper attempts to offer an alternative framework for assessing education delivery in South Africa. Its purpose is to develop an analytic approach for understanding education delivery in South Africa in the last 11 years and to use this framework to pose a set of strategic questions about how policy might be framed to deal with delivery. The paper begins with a quick review of the country's achievements and challenges in education and shows that a failure to produce a high quality education system remains the country's primary challenge. The broad approach that is taken is to suggest that dominant approaches for understanding this lack of performance underplay the specificity of the country's context and specifically so its apartheid legacy. This legacy, it is argued, continues to be determinative in shaping, and accounting for the character of current social behaviour in the country, including the performance of children in schools.     

体育教育专业毕业生就业影响因素及对策——以福建省为例

通过文献资料法、调查法、数理统计等方法,对福建省2006届体育教育专业毕业生进行调查,剖析影响体育教育专业毕业生就业的主要因素并提出改善就业状况途径的意见,其目的是为今后高校体育教育专业如何适应市场需求,拓宽学生就业途径,提供有益的参考．     

工会法律角色初探

劳动者自愿结合的工人阶级的群众组织是我国工会的本质属性,工会具有相对独立的法律地位。代表和维护劳动者的合法权益是工会的基本职责。工会有对用人单位的经济裁员发表意见、对用人单位单方解除劳动合同的监督、参与处理劳动争议等权利。维护劳动者合法权益是工会最根本的工作,工会的一切工作都要以维护劳动者的合法权益为中心。     

A National Curriculum for Wales: A Case Study of Education Policy-Making in the Era of Administrative Devolution

The 1988 Education Reform Act legislated for a statutory curriculum in state-funded schools in England and Wales. This study explores how, out of a common curriculum framework for both countries, there emerged a school curriculum that was adapted to the distinctiveness of the linguistic and cultural context in Wales. The roles of those most closely involved in policy development in Wales are examined as is the relationship between the 'national' and 'territorial' arenas of policy-making in the months leading up to publication of the Education Reform Bill in November 1987. It is argued that a pragmatic approach to policy development in Wales during that period laid the foundations both for a reworking of the 1988 curriculum framework during the 1990s and for potentially more radical change following the 2002 Education Act.     

Does prior mathematics knowledge really lead to variation in elementary statistics performance? Evidence from a developing country

A model incorporating prerequisite mathematics performance and other variables deemed to be associated with learning elementary statistics (ES) is developed. The relationship between ES performance and the explanatory variables is well represented by the logistics form. Aptitude, effort and motivation are the only significant explanatory variables of ES performance. Since prerequisite mathematics is not significant, statistical thinking at the tertiary level may be mostly intuitive and non-mathematical. Students with low aptitude experience increasing returns to effort over the first half of the feasible effort interval, while high-aptitude students experience diminishing returns at all levels of effort. The levels of effort required to achieve a minimum pass are interpreted.