Why university lecturers enhance their teaching through the use of technology: a systematic review

The purpose of this systematic review is to add to current understanding of technology‐enhanced teaching through a process of synthesis and analysis of a collection of contemporary case studies set within university contexts. The justification to review case studies comes from Pinch and Bijker’s concept of the ‘social construction of technology’ as a way to structure the relationships between technological artefacts used in teaching and those social groups that shape their use. Basil Bernstein’s sociological theory of pedagogy provided the framework for the analysis of the case studies. His concepts of ‘classification’ which examines power relations between categories, such as agencies, agents, discourses and practices, and ‘framing’ which examines the control of instruction in relation to the selection, sequence, pacing and evaluation of learning and determines the relationship between teachers and students, were used as instruments for the analysis of the systematically chosen case studies.     

Good teaching as a messy narrative of change within a policy ensemble of networks,superstructures and flows

This paper examines ‘good teaching’ within a policy ensemble where teachers’ subjectification and practices are underpinned by new modes of evaluation and enforcement. Although the paper is written with specific concern for teachers in the Republic of Ireland, the literature demonstrates that concerns raised resonate internationally. Theoretical frameworks are drawn from Bernstein’s pedagogic device and ‘rules of evaluation’ (2000, p. 34) and the tyranny of number, networks and superstructures found in policy research. The study includes a limited analysis of the policy ensemble in ‘Austerity Ireland’ and contextual understandings and perspectives of a purposive sample of experienced teachers (n = 54). Critical analysis generated three themes: multiple perspectives about ‘good teaching’, a strongly perceived pedagogy of oppression and low ethical trust in reported interactions at some schools and with the state inspectorate. Conclusions position ‘good teaching’ within the super-complexity of a messy narrative of change and flows enacted with a diversity of inquirers and institutions. The study questions the role of state inspectors as arbiters of ‘good teaching’ and challenges the academy of teacher education in assuring productive discursive gaps for education as a social responsibility for public-interest values.     

Bézier curves with shape parameter

In this paper, Bezier basis with shape parameter is constructed by an integral approach. Based on this basis, we define the Bezier curves with shape parameter. The Bezier basis curves with shape parameter have most properties of Bemstein basis and the Bezier curves. Moreover the shape parameter can adjust the curves' shape with the same control polygon. As the increase of the shape parameter, the Bezier curves with shape parameter approximate to the control polygon. In the last, the Bezier surface with shape parameter is also constructed and it has most properties of Bezier surface.     

A curriculum tailored for workers? Knowledge organization and possible transitions in Swedish VET

A key feature of the Swedish upper secondary school reform of 2011 (GY11) is the new direction it sets out for the organization of vocational education (VET) and the role it plays in youths’ transitions from school to work. This study analyses the GY11 reform in terms of its impact on the organization of knowledge in VET and its implications for students’ prospects of transitioning from VET to work or higher education, and for their roles as citizens. To understand its likely consequences, GY11 is analysed in the context of practices in a school class for the Vehicle programme steered by the curriculum prior to GY11. The theoretical concepts used are drawn from Basil Bernstein and his distinctions between knowledge organized into horizontal and vertical discourses. The findings of the study suggest that GY11 reinforces an already strong emphasis on horizontally organized knowledge in VET by placing great importance on strongly context-bound, skill-oriented knowledge. This implies a stronger exclusion of VET students, primarily with working-class backgrounds, from vertical discourses and limits the possible transitions of youths taking the VET-route by reducing their access to higher education and their capacity to function as both workers and citizens.     

The professional role and identity of teachers in the private and state education sectors

Abstract

This paper compares the professional role and identity of teachers in private and state schools. It brings together theory within the sociology of the professions and approaches influenced by Basil Bernstein. It utilises his work on recontextualisation to identify the nature of teachers’ professional role; and Beck and Young’s (2010) Bernstein-influenced analytical framework to understand changes in these teachers’ professional identity. Drawing on focussed qualitative research the study shows how, within private schools, when cloistered from the Official Recontextualising Field (ORF) an idealized account of teachers’ professional work flourishes. This idealized understanding of occupational professionalism is contingent on the ‘othering’ of the state sector: to do this private-school teachers adopt a deprofessionalization discourse which represents the state teacher as a passive receiver of the ORF. In contrast, state teachers foreground their agency to negotiate competing professional logics which they express through hybrid approaches to professional practice.     

Cartographies of scholarship: Stephen Heimans talks to Parlo Singh about teaching,research, and the intellectual terrain of feminist scholarship with/after Bernstein

ABSTRACT

Parlo Singh is a leading contemporary sociologist of education and world-renowned “Bernstein” scholar. In this interview with Stephen Heimans, Parlo discusses important aspects of her teaching and research journey. She highlights the interconnections between these and discusses her relationship with Basil Bernstein’s oeuvre and the work she has undertaken both that builds on and is separate from it.     

Imaginary subjects: school science,indigenous students,and knowledge–power relations

The perspectives of indigenous science learners in developed nations offer an important but frequently overlooked dimension to debates about the nature of science, the science curriculum, and calls from educators to make school science more culturally responsive or ‘relevant’ to students from indigenous or minority groups. In this paper the findings of a study conducted with indigenous Maori children between the ages of 10 and 12 years are discussed. The purpose of the study was to examine the ways that indigenous children in an urban school environment in New Zealand position themselves in relation to school science. Drawing on the work of Basil Bernstein, we argue that although the interplay between emergent cultural identity narratives and the formation of ‘science selves’ is not as yet fully understood, it carries the potential to open a rich seam of learning for indigenous children.     

A new approach to researching school effects on higher education participation

A new approach to researching school effects on higher education participation is proposed here, which combines insights from the school effectiveness field of research with sociological theories and concepts of schooling. In doing so, it draws attention to some of the problems with the dominant approach often taken in this area and attempts to offer a more analytically precise way of measuring and explaining school effects on higher education choice. It will be argued that whilst past approaches can make it difficult to decipher school effects, the new approach proposed here provides greater understanding about the extent and nature of the school’s influence.     

Is interdisciplinarity old news? A disciplined consideration of interdisciplinarity

This paper draws on the theory of Basil Bernstein and on more recent applications of it by Rob Moore, John Beck and Michael Young to respond to recent calls for the replacement of discipline-based university faculties and departments with ‘problem-based’ curricula and programmes of study. It considers, particularly, the potential consequences of such a shift in higher education policy for the identities of university teachers, researchers and students, and suggests that these calls for reform are premised especially on the problematic assumption that, in Bernsteinian terms, ‘regionalised’ curricular inputs can be expected to produce ‘generic’ knowledge outcomes within the university.