High-tech,hard work: an investigation of teachers’ work in the digital age

This paper explores the ways in which digital technologies are now implicated in the work – and specifically the labour – of school teachers. Drawing upon qualitative studies in two Australian high schools, the paper examines the variety of ways in which teachers’ work is now enacted and experienced along digital lines. In particular, the paper highlights the association of digital technologies with the standardization, evidencing, intensification and altered affect of teachers’ work. The paper questions the extent to which these trends might be seen as constituting ‘new’ forms of labour, with the research data pointing to continuities and disjunctures in terms of teachers’ autonomy and professionalization. The paper also considers how these conditions are experienced in different ways across the teaching workforce. The paper concludes by reflecting on how fairer and/or empowering working conditions might be achievable through alternate uses of digital technology.     

Validity Evidence against the Children’s New Ecological Paradigm Scale

Abstract

The Children’s New Ecological Paradigms scale was originally developed for children ages 10–12 and was presented as valuable for comparing that age group with older participants. This study uses cognitive interviews and measurement invariance testing to investigate how well the scores maintain the same meaning between these two age groups. The qualitative and quantitative results were consistent in revealing that at least 20% of the items function differently than expected when we use it for this purpose. The findings revealed similarities with critiques of the adult NEP and questioned the validity of the use of this instrument in its present form.     

What professionals can teach us about education: a call for change

After 10 years of interviews with professionals who work across creative and business sectors, the author has drawn together findings in this article to encourage a collapsing of silos between schools and workplaces so that educators can build on untapped expertise from professionals who work and think multimodally. This call for change involves adopting alternative, age-old models of learning such as studio pedagogy where learning is modeled and framed by professionals and then practiced and honed by learners with access to materials and resources in a designated creative, thinking, experimentation space. In this article, historical models, and existing literature on creativity, innovation and play are examined; and telling case studies are presented from interviews with 61 professionals to encourage researchers and policy-makers to adopt a studio-atelier approach to teaching and learning.     

Monologisation as a Quoting Practice

This paper explores a particular aspect of journalistic quoting, monologisation. During monologisation, the interactive turn exchange between the journalist and the interviewee is simplified in the resulting article. This simplification process mainly takes the form of obscuring the role of the journalist in the original spoken discourse. As a result, the quotations appear to be unprompted, continuous utterances by the interviewee, and this in turn has seminal consequences for the interpretation of the quotation. This paper will demonstrate that monologisation is an effective means for journalists to steer the reading of the article and to include their own points of view without breaking the professional rule that journalism must separate facts from opinions. The results of this study are based on a comparison between two types of empirical data; recordings of journalistic interviews, on the one hand, and published articles, on the other. This study will focus on one particular type of journalistic interview that has been largely neglected in prior research along with its specific quoting practices, namely the interviews were conducted by the journalists in order to collect raw material for written journalistic items, published either in print or electronic form. This paper will show that interviews of this type involve highly diverse and mutually adaptive interaction, contrary to the clearly structured question–answer interviews that are used as sound bites in television news items and have thus far remained the primary focus of research on both journalistic interviews and quoting processes. The notion of monologisation could be applied in various domains where an interview is converted into a written account, such as research interviewing and police interrogations.     

Disabling a family? Emotional dilemmas experienced in becoming a parent of a child with learning disabilities

Becoming the parent of a child diagnosed with learning disabilities can have a dramatic impact. Chrissie Rogers, the author of this article, is both a lecturer in education studies at Keele University and the mother of a daughter who has learning disabilities. She argues here that the pressures on mothers to produce 'perfect' babies and to meet all their needs are immense. These pressures arise from both internalised norms and societal expectations and, in the face of these pressures, parents may feel shock, loss and disappointment. These feelings may lead, in turn, to denial, anxiety and conflict affecting both the parents and the professionals involved with the family. Drawing on a series of in-depth interviews and personal narratives, Chrissie Rogers makes a powerful case for the importance of support, whether that support is formal or informal. She suggests that, without the right levels of support and understanding, having a child with a diagnosis of learning disability can disable the whole family.     

Secondary students’ ideas about scientific concepts underlying climate change

Abstract

We present ideas about concepts underlying climate change, held by students in years 9 and 10. Misconceptions about climate change are common among students, and may be due to misconceptions about underlying concepts. To investigate this, we developed the Climate Change Concept Inventory (CCCI), and trialed it with 229 students; corroborating findings through focus group interviews. Our interview method and data analysis methods are described. Findings included overestimation of human contributions to atmospheric carbon inputs, ultra violet radiation in sunlight, and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Students were unaware that CO₂ dissolves in water, and of the role of oceans in the carbon cycle. Greenhouse gases other than CO₂ were rarely known. Earth’s energy balance and black body radiation were not well understood. There were misconceptions about interactions between electromagnetic radiation and atmospheric gases; and limited understanding of carbon chemistry. The CCCI is available from the corresponding author.     

The innovation of Ontario full-day kindergarten educator teams: have they reproduced the split systems of care and education?

This study investigated the implementation of a full-day kindergarten programme in Ontario, Canada. Key to the implementation of this programme has been a new kind of educator team consisting of a certified teacher and a registered early childhood educator and a complementary partnership in which each team member contributes equally. Our research examined team members’ perceptions and practices related to their roles and responsibilities. Findings suggest that the care work for which early childhood educators are disproportionally responsible is accorded less value and status than the work of educating children. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the care/education split, the social reproduction of care work and social inequities.     

Employability pathways for young adults: lived experiences of learners and practitioners in Youth Guarantee programmes

ABSTRACT

Until today, thousands of young adults still dropout of school with no or low qualifications and experience difficulties in entering the labour market. The European Commission offers funding and opportunities for young adults to enter employability enhancing training, often organised under its flagship initiative ‘The Youth Guarantee’. The aim of these programmes is to make young adults a work, training or educational offer within four months of their start into this initiative.

In this paper, we critically explore the concept of employability and focus on the roles of both the young adults undergoing training interventions, but also of practitioners whose work is ideally embedded within the local context of the labour market and the economy. We were interested in the participation experiences by both groups to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of these programmes. Evidence from interviews demonstrated that learners and practitioners were generally satisfied with the interventions, although individualised support was preferred over group-based activities. Working with stakeholders was strongly recommended for this target group who tends to experience cumulative disadvantages. Long-term follow-up of participants’ destinations will provide better evidence on the effectiveness of these programmes.     

Secondary school students who drop out of school in rural Pakistan: The perspectives of fathers

ABSTRACT

Background: The problem of students dropping out of school is one of the barriers to improving educational outcomes in poor and developing countries.

Purpose: This small scale, in-depth study sought to explore the phenomenon of students who drop out from secondary education, through the perspectives of fathers of such students in a rural district of Pakistan.

Method: Primary data were collected through detailed, individual interviews with 14 fathers whose sons had dropped out from secondary education. The study adopted a framework involving push and pull factors to analyse qualitatively the processes and examine the reasons for dropping out that prevailed inside and outside school.

Findings: The analysis suggested that, from the perspectives of the fathers, family poverty, poor academic performance and issues relating to teachers’ engagement with teaching at school were main factors involved in a student dropping out of school.

Conclusions: The findings from this small scale, detailed analysis of data draw attention to the issues arising from a tension in mainstream teachers’ educational roles in and beyond the school. It further highlights the need for greater investment in secondary education, in order to help to reduce rates of student drop out in the remote rural areas of Pakistan.