Human Language and Drawing Development: Their Productive Interactions

The connection between language and drawing development has always seemed a plausible proposition despite the lack of research in this area. This paper reports on the research findings and theory offered to date in support of links that are purported to exist between these two human abilities. The most convincing arguments for this proposition emanate from the work and ideas of the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky who claims that drawing behavior is inextricably linked to the development of language in humans. In addition, more recent research by Dyson et al has revealed a crucial role for drawing as a prerequisite for the development of writing skills.     

Boys Performing English

This article explores the gender dynamics of boys' responses to one particular aspect of English teaching: oral performance work. It focuses on the possibility that the requirement to perform publicly in dramatic and other oral tasks may be an important factor in the rejection of English by many boys, and may contribute to boys' relatively poor achievement in English. The article provides a study of boys' engagement in English oral activities in two classrooms, and identifies a number of factors influencing boys' English learning. In particular, it shows that there is no simple relation between the performance requirements of English learning activities and boys' disengagement with English.     

How and Why to Support Common Schooling and Educational Choice at the Same Time

The common school ideal is the source of one of the oldest educational debates in liberal democratic societies. The movement in favour of greater educational choice is the source of one of the most recent. Each has been the cause of major and enduring controversy, not only within philosophical thought but also within political, legal and social arenas. Echoing conclusions reached by Terry McLaughlin, but taking the historical and legal context of the United States as my backdrop, I argue that the ideal of common schooling and the existence of separate schools, which is to say, the existence of educational choice, are not merely compatible but necessarily co-exist in a liberal democratic society. In other words, we need both common schooling and educational choice. The essay proceeds in four parts. First, I explain why we need to understand something about pluralism in order to understand common schooling and school choice. In the second and third parts, I explore the normative significance of pluralism for common schooling and educational choice, respectively. In the fourth part, I show how the two can be reconciled, given a certain understanding of what pluralism demands.     

On the Necessity of Radical State Education: Democracy and the Common School

There needs to be a tighter connection than is often the case between contested theories of democracy and debates about the viability and desirability of the common school. Because radical traditions of state education take that connection much more seriously, in both theory and practice, than most dominant accounts, it is to those alternative traditions that we might usefully look for guidance in the furtherance of explicitly democratic aspirations. In arguing for the importance of prefigurative practice, this paper proposes seven key analytic strands of radical democratic praxis. A common good animated by the affirmation of a reconfigured, inclusive 'fraternity' is preferred to the fearful, atomistic interdependence of neo-liberalism.