Silencing youth sexuality in Senegal: intersections of medicine and morality

This article reports on recent research funded by international development actors which explored how Senegalese youth acted as ‘active citizens’ and claimed their education and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) rights. Our analysis is framed by a review of contemporary international development discourses that seem to offer fertile possibilities for more plural understandings of sexuality. After describing the research methodology and methods, we draw on post-structural theory to analyse the discourses youth deployed to talk about sex and their sexualities. Rather than a source of pleasure, youth’s talk of sex and sexuality was dominated by discourses of morality and medicine, in ways that sustained a heteronormative gender regime permeated by entrenched hegemonic masculinities. We conclude that rather than the fertile possibilities identified in our opening review, the SRH lens re-inscribed a negative framing of sexuality which was compounded by both family and religious norms.     

Reforms to higher education assessment reporting: opportunities and challenges

This article responds to recent UK proposals on measuring and recording student achievement (Universities UK 2007) to highlight issues that are relevant across different higher education contexts, which are increasingly intertwined through the expansion of the Bologna process. Drawing from wide-ranging literature on assessment and sociology, this paper argues that the introduction of new assessment technologies cannot be seen from a purely technical perspective but instead requires a deeper appreciation of assessment as a social practice, which contributes powerfully to the construction of learner subjectivities in ways that are not necessarily benign. Although not suggesting this leads to any easy solutions, the concept of ‘meta-social’ awareness may be useful in better supporting a diverse student body in confronting the complexities of the twenty-first century.     

Absent presences: The recognition of social class and gender dimensions within peer assessment interactions

This article focuses on the discursive characteristics of peer assessment interactions, drawing upon recent research into formative assessment within a task design involving extended project‐based work tackled in groups by pupils. Case studies were conducted within two schools in socially deprived areas of Scotland. They included classroom observation, digital video and audio data collection, and a series of interviews with pupils and teachers. The task design created opportunities for interdisciplinary, collaborative learning and generated strong pupil engagement. However, a disjuncture is seen between the conflictual characteristics of peer assessment, which are suggested to have gendered and social class dimensions, and the discourses of teamwork and community‐building that were privileged in the classrooms observed. Although recognised more in research conversations, the article argues that teachers could be better supported in considering how social class and gender are implicated in peer assessment and in developing classroom discourse that addresses social equity issues.     

Using email for formative assessment with professional doctorate students

This article reports on aspects of a recent research and development project in doctoral education. It focuses on the use of email for tutor’s formative assessment within the early stages of a Professional Doctorate in Education (EdD) in an English university. Its case study methodology included participant observation of the programme workshops, critical discourse analysis of the email texts, and two series of in‐depth, semi‐structured student interviews. The tutor whose feedback was analysed had previously researched and theorised formative assessment, so the research allowed his previous theoretical insights to be explored and developed in an early doctoral context. The article concludes by discussing the problematic power of feedback at this level, given the culturally constructed associations of feedback with summative assessment, and implications for supervisory practice.     

The doctoral viva voce as a cultural practice: the gendered production of academic subjects

This article reports on a recent small‐scale phenomenological study into the student experience of the doctoral viva voce. It was prompted by strong concerns about viva voce processes on the part of a Director of Graduate Studies in an English university. The study involved semi‐structured interviews with 20 respondents from eight English universities in a range of disciplinary areas. An initial analysis of the interviews illuminated the powerful affective dimensions of the viva voce and the gendered nature of its processes. Resisting the binary separation of reason and emotion, the paper draws upon discursive theories of affect, gender and subjectivity to consider the affective economies that are illuminated in this data and suggests that this involves the reproduction of gendered hierarchies.     

Vocational lifelong learners?

The notion of lifelong learning has become a mantra within educational policies. However these have been strongly critiqued for reflecting an understanding of learning that privileges the economic benefits of participation in formal education. In UK contexts, the importance attached to widening participation in higher education is one manifestation of these policy discourses, which can be interrogated as a form of governmentality. This paper draws upon a recent small‐scale mixed‐method study of different vocational learners’ transition from Level 3 courses to consider how these policy discourses are being mediated by ‘learners’ who were qualified to enter higher education, but decided instead on alternative life courses. The analysis suggests that policy constructions of participation in higher education sit at a disjuncture with respondents’ longer‐term experiences of institutionalised education processes. In other ways, lifelong learning seemed to be willingly embraced in respondents’ different commitments to learning and self‐development, although higher education institutions were not often seen as a source of this learning. The article aims all the same to allow this interpretation of respondents’ voices to speak back and disrupt policy mantras.     

Jordan’s primary curriculum and its propensity for student-centred teaching and learning

This article examines the Jordanian lower-primary national curriculum and its propensity for student-centred teaching and learning. It draws upon Basil Bernstein’s sociological theory of pedagogic codes to analyse the curriculum model and the advocated pedagogical approach within official curriculum documents, textbooks and teacher guides. Although the research conducted confirms the aspirations of the national curriculum for the adoption of student-centred pedagogies, analysis of the selected texts reveals mixed messages where in some areas the curriculum exemplifies an integrated code and in others a collection code. The messages about classroom framing are also found to be contradictory. The paper argues that if Jordan is to fulfil its stated aspirations to embrace more progressive pedagogies, a full review of the curriculum is needed to ensure its classification and framing cohere better with a student-centred approach.