Thomas S. Popkewitz

Bio: Thomas S. Popkewitz is an academic researcher from University of Wisconsin-Madison. The author has contributed to research in topics: Educational research & Curriculum. The author has an hindex of 45, co-authored 228 publications receiving 8209 citations. Previous affiliations of Thomas S. Popkewitz include University of Luxembourg & Uppsala University.

PISA: Numbers, Standardizing Conduct, and the Alchemy of School Subjects

Abstract: This article examines the grid of practices that give intelligibility to PISA’s organizing the knowledge of school subjects. PISA is treated as an historical event. Its study is to make visible the principles that order and classify the objects “seen” and acted on the “practical knowledge” of school subjects. The politics of PISA, I argue, are in the principles that order what children should know, how that knowing is made possible, and issues of inclusion and exclusion embodied in these practices. The first section historically traces the making of numbers as “facts”, a presumption that makes the comparisons of PISA possible. In the second section, focuses the attention to the principles of school subjects that order and classify the “facts” of PISA’s measurements

Política, conocimiento y poder : algunas cuestiones para el estudio de las reformas educativas

Abstract: Durante esta ultima decada ha tenido lugar un resurgimiento del interes so. bre el problema del cambio en educacion. Uno de los programas de reforma que ha disfrutado de mayor publicidad (en Estados Unidos) ha sido «Teach for America» (2). Concebido en una tesis de grado presentada en la Universidad de Princenton, el programa pretendia poner en marcha una alternativa de formacion del profesorado que llevara a licenciados graduados en universidades de prestigio a cubrir aquellas plazas docentes en las que se venia produciendo un deficit de profesorado —las escuelas de las zonas pobres de las grandes ciudades norteamericanas y de las zonas rurales. El programa atrajo a sus primeros quinientos solicitantes desde las mejores universidades publicas y privadas del pais. Despues de un periodo de ocho semanas de formacion en la Universidad del Sur de California, los estudiantes fueron asignados, en calidad de profesores a tiempo completo, a escuelas de zonas rurales de Georgia y Carolina del Norte, y de areas metropolitanas de Bacon Rouge, Nueva Orleans, Nueva York y Los Angeles.

Education governance and social integration and exclusion: National cases of educational systems and recent reforms

Abstract: Education governance and social integration and exclusion: National cases of educational systems and recent reforms

How the Alchemy Makes Inquiry, Evidence, and Exclusion:

Abstract: An odd thing happens on the way to school. As the sorcerer of the middle ages sought to turn lead into gold, modern teaching and teacher education produce a magical transformation in the disciplines of the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. School subjects transmogrify the disciplines into social and psychological concepts about, for example, developing children's intuitive understandings, meeting academic standards, or forming the dispositions, attitudes, and content knowledge held by children. I call this transformation an alchemy. The alchemy of school subjects provides a way to think about the theory or frame of reference that organizes inquiry and constitutes evidence in teacher education. First, the organization of teaching school subjects is directed to the administration of the dispositions, sensitivities, and awareness of the child and teacher, what in earlier times was called the soul. Second, the alchemy obscures the normalizing and dividing practices of teaching. This includes reformulating questions of diversity into a particular curriculum enactment that has consequences for social exclusion and inclusion. ALCHEMY OF SCHOOL SUBJECTS Research on pedagogical content knowledge and clinical experiences assumes that teaching school subjects brings the academic knowledge of science, social science, the arts, and literature to children. But an alchemy occurs as the knowledge of an academic field moves into the school. School subjects are organized in relation to the expectations related to the school timetable, conceptions of childhood, and organizational theories of teaching. The question of academic or disciplinary fields is transmogrified into social psychologies of instruction and theories for changing the dispositions and characteristics of the teacher and child. The magic of the transformation is to reconfigure the academic fields in schools so that only the namesake appears, as a ubiquitous doorplate to mark a house. The fact that an alchemy exists in schools is not surprising. Children are not scientists or mathematicians. What is surprising is the peculiar school alchemy, three aspects of which are explored in this article. First, psychology is superimposed onto pedagogical practices. Its focus is the administration of the child. Second, teacher education research evaluates and calculates the governing of the soul of the teacher and the child. And third, school subjects are treated as secure, fixed things of subject content and propositions. This crystallization of disciplinary knowledge enables the pedagogical enactments that govern the soul. The three elements of the alchemy shape and fashion inquiry and evidence of teacher education. Psychology as the translation tool. The translation of school subjects into psychological concepts is obvious when curriculum standards are examined. Music and mathematics education, for example, are different practices, but they have the same organizing principles. The standards of curriculum are retrofitted into psychologies of the child. National curriculum standards in music are fundamentally about the child's ability to think (informed decision making or problem solving), to develop skill in communication (defending an argument, working effectively in groups), to produce quality work (acquiring and using information), and to make connections with community (recognizing and acting on responsibilities as a citizen). The standards of mathematics education are no different. They are arranged through psychological studies of age-related learning. School subjects are thus transmogrified into the performances of the psychologies of the child and teacher! In mathematics education, the alchemic transformation can be explored further. On the surface, the discussion is about teaching children about mathematics. Teacher education research focuses on the content and structure of teachers' knowledge, such as learning about the development of children's mathematical thinking and problem solving. …

经验与教育 = Experience and education

Abstract: Experience and Educationis the best concise statement on education ever published by John Dewey, the man acknowledged to be the pre-eminent educational theorist of the twentieth century. Written more than two decades after Democracy and Education(Dewey's most comprehensive statement of his position in educational philosophy), this book demonstrates how Dewey reformulated his ideas as a result of his intervening experience with the progressive schools and in the light of the criticisms his theories had received. Analysing both "traditional" and "progressive" education, Dr. Dewey here insists that neither the old nor the new education is adequate and that each is miseducative because neither of them applies the principles of a carefully developed philosophy of experience. Many pages of this volume illustrate Dr. Dewey's ideas for a philosophy of experience and its relation to education. He particularly urges that all teachers and educators looking for a new movement in education should think in terms of the deeped and larger issues of education rather than in terms of some divisive "ism" about education, even such an "ism" as "progressivism." His philosophy, here expressed in its most essential, most readable form, predicates an American educational system that respects all sources of experience, on that offers a true learning situation that is both historical and social, both orderly and dynamic.

Teachers’ Beliefs and Educational Research: Cleaning Up a Messy Construct:

Abstract: Attention to the beliefs of teachers and teacher candidates should be a focus of educational research and can inform educational practice in ways that prevailing research agendas have not and cannot. The difficulty in studying teachers’ beliefs has been caused by definitional problems, poor conceptualizations, and differing understandings of beliefs and belief structures. This article examines the meaning prominent researchers give to beliefs and how this meaning differs from that of knowledge, provides a definition of belief consistent with the best work in this area, explores the nature of belief structures as outlined by key researchers, and offers a synthesis of findings about the nature of beliefs. The article argues that teachers’ beliefs can and should become an important focus of educational inquiry but that this will require clear conceptualizations, careful examination of key assumptions, consistent understandings and adherence to precise meanings, and proper assessment and investigation of spec...

In a Different Voice. Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge, MA (Harvard University Press) 1982.

Abstract: Introduction 1. Woman's Place in Man's Life Cycle 2. Images of Relationship 3. Concepts of Self and Morality 4. Crisis and Transition 5. Women's Rights and Women's Judgment 6. Visions of Maturity References Index of Study Participants General Index

Experience and Education.

Abstract: Preparing the books to read every day is enjoyable for many people. However, there are still many people who also don't like reading. This is a problem. But, when you can support others to start reading, it will be better. One of the books that can be recommended for new readers is experience and education. This book is not kind of difficult book to read. It can be read and understand by the new readers.