Showing papers in "British Journal of Educational Studies in 2014"

Learning as Researchers and Teachers: The Development of a Pedagogical Culture for Social Science Research Methods?

Abstract: In light of calls to improve the capacity for social science research within UK higher education, this article explores the possibilities for an emerging pedagogy for research methods. A lack of pedagogical culture in this field has been identified by previous studies. In response, we examine pedagogical literature surrounding approaches for teaching and learning research methods that are evident in recent peer-reviewed literature. Deep reading of this literature (as opposed to systematic review) identifies different but generally complementary ways in which teachers of methods seek to elucidate aspects of the research process, provide hands-on experience and facilitate critical reflection. At a time when the advancement of research capacity is gaining prominence, both in the academy and in reference to the wider knowledge economy, this paper illustrates how teachers of methods are considering pedagogical questions and seeks to further stimulate debates in this area.

Teacher Educators’ Professional Development: Towards a Typology of Teacher Educators’ Researcherly Disposition

Abstract: Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the need for teacher educators’ – or those who teach the teachers – professional development became increasingly recognised in both policy and research literature. In this respect, a growing body of publications highly stress the teacher educators’ task of engaging in research and becoming a teacher educator-researcher. This article assumes that teacher educators’ professional development can be conceptualised as the development of a ‘researcherly disposition’. A researcherly disposition is defined as the tendency to engage in research, and involves an inclination towards research (affective aspect), an ability to engage in research (cognitive aspect) and a sensitivity for research opportunities (behavioural aspect). Twenty in-depth interviews with teacher educators were conducted and analysed in order to empirically explore the concept and assess differences in teacher educators’ researcherly disposition. The findings indicate a typology with three...

Learner Dispositions, Self-Theories and Student Engagement

Abstract: This paper examines the concept of learner dispositions empirically and theoretically based on two related studies: one undertaken in the United Kingdom exploring students learning power, identity and their engagement in learning; and one undertaken in Australia, which explored the relationship between learning power and Dweckian self-theories. Three different measures of dispositions are used. Two of these – learning power and self-theories – approach dispositions as malleable but relatively slow to change attributes, while the third considers dispositions as potentially more contextually responsive. The two studies had the measure of learning power in common, enabling a statistical as well as a theoretical comparison between the two studies’ models of learning dispositions and their contribution to the notion of engagement. The implications of these related studies are that, in order to foster deep engagement in learning, pedagogical attention needs to be paid to the formation of learning identi...

Identity, agency and community: reconsidering the pedagogic responsibilities of teacher education

Abstract: This article presents a model for teacher education based on an ongoing action research project at a Finnish university. This model draws on the educational theory of Dewey and the pedagogical sensibility of Bakhtin to critically consider the concepts of teacher identity and agency and to highlight the role of community in teacher development. Our aim is to propose a model that supports the development of new directions in teacher education that would better prepare teachers to face the challenges in their future work by engaging with the educational community in the present.

Elite International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme Schools and Inter-cultural Understanding in China

Abstract: The number of International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) schools has increased rapidly in China in recent years. However, access to schools offering the IBDP remains restricted to a relatively elite minority of China’s population due to enrolment barriers for Chinese nationals and relatively high school fees. An implication is that students potentially remain in physical, cultural and socio-economic isolation from host communities. Within this context, this study explored how, and the extent to which, two core components of the IBDP – namely, the Learner Profile and Creativity, Action, Service – help foster inter-cultural understanding between students and other communities within Chinese society. To this end, in mid 2013 interview data were gathered from IBDP teachers, IBDP administrators, and IBDP students from five elite IBDP schools in Beijing and Shanghai. Findings revealed a perception that the Learner Profile could provide a strong theoretical appreciation of the norms and values ...

Teacher Effectiveness: Making The Difference to Student Achievement?

Abstract: This paper critically examines shifts in emphasis in Australian education from expectations and belief that teachers not only make a difference to student achievement, but they are the difference. In moving from social class relations accounts to self-managing school accounts, latest shifts (teacher effectiveness accounts) over-emphasize teacher effect(s), distorting issues of student under-achievement.

Low-fee private schooling: aggravating equity or mitigating disadvantage?

Abstract: Low-fee Private Schooling is an edited collection of studies of low-fee private schooling in Ghana, Pakistan, Kenya, Nigeria and India. Low-fee private schooling is a relatively new phenomenon, and it is not without controversy. On one side are those who favor market-based solutions; on the other are those who are proponents of public ‘education for all.’Yet, in many countries, governments are lagging in the promise to provide for universal public education. The private sector has begun to close the gap. The question posed by this book is whether this can be done in an equitable way, or do such private schools aggravate the educational and economic inequities already present in these countries? Overall, the book is a good read, but the language, methodology and conclusions can be highly technical at times. The editor’s initial chapter is a general introduction to the subject, addressing different definitions among scholars of ‘low-fee,’ ‘affordability,’ ‘private’ and ‘quality,’ while also previewing some of the difficulties of this subject as a research area. One of these difficulties is the ‘unofficial’ nature of many low-fee private schools; many are unrecognized by their countries’ governments, and prefer to stay that way. Getting data on school performance when the schools prefer to remain hidden can be problematic for researchers. This field is also potentially controversial because, as a market-based solution, proponents reason that parents will ‘vote with their feet’ if they conclude that these schools are not worth the money. Others view private schools for the poor as exploitative, regardless of the potential advantages they might offer. Akyeampong and Rolleston (Chapter 2) look at low-fee private schooling in Ghana. Their study uses Ghana Living Standards Survey and Ghana Education Management Information System data. These quantitative data are supplemented by case-study data from rural and semi-urban communities in southern Ghana. The authors conclude that ‘even households falling into the ... “extremely poor” category in per capita economic welfare made use of private schools’ (p. 57) and that ‘some households believed quite strongly that low-fee private schools offered value for money’ (p. 59). The authors caveat this conclusion with the observation that:

Records of Practice and the Development of Collective Professional Knowledge

Abstract: Although recent years have seen an increase in professional learning communities, use of video and lesson study groups, most teachers still work and learn in isolation. What they know is personal and remains private; little opportunity exists for most teachers to develop shared knowledge or language. The scale of the teaching force, and the rapid turnover of new teachers, makes this lack of shared knowledge an acute problem. This paper explores the potential of records of practice for developing collective professional knowledge about teaching and learning. We define and illustrate what we mean by records of practice and elaborate the meaning of the term collective professional knowledge. Three concrete examples of records of practice, originating in different contexts and times, are presented and their special features are analyzed and discussed. The paper clarifies that records are not in themselves professional knowledge, but constitute a valuable and unique resource for the study of practice a...

Exploring the school leadership landscape, changing demands, changing realities

Abstract: To crack open a new book is still an exciting moment but one wonders for how long that will be the case with electronic books taking over the market. Cracking open a new book on a topic that has fo...

Virtue, Practical Wisdom and Character in Teaching.

Abstract: Recent reflection on the professional knowledge of teachers has been marked by a shift away from more reductive competence and skill-focused models of teaching towards a view of teacher expertise as involving complex context-sensitive deliberation and judgement. Much of this shift has been inspired by an Aristotelian conception of practical wisdom (phronesis) also linked by Aristotle to the development of virtue and character. This has in turn led recent educational philosophers and theorists – inspired by latter-day developments in virtue ethics and virtue epistemology – to investigate the contribution of various forms of virtue to the effective practice of teaching. In this light, the present paper undertakes further exploration of the logical geography of virtue, character and practical deliberation in teaching.

Sensitive ‘Heritage’ of Slavery in a Multicultural Classroom: Pupils’ Ideas Regarding Significance

Abstract: Pupils’ attribution of significance to sensitive ‘heritage’ of slavery may differ, particularly in multicultural classrooms. Little is known about the ways in which pupils establish a relationship with the present when discussing the significance of heritage of slavery. Starting from theories of historical significance and identity, these attributions and the interplay with the pupils’ identities were examined at a Dutch secondary school using questionnaires and interviews. Pupils primarily used two arguments: significance for a specific identity or group; and slavery as a historical example of inequality. The interplay with their identity was ambiguous.

Teachers’ Views of Curriculum Policy: The Case of Estonia

Abstract: Unlike in England, since the late 1980s the rhetoric of curriculum reforms has been overwhelmingly decentralist in many countries. However, decentralisation has often involved the delegation of centrally appointed tasks, rather than a real shift in power. The Estonian case demonstrates how a decentralised curriculum policy with centralised control can have the same de-professionalising effect on teachers’ perceived professional autonomy as does a system where both input and output are centrally controlled.

Continuity and Change in English Further Education: A Century of Voluntarism and Permissive Adaptability

Abstract: This paper argues that the evolution of further education colleges in England is marked by both continuities and change, and provides evidence to show that they retain many of the characteristics and the underlying rationale present at the turn of the twentieth century. A defining characteristic remains the colleges’ need to respond to student demand in a continued climate of voluntarism and lack of policy commitment to the education of young people beyond school-leaving age.

The Road to Oxbridge: Schools and Elite University Choices

Abstract: This paper explores hidden messages sent out by schools about Oxbridge, using Basil Bernstein’s concepts of classification and framing. Research in three case-study schools captured these messages from their everyday practices and processes, including their events and activities, sorting mechanisms, interactions and resources. Whilst all of the schools sent out strong classificatory messages, marking out Oxbridge as special, they differed in their strength of framing, making explicit to differing degrees which students are ‘Oxbridge material’.

The Logic and Implications of School-Based Teacher Formation.

Abstract: This paper uses Bernsteinian concepts to identify how forms of power and control within teacher professional formation are exercised. Drawing on previous comparative work into collaborative models of teacher education and contemporary examples from school-based programmes, it is argued that current developments in England raise substantive questions for teachers’ knowledge, learning and professional commitment.

Rethinking Research in Teacher Education

Abstract: The expansion of school-based teacher training is impacting on the practice of universities, schools and trainees. University tutors and managers were interviewed on how they experienced working in partnership with schools and how this impacted on the composition of their work. They variously reported on how their sense of professional purpose had been challenged as a result of changing expectations. Their involvement in research is used as a barometer for these changes. The teacher educators are depicted as wavering between governmental regulation (master discourse) and professional imperatives (university discourse), where the latter comprise an uneasy alliance of expertise in school and academic rigour. Through depicting the unsettlement of practice and accounts of it (hysteric discourse), the study points to possible resolutions that might be achieved through more systematic resistance to external demands (analytic discourse). The university teacher educator identity results from attempted res...

Mediating Education Policy: Making up the "Anti-Politics" of Third-Sector Participation in Public Education.

Abstract: This article examines the participation of ‘third-sector’ organisations in public education in England. These organisations act as a cross-sectoral policy network made up of new kinds of policy experts: mediators and brokers with entrepreneurial careers in ideas. They have sought to make education reform thinkable, intelligible and practicable in terms of a computational discourse consisting of code, networks, interactivity and feedback, and related ideas of decentralisation, open methods and personalisation. What characterises this style of thinking is an ‘anti-political’ preoccupation with computer-coded systems and the idea of networks as a model for new political and educational forms.

Comparing Compositional Effects in Two Education Systems: The Case of the Belgian Communities

Abstract: The Belgian educational field includes separate educational systems reflecting the division of the country into linguistic communities. Even if the French-speaking and the Dutch-speaking communities keep sharing important similarities in terms of funding rules and structures, they present a huge gap between their respective pupils’ achievement. The Belgian educational systems are then characterized by high levels of segregation; this paper aims to model the potential differential effect of school composition on pupils’ achievement. Multilevel models are consequently tested on the Programme for International Student Assessment 2009 data (7184 respondents in 236 schools). Our results suggest that the position of pupils in the educational system still has a deep influence in a system that functions as a quasi-market and where grade repetition and tracking are widely used. Our analysis also confirms that academic and socio-economic compositions have an extra negative effect on pupils’ achievement.

Education and the rationale of cost-benefit analysis

Abstract: It is increasingly maintained that cost–benefit analysis (CBA) should play a greater role in educational policy-making. This article critically examines the rationale guiding CBA and its compatibility to educational settings. Drawing on philosophical discussions, it argues that the rationale guiding CBA has some fundamental limitations that render the use of it in education beneficial only under certain restrictive circumstances.

New teachers need access to powerful educational knowledge

Abstract: The UK Coalition Government has recently introduced a number of education policies that aim to reform initial teacher development in England. It has argued that the training of new teachers will be improved by giving greater priority to the development of ‘key teaching skills’. This narrowly practical and overly managerial approach to initial teacher training (ITT) is mistaken as it fails to recognise the developmental value of what might be described as powerful educational knowledge. As such, recent reforms of ITT seem unlikely to raise teaching standards. Standards of ITT might be improved, however, by giving new teachers access to powerful educational knowledge, such as that developed by Emile Durkheim. Powerful educational knowledge supports the development of new teachers by building their commitment, understanding and creativity.

Politics, policies and pedagogies in education: the selected works of Bob Lingard

Abstract: which educational establishments must abide by put much pressure on them, which has the effect of also constraining them. These issues are taken up in Chapter Nine, which is concerned with higher education, social and identity changes. As in several previous chapters, Tomlinson looks at the past to put the present in context. He identifies the factors influencing marketisation and the new commoditisation of universities in a globalising world. He looks at the impact of the alignment of universities with the commercial sector and the pressure academics are under both internally and externally. Tomlinson identifies that the non-traditional students entering university also find the transition into higher education challenging. Education, Work and Identity is an excellent book that will be of interest to all, especially social scientists and educationalists. Those undertaking the post-compulsory higher education teaching qualifications will also be well enlightened by the various themes and perspectives that are entwined around education, work and identity.

Education, extremism and terrorism: what should be taught in citizenship education and why

Abstract: In early July 2005 I was attending the First Citized International Conference at the University of Toronto in Canada when London was rocked by the so-called 7/7 subway and bus bombings. A significa...

Placing ‘Knowledge’ in Teacher Education in the English Further Education Sector: An Alternative Approach Based on Collaboration and Evidence-Based Research

Abstract: This paper focuses on teacher education in the English further education sector, where the teaching of disciplinary and pedagogic knowledge is an issue. Using research findings, the paper advocates an approach based on collaboration and informed research to emphasize and integrate knowledge(s) in situated teaching contexts despite working in a climate of competition as advocated by the current neo-liberal government.

Race, remembering, and Jim Crow’s teachers

Abstract: Race, Remembering, and Jim Crow’s Teachers by Hilton Kelly is an informative book that reads fast but raises numerous important questions, thus contributing to the discussions about African American educators in the context of Jim Crow’s laws about racial segregation in the US south. Contrary to the popular belief that black segregated schools were inferior, Kelly offers a different view based on the oral histories of 44 former teachers of all-black schools in three counties of North Carolina. The book is based on dissertation research; yet it does not read as a traditional dissertation. Rather, the book is a well-constructed narrative about teachers and teaching that combines the data collected from the study participants with excerpts from other scholarly sources on the topic. Kelly’s book is conveniently divided into three parts; each part is devoted to a specific aspect of the overall theme – remembering Jim Crow’s teachers and understanding better their pedagogical practices and the context in which they had worked. The first part (Chapters 1–3) details the context of legally segregated black schools. The second part (Chapters 4 and 5) focuses on the participants’ accounts of segregated schools that differ greatly from dominant educational discourse. The third part (Chapter 6) provides author’s thoughts and reflections on the topic and serves as the book’s conclusion. Although the book does not use citations to relevant works in the same way as literature reviews do, Kelly incorporates numerous references to support his assertions. The appendices provide greater insights into the research behind the book, detailing the methodology, interview questions and participant demographics. I discerned three major themes emerging from the participants’ quotes and the author’s narrative:

Everything for sale? The marketisation of UK higher education. By Roger Brown with Helen Carasso

Abstract: One of the latest in the Society for Research into Higher Education book series, Everything for Sale? is a carefully researched analysis of developments in, primarily, English higher education from...

Children, citizenship and environment: nurturing a democratic imagination in a changing world. By Bronwyn Hayward

Abstract: This edition of Children, Citizenship and Environment comes with daunting recommendations in its cover notes; ‘magisterial’, ‘wonderful’, ‘glorious’, ‘brilliant’, ‘masterpiece’, ‘inspiring’, ‘compe...

The Market for Academic Knowledge: Its Historical Emergence and Inherent Tensions

Abstract: This paper contributes to the discussion about the marketisation of universities by providing a historical perspective. Going back to the time when the market for academic knowledge emerged, I argue that it was created through incorporating a number of inherent tensions that have been, and still are, shaping its development. I show how these tensions affect the self-definition of the producers and consumers in the market as well as their valuation of the products the market has to offer. They also influence the rules of exchange.

R. Freeman Butts: Educational Foundations and Educational Diplomacy.

Abstract: R. Freeman Butts was an American historian and philosopher of education who died in March 2010. This paper will investigate Butts’ various roles and writings and ask the question: why is Butts important to the contemporary generation of teacher educators and teachers? This paper will argue that the breadth of Butts’ work builds connections and is a very positive model for sub-disciplines in education. Firstly, it is critical to examine Butts’ contribution, as Butts provokes teachers to inquire about the ‘context of education,’ rather than simply the ‘how to’ of teaching and the question of classroom management. Additionally, it is significant to for educators to study Butts’ life and works as they embody the essence of service – in his case, as an education diplomat. He started with what former US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton calls ‘the conversation,’ and this led eventually to projects such as the Afghan Project to bring development to Afghanistan in the era of the mid to late twentieth cent...

Self-determined learning: heutagogy in action

Abstract: As an edited text, Self-determined Learning is extremely accessible and easy to read. This should not be taken to imply that it is overly simplistic, but rather the focus for the book is the exploration of a number of projects and learning interventions that have taken place in a variety of locations and times. There are chapters on postgraduate learning, learning through new technologies, workplace learning, action research and learner-centred learning, creativity, lifelong learning and early years, to name but a few.

Inclusion and Homophily: An Argument about Participatory Decision-Making and Democratic School Management.

Abstract: This paper reports findings from a study about school staff’s perceptions of the preferences for social interaction that young people have with similar and different others. This tension was explored empirically using scenarios of moral dilemmas to conduct in-depth semi-structured interviews with school staff from special and mainstream secondary schools. The issue was explored with reference to a tension between social inclusion, the principle of embracing difference, and homophily, the concept that similarity breeds connection. The data suggest that homophily and inclusion can come into a tension with an ethical dimension. In education, the homophily/inclusion tension is one between students’ preferences for being among similar others and the moral imperative of including everybody; or between individuality and commonality. Inclusion is often translated into a demand for full participation as the only way to respond ethically to difference. However, the recognition of students’ rights to negotia...