Contemporary Education Policy Research Articles

Accidents of Birth: Rawls’s Original Position as the Mother’s Womb

This paper examines the history of welfare policy discourse in the United States since the publication of the “Moynihan Report” (1967) and traces its implications for contemporary education policy research. The central thesis is that an overemphasis on “parents” historically invites unwarranted assumptions about autonomy and responsibility, which obfuscates fundamental questions of justice. Children are consequently punished for their parents’ perceived indiscretions. To militate against this tendency the author employs recent feminist critiques of Rawls’s methodology in A Theory of Justice (1999) to reconceptualize the “Original Position” as a mother’s womb in an effort to redirect focus from parents to children. Through this revision, policy discourse can potentially be shifted to more nearly mirror the reasoning applied in Plyler v Doe (1982), which emphasizes finally that children cannot be punished for their parents’ indiscretions.

The cross-cultural validity of the Learning-Centered Leadership framework and its assessment instrument for principals

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to select a theoretical framework for effective school leadership that is connected with research, standards and current practices in the USA, and examine its validity and generalizability cross-culturally. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses both qualitative and quantitative methods through expert panel evaluation, cognitive interviews, and field testing of the instrument. The author asks: How well does the Learning-Centered Leadership (LCL) framework align with the professional standards and current practices of principals in urban Chinese schools in the opinion of the experts? Is there evidence that its leadership assessment instrument has construct validity in Chinese urban schools based on the re-examination of its content and measurement criteria? And is there evidence that the instrument is yielding consistent results when taken by the intended participants? How effective are the analytic strategies employed by this study in detecting the equivalences and discrepancies in how educational leadership is defined and evaluated, between two vastly different educational systems? Findings – The paper finds evidences that give support to the claim that there is strong cross-cultural alignment on the overarching goal of improving student learning. However, the US framework and assessment will need to be modified to reflect the Chinese reform priorities that emphasize the balance between academic and social learning. Originality/value – The belief that there are common elements in contemporary international educational policy has brought growing interest in sharing leadership theories and successful models cross-culturally. This paper addresses the challenges in understanding the complexity of cross-cultural translation of theories and applications, and explores viable solutions to meaningful adaptation.

International ‘benchmarking’ studies and the identification of ‘education best practice’: a focus on classroom teachers and their practices

The disproportionate focus on classroom teachers and their instruction—teacher effectiveness—in order to confront and address under-achievement and disadvantage appears as a contemporary education policy theme in Australia. Phrases such as ‘high performing schooling systems’, ‘the best teachers’, ‘high performing countries’, ‘quality teaching’, ‘under-performing schools’, ‘the right change’, ‘operationally feasible’, ‘targeting of reforms’, ‘degrees of under-performance’, ‘educational drivers’, ‘teacher quality and improved teaching’ and ‘external standards and governance’ are constantly mentioned and given continual attention and prominence by policy-makers. The paper questions and critiques a policy-making direction that uses teacher effectiveness research to force and steer reform in education. The distinctive and narrow concern with teacher effectiveness works to the specific exclusion of breadth and scope concerning debate about broader education related issues and questions, for example, matters of student achievement, exclusion and disadvantage. This article uses a qualitative research approach informed by critical theory to examine three influential private sector reports on education and schooling: The McKinsey Report (2007)—How the world’s best-performing school systems come out on top, The Nous Group (2011)—Schooling Challenges and Opportunities and The Grattan Institute (2012)—Catching up: Learning from the best school systems in East Asia. The article subjects the reports to close critical scrutiny and examination and finds that classroom teachers are positioned so that their specific and explicit instruction becomes the differentiating ‘variable’ in matters of student achievement and success.

Digital Storytelling in a Place‐Based Composition Course

AbstractAlthough the study of place in the fields of composition and education has a long and compelling history, the concept has taken on increased importance in today's digital landscape. As perceptions of places shift, we're challenged to understand how and which places shape who we are. Due to its potential power to leverage student choice, personal experience, and reflections on identity and to meet the assessment demands of contemporary educational policies, we designed a 10th‐grade composition course around the concept of place. In this case study we describe how one high school student—Riley—engaged with the concept of place over the course of an academic trimester. Multimodal analyses of Riley's digital story illustrate how she engaged in a 21st century literacy practice that demanded her fluency beyond reading and writing print texts to consider how multiple layers of meaning were recast across linguistic, visual, and aural semiotic modes.

Securing the Future of Higher Education in England

This article reviews the IPPR commissioned report ‘Securing the Future of Higher Education in England’. It is argued that the report identifies key shortcomings in contemporary higher education policy, and develops some important recommendations for shaping the sector in the future. However, several of the proposed recommendations would create new divisions in the sector and reinforce existing ones. Moreover, the report maintains and reproduces the ideological status quo of contemporary higher education policy, which can broadly be described as the organisation and provision of higher education along ‘quasi‐market’ lines. Crucially, although the report advocates reform based on social justice, in the contemporary context of fiscal retrenchment, the majority of recommendations are underpinned by, arguably necessary, economic rationales.

The struggle to technicise in education policy

In contemporary education policy, simplified technical accounts of policy problems and solutions are being produced with the use of numeric calculations. These calculations are seen as clear and unbiased, capable of revealing “what works” and identifying “best practices.” In this piece, the authors use resources from the material-semiotic approach of actor-network theory to discuss how calculations have begun to serve as a subtle infrastructure underpinning the way we understand and organise our world. They demonstrate the usefulness of the approach in tracing the technicisation of policy by deploying it to qualitative studies of like-school comparisons in the two unexpectedly linked locations—New York City and Australia. The authors reveal how technical accounts are precarious and need constant maintenance to endure, even as they increasingly becoming routine, curtailing the policy imagination and limiting the spaces of contestation. It is for this reason, they argue, that a deeper understanding and sustained critique of such accounts is of pressing importance.

Shifting fundaments of European higher education governance: competition, ranking, autonomy and accountability

In the present study we provide an interpretation of a general narrative of transnational governance of higher education. All the elements of the narrative – competition, ranking autonomy and accountability – are visibly present in contemporary higher education policy agenda. We examine these not as separate ideas and practices but as an interlinked whole, bringing an amount of coherence to transnational governance of higher education in Europe. All the elements, as they are currently represented in policy statements by the European higher education establishment, are premised on social atomist ontology and ideology of competition. Consequently, drawing on textual evidence we argue that the recent trend for increasing universities' institutional autonomy and accountability has been justified by reference to competitive logic, which, in turn, has been strengthened by the practice of comparative ranking. The article contributes to diagnosing potential misconceptions that frame the current higher education policy-making in Europe.

From policy to pedagogy: prudence and precariousness; actors and artefacts

This paper draws on concepts from contemporary education policy sociology to explore the prospective interpretation, contextualisation and enactment of Health and Physical Education in the Australian Curriculum. Analysis examines the dynamic between characteristics of official texts and the contexts in which responses will be made. The paper identifies the consultation draft curriculum as highly flexible, such that multiple aspects of past and current policy contexts can be expected to strongly frame its reading and enactment. Exploration of contexts points to the critical role that policy actors, agencies and artefacts will all play in determining the ways in which the new curriculum will be expressed and experienced in schools across Australia. Discussion raises issues for Health and Physical Education teachers, teacher educators and members of professional associations to consider in looking forward.

Key education and quality issues and reassessments coming from the developing world

I am pleased to introduce this present issue of Prospects: the first non-thematic collection of peer-reviewed articles that we are publishing in 2013. We continue to seek strong general-interest submissions by researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners alike, on topics of crucial importance to the field of comparative education. While maintaining the journal’s very distinctive profile, substance, and identity, we also continue our earnest efforts to publish the very best in education research, theory and practice, coming from various geographical regions, with a special focus on curriculum-related issues. In this issue, we showcase research pertaining to several topics that lie at the heart of contemporary educational research and policy: education quality, access to education, indigenous education, motivation, class management, school-based management, world-class education, and rural education. Most importantly, these studies offer ways to reinterpret and adapt theory to the needs and contexts of the international and developing world. The geographical coverage of the articles is notable and includes countries as diverse as Australia, Bangladesh, Chile, China, Guatemala, Hungary, Israel, and Pakistan. The issue opens with a controversial Viewpoint, authored by Helen Abadzi, a leading psychologist who has worked for over 25 years as an education specialist and senior evaluation officer in the World Bank and the Global Partnership for Education. Her article is a foray into a largely unexplored phenomenon: the decision-making processes of schoolbased management committees in low-income countries. Committees of low-income populations may lack the time and resources, as well as experience with quality schools, to accurately evaluate service delivery. She suggests developing links between two groups— the donor community and governments, and the neuropsychologists and experts in artificial intelligence who study decision-making—in order to better understand the routes from management committee decisions to service delivery and to help improve services to lowincome populations. Zsuzsa Millei and Robert J. Imre examine early childhood education in Hungary between 1948 and 1989. They argue that the socialist kindergarten in Hungary was set up

Multilingual Education Policy in South Africa Constrained by Theoretical and Historical Disconnections

Multilingual education policy has been a controversial affair in South Africa, especially over the last 60 years. Recent research conducted by government-led and independent agencies shows declining student achievement within an education system that employs 11 home languages for education in the first three grades of primary school, followed by a transition to English medium for the majority (approximately 80%) of speakers of African languages. Research that focuses on the linguistic practices of students in urban settings suggests that there is a disjuncture between the construction of multilingualism within contemporary education policy and the multilingual reality of students (e.g., Heugh, 2003; Makoni, 2003; Makoni & Pennycook, 2012; Plüddemann, 2013; Probyn, 2009; Stroud & Heugh, 2011). There is also a disjunction between constitutional and other government policies that advance, on paper, a multilingual policy, yet are implemented through an assimilatory drive towards English (Alexander & Heugh, 1999). As predicted nearly two decades ago, the ideological framing of multilingualism during the negotiations in the early 1990s was to have consequences for the way in which language policy would unfold in the education sector over the next 20 to 30 years (Heugh, 1995, 1999). While poor student achievement in school may be ascribed to a range of socioeconomic indicators, this article draws attention to contributory factors that relate to language(s) in education. These include different constructions of multilingualism in education in relation to sociolinguistic and educational linguistic considerations, contradictory interpretations of multilingual education in a series of education policy documents, pedagogical weaknesses, and recent attempts to strengthen the provision of African languages education alongside English in the first 10 years of school (Grades R and 0–9; e.g., Department of Basic Education (DBE), 2013a, 2013b).

The ‘smallness’ of minimalist tolerance

This article critically examines how Malta, the smallest EU state, has developed specific ‘small’ or ‘minimalist tolerance’ discourses and practices in the education of ethnic minorities and immigrants. As a previous colony of Britain, now a ‘new’ host country with, relative to its size, the largest influx of undocumented immigrants, Malta faces particular challenges in adjusting to new forms of ethnic diversity. Whilst not arguing a path dependency, Malta’s history of domination and its resort to Roman Catholicism as a marker of ethnic identity position it in particular discursive practices which generate ‘small’, minimalist, even negligible and negligent approaches to cultural and ethnic diversity in its schools. Starting with a brief history and an account of contemporary education policies, the article constructs the theme of ‘smallness’ through an analysis of the discourses of key education policy-makers and school principals. With contradictions between the declared policy objectives and the implementation, or lack thereof, in schools, there is a ‘discretionary’ model in place. The educational experience of ethnic minority and immigrant children is at the discretion of school principals and teachers and their ‘classes of toleration’ (Dobbernack and Modood, 2012:2). Obstacles to an expanded concept of tolerance derive mainly from a definition of the national identity as Roman Catholic, as well as specific ‘smallness’ discourses. On the ground, actors argue that the ‘smallness’ of Malta and its attachment to its Catholic identity makes it unable to move beyond this very minimalist toleration of ethnic diversity. The article deconstructs these discourses.

O ensino da Filosofia no Brasil no contexto das políticas educacionais contemporâneas em suas determinações legais e paradigmáticas

This paper discusses the contemporary educational policies in Brazil, in accordance with the LDBEN 9.394/96 law, the National curriculum guidelines (1998), the National Curricular Parameters - PCN-EM (1999) and their implications in the teaching of Philosophy in Brazil, addressing historical and legal aspects of the reintegration of this teaching in Brazilian secondary school with its legal delineation on LDBEN 9.394/96 and the way prospects for opposition have been proposed to the referred policies. It also questions the procedures related to this process and raises some possible suggestions for actions on the part of the higher education institution which holds the professional forming for them to work with that teaching and on the part of representative entities of professional educators connected to the teaching of Philosophy, in this transition phase with paradigmatic changes in Brazilian education.

Implementacija i provedba inkluzivnog odgoja i obrazovanja u sustavu redovnih škola

Implementacija i provedba obrazovne inkluzije u školi relevantna je tema za pedagogijski i društveni kontekst zato što podrazumijeva prihvaćanje i uvažavanje različitosti među djecom kao poticaja, a ne prepreke u procesu učenja i poučavanja. Na UNESCO-voj Svjetskoj konferenciji o posebnim obrazovnim potrebama održanoj 1994. godine usvojeni su Izjava i Okvir za akciju kojim se promiče pravo svakog djeteta da, bez obzira na njegovo fizičko, intelektualno, emocionalno, socijalno, jezično ili drugo stanje, bude uključeno u odgojno-obrazovni sustav, odnosno u redovne škole. Termin posebne obrazovne potrebe se u kontekstu navedenoga ne odnosi isključivo na djecu s teškoćama u razvoju. Upravo time što se koncept inkluzivnog odgoja i obrazovanja odnosi na uključenost sve djece u sustav obvezatnog obrazovanja, on proširuje i produbljuje odgojni model integracije djece s teškoćama u razvoju u redovno školovanje. Uvođenje i provođenje inkluzije u školi postaje zahtjevom suvremenih obrazovnih politika zemalja Europe i svijeta, pri čemu je mijenjanje škola radi ostvarenja obrazovne inkluzije uvjetovano promjenom cjelokupne odgojno-obrazovne prakse (Mittler, 2006). U radu će se prikazati neke pretpostavke koje su ključne za primjenu inkluzije u školi s posebnim naglaskom na ulogu aktivnosti učitelja i nastavnika kao ključnih sudionika inkluzivnog procesa u školi.

Knowledge, Education, and Citizenship in a Pre- and Post-National Age

This article uses ancient views of knowledge and citizenship to defamiliarize contemporary discursive paradigms and to suggest that they can, in some respects, provide a template for rethinking our views of citizenship and of the social function of the humanities. The discourse of the knowledge-based economy is at the heart of contemporary higher education policy. It implies not only the central significance of knowledge production and circulation for the economy, but also the primacy of economic considerations in defining the function of knowledge. By contrast, in the ancient world, the end of education and knowledge was conceptualized in political rather than economic terms, and this primacy of the political over the economic is historically one of the central tenets of a liberal education. Hence, the discourse of the knowledge-based economy itself plays a decisive role in bringing about the current crisis of the humanities. While this crisis cannot be resolved without rethinking the relationship between the economic and the political aspects of society, both philanthropic funding and a discursive engagement with the premises of the knowledge-based economy can constitute pragmatic ways of dealing with the crisis while it lasts.

The personal world of schooling: John Macmurray and schools as households

Macmurray’s distinction between communities, which are positive and personal, and societies, which are negative and impersonal, along with his insistence that schools are necessarily communities, like families and friendship groups, provides the basis for his claim that we may act as though we were teaching arithmetic or history, but in fact we are teaching people. Macmurray’s philosophy can be used to reconceive schools as, or as like, households. Schools have an admixture of intimacy (supervised eating and toileting, for example) and professional standards and accountability, making them neither ‘public’ nor ‘private’. The people in schools—staff and students—are and should be treated as close and friendly, whilst schools are also open to the society and communities beyond the schools. Support for seeing schools as households is provided by recent empirical research on intergenerational ‘closeness’—underpinning a non-sexualised version of friendship, as described by Macmurray. Theorising schools as communities like households, this paper indicates some of the implications of Macmurray’s work for contemporary education policy and practice.

Citizenship education and curriculum policy in Brazil: facing challenges and prefiguring changes

In this article, we discuss the category citizenship and its connections with culture and Brazilian curriculum policy. First, we investigate citizenship as a signifier, highlighting some features that became attached to it throughout history. We refer to authors such as T.H. Marshall (1967), Santos (1997), Candau (2008), Alvarenga (2010) e Hall (2009) to understand how the conception of citizenship historically evolved, as well as its relationship to human rights, with focus on current meanings. In sequence, we look at the relationship between citizenship and culture, with special attention to the articulation between citizenship and multiculturalism. Afterwards, we analyze the views of citizenship found in Brazilian curriculum policy these days, taking as an analytical sample the Complementary Document to the National Guidelines for the teaching of Sociology in secondary school (PCN +) and we consider our findings in the light of critical insights about features of contemporary educational policy. As an alternative to current approaches of citizenship in the curriculum, we suggest an understanding of citizenship as an everyday practice (Biesta, 2011), with the aim of bringing to light some aspects of the concept that seem to be relevant for its re-signification within the field of contemporary curriculum studies.

“We Can’t Build Our Dreams On Suspicious Minds”

Last fall, the author took his Politics and Education class to see Waiting For “Superman.” This was a movie we had been preparing to see all semester. The class focused on reading contemporary educational policy as a symptom of neoliberal economic and political ideology. We went into the movie knowing what we were going to see and how to critique it. But a funny thing happened on our way out of the theater—many of us were crying. Despite all our strong and tough ideological critiques, we were glassy-eyed and barely even able to remember who deregulation was and what Milton Friedman had to do with anything. After a semester of thinking with our heads, we were standing there feeling with our hearts. In this paper, the author reflects on these experiences by paying attention to his own pedagogy and how the critique of neoliberalism functions to both preclude and produce certain types of affects.

<b> O Ensino Fundamental de nove anos e os processos de avaliação: estratégias de regulação da população infantil </b>

http://dx.doi.org/10.5902/198464442713 Este artigo é parte da Tese de Doutorado que teve como objetivo discutir como o Ensino Fundamental de nove anos está inserido em práticas de governamento da infância e, ainda, como essas práticas possibilitam outro lugar escolar para as crianças de seis anos. O estudo busca compreender o que pode ser dito e pensado sobre os espaços e lugares que estão sendo destinados às crianças menores de sete anos e como isso vem produzindo o governamento da infância, a partir da noção de governamentalidade desenvolvida por Michel Foucault. Como material de pesquisa, foram utilizados alguns documentos que tratam da política de Ensino Fundamental de nove anos elaborados pelo Ministério da Educação e pela Secretaria de Educação do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul, bem como matérias jornalísticas que foram publicadas sobre o assunto no período mais intenso da implementação do Ensino Fundamental de nove anos (2005 – 2008). Neste artigo, as análises estão centradas nos processos de avaliação implicados nesta política educacional como uma das estratégias eficazes de regulação da população. Os resultados apontam para o fato de que as políticas educacionais contemporâneas, como é o caso do Ensino Fundamental de nove anos, ainda que enfoquem o direito à educação e a universalização da educação escolar para as crianças de seis anos e que pretendam incidir no sucesso escolar por meio das estratégias que utilizam, propõem novos modelos institucionais, novos modelos de aprendizagem, novos modelos de infância e criança.

‘Economics imperialism’, education policy and educational theory

This paper examines how economics imperialism (the increasing colonization of other disciplines by neoclassical economics) has affected contemporary education policies. I suggest that an increasing preoccupation with education meeting the needs of the economy, together with the prevalence of economic concepts outside of economics, have contributed to the development of education policies which mimic economic ideas. The specific policies which it considers are outcomes-based qualifications frameworks, which are becoming increasingly prevalent internationally. I argue that in the main, outcomes-based qualifications frameworks can be seen as tools for creating or regulating education markets, and that their underpinning logic is the logic of neoclassical economics. I further argue that the educational ideas that are invoked in association with outcomes-based qualifications frameworks, and which have often been seen as progressive, or empowering, or anti-elitist, have commonalities with the tools of analysis of neoclassical economics. Specifically, ideas about knowledge and the curriculum which have traditionally been seen as progressive have an overemphasis on individuals, and underemphasis on structures. These underlying similarities have facilitated the process whereby education policy has been rewritten using the tools of neoclassical economics, enabling the description of neo-liberal policies in progressive terms.

Many Educational Pasts: Conservative Visions and Revisions of American Educational History

Background/Context Recent attention to Texas's revision of its state social-studies curricula has focused on the Texas School Board's conservative vision of America's history. Texas is not alone. Conservative educational activists have achieved a great deal of success in recent years in revising the historical narrative prescribed for America's schoolchildren. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This article argues that in the past six decades conservative activists have offered not one but many visions of America's history. Educational history in particular has been the subject of energetic and conflicting attempts at revision. This article surveys the themes common among conservative educational histories from the 1950s until the first decade of the twenty-first century. Research Design The article first examines the broad historical outline used by most conservative educational activists. To flesh out that outline and move beyond overly simplistic generalizations, the article then looks at four specific conservative activists—Milton Friedman, Max Rafferty, Sam Blumenfeld, and Henry Morris—to examine their significant differences in close detail. Conclusions/Recommendations Conservatives have used these different visions of America's educational past to promote specific reform programs in their own times. This article suggests that anyone interested in understanding the contest for contemporary educational policy must understand the variety of contending conservative visions of the educational past.