Fundamental Educational Reform Research Articles

Curriculum matters: building capacity for strategic change in UK higher education

Substantial increases in undergraduate tuition fees, likely in 2011, might prompt universities in England to evaluate educational strategies to ensure a high-quality student learning experience and maintain competitive advantage. In this paper the author reflects on trends, policy directions and innovative practice and provides a rationale for curriculum to take centre stage in educational decision-making. The paper concludes with three fundamental dimensions to underpin a future learner-centred higher education curriculum. These curricula should be ability-based, so that undergraduates can increase their opportunities for employability; more creative, so that students engage with subject matter, each other and the wider community in collaborative ways; and multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary, so that students are able to learn from multiple perspectives and take advantage of all the resources that research-intensive universities have to offer. Initiating fundamental educational reform at department level – within wider institutional academic priorities – is an important condition for evolving future learning environments.

Environment and education: a view of a changing scene

This paper is an attempt to review the state of environmental education from the viewpoint of one involved in international and national strategies for its development. It relates environment and education to the whole system of human‐environment relationships and sees environmental education not as a separable package but as a movement for fundamental educational reform, in a rapidly changing world under increasing strees both from human‐induced change and from human nature itself. Environmental education has grown through the promotion of innovative educational approaches and the increasing attention given to human aspects of the system. Some of these, notably the idea of sustainability, need further development and careful use. Much work is needed to bring environmental and social systems together into a single conceptual structure, and to keep the development clear of misconceptions which are none of its making, to tackle the global issues that challenge survival and yet to remain realistic and practicable within the system in which it must work.

Critical Relativity: An Examination of Privileged Positions and Perspectives in the Teaching of English Language Arts

This article is the exploration of a constructed theoretical position, situated in multicultural education issues and frameworks, that provides a way to question the assumptions that underpin language arts curricula and pedagogy. The theoretical perspective, critical relativity, invites critical interrogation of assumptions and impels multiple perspectives. This theoretical lens is applied to an examination of (a) what it means to read a text; (b) the literary canon and its fixed primacy of place; (c) the idea of literary universalities; (d) the 5-paragraph essay as writing template and privileged discourse pattern; (e) the concept/pedagogy of "basic skills"; and (f) notions of ability and intelligence that perpetuate differentiated curriculum. The author suggests that this theoretical frame will facilitate fundamental educational reform when hegemonic educational positions, perspectives, and practices are situated historically, culturally, socially, and politically-and then questioned critically.

DIMENSIONS OF CHANGE IN WHITE SOUTH AFRICAN EDVCATION, 1990–1992

AbstractChanges introduced in white schools in South Africa in September 1990 after decades of authoritarian, racially segregated and unequal education had the potential to start a process of fundamental educational reform. Diffusion of the innovation started in the southwestern coastal areas of South Africa and spread along the south and eastern coasts before turning inland to the deep interior. The diffusion had a hierarchical spatial spread based on the sizes of settlements. Socially, it was influenced by language, political ethos, population density and perceived racial distances. Although considered to be short‐sighted, self‐serving adaptive measures, these changes have resituated white education in a position where its socio‐economic exclusiveness is now defined in terms of class rather man race.

Educational systems design: Making it more user friendly

Concerns about our current public education systems have given rise to a variety of reform efforts. During the past several years, efforts have begun to emphasize the importance of systems thinking and a “systemic” approach for bringing about fundamental educational reform. In spite of the promise of system design as a model for systemic change, it has been largely ignored by its intended clients, the educational leadership. This paper explores some of the reasons for this and proposes a number of actions that need to be taken if system design is to become a viable approach.

Environment and Education: a view of a changing scene

summary This paper is an attempt to review the state of environmental education from the viewpoint of one involved in international and national strategies for its development. It relates environment and education to the whole system of human‐environment relationships and sees environmental education not as a separable package but as a movement for fundamental educational reform, in a rapidly changing world under increasing stress both from human‐induced change and from human nature itself. Environmental education has grown through the promotion of innovative educational approaches and the increasing attention given to human aspects of the system. Some of these, notably the idea of sustainability, need further development and careful use. Much work is needed to bring environmental and social systems together into a single conceptual structure, and to keep the development clear of misconceptions which are none of its making, to tackle the global issues that challenge survival and yet to remain realistic an...

British Employers and Education Policy, 1935–45: A Decade of ‘Missed Opportunities’?

The purpose of this paper is to reassess the attitudes of British employers towards education policy during the period 1935–45. This decade has often been seen as one of ‘missed opportunities’ to reconstruct educational provision in response to the economy's changing skill requirements. Yet, contrary to much received wisdom, the findings of this research indicate that this was not the result of an entrenched anti-technology and anti-business bias among ministers and civil servants. It is argued that the government was sensitive to the views of employers but the latter failed to present a case for fundamental educational reform, despite the propaganda of a minority of ‘progressive’ firms active in the British Association for Commercial and Industrial Education. This is attributed, in part, to the way employers articulated their conception of educational ‘quality’, which paid insufficient attention to a knowledge of the principles of production processes. The latter was not only an outcome of the long-term ...

Restructuring Schools: Principals' Perceptions of Fundamental Educational Reform

After identifying the aspects of classroom life that school restructuring might influence, this paper summarizes findings on school principals' perceptions concerning the potential effects of fundamental school reform. Because so little is known about principals' views on restructuring, an exploratory study employing qualitative methodology (indepth interviewing of a small sample) was used. Participants included 15 principals (2 women and 13 men) from public schools in New York, Illinois, and Tennessee. Findings were organized around the major areas of inquiry: conceptions of restructuring; potential impact of restructuring; prerequisites for successful implementation; and changes at the classroom and school levels. Generally, observed differences in principals' responses did not conform to patterns related to schooling level, geographic location, distciet context, or years of administrative experience. Principals felt that restructuring would have its greatest impact on the teacher's role. For themselves, principals forecast fewer decisions to be made by themselves, leading to a loss of power. Most principals felt that students would remain largely untouched by restructuring efforts. Principals' perspectives on radical change, restructuring goals, performance accountability, and curriculum and instruction are also discussed. Although the principals as a group were fairly supportive of restructuring, their beliefs emphasize the myriad difficulties associated with fundamental reform and its implementation. (34 references) (MLH) ************************************************:., ****wx************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best tnat can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** Restructuring Schools: Principals Perceptions of Fundamental Educational Reform

The science‐technology‐society movement in science education: A critique of the reform process

AbstractChanges in society and in science and technology have forced a rethinking of what is “basic” in science education. A perceived disjuncture between school science and the realities of a scientifically and technologically oriented society has resulted in proposals for new directions in science teaching. It appears that science education is about to undergo another paradigm shift. One particularly visible movement, the “Science‐Technology‐Society” (STS) movement, exemplifies how such directional shifts tend to occur within the field of science education. This article critically examines the program and professional development process that has characterized past and current science curriculum reform effort in an attempt to illustrate fundamental educational reform problems. The need for new directions in science education is uncontested here. The issue is the problematic nature of the reform process itself. The article contends that new methods of reform must be researched— methods that directly involve practitioners in critical reflection, participatory research, and science curriculum development.

Decentralizing and deschooling job training: Implications of selected studies from the USA

Vocational education is assumed to equalize opportunities for low-achieving youngsters by providing them with necessary job training with the expectation it will enhance their employability, productivity, and hence, community and national economic development. Increasing evidence suggests that vocational education, when developed as part of a nation's formal school structure, tends instead to be an expenisve, ‘second-class’ educational track with limited educational and economic benefits. Increasingly, developing nations, pressed by slow-growing modern sector economies and burgeoning youth populations, are as a consequence investigating the potential of non-formal institutions to supply vocational job training. The paper seeks to improve educators' and planners' understanding of non-formal vocational programs by reporting on three recent studies from the United States. Further, the paper draws on organizational theory to explain how non-formal programs' characteristics that account for efficient job training appear to be shaped by market forces that are unimportant to formal programs. The paper suggests that educators and planners distinguish between job training and education, the ends and means of which are considerably different, and give serious attention to shifting job training more to non-formal institutions. Besides apparent efficiencies that appear to characterize non-formal job training, the paper suggests that by removing job training from formal schools and credentialling, greater social equity may result. Formal schools would be thus deprived of an important part of their social selection role. Being freed of the dual function of training and education, schools could be more easily focussed on more fundamental educational reform to provide a common educational experience for all students to improve their literacy and arithmetic abilities and guide their general development to adulthood.

Norwegian Educational Reform and the Enhetsskole Idea

THE POST-WAR era in the Scandinavian countries has been one of intense preoccupation with fundamental questions of educational policies and practices, a concern reflected in extensive reform legislation on the one hand and large-scale research work and practical experimentation on the other. As a major aspect of the general social policy of the welfare state, this concern with educational matters has deep roots in the political history of these countries, having challenged the conscience and practical imagination of statesmen and educators alike for at least one hundred years. However, the accelerating rate of social and economic change in the post-war period as well as the inspiration of other European countries struggling with related problems have contributed to a well-nigh unprecedented interest in educational problems in Scandinavia today. Although a good deal of parallelism is apparent among the Scandinavian countries in the underlying educational and social-political philosophy as well as in the resulting practical efforts to evolve an educational system more consonant with the demands of a rapidly changing society, significant differences between them remain. Partly for this reason, and also in the interest of greater specificity of presentation, this article focuses on developments in Norway. It aims at sketching, against the background of the significant historical-social setting, the outline of the Norwegian educational system as it is now clearly emerging from the post-war process of fundamental educational reform. The idea of a unified or unitary educational system, symbolized by the term and ideal of the enhetsskole, to replace the dualistic character typical of most European educational systems until recently is a key concept and the dominant theme in Norwegian educational history since the latter part of the nineteenth century. And while this ideal generally has inspired educational reform movements in Europe for generations, as evidenced by the Einheitsschule idea, the 6cole unique movement, the drive for comprehensive schools, and the like, the general societal setting of Norway posed a special set of circumstances leading to somewhat unique practical interpretations and achievements. If it is assumed that a high degree of cultural-social homogeneity within a nation tends to encourage the development of a unified rather than a stratified type of educational system, Norway would seem to have been in a rather favored position. The fact that nearly the entire population belongs to the EvangelicalLutheran state church, the basic tenets and traditions of which form the core of