bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Working with Large Class Size: Dispositions of Early Childhood Teachers in India
Authors: Gupta Amita
Published: November 2005

Using sociocultural-historical constructivism, and post-colonial theory, the author conducted a study to examine, through the perceptions of teachers, school principals, and teacher educators, the relationship between the preparation and practice of early childhood teachers in private schools in New Delhi, India. The research questions collectively focused upon the aims of education that were prioritized by the educators, the philosophical and theoretical sources these educational aims drew upon, and the teachers' perceptions of their classroom practice, of the effectiveness of teacher education programs, and of the strongest influences on their teaching practice. One emergent finding of the study illustrated how early childhood teachers worked in classes that averaged 43 children. This article describes the aims of education that were prioritized by the early childhood teachers, and how they implemented these aims in their large classes. The author provides examples of teaching strategies and teacher dispositions through her own observations and through the teachers' articulation of their practice. The author also presents the teachers' perceptions of successful teaching and how they evaluated themselves as being successful, or not, at the end of a school year. The article concludes with an analysis that contextualizes large class size in Indian schools and a discussion on the relationship between small class size, Western developmental discourse, and issues of privilege and power.
Drawing as a Unique Mental Development Tool for Young Children: Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Dialogues
Authors: Brooks Margaret
Published: November 2005

Using examples from children drawing in a year one classroom, this article examines firstly, how drawing operates as a unique mental tool, and secondly, the role of drawing in the construction and development of knowledge. Young children utilize prior knowledge and experience to negotiate and construct meaning through their interactions with people and artifacts in the learning community. Using a Vygotskian, social constructionist framework, a detailed analysis of interpersonal drawing dialogues is extended to include children's intrapersonal dialogic engagement with their drawing. When these children were encouraged to revisit, revise and dialogue through and with their drawing, they were able to explore and represent increasingly complex ideas.
The Meanings Embedded within Childcare Regulations: A Historical Analysis
Authors: Pacini-Ketchabaw Veronica
Published: November 2005

In response to current discussions about a universal Canadian childcare system (affordable childcare for all families), this article deconstructs the position that childcare occupies in the province of Ontario through the examination, from a historical perspective, of a document that outlines regulations for childcare programs: the Day Nurseries Act. Three discourses are analyzed by tracing them to social and demographic conditions during the early twentieth century: discourses related to the need for medical supervision of children attending childcare centres; discourses that emphasize the relationship between childcare centres and ‘families in need’; and discourses that refer to the need to follow strict programming and behavioural guidelines.
The Discourse of Control: Disruption and Foucault in an Early Childhood Classroom
Authors: Millei Zsuzsanna J.
Published: November 2005

Disruption can be a result of a wide array of circumstances, but is commonly identified as a ‘control problem’ in early childhood classrooms. In this article, the author argues that the recognition of disruption as a ‘control problem’ is embedded in and governed by the social power and values entrenched in teaching discourses. Classroom practices draw strongly on the discourse of educational psychology and utilise its power and immanent knowledge to ‘discipline’ early childhood agents through classroom practices. These early childhood practitioners then become both an object and a subject of this knowledge. This article problematises particular discourses used in a metropolitan West Australian pre-primary classroom and aims to find alternative avenues to view disruption. To aid this search, the multiple meanings of ‘discipline’ in connection to behaviour management, learning and pedagogy are explored.
Queering Home Corner
Authors: Taylor Affrica , Richardson Carmel
Published: November 2005

A recent Australian controversy over the representation of a same-sex family on national children's television highlighted the fact that early childhood remains a domain of strongly defended heteronormative family privilege. The authors use this controversial event as a springboard into an analysis of the interplay between the hegemonic discourses of childhood innocence and ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ and as an opportunity to offer a queerer perspective on early childhood. Applying Foucault's ‘heterotopia’ analytic to a set of narrative observations of children's dramatic play in home corner, the authors trace some of the ways in which children both regulate and transgress the gender norms that underpin heteronormative social relations.
Doing Anti-Homophobia and Anti-Heterosexism in Early Childhood Education: Moving beyond the Immobilising Impacts of ‘Risks’, ‘fears’ and ‘silences’. Can We Afford Not To?
Authors: Robinson Kerry
Published: November 2005

This article explores the notion of ‘risk’ and the consequences of both ‘taking risks' or ‘not taking risks' in doing anti-homophobia (or anti-heterosexist) education within broader anti-bias and social justice agendas in early childhood education. Informed primarily by the author's collaborative research and experience as a teacher educator in cultural diversity and social justice issues over the past decade, this discussion focuses on the discursive and material barriers that reinforce negative readings of taking risks, within personal, institutional and societal contexts, in relation to doing anti-homophobia education with children as part of early childhood education curricula. The article explores ‘risk’ as a social construction, operating as a powerful means of societal control in order to maintain the status quo and dominant power relations that underpin societal inequalities, especially those related to the rigid binary heterosexual us/homosexual them. The question of whether early childhood educators can afford to ‘risk’ not doing anti-homophobia education as part of their anti-bias or social justice agendas becomes the pertinent issue explored in this article.
Big Art Small Viewer: A Collaborative Community Project
Authors: Gibson Megan , McAllister Nadine
Published: November 2005

Campus Kindergarten is a community-based centre for early childhood education and care located on campus at the University of Queensland (UQ) in Brisbane, Australia. Being located within this diverse community has presented many opportunities for Campus Kindergarten. It is creating and embracing possibilities that has formed the basis for ongoing projects for children and teachers involving research and investigation. In 2002 Campus Kindergarten embarked on a collaborative project with the Art Museum bringing together these two departments within the university community.
Interweaving Educational Sciences and Pedagogy with Professional Education: Contrasting Configurations at Swiss Universities, 1870–1950
Authors: Späni Martina , Hofstetter Rita , Schneuwly Bernard
Published: November 2005

This article presents some results of research aimed at analysing the emergence of pedagogy/educational science(s) in Switzerland. It focuses on the evolution of academic chairs, their holders, their denominations and their relationship to professional fields and other disciplines. In a first, empirical part, professorial chairs are analysed in four Swiss universities (Basle, Bern, Geneva and Zurich). The data show important differences between Geneva, where autonomous chairs were introduced quite early and where an empirical approach dominated, and the other universities, where pedagogy remained dependent on philosophy and became autonomous only in the 1950s. In order to understand these differences, the evolution of the universities in Geneva and Bern is analysed in more detail, particularly the relationship between the disciplinary field and teacher education. The institutional articulation between teacher education and the academic chair(s) and the orientation toward primary or secondary teacher education seem to be important distinguishing factors that led to different evolutions in the two sites. Other factors, like the relationship to school reform, to political administration, and to teacher trade unionism reinforced the differences. The question of larger cultural influences is raised in conclusion, contrasting the Swiss-German universities, clearly oriented towards Germany, with the Genevan site, which is more multifaceted, and even eclectic.
Institutionalisation of Educational Sciences and the Dynamics of Their Development
Authors: Hofstetter Rita , Schneuwly Bernard
Published: November 2005

The articles in the first issue of the European Educational Research Journal aim to analyse the moving forces of the emergence and evolution of educational sciences as a disciplinary field, i.e. as a social institution that is specialised in the production, discussion and diffusion of knowledge about education. The articles explore the hypothesis that the process of emergence and evolution is strongly interwoven with reforms that take place in the whole educational system, from primary school to university, and more generally with the evolution of social demands coming from the fields of education. They pay particular attention to the relationship between the evolution of educational sciences and professional qualification requirements.
Eyes Wide Shut: University, State and Society
Authors: Ramirez Francisco O.
Published: November 2005

The article seeks to explain why the ties between industry and university are reacted to in different ways across the Atlantic. The modal European response is one of concern while the modal response in the United States of America is more optimistic. Some sociological explanations emphasize how differences in historical legacies explain persisting differences in what constitutes universities and why these differences in turn explain differences in sensibilities toward university industry links. These explanations indicate that the historical legacy of greater social embeddedness makes American universities more open to multiple external influences, including those rooted in industry. An alternative sociological perspective suggests that the weight of historical legacies is increasingly offset by the authority of a common world frame that defines what constitutes a university. More broadly, world models of progress and justice and their enactment to attain viability and probity as universities leads to common university blueprints. These blueprints become a core feature of the transnational organizational environment within which universities are increasingly situated. The first set of explanations seeks to make sense of persistent differences between European and American universities; the second focuses on growing commonalities.
Europe and Higher Education between Universalisation and Materialist Particularism
Authors: Lenhardt Gero
Published: November 2005

Universalisation characterises the development of higher education since the Middle Ages. Three manifestations of this process can be distinguished: the expansion of enrolments, the expansion of the scope of teaching and research over ever more subjects, and the expansion of academic freedom. Universalisation is supported at the European level by the secretaries of education of 29 European countries, who are committed to the development of a European university. At the same time it is attacked by the higher education establishment in Germany. As a result the analysis suggests, that the process of universalisation will go on and shape the future European university.
Constructing a European Policy Space in Educational Governance: The Role of Transnational Policy Actors
Authors: Lawn Martin , Lingard Bob
Published: November 2005

Educational policy is no longer, if it ever was, the product of the nation state alone. In Europe, significant policy actors in education are working today face to face and virtually in joint governmental projects and networking translating, mediating and constructing educational policies. The existence of this new social sphere of work, in which the construction of Europe is paramount, served by the regular communications and intimate work relations of a new European class of educational system actors, is deserving of further research. They appeared to constitute a form of policy elite in education, which has not surfaced into view in the study of education, either in studies of the national state or of Brussels: in the latter's case, it may be because education does not have the same regulatory or legal framework as key aspects of governance in European law. The power this group wields by acting as shapers of the emerging discourse of educational policy, expressed in reports, key committees, funding streams and programmes has to be examined and recognized within studies of educational policy.
Education Governance in the United Kingdom: The Modernisation Project
Authors: Ozga Jenny
Published: November 2005

This article considers the modernisation of education governance as implemented by the New Labour governments of the United Kingdom since 1997. The discussion focuses on the apparent contradiction between those elements of modernisation that require the measurement and management of performance; and those that promote greater fairness and responsiveness. It is argued that tensions between these elements of policy are resolved by New Labour policy makers through the use of ideas derived from social capital theory. Modernisation uses these ideas in pursuit of a transformation of politics that enhances governability by making beliefs and feelings quantifiable, and by equating social relations with capital accumulation. The article concludes with a consideration of the problems encountered in the operationalisation of the modernisation project in the United Kingdom's Education Action Zones, where business was encouraged to play a major role in building new networks and social relations.
The Role of Parents as Educational and Social Partners of Schools in the Czech Republic: Legislation and Media Analysis
Authors: Rabusicová Milada , Emmerová Katerina
Published: November 2005

The article presents results of the first stage of a three year research project on the role of parents as educational and social partners of the school in the Czech Republic. Basic questions are: What does the school consider parents to be and how is their position defined in the legislature? To what extent are parents influenced in their attitudes to school by the reflection of the contemporary school in the media? The methodological frame of this study includes application of the existing theoretical framework and methods like content analysis of the school legislature and documents, and analysis of selected media. Such analyses focus on how information about schools and school system is presented to parents and the general public. As far as legislative conditions are concerned, the results indicate that they do not define precisely parents' position towards the school and therefore it is only up to the good will of both sides — parents and teachers — to create their own definitions. As far as the media context is concerned, the picture presented by media is rather unfavourable towards school issues and teachers in particular which could make interactions between the school and parents not an easy matter.
Modernising Education Governance in England and Scotland: Devolution and Control
Authors: Alexiadou Nafsika , Ozga Jenny
Published: November 2005

This article considers the impact of the neo-liberal agenda for modernising the government of education in two of the United Kingdom's education systems: England and Scotland. The article looks at differences between England and Scotland in the context of devolved education governance and concludes that there are significant and possibly ongoing differences in the ‘local’ interpretation of New Labour's modernisation project.
A Connective Model of Learning: The Implications for Work Process Knowledge
Authors: Griffiths Toni , Guile David
Published: November 2005

This article draws upon research in the field of Cultural Historical Activity Theory in order to provide a new theoretical and methodological framework for analysing work experience and identifying the social and cultural practices which support the production of new knowledge. In doing so, it builds upon recent work (Griffiths et al, 2001; Guile & Griffiths, 2001) which has explored knowledge development and learning, raising questions for research, policy and practice. The article describes the potential of a ‘connective model’ of learning as a way of reformulating and addressing questions of learning and knowledge development in and between different contexts. There are, for example, implications for the idea and development of ‘work process knowledge’.
Learning Entrepreneurs: Learning and Innovation in Small Companies
Authors: Gielen Patricia M. , Hoeve Aimée , Nieuwenhuis Loek F.M.
Published: November 2005

This article concerns agricultural entrepreneurs involved in organising their learning so as to develop innovative and learning enterprises. In hi-tech sectors, such as Dutch agriculture, this learning and innovative capacity is particularly essential for economic survival. Reviewing the literature, we conclude that innovation can be seen as informal learning processes, in which social networks play an important role. Workers learn by sharing knowledge in the working team and employers learn by creating networks of colleagues and advisers. The results of two research projects suggest that interactive learning and innovation should be analysed from a perspective of uncertainty. Learning skills for interactive innovation, as part of the entrepreneurial craft, should comprise the capability of selecting impulses and combining newly selected impulses with existing skills and routines. Paradoxically, they need new impulses from weak, unknown networks to be continuously innovative. Innovative learning involves balancing the chaos of uncertainty with the old grooves of experience. Knowing how to escape this paradox forms the core competence of innovative entrepreneurship.
Meeting the Demand? Students within Swedish Advanced Vocational Education Entering the Labour Market: Reflections from an Ongoing Research Project
Authors: Lindell Mats , Johansson Jan
Published: November 2005

This article considers an ongoing research project concerning the outcome of the Swedish reform of advanced vocational education (AVE) from a graduate perspective. Launched in 1996 as an experimental post-secondary reform meeting the advancements within working life, several new educational features were introduced. In January 2002, AVE became a regular part of the national education system with 12,500 education places per annum. From start to present, over 6,100 students have graduated from the approximately 350 different national AVE programmes available. The purpose of this article is to present results from three sets of questionnaires collected in 1999, 2000 and 2001 surveying over 5,400 of the graduates concerning their opinions and experiences on how AVE corresponds to the demands and requests made of them when entering the labour market. The aggregate results suggest that a majority of the graduates (82%) had a job 6 months after having completed their AVE programmes and that approximately 80% of them were working, with regard to their educational focus, within a ‘target’ field of profession.
Competence and Learning in Late Career
Authors: Lahn Leif Chr.
Published: November 2005

Issues of late career have recently attracted much political and public interest but contributions from research have been meagre. In this article, a review is made of the literature on cognitive ageing and learning abilities in an occupational context. Multidimensional and non-linear perspectives are increasingly replacing models of late career as a period of declining expertise. Data from an European Union Framework Programme 4 research project ‘Working Life Changes and the Training of Older Workers' (WORKTOW), supports such a redefinition. Also, the optimistic scenarios for late career that are held out by the literature on ‘boundaryless careers' are challenged. A sociocultural framework that is more sensitive to the institutional and cultural context of age differences in learning at work is asked for.
The Opportunity Trap: Education and Employment in a Global Economy
Authors: Brown Phillip
Published: November 2005

This article is based on the Keynote Address to ECER, Lisbon, Portugal, 11–14 September 2002. The opportunity to make a better life is enshrined in democratic societies. In recent decades the growth in personal freedom and the rhetoric of the knowledge economy have led many to believe that we have more opportunities than ever before. We are told that the trade-off between efficiency and justice no longer holds in a global knowledge-driven economy, as the opportunity to exploit the talents of all, at least in the developed world, is now a realistic goal. This article will challenge such accounts of education, opportunity and global labour market. It points to enduring social inequalities in the competition for a livelihood and an intensification of ‘positional’ conflict. Our ‘opportunities' are becoming harder to cash in. The opportunity-cost is increasing because the pay-off depends on getting ahead in the competition for tough-entry jobs. Middle-class families in competitive hot spots are adopting increasingly desperate measures to win a positional advantage. But the opportunity trap is not only a problem for individuals or families. It exposes an inherent tension, if not contradiction, in the relationship between capitalism and democracy. It will be argued that the legitimate foundations of opportunity, based on education, jobs and rewards, are unravelling. Within education, this not only represents further symptoms of the ‘diploma disease’ but a social revolution that fundamentally challenges our understanding of education, efficiency and social justice.
New Learning Concepts within the German System of Vocational Education and Training
Authors: Bauer Waldemar , Przygodda Karin
Published: November 2005

In 1997, a new curricular framework for vocational education and training (VET) schools — ‘learning fields' — was implemented in Germany. As a result, vocational curricula with their elements and contents had to relate to work and business processes and be described on the basis of competences. Regarding the German tradition of curricula, a paradigm shift can be observed, because earlier curricula were organised according to disciplines. In 1998, a pilot programme was launched which focused on ‘new learning concepts within the dual vocational education and training system’ and involved projects in the construction of learning fields, which were implemented in VET schools. These projects developed concepts for the empirical analysis of work processes or tasks and identified the competences required as a basis for curricula, in order to link qualification research with curriculum development. By analysing the different approaches, it became clear that an integration of the analysis of work and the transformation of the empirical results into curricula was necessary. This work also implies a model of competence development, because the focus of this VET research is ultimately teaching and learning practices in VET schools. Research in these areas has to be domain specific because it deals with the content and expertise in an occupational field and therefore requires an in-depth understanding of knowledge and skills in these fields.
Fostering Workplace Learning: Looking through the Lens of Apprenticeship
Authors: Fuller Alison , Unwin Lorna
Published: November 2005

This article argues that researching the lived reality of apprenticeship in contemporary workplaces provides a useful lens through which workplace learning more generally can be examined. Drawing on data from a 3-year study of the social and pedagogical relationships between apprentices and older workers in the English steel industry, the article proposes that, building on Engeström's work, an ‘expansive’ as opposed to a ‘restrictive’ approach to apprenticeship will not only deliver the broader goals being set for apprenticeship programmes around the world, but will also foster workplace learning. The article offers a critique of Lave and Wenger's novice to expert conceptualisation of apprenticeship and, using data from employee learning logs, argues that pedagogical relationships between apprentices and older workers need to be better understood. A conceptual framework for analysing the relationship between organisational culture and history, work organisation, and workplace learning is provided.
Differentiation, Special Education and Equality: A Longitudinal Study of Self-Concepts and School Careers of Students in Difficulties and with or without Special Education Support Experiences
Authors: Emanuelsson Ingemar
Published: November 2005

The main aims of the article are to analyse how school and learning careers of students with special education support during their compulsory schooling differ from those judged not in need of such support. Choice of study programmes, success in upper secondary schooling, and schools' grading of learning in compulsory school are focused upon. Patterns of post-secondary school careers are of special interest. Determined needs of special support are related to individual student characteristics as well as teaching needs of differentiation and educational demands. The database used is from approximately 8000 Swedish students, born in 1982 and followed from school start-up through post-secondary school to the age of 19. Allocation of special education resources is found more clearly related to school needs of differentiation than to individual student characteristics. The amount and kind of special education support are also related to self-confidence and students' choice of and success in post-secondary school programmes. Conclusively, most of an individual student's education career possibilities are determined early, often in the compulsory school. Such patterns are related to the overruling aim of inclusive education in ‘a school for all’. More proactive roles for support teachers are discussed.
An Inclusive Perspective on Transition to Primary School
Authors: Stephen Christine , Cope Peter
Published: November 2005

Despite a commitment to inclusion and equality in the national priorities for school education in Scotland, the experience of children as they move from pre-school to primary school falls short of being an inclusive experience for all, and some children are at risk of becoming disengaged from education at the beginning of their school career. In this article, the process of transition to school is examined through the ‘lens' of inclusion. The data comes from a study of the experience of 27 children during their first year in school. It was clear that teachers saw transition to school as a one-way process in which children had to ‘fit in’ to school, and did not see it as their task to respond to the diversity of children's preferences, previous experiences or background. It is argued that the teachers' approach is akin to adopting a medical or individual model of inclusion (locating the difficulties in the child) rather than a social model that looks for the source of difficulties in the mismatch between the environment and the child's needs. Adopting a social model allows for barriers to inclusion at the beginning of primary school to be identified and some of the barriers that children experience are explored, with illustrations from the data.
The Crisis in Educational Research: A Pragmatic Approach
Authors: Badley Graham
Published: November 2005

This article first identifies and discusses four main causes of the crisis in educational research. These are summarized as false dualism, false primacy, false certainty and false expectations. False dualism is the apartheid that divides positivist and constructivist researchers with positivists believing in an objective reality and constructivists arguing that reality is a social construction. False primacy is the view that the positivist paradigm has come to dominate research to the detriment of more open, pluralistic and critically reflective approaches. False certainty is the argument that in an increasingly complex and uncertain world researchers have retreated to a reactionary position in order to shore up the dominant paradigm. False expectations is the case that governments, especially, are demanding more evidence-based research in order to provide urgent solutions to educational problems. The second part of the article shows how taking a pragmatic approach may help us resolve some of the difficulties identified. For example pragmatists would not privilege any one paradigm or methodology over another but would argue that both science and constructivism offer different sets of tools for investigating different aspects of the world. This also means that pragmatists see inquiry not as discovering what is really out there but as offering more or less useful descriptions to meet our particular needs and purposes. The third part of the article argues that pragmatism is not an alternative model of research but is more a working point of view or a perspective which is admittedly modest and, so pragmatists think, appropriately fuzzy. What a pragmatic approach to research actually leads to, through reflection, is a kind of useful if temporary equilibrium amongst the community of inquirers. Part of this approach is the rejection of the idea that scientific research can be used with certainty to specify educational practice. All it can provide is possible lines of action.
Teachers' Understanding of Internationalisation as an Essential Part of Nursing Education in Sweden
Authors: Wihlborg Monne
Published: November 2005

This study presents a phenomenographic, contextual and content analysis approach used to reveal the understanding 60 university teachers in the Swedish nursing programme had of internationalisation. A 28-page self-administered questionnaire, especially designed for this study, was distributed to university colleges of health sciences in southern, central and northern Sweden. The variations in teachers' qualitatively different experiences and understanding of internationalisation were first related to two perspectives within their working context — an organisational didactic and an educational didactic — and second, the perspectives were described in five main themes and 10 subthemes. The findings imply the importance of reinforcing an understanding of internationalisation in coherence with the need for a didactical theoretical awareness and thinking of the learning object.
Participation Experiences and Civic Concepts, Attitudes and Engagement: Implications for Citizenship Education Projects
Authors: Menezes Isabel
Published: November 2005

This article considers participation experiences of 14 year-old and upper secondary students in six European countries that were involved in the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Civic Education Study: the Czech Republic, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden and Switzerland, countries that vary in their history of institution of democratic regimes. Participation has been considered as a crucial dimension of citizenship, and experiences within civil society are viewed as a relevant opportunity for developing personal and social resources essential for the survival and expansion of democracy. Additionally, participation experiences in adolescence seem to be a good predictor of political engagement during adult life. Results show that participation is most evident in organisations that provide enrichment activities (sports, music, computers), but both 14 year-old and upper secondary students are involved in voluntary activities, in some civic-related organisations (mainly Scouts, religious affiliated and environmental), and in experiences within the school (with student councils and school newspapers at the top). However, cross-national and cross-age variations are significant. Overall, there seems to be a positive impact of the frequency of students' involvement on civic concepts, attitudes and engagement, but results also reveal that more is not necessarily better. The most relevant implication for the development of citizenship education projects is that ‘action’ can be a powerful learning tool but only if it is intentionally designed and systematically supported: the quality of participation experiences, both in terms of meaningful involvement, of interaction with (different) others, and opportunities for personal integration, is therefore crucial if the goal is to promote the personal empowerment and social pluralism on which the essence of democracy relies.
The Old and New Face of Civic Education: Expert, Teacher, and Student Views
Authors: Mintrop Heinrich
Published: November 2005

Using the representative database of the Second International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Civic Education Study, this article takes a look at civic education through the lens of expert scholars, teachers, and students. The data reveals that, as some of the experts reported, political interest is not pervasive among students and classrooms are not places where a culture of debate, controversy, and critical thinking flourishes for students. But things have changed if civic education was primarily an imparting of facts about national history and the workings of the political system. As for teachers, now the discourse of rights and the social movements associated with it top the list of curricular concerns. Large majorities of teachers share with national scholars a conceptualization of civic education as critical thinking and value education, repudiating knowledge transformation as ideal, and they recognize the wide gulf that exists between these ideals and reality. As for many students, political disinterest notwithstanding, forms of participation born out of social movements and community organizing are the preferred channels of political activity. And yet, it seems the experts have a point: the field is not where it should be.
Changes of Education Policies within the European Union in the Light of Globalisation
Authors: Fredriksson Ulf
Published: November 2005

Education issues have traditionally not played a central role within the European Union (EU). This has gradually started to change in recent years. At the Lisbon European Council in March 2000, the heads of states and governments of the EU member countries, in response to the challenges of globalisation and the information society, set out a new strategic objective for the coming decade: ‘Becoming the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion’. This implies major changes, and education will be among the areas affected. Two questions can be raised in relation to this development: (1) How can a European education policy be created within the existing framework of the EU? (2) What could be the content of such an education policy? This article sets out to answer these questions by examining new methods of working and the initiatives that have been undertaken. It goes on to look at some of the problems and challenges confronting the EU in adapting Europe's education and training systems to the demands of the knowledge society, and, using an examination of how the EU is trying to find new methods for cooperation in the field of education and how elements of a European education policy can be found in present initiatives, it explores some scenarios setting out how the work of the EU and a European education policy can develop.
Are Timetable-Free Schools Possible?
Authors: From Jörgen , Holmgren Carina , Andersson Håkan , Ahl Astrid
Published: November 2005

This article is about timetable-free schools, the latest ‘innovation’ in Swedish educational policy, and is based on findings from an ongoing research project. In autumn 2000, the Swedish government started a 5-year trial period where a limited number of municipalities and schools were allowed to abandon the current restrictions in the national timetable for comprehensive schools. The research primarily focuses on the effects of abandoning the timetable on the inner life of the schools. Two categories of schools are followed: (two) schools with the national timetable and (four) schools without. Primary findings indicate that the use of time in school is a complex sphere of operation. In many aspects, the differences within the category schools without the national timetable are more notable than differences between the two categories of schools. How time is spent in schools is related to a wide range of interlinked factors on different levels, and the national timetable is only one of them. It seems that when the new so-called freedom increases, the instruments of individual control also increase. This may be an indication that disciplining and selection still are fundamental tasks for schools to fulfil.
ECER's Space in Europe: In between Science, Research and Politics? A Research Report
Authors: Kenk Martina
Published: November 2005

The sciences of education in Europe are situated in between national, European and international spaces, challenged by Europeanisation processes and European research policy. The author takes up the debates at European Conferences on Educational Research (ECERs) on the formation of a ‘European educational research space’ by academic actors versus the foundation of a ‘European (Educational) Research Area’ by European Union (EU) policy. This report provides results of the author's investigation of the ‘Europeanness' of the European Educational Research Association (EERA) and ECER, thereby sketching an exemplary picture of the current state of the sciences of education in Europe, indicating tendencies over the last few years, while analysing the European dimension of EERA and ECER. The representation of educational scientists from a variety of (not only) European countries points to three problematic issues: the dominance of EU member states, especially of the United Kingdom; the tendency towards marginalisation of European non-member states; and a clearly biased ‘European educational research space’.
On the Possibilities of Educating Active and Reflective Teachers
Authors: Hoveid Marit Honerød , Hoveid Halvor
Published: November 2005

Education is working with language. As teacher educators, this is the authors' main theory. They present one way of working with language through language-games. The article is constructed in three sections. The first part presents the method, stating what concepts are essential in order to understand both this way of working with student teachers and the structure of the article. Two concepts are brought to the fore, that is; teacher identity and teacher knowledge. In the second section the authors introduce their way of working with cases. They briefly present what they mean by case-work, how cases are constructed and how they work with them. In the final section they theorise about some key aspects of education. They present two concepts for understanding individual learning processes. These concepts are embedded in the philosophy of ethics. Thus, their theoretical outline moves the origin of learning from the knowledge of subjects to the learning self.
Designing Artefacts for Inquiry and Collaboration When the Learner Takes the Lead
Authors: Pieters Jules M.
Published: November 2005

The availability of user-friendly tools for designing learning environments resulted in an innovative shift of design focus. This shift has been noticed from a user-centred, although passive and reactive, design approach to a participatory, at responsibility and self-directedness directed, design approach. This latter innovative and promising approach empowers co-designers (teachers and even learners) to actively participate in designing learning environments leading to higher learning outcomes. New pedagogical perspectives and approaches in which teachers (as domain experts) and learners are assumed to cooperate on a basis of equity and mutual responsibility will be offered a practical context for the implementation in powerful learning environments. In this article the potentials of learners as designers of their own learning environments are discussed. Support tools needed to play this role appropriately are discussed as well.
Trends in the Patterns of Tertiary Entrance in Ireland, the Netherlands and Scotland
Authors: Iannelli Cristina
Published: November 2005

In recent decades the proportion of people entering tertiary education has grown considerably in all western European countries. Common factors (economic, political and social) have contributed towards this expansion. There is considerable debate about whether these common pressures have led to similar changes across countries in the structure, content and student composition of tertiary education. This study aims to analyse changes over time in the patterns of tertiary entrance in Ireland, the Netherlands and Scotland, and to explore whether a process of convergence is emerging despite the institutional differences which characterise the national educational systems of these three countries. The results show that the extent and the modalities of tertiary expansion in the three countries have been different. Moreover, changes in the effect of ascriptive factors (gender and social class) on tertiary entrance also appear to have followed different patterns in each country. The conclusion therefore suggests that, although there is a general increase in entry to tertiary education in all three countries, there is little evidence at present of convergence.
Too Eager to Comply? OECD Education Policies and the Finnish Response
Authors: Rinne Risto , Kallo Johanna , Hokka Sanna
Published: November 2005

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has strongly influenced European education policy and the entire global neo-liberally toned discourse that nowadays prevails in the implementation of national education policy and educational reforms. The educational policy governance of the OECD is based on overall and supranational information management — the instruments of which in practice are published analyses, statistics and indicator publications, as well as country and thematic reviews. This article presents, first, four phases in the history of the OECD educational policy based strictly on an analysis of documentary material. These phases provide a context for the analyses of the connections of the OECD and Finnish education policies in which the country and thematic reviews of Finland are used as empirical material. Finland has, especially in recent years, attained a status of a model pupil in implementing the educational policy recommendations of the OECD. Thus, several connections between the OECD recommendations and the development of education policy in Finland can be found in the material. In this study Finland has a role of an example of the field of activity of supranational actors and the connections and influences between the OECD and Finland should not be considered unique. Similar rapprochement of politics and thinning out of the independent authority of nation-states can even be seen on a larger scale.
Evaluation in the Transnational ‘Management by Projects' Policies
Authors: Heikkinen Anja
Published: November 2005

There is a supranational tendency in educational governance towards a ‘management by projects' policy, which substitutes democratic procedures and norm-based control in the materialisation of educational justice. The organisational level becomes crucial for the management of education and the pressure to conceive education as a managerial activity increases. At the same time, educational expertise in public administration becomes substituted by subcontracted, policy-led research. In the context of transnational governance the civil service is turning into a busnocracy, which is responsible for the quality of education to the global markets instead of to people. The article discusses this transnational policy agenda through one European Union project which aims at developing tools for transnational evaluation of re-integrative programmes targeted at students who have problems in following the mainstream pathways to vocational education.
Inventing Mythologies: The Construction of Complex Cross-Cultural Identities
Authors: Kearney Chris
Published: November 2005

There is a tendency in academic literature concerning children from diverse social and linguistic background to concentrate on failure within the school system. It is only in recent years that this is beginning to change. In this article the author argues that if we are to motivate children towards success we need to have a clear picture of the kinds of cultural and linguistic understandings they are bringing into schools. Central to this is how they perceive themselves in terms of identity. Much has been written about this area. However, little of it has been empirical or systematic and that which is empirical has been from a positivistic viewpoint. In this article the author describes a non-positivistic analysis of the life stories of several academically successful people and analyses them systematically to demonstrate how they now ‘story’ their identities.
Pupil Responsibility in the Context of School Changes in Sweden: Market Constraints on State Policies for a Creative Education
Authors: Dovemark Marianne
Published: November 2005

Sweden's present school curricula emphasise personal flexibility, creativity, responsibility for learning and suggest new understandings of quality in learning, where individual freedom of choice is meant to help produce creative, motivated, alert, inquiring, self-governing and flexible users and developers of knowledge. These curriculum changes relate to similar changes in the relationships between the state, professional agencies and market interests in education planning and delivery. In this article I discuss these new developments and their effects from the perspective of different students in school. The article is based on ethnographic studies and student interviews that suggest that whilst rituals that previously indoctrinated individuals into submissive behaviour in school, through the mechanical memorisation of other's facts, have been replaced by outwardly self-monitored activities and self-determined learning, some things remain the same. Students are still graded, separated and characterised by teachers in terms of being weak or superior products and students adopt these labels in their self-understanding. Furthermore, the curriculum that is meant to stimulate creativity and inclusiveness dampens creativity and positive involvement for many students.