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European Educational |
ISSN 1474-9041 | ||
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Volume 2 Number 4 2003 | |||
Other issues available | Journal home page | Publisher home page | |||
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CONTENTS [click on author's name for abstract and full text] | |||
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Graham Badley. Integrating Culture and
Higher Education: a pragmatist approach, pages 477‑495 ECER KEYNOTE ROUNDTABLE NEWS REPORTS REVIEW ESSAY
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Integrating Culture and Higher Education: a pragmatist approach |
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By taking a pragmatist approach to both higher education and culture, it will be seen more clearly how integration between the two may be usefully effected. Indeed, what is argued is that such an approach enables the use of important pragmatist principles – such as democracy, equality, freedom, growth, justice and tolerance – to bind culture and education closely together. It is an argument which sees the university as the best institutional embodiment of the principles and values which pragmatists think should characterize a modern (even a postmodern) liberal culture. This approach should challenge those in universities who are content that the academy is becoming a safe haven for academic capitalism. |
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Vertical Discourse: the role of the teacher in the transmission and acquisition of decontextualised language |
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This article examines the production of pupils at different levels of ‘ability’ within the school setting. It uses the theoretical work of Basil Bernstein, and particularly the concepts of vertical and horizontal discourse, to critique contemporary forms of ‘progressive’ educational practice and to suggest a reappraisal of the possibilities of more formal pedagogic strategies. The article uses detailed case study material drawn from primary classrooms in England and Russia, the practice in each underpinned by contrasting understandings of human development and learning, to illustrate the way in which teachers construct children’s learning either as the development of individual competencies or as a collective social achievement, and thus position children as more or less effective and successful learners. Finally, it examines the way in which a secondary school teacher draws on her own social positioning and life experiences as well as those of her students to develop ways of relating school knowledge to local knowledges, in this way encouraging students both to analyse the world and to understand, and thus potentially work to transform, their own position in society. |
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Changes of Education Policies within the European Union in the Light of Globalisation |
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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. |
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Are Timetable-Free Schools Possible? |
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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. |
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The Use and Abuse of International Comparative Research on Student Achievement |
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In more and more European countries the conditions and the output of education are systematically monitored – often every year. These analyses focus on the question of which educational standards are reached by different age groups, the standard of their grades in different subjects, and which conditions moderate the differences in student achievement. The aim is to establish a basis for the discussion on quantity and quality of the educational system of the corresponding country. This is done by implementing national studies or by participating in international studies on school achievement. This kind of output control seems to be necessary for the autonomy of schools. Furthermore, the feedback about student achievement could be an important aid for schools and their staff to improve their own quality management. External evaluation can be seen as an important means of supporting the process of school development. This article is the keynote held at the European Conference on Educational Research, Germany, Hamburg, 15‑19 September 2003. |
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Educational Researchers’ Use of Information Services on the World Wide Web: a first report on the PERINE survey of educational researchers in eight European nations during 2001 and 2002 |
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This report is based on a paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University of Hamburg, 17‑20 September 2003. PERINE is the Pedagogical and Educational Research Information Network for Europe, a project supported by the European Commission under its Access to Research Infrastructures activity within the Improving Human Research Potential and the Socio-economic Knowledge Base programme of Framework 5. PERINE emerged from collaborative work within Network 12 (Information Centres and Libraries in Educational Research) of the European Educational Research Association, and continues to work closely with EERA. |
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ECER’s Space in Europe: in between science, research and politics? A research report |
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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’. |
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