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European Educational |
ISSN 1474-9041 | ||
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Volume 3 Number 4 2004 | |||
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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Anders Garpelin. Accepted or Rejected in School,
pages 729‑742
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| Accepted or Rejected in School |
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| In the classroom, young people in their role of pupils are supposed to focus on and respond to the teaching plan. At breaks, the norms and rules may differ and are more similar to life outside the school. Peer rejection is part of this life. According to Swedish school legislation, schools shall counteract all forms of insulting treatment. Still, recently a young woman appealed her case to the Supreme Court. She sued the authorities for not preventing bullying. The aim of this article is to analyse and discuss victimization and bullying as a part of school life, from the perspective of young people. Data from a longitudinal comparative ethnographic case study of two school classes, carried out with an interpretive approach and a relational interpretation perspective, are scrutinized. The results are mainly from qualitative interviews with 62 young people on three occasions (age 12‑21). Both individual and collective victimization occur frequently in the social world of the school, mostly within their own school classes and often even in their own peer group, victimization without their teachers’ knowledge. For those suffering, the question of being accepted or rejected might be of crucial importance for their career as pupils as well as from a more general life perspective. |
| A Matter of Timing: time use, freedom and influence in school from a pupil perspective |
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| A weakening of central time regulation has constituted one aspect of the process of decentralisation and deregulation of Swedish education in the last two decades. In 1999 the Parliament decided on an experiment period permitting schools in 79 municipalities to allocate school hours more freely. The article aims at exploring and analysing pupils’ experiences of the structuring of contents and work in schools without a national time schedule. Pupils’ influence over schoolwork, and their individual responsibility and freedom to plan and use time are focused on. Thirty-one pupils, aged 14‑15 years, were interviewed. They come from three comprehensive schools ranging from a strongly classified curriculum and teacher work to a curriculum characterised by a high degree of cross-disciplinary teaching and teacher teamwork. All three schools, to varying extent, have scheduled ‘open lessons’, when pupils choose content and activity. The majority of pupils appreciate having a responsibility and freedom to plan their own learning, but argue that they are generally not allowed to participate in decisions about teaching and learning. This is particularly the case in subject lessons, which are still mainly controlled by the teachers. The pupils prefer varied forms of teaching and learning and express a need for freedom as well as guidance and structure.
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| The Emergent European Educational Policies under Scrutiny: the Bologna Process from a Central European perspective |
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| In this article, the Bologna Process and the European Research Area are viewed as the two sides of the same coin: that of the redefinition of the missions of the institution of the university. The Bologna Process is viewed as relatively closed to global developments: as largely inward-looking, focused on European regional problems (and European regional solutions), in the absence of references to global changes and huge globalization-related political and economic transformations underlying them. Higher education in central and eastern Europe has been in a state of permanent crisis since the fall of communism and there has not been enough general reflection on its transformations. The author’s concern about Bologna is that it is not trying to rise to the conceptual level that would be required to assist higher education systems in central and eastern Europe with their integration with western European systems. Bologna could be a useful policy agenda; it could provide clear recommendations on what to do and how, presenting a comprehensive package of reforms. But it is not. In this respect, it does not meet expectations of the academic community in the region; it is unclear in its visions, and consequently in its recommendations for actions. In conclusion, the author states that while it may be quite successful in promoting its agenda in western Europe, it may fail in the transition countries, especially because of the combination of old and new challenges and because of chronic underfunding of national higher education systems. While western European institutions currently seem to be afraid of losing their autonomy, for educational institutions in most transition countries the Bologna Process could be a coherent reform agenda. |
| The European Social Fund: the Commission, the Member State and levels of governance |
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| The European Social Fund (ESF) is the European Union structural fund that redistributes funds to facilitate vocational education and training (VET). With the exception of the Common Agricultural Policy it is the EU’s largest instrument for redistribution. Currently linked to the European Employment Strategy it match-funds, and through its policies, directs, much of the Member State’s training for unemployed people. Drawing on a discursive analysis of ESF official policy text from 1957 to 2000, the article explores the relationship between the different actors and levels of governance involved in the construction of the EU: the Council, the Commission and the nation state. There are two strands to the article’s argument: first, that Member State politicians and officials use the EU governmental space to make policies that they would otherwise find difficult to introduce at the national level. Second, that despite its apparent focus on vocational education and training the Social Fund’s main function is to distribute funds to maintain political stability within, across and between the Member States and this is a vital requirement for the construction of the Union. |
| Educational Research: what strategies for development in the European Research Area? |
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| This is a report of the European Educational Research Journal Roundtable that sought to describe what national educational research programmes are doing, how they are working together, and how they might contribute to the developing European Educational Research Space. |
| Education Research as a Contested Enterprise: the deliberations of the SSRC–NAE Joint Committee on Education Research |
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| The SSRC–NAE Joint Committee on Education Research, a multidisciplinary group formed in 2001, initiated an investigation of the complex and sprawling field of American education research organized into three general domains of inquiry: the social organization of education research, an assessment of the quality of education research, and a consideration of the politics and policy implications of education research. This article describes the organization of this effort, summarizes the major themes discussed, and describes the resources gathered and research projects suggested by these deliberations. |
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