Policy Futures in Education

ISSN 1478-2103

Volume 3 Number 2 2005

CONTENTS

[click on author's name for abstract and full text]
 

Editorial, page 131
Yusef Waghid. On the Possibility of Cultivating Justice through Teaching and Learning: an argument for civic reconciliation in South Africa, pages 132‑140
Alpesh Maisuria. The Turbulent Times of Creativity in the National Curriculum, pages 141‑152
Makere Stewart-Harawira. Cultural Studies, Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogies of Hope, pages 153‑163
Anita Silvana Ilak Peršurić & Patrick Gautier. Multiple Effects of Education in Rural Areas: action research for development strategies in Croatia, pages 164‑183
Heinz Sünker. ‘New People’ and ‘Old Structures’: Max Adler and Siegfried Bernfeld on society, education and change, pages 184‑193
Ilan Gur-Ze’ev. Sports Education Facing Globalizing Capitalism, pages 194‑211
Janet Mansfield. Certainties and Censure: teacher education in a changing terrain, pages 212‑222
Xiaoping Jiang. Interculturalisation for New Zealand Universities in a Global Context, pages 223‑233

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Norman Gray. Readers, Readers, Writers and Engineers, pages 234‑238

Editorial

This is truly an international issue with papers from South Africa, the United Kingdom, Canada, Croatia, Germany, Israel and New Zealand. It has a decidedly curriculum orientation with a strong focus on questions of justice, cultural studies, creativity, educational development, social critique, sports education, teacher education, interculturalisation and educational transformation. One of the aims for Policy Futures in Education is to develop as a truly global and international forum and we are committed to publishing both papers and theme issues from all parts of the globe.

Yusef Waghid from Stellenbosch University begins this issue of Policy Futures in Education with an account of possibilities for cultivating justice in relation to teaching and learning in South African universities. He investigates new policy frameworks and demonstrates how a responsive, democratic and critical attitude on the part of teachers and students can enhance civic reconciliation after years of apartheid. Alpesh Maisuria traces the demise of creativity in the national curriculum in England and Wales, arguing that it has disappeared under the imposition of centralised testing and quality assurance regimes, which have severely damaged the morale of teachers and learners and encouraged teaching to the test. He reviews recent attempts under New Labour to revive creativity through the curriculum and makes some further suggestions for enhancing it.

Makere Stewart-Harawira examines cultural studies in relation to indigenous knowledge and what she calls ‘pedagogies of hope’. She makes the case for pedagogies that draw on studies of culture and ethnicity to contest the global order, to resist neoliberal globalisation, and to encourage alternative visions. Anita Silvana Peršurić & Patrick Gautier examine educational strategies in rural Croatia, first, describing and analysing the major problems of basic education and, second, proposing a set of recommendations not only to increase the level of education but also enhance employment, resettlement and citizenship.

Heinz Sünker turns to Max Adler and Siegfried Bernfeld to review and examine their work in relation to a social analysis of educational history, focusing on the Weimar Republic. As Sünker explains, Adler, from the perspective of Austro-Marxism, and Bernfeld, operating from an approach that links psychoanalysis and Marxism, provide a connection between social analysis, critique and education, specifically concerning the political-pedagogical question of how far education can change society involving the project of the ‘new person’ and the limits of educational theory (‘old structures’).

Ilan Gur-Ze’ev investigates sports education under the impact of a globalising capitalism, that is to say the change in the function, representation, and consumption of sport, sport education and physical education. By contrast and explicitly against ‘the perversion of sport’, Gur-Ze’ev provides a new philosophy of sports education that questions the present cultural politics of sport and he attempts to transcend it.

Janet Mansfield examines the dominant discourse of teacher education in New Zealand through the code words and metaphors of ‘censure’ and ‘certainties’, while Xiaoping Jiang discusses the interculturalisation of New Zealand universities in a global context. Both authors turn over new ground and provide important directions for reflection and change.

Norman Gray provides a review of two recent additions to the Paul Chapman series: Knowledge, Learning and Power (Paechter et al), and Learning, Space and Identity (Paechter et al).

My sincere thanks go to all contributors who have submitted to this diverse international issue and in terms of future issues as editor I am interested in publishing further accounts to extent the debates in the area of social justice (especially in relation to teaching and learning), indigenous knowledges, rural education, and the philosophy of sports education.

Michael A. Peters
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

On the Possibility of Cultivating Justice through Teaching and Learning: an argument for civic reconciliation in South Africa

YUSEF WAGHID Stellenbosch University, Matieland, South Africa

In this article the author explores possibilities for cultivating justice with reference to teaching and learning in (South African) universities. It is argued that teachers and learners ought to become responsive, democratic and critical – they need to act justly in order to break with South Africa’s apartheid legacy. The author discusses why readiness, deliberation and responsibility – acts of justice – ought to unfold in South African university classrooms and, more importantly, how each characteristic can potentially engender responsiveness, democracy and criticism respectively. Finally, some of the implications of justice through teaching and learning for civic reconciliation in South Africa are explored. The author shows how a responsive (compassionate), democratic (deliberative) and critical (restive) disposition on the part of individuals can offer hope for enhancing civic reconciliation after decades of apartheid rule.

The Turbulent Times of Creativity in the National Curriculum

ALPESH MAISURIA University College Northampton & University of the Arts, London, United Kingdom

This article traces the demise of creativity in the national curriculum in England and Wales. It is argued that the creative dimension in the national curriculum has been purged by various government directives since the Ruskin speech in 1976, all aiming to introduce provisions of standardisation, centralisation, and vocationalisation of education. The plethora of centralised testing regimes and quality assurance measures has not only damaged the esteem of teachers and pupils, but has also turned education into a game where teachers teach the art of passing exams, and pupils realise the academic dangers of non-conformity. In the second section of this article it is suggested that despite New Labour’s infatuation with measurable standards, it seems the assault on creative subjects is being reversed somewhat, and various efforts have been introduced to bolt creativity onto the national curriculum with the aim of re-energising teachers’ and pupils’ creative spirits. The article finishes by offering further avenues of thought and concludes by suggesting that a truly inspiring, satisfying and rewarding curriculum can only result from moving from a business-education-orientated education system to a child-centred learning experience.

Cultural Studies, Indigenous Knowledge and Pedagogies of Hope

MAKERE STEWART-HARAWIRA University of Alberta, Canada

Notions of crisis and chaos have become the rationale for a new discourse in which empire is the logical outcome of a world no longer secure. One level at which this is manifested is in the rejection by the USA of international agreements to which it is signatory, in the demonstrated failure of the Bretton Woods system to meet its declared objectives, and in the increasingly broad and globalized resistance to globalization. Another is in the attacks on particular forms of knowledge and academic freedom by strong neoconservative elements which seek the reconstruction of societies within a particular cultural and ideological framework. In this context, the construction of pedagogies which articulate a different vision for global order has become a contested and critical task. This article argues two things: first, that the study of culture and ethnicity is vitally important in developing pedagogies for better ways of being in the world, and second, that indigenous cultural knowledge is profoundly relevant to this endeavour.

Multiple Effects of Education in Rural Areas: action research for development strategies in Croatia

ANITA SILVANA ILAK PERŠURIĆ & PATRICK GAUTIER Institute for Agriculture and Tourism, Poreč, Croatia

The strategy of development in rural areas of Croatia includes several factors. Among them is education. The education system in Croatia has a number of institutional, infrastructural and regional characteristics that are a frame of research for this article. Rural areas confront additional factors such as population migrations, poor socio-professional structures, long distances from cities, etc., which have consequences on the quality of education. A high quality education system provides a base for a better professional structure that can curb migrations (e.g. people staying in villages for education and not migrating to cities) and raise the quality of life through open activities in schools, as schools provide a meeting point for children and the whole population. The objectives of this article are, firstly, to present the findings of an analysis of basic education in rural areas of Croatia and, secondly, to recommend measures to improve access to and quality of education for rural people in order to make a better contribution to rural development. Therefore, after a brief presentation of the context of and justifications for this article, the document presents the findings for each level of education in the form of problems and, from these problems, proposes measures to ensure that education in rural areas is contributing to rural development.

‘New People’ and ‘Old Structures’: Max Adler and Siegfried Bernfeld on society, education and change

HEINZ SÜNKER University of Wuppertal, Germany

This article deals with central issues in the field of theory of education and history of education. The examples of Max Adler and Siegfried Bernfeld show that contemporary debates on education and society, social reproduction of social inequality, and education and social change have been subjects of strong controversies in the first third of the twentieth century. Furthermore, the deepness of these approaches shows the contemporary relevance and the limits of these historical attempts to solve these controversies. The article aims to overcome some of these limits in proposing to deal with the approach of the central educational theorist in Germany in the twentieth century, Heinz-Joachim Heydorn.

Sports Education Facing Globalizing Capitalism

ILAN GUR-ZE’EV University of Haifa, Israel

From its very beginning sports activity became – already within the framework of the modern nation-building project, establishing national ethos, and constituting effective colonization of the Other – a central element of the effort of the modern system to create, represent, and consume the modern body and soul and to create the healthy-conquering national ‘we’. And yet, when true to its essence, sport represents the impetus of Love of Life. As Love of Life it raises the human from lower levels of existence to their supreme goal within the forms of constant self-elevation. Sport as a global commodity is manufactured and consumed locally, serving and representing both ethnocentrism and false universalism in the form of globalization. It is of vital importance for sport’s success as a worldwide commodity to function in the service of local passions and as a manifestation of the negation of the otherness of the Other. Without local rivalries, hate, and chauvinism, the worldwide reception and production of sport would not have been so successful.

Certainties and Censure: teacher education in a changing terrain

JANET MANSFIELD Auckland, New Zealand

Economic and cultural globalisation has resulted in particular political ideologies in policy and practice that have created a certain essentialism – a tightened modernist ‘will to certainty’ – which is reinscribed in curricular practices in New Zealand teacher education. At a time when the naming and framing of educational practice in terms of the ‘knowledge society’, the ‘learning society’ and the effects of such discourses on experience needs to be revealed in teacher education – when the relations between political ideologies and their inscription in policy and practice need to be exposed – critical approaches that might threaten global knowledge truth claims exposing the non-neutrality of educational processes have been diminished. A limited selection of ‘worthwhile’ knowledge, which has its genesis in classroom instruction, is involved in censure and a politics of censure opened here for analysis, and thus preconditions practice in the changing educational terrain of the teaching subject. What is questioned here is the related essentialism of the dominant discourses of teacher education (pedagogy, assessment and evaluation, psychology and learning theory), based as these discourses are on the human subject. Drawing distinctions between ‘education’ and ‘pedagogy’, it is suggested that a continuing ‘education’ in the broadest sense of the word rather than mere ‘pedagogy’ is necessary for teachers to be named ‘educated’ professionals.

Interculturalisation for New Zealand Universities in a Global Context

XIAOPING JIANG Guangzhou University, China

This article critiques the notion of multiculturalism, which aims to assimilate minority cultures into a dominant culture rather than genuinely accept their ‘differences’. Therefore, the author proposes interculturalism as a policy for the multicultural campus because it values equitable treatment of all cultures. Recent years have witnessed an influx of international students into New Zealand’s higher education institutions. The author asks whether these institutions have adequate strategies to accommodate the increasing cultural diversity on campus. Through a comparative analysis of multiculturalism and interculturalism, the author sees interculturalisation as an emancipatory process that should be supported, as it emphasises non-discriminative cultural reciprocity based on equality and respect.

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