Reenergizing Small Communities: A Vital Role for Rural Schools     

Kathleen Anne Wright 《The Educational forum》2013,77(4):345-360

New ways of participating in rural communities and in community development have evolved as the structure of rural communities has changed. In some communities, the impetus to redefine and reenergize is strong while, in others, ways to move forward have yet to be identified (Pomeroy 1997). Rural schools serve a vital role in recreating communities in a highly mobile, industrialized society. According to Lyson (2005, 26), “It is important for policy makers, educational administrators, and local citizens to understand that schools are vital to rural communities.”

This article, which is a follow-up to the author's case study involving a small New Zealand rural school (published in The Educational Forum 2003), examines the vital role schools play in recharging small communities.  相似文献   

‘I know it’s not proper research,but…’: how professionals’ understandings of research can frustrate its potential for CPD     

Stephen Clayton  Diana Burton  Anne Campbell  Anne Qualter  Tünde Varga‐Atkins 《Educational Action Research》2013,21(1):73-84

This article draws upon the work of two researchers who facilitated practitioner research with school professionals in Liverpool. The researchers themselves had not been involved in practitioner research before. In this account, the researchers reflect critically upon their own experience. The discussion presents the learning curve that the researchers underwent as well as what they discovered about the relationship between practitioners and researchers when engaged in school‐based research. Crucially the issue of practitioners’ understandings of what constituted ‘good’ research emerged as a significant issue. In particular, positivist notions of research that drew from popular scientific understandings, as well as the culture of numerical targeting in the schools system, seemed to shape these practitioners’ sense of what was expected of them as practitioner‐researchers. The article finishes by reflecting upon the possible lessons that this work presents for education managers considering practitioner research approaches for continuing professional development (CPD).  相似文献   

Developing and sustaining open communication in action research initiatives: a response to Kemmis (2006)     

Anne Hynds 《Educational Action Research》2013,21(2):149-162

In a recent issue of Educational Action Research, Stephen Kemmis argued that action research should be participative in nature and involve ‘open communication’ by engaging the voices and perspectives of others besides teachers, such as students, parents/caregivers and other community members. This article explores the implications of this call for open communication, with reference to results from one study conducted within New Zealand that investigated teachers’ action research work from multiple and culturally diverse perspectives. Data analysis from this study revealed a number of barriers to maintaining critical, public dialogue and collective inquiry. Foremost amongst these was a lack of preparation and willingness on the part of school leaders to respond to specific challenges put forward from some stakeholder groups, particularly at a time when race relationships between Maori and non‐Maori groups dominated national news headlines.  相似文献   

Peered and tiered learning: action research as creative cultural pedagogy     

Anne Harris 《Educational Action Research》2013,21(3):412-428

This article presents and problematizes a peered and tiered model of creative and educational knowledge transfer piloted in Culture Shack, a community-based arts education program in Melbourne, Australia. Drawing on Eisner and Sefton-Green and Soep, I argue the value of this approach as a potential new pedagogical strategy in both secondary learning and teacher education courses, refocused on collaborative and process learning rather than outcome-focused pedagogy and assessment. Because education is a key factor for successful integration of those from refugee-background and emerging communities, self-reliance and creative problem-solving can be enhanced through arts programs such as Culture Shack that increase participation in continuing, collaborative educational pathways. In this paper I argue that this peered and tiered collaborative learning model offers possibilities for working cross-sectorally, interdisciplinarily, and interculturally for effective pedagogical outcomes and for the value of arts-based action research-as-pedagogy.  相似文献   

Towards an understanding of the place of ethics in school-based action research in the United Kingdom     

Sue Brindley  Anne Bowker 《Educational Action Research》2013,21(3):289-306

As school-based action research has taken a higher profile in UK schools, the place of ethics warrants particular attention. This paper draws on evidence from a taught online Master of Education course collated via chat room discussion where 53 researching teachers were asked to explore policy within their own institution regarding school-based action research ethics. None of these teachers identified the existence of any such policies but described instead current practices. We analysed their reported school-based action research practices and discovered three major categories of response: the unexamined use of gatekeepers; the unsupported use of existing ethics guidelines (such as those of the British Educational Research Association); and the conflation of legal and ethical demands by schools. We raise questions relating to the relationship between ethics and education and call for all those involved in school-based action research to take part in developing action research ethical policy in school.  相似文献   

A service,a ‘way of working’, or a profession? A discourse analysis of community education/community learning and development in Scotland     

Gordon Mackie  Anne Ryan 《Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education》2013,34(3):394-410

Community-based informal education, like other practices, is fundamentally shaped by the discourses under which it is constituted. In Scotland, since 1975, the practice has been formally established by government policy as an amalgam of youth work, adult education and community development under a discourse of informal education. This combination carries its own internal tensions alongside the continually contested relationship between the field of practice and the State. This study analyses key documents in order to chart the shifts in discourse around the constitution of Community Education/Community Learning and Development since 1975. The analysis reveals the force of managerialist discourses which transformed understandings of the practice from post-war welfare state discourses as a service, to its reshaping as technique under New Labour. Current discursive work is directed to its reconstitution (still somewhat ambivalently) as a profession. This ‘re-professionalisation’ connects with similar movements in medicine, social work, parole and teaching which are attempting to reduce the costs of actuarial disciplinary techniques (in record-keeping, reporting and the generation of outcome data) by returning professional trust and judgement to practitioners.  相似文献   

Diversity,adult education and the future: a tentative exploration     

Liv Anne Støren 《International Journal of Lifelong Education》2013,32(2):165-189

Diversity in its many guises is strongly championed in the adult education literature. To conceive a future for adult education that is not diverse and does not try to address the needs of diverse learners seems absurd. Yet, diversity is not a unitary concept, having many definitions and paradoxical effects. Questions arise about its future in a globalizing world. It is not obvious that all facets of diversity in adult education can thrive into the future. This paper attempts to explore the future of diversity in adult education. It applies two methodologies used in futures research to do so. One, causal layered analysis (CLA), enables the present to be analysed critically in order to explore possible futures. In this paper CLA is used to identify possible effects of globalization on diversity in adult education. The other methodology used is visioning. The adult education literature is examined for its visions of diversity. Four different visions are identified. Each theorizes diversity differently. One aims for individual personal development within an accommodating, non‐critical context. A second emphasizes personal development but within a context that is critical, striving for a more just society. A third envisions social learning facilitating change towards a critical, more just society. A fourth focuses on social learning but within an accommodating, non‐critical context. CLA and visioning enable some tentative statements to be made about the future of diversity in adult education. Chief among them is that diversity, when valued in the market place, will prosper, while diversity that is intended to act as an agent for social change will not.  相似文献   

The vocational turn of adult education in Denmark – an analysis of adult education policy from the late 1990s     

Palle Rasmussen  Anne Larson  Pia Cort 《International Journal of Lifelong Education》2013,32(3):254-267

ABSTRACT

Denmark has a strong and versatile tradition of adult education. Over a long historical period, adult education for public enlightenment and leisure, for continuing study and for vocational and professional competence have been developed, been made part of state policy and been used by citizens. But in recent years the public and political presence of Danish adult education has changed. While education policy issues generally abound in public and political debates, adult education is given much less attention than earlier. In this article, we trace the causes of this and conclude that it reflects a turn towards focusing on vocational types of adult education and a relocation of adult education policy to networks linking the state and the social partners. Drawing on theories of policy streams, policy networks and the competition state, we provide a historical analysis of Danish adult education reforms during the past two decades and document how the vocational turn has manifested itself.  相似文献   

Steps towards participation: the social support of learning trajectories     

Anne Edwards  Lin Mackenzie 《International Journal of Lifelong Education》2013,32(4):287-302

In this paper we argue that interventions aimed at preventing social exclusion need to be informed by detailed analysis of the formation, disruption, reformation and support of trajectories of participation in the opportunities for action provided. We draw on evidence we gathered on the lives of two women who used an inner city drop‐in centre to discuss how resilience and trajectories of inclusion are built slowly over time in relationship with others. Using concepts derived from sociocultural psychology and activity theory, we interrogate the evidence to first ask whether there is a pattern of changes in participation over time and to then explore how the identity shifts these changes represent are supported. The analysis reveals that there is a pattern, but it is a pattern of using and giving support which suggests that such trajectories are likely to be recursive. This using and giving of support we term relational agency and argue that a capacity for relational agency, as both the supported and the supporter, is a crucial factor in the development of purposive identities and the building of resilience. We also suggest that it is likely to be encouraged in settings which can foster trust and reciprocity as flexible and open learning zones.  相似文献   

An approach to understanding school attendance difficulties: pupils' perceptions of parental behaviour in response to their requests to be absent from school     

Anne Sheppard 《Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties》2013,18(4):349-363

The UK government has encouraged schools and local authorities to promote school attendance because of its associations with academic attainment and antisocial behaviour. Legislation makes school attendance a parental responsibility. This small‐scale study collected data on parent–child interaction immediately prior to school absence to examine how such interaction influenced the development of attendance difficulties. Good and poor school attenders, of 12–13 years of age, were compared on quantifiable measures of their self‐reported requests to be absent from school, their perceived parents' responses, self‐reported whole‐day and lesson truancy, and expected parental reaction to truancy. School absence requests were significantly more frequent among the poor attenders, who gained more absence and whose parents were inconsistent in their responses to the requests. Education social work/welfare services and school pastoral staff need well‐formulated methods, backed by empirical research, if they are to work effectively with parents and young people and substantially raise their low attendance.  相似文献