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1 – 10 of 16This essay offers a perspective for practitioners and decision-makers to look beyond short-term recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and consider longer-term consequences that it…
Abstract
Purpose
This essay offers a perspective for practitioners and decision-makers to look beyond short-term recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and consider longer-term consequences that it may have on schools.
Design/methodology/approach
In this essay, I discuss some general observations about education during the pandemic and then provide a perspective to some issues related to educational inequalities and learning from home during the pandemic. The essay is informed by recent media articles and reports of national and international institutions.
Findings
This essay makes three claims: Despite high hopes, there is only a little chance schools will change as a consequence of this pandemic without bold and brave shifts in mindset in how that change happens. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the effects of preexisting social and educational inequalities; fixing these would be an important consequence of the pandemic. During school closures, learning from home has been mostly based on the old logic of consuming information and knowledge rather than creating or cocreating new ideas and solutions to real-life problems.
Research limitations/implications
This is an essay that offers evidence-informed perspectives to current development in education, and it should not be treated as a research-based article.
Originality/value
This essay will contribute to the evolving public conversation and professional debate on the future of school education. It will be part of the series of essays that will support those who are seeking to not just adapt to meet the pandemic but also to step back and consider the medium to longer-term implications.
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The purpose of this paper is to present an analytical review of the educational innovation field in the USA. It outlines classification of innovations, discusses the hurdles to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present an analytical review of the educational innovation field in the USA. It outlines classification of innovations, discusses the hurdles to innovation, and offers ways to increase the scale and rate of innovation-based transformations in the education system.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a literature survey and author research.
Findings
US education badly needs effective innovations of scale that can help produce the needed high-quality learning outcomes across the system. The primary focus of educational innovations should be on teaching and learning theory and practice, as well as on the learner, parents, community, society, and its culture. Technology applications need a solid theoretical foundation based on purposeful, systemic research, and a sound pedagogy. One of the critical areas of research and innovation can be cost and time efficiency of the learning.
Practical implications
Several practical recommendations stem out of this paper: how to create a base for large-scale innovations and their implementation; how to increase effectiveness of technology innovations in education, particularly online learning; how to raise time and cost efficiency of education.
Social implications
Innovations in education are regarded, along with the education system, within the context of a societal supersystem demonstrating their interrelations and interdependencies at all levels. Raising the quality and scale of innovations in education will positively affect education itself and benefit the whole society.
Originality/value
Originality is in the systemic approach to education and educational innovations, in offering a comprehensive classification of innovations; in exposing the hurdles to innovations, in new arguments about effectiveness of technology applications, and in time efficiency of education.
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Dean Fink, Jeremy Hannay, Suzanne Lazenby and Warren Marks
Since the turn of the new millennia, governments have increasingly moved away from professional models of educational decision-making and turned toward a neoliberal production…
Abstract
Since the turn of the new millennia, governments have increasingly moved away from professional models of educational decision-making and turned toward a neoliberal production model in which markets and test scores drive educational decisions. In this “brave new world,” teachers have become “human capital,” and principals, the managers of their productivity rather than leaders of learning. As a result of this changing dynamic, teachers have increasingly turned to teacher unions or federations, and away from local school jurisdictions and governments to protect their salaries, working conditions and professionalism. Principals, in turn, have found themselves in a no-win situation – caught between top-down demands from big governments and local school districts for teacher compliance, and big unions' insistence on fair treatment for all teachers. This chapter, therefore, intends to explore this increasingly fragile role of principals in three international settings, in our rapidly changing world.
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The aim of this chapter is to investigate the potential of the disruption brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic to break the stagnation in the field of comparative and…
Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to investigate the potential of the disruption brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic to break the stagnation in the field of comparative and international education, detected on many fronts of the field by various scholars in the field. The chapter commences with a survey of the historical evolution of the field of comparative and international education, showing how the field has historically come to be defined by contextually induced discourse. At the same time, the historically trodden furrows have resulted in the field becoming trapped by historical forces, resulting in some stagnation in the field. It is argued that impediments to progress in the field of comparative and international education are the severance from practice, the “black box” syndrome of paying more attention to the societal context than to education, the tenacious attachment to the nation-state as the sole geographic level of analysis, the lack of an autochthonous theory, persistent Northern hegemony, and the regression of space and infrastructure at universities. Thereafter, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact thereof on education are discussed. In conclusion, the potential of the disruption brought about by the pandemic for the revisitation of comparative and international education is assessed.
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Hanne Riese, Gunn Elisabeth Søreide and Line T. Hilt
This introductory chapter introduces standards and standardisation as concepts of outmost relevance to current educational practice and policy across the world, and frames them…
Abstract
This introductory chapter introduces standards and standardisation as concepts of outmost relevance to current educational practice and policy across the world, and frames them historically, empirically, as well as theoretically. Furthermore, it gives an overview of how the book is structured and how it can be seen to contribute to the wider field of research in education. The chapter starts by introducing the concepts before it provides the reader with a background description of the broad discursive landscape of policy developments, as painted by educational policy research. Subsequently it describes how standards and standardisation have been theorised within educational research, and concludes with a presentation of the different contributions.
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Susan Teather and Wendy Hillman
There has been very little empirical research for the need to identify the importance of an inclusive territory of commonality for “invisible” students with disabilities in…
Abstract
Purpose
There has been very little empirical research for the need to identify the importance of an inclusive territory of commonality for “invisible” students with disabilities in Australian education testing, such as the National Assessment Program-Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
The research methodology used a cross-sectional mixed methods, deductive quantitative, an inductive qualitative, functionalist perspective and interpretivist perspective from internet secondary data analysis. This was undertaken to investigate the government functionalist macrosociology of Australian education to the detriment of the microsociology debate of students with disabilities, for inclusive education and social justice.
Findings
This finding showed vastly underestimated numbers of students with disabilities in Australian schools experienced through “gatekeeping”, non-participation in NAPLAN testing and choices of schools, resulting in poor educational outcomes and work-readiness.
Social implications
The research findings showed that functionalism of Australian education is threatening not only social order, well-being and resilience of an innovative Australian economy through welfare dependency; but also depriving people with disabilities of social equality and empowerment against poverty brought about by a lack of education and of the human right to do a decent job.
Originality/value
The study provided a critical evaluation of the weaknesses of government functionalism; specifically the relationship between the dualism of macro and micro perspectives, which promotes the existence of “invisible” students with disabilities in education, despite government legislation purporting an inclusive education for all students.
Kjell Brynjulf Hjertø, Jan Merok Paulsen and Saku Petteri Tihveräinen
The purpose of this paper is to seek to investigate Etienne Wenger's theory of social learning in a community of practice by modeling two simultaneous aspects of teachers’…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to seek to investigate Etienne Wenger's theory of social learning in a community of practice by modeling two simultaneous aspects of teachers’ collaborative learning: their engagement in close-knit internal groupings and engagement with colleagues that work externally to the core group. These two learning processes are related to two social-cognitive outcomes: teachers’ organizational commitment and their sense of impact.
Design/methodology/approach
The study investigated a field sample of 246 individual teachers from ten Finnish primary schools. Hypotheses were developed and tested by using multiple regression and structural equation modeling.
Findings
The results indicate that local engagement supports teachers’ organizational commitment. However, this form of collaborative learning behavior did not support their sense of impact. Moreover, external engagement with trusted colleagues supported sense of impact but not organizational commitment.
Research limitations/implications
The study reinforces the importance of teachers’ engagement in communities of practice. Specifically, the results suggest two specific social-cognitive outcomes related to two different learning processes situated in teachers’ community of practice. It would be highly valuable to replicate this study in various multi-level settings.
Practical implications
The study highlights teachers’ engagement in communities of practice as a source of their motivational basis and their commitment. Findings recommend school leaders to facilitate internal and external learning communities.
Originality/value
The study provides empirical evidence regarding the partial relationships between teachers’ local and external learning engagement and the social-cognitive outcomes of these forms of learning behaviors.
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Matthew Harrison, Jess Rowlings and Daniel Aivaliotis-Martinez