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1 – 10 of over 6000Building on the proposition that Bernstein's ideas are due for a revival in higher education research, the call for studies in which theory is put to use and for policy studies to…
Abstract
Building on the proposition that Bernstein's ideas are due for a revival in higher education research, the call for studies in which theory is put to use and for policy studies to engage in textual analysis, this chapter argues for the affordances of the theoretical underpinnings of Bernstein's pedagogic device and critical discourse studies in investigating connections between policy and practice. Drawing on the sociology of pedagogy and applied linguistics, this chapter aims to explore the theoretical complementarities of the chosen approaches for exploring how policy ideas move through time and space. A focus on the notion of recontextualisation enables an understanding of how influences beyond the discipline itself, including policy discourses, can shape learning, teaching and assessment practices. The illustrating case examines policy on learning and teaching and how these ideas are recontextualised from national policy through to institutional policy and individual practices. The critical or questioning angle of both approaches in seeing ideas, including policy, as never value-free but as situated within their sociopolitical context can shed light on how policy ideas make their way into universities and in whose interests.
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Michael Donnelly and Andrea Abbas
Basil Bernstein’s theoretical ideas have been called upon by far fewer higher education researchers than would be expected. We argue that the international higher education field…
Abstract
Basil Bernstein’s theoretical ideas have been called upon by far fewer higher education researchers than would be expected. We argue that the international higher education field of research is ripe for further application of Bernstein’s theoretical ideas. Through reference to our own and that of others, we illustrate five key affordances of Bernstein’s theoretical framework. First, it provides a unique approach that leads researchers to pose formerly unthinkable questions and encourages the development of new knowledge to address them. Second, Bernstein’s valuable concepts raise questions about the specific but inter-related macro- (societal), meso- (organisational) and micro- (individual) level processes involved in producing (in)equalities. Bernsteinian analysis can help to identify how inequalities emerge from and can be addressed at these levels. Third, we contend that the approach encourages empirical exploration of the ways in which education may be disruptive of the social order. Fourth, we suggest Bernstein’s concepts can be adapted to capture the complexity of intersecting inequalities in a way that allows the object of analysis to determine what inequalities are foregrounded. Finally, we argue that concepts help to orientate questions around inequality and social justice in a way that does not over-determine answers.
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Parlo Singh and Stephen Heimans
In this chapter we open up questions about educational standardisation by thinking through the possibilities of the theoretical work on Totally Pedagogised Societies (TPSs…
Abstract
In this chapter we open up questions about educational standardisation by thinking through the possibilities of the theoretical work on Totally Pedagogised Societies (TPSs) initially developed by Basil Bernstein (2001). In relation to new modes of teacher professionalism, including the introduction of standardisation measures, researchers have drawn on Bernstein's sociological concepts, including the concept of the TPS (Robertson & Sorenson, 2018). Studies, drawing on the concept of the TPS, have tended to focus on the power scape or power reach of international organisations into pedagogic acts across time space – from cradle to grave, in and out of schools. We seek here to move the analytical possibilities for TPS where the focus on the ‘total’ part of the concept is often read and understood as ‘totalising’ (see, for example, Gewirtz, Mahony & Hextall, 2009; Ball, 2009) and deterministic. Instead, we extend work on the TPS and theorise the redesign of standardisation.
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Anna Tsatsaroni and Sofia Koutsiouri
This chapter aims to contribute to research on standards and regulation in education, taking as a point of departure three sets of interrelated policies, core to the globalised…
Abstract
This chapter aims to contribute to research on standards and regulation in education, taking as a point of departure three sets of interrelated policies, core to the globalised educational agenda: policies on competencies and skills, school autonomy and performance-based accountability, representing a new governmental logic founded on the values of efficiency, quality, competitiveness and outcomes. The chapter has a double purpose: first, to make a theoretical contribution to the literature interrogating the new modes of governing schools and curricular knowledge. It does this, by explicating the relationship between the regulative dimension of global policy discourses, embodying the principle of performativity, and the discourses regulating pedagogic practices in local sites, where policies are enacted. Second, to present aspects of a study carried out in the Greek education context, in which policies towards a post-bureaucratic administration regime (school autonomy, national testing, accountability mechanisms) have failed to be institutionalised. Focusing on the Modern Greek Language curriculum and its enactments in demanding school settings, the study illustrates how discourses on inclusion, diffused within the educational field and invading the school space, exert strong control over teachers' instructional practices. It is argued that developments of Bernstein's theory of knowledge pedagogisation provide a language to describe the complex ways in which regulative discourses operate in global times, affecting the recontextualisations of curricular policies. The theory thus contributes to the literature on the enactments of globalised education policies and helps explain the diversity of national and institutional responses to such policies.
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This paper focuses on two books that Robert Heilbroner wrote with Peter Bernstein on public finance – A Primer on Government Spending (1963) and The Debt and the Deficit (1989)…
Abstract
This paper focuses on two books that Robert Heilbroner wrote with Peter Bernstein on public finance – A Primer on Government Spending (1963) and The Debt and the Deficit (1989). It also discusses how the economic world changed between the early 1960s and the late 1980s, and how these changes affected their books. Primer introduced Keynesian economics, and the possibility that government policy and deficits could be forces for good in the world. Debt focused exclusively on government deficits and public debt. Changing circumstances made this work a more difficult undertaking. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, government budget deficits were small, growth was sluggish, and Keynesianism was the dominant paradigm in macroeconomics. Primer explained Keynesian public finance, why tax cuts would spur spending and growth, and why we should not worry about government debt under these circumstances. By the 1980s, Keynes was vanquished, deficits were ballooning, and Keynesian public finance was under attack. Contrary to the conventional wisdom at the time, Debt advocated government deficits along the lines proposed by Keynes but not along the lines enacted during the Reagan administration. Nonetheless, there were many similarities in these two works. Both made a case for an active government role in creating a good society; and both argued that when done correctly deficit spending created no economic problems and had many benefits.
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Alfonso Siano, Maria Palazzo, Pantea Foroudi and Agostino Vollero
The aim of this conceptual paper is to review Bernstein’s communication wheel to make it a tool that can be used in the selection of a corporate communication mix.
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this conceptual paper is to review Bernstein’s communication wheel to make it a tool that can be used in the selection of a corporate communication mix.
Design/methodology/approach
A critical analysis of Bernstein’s communication wheel shows it to be a checklist, a starting point in the examination of corporate communication mix, but it is not as such of great help to the decision maker.
Findings
The findings of reviewing literature highlight that the principle of a clear distinction between strategic decisions and operational decisions is applicable also in the field of corporate communication. For each stakeholder relationship, the authors’ framework suggests typical combinations of activities and means to be used. These combinations are useful to experiment with expert systems which are functional to the choices of corporate communication mix.
Practical implications
The analysis of communication gaps gives directions for formulating strategic decisions. In this framework, tactical decisions concern the components of the communication mix architecture (or communication chain): activities, means and vehicles of communication. On the contrary, Bernstein’s communication wheel includes only generic channels (or media) and gives no indications as to the architecture of the communication mix.
Originality/value
This study illustrates the hierarchy of decisions relating to corporate communication mix, the communication wheel could also be useful in communication planning. If this assumption is held to be true it then becomes possible to lay out a framework for a progressive decision-making path that means making sequential choices (first strategic, then tactical). In the stakeholder approach, the aim of strategic decisions is to choose the stakeholder groups on which a firm has to focus its corporate communication activities.
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S. Saha Ray and S. Singh
This paper aims to study fractional Brownian motion and its applications to nonlinear stochastic integral equations. Bernstein polynomials have been applied to obtain the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to study fractional Brownian motion and its applications to nonlinear stochastic integral equations. Bernstein polynomials have been applied to obtain the numerical results of the nonlinear fractional stochastic integral equations.
Design/methodology/approach
Bernstein polynomials have been used to obtain the numerical solutions of nonlinear fractional stochastic integral equations. The fractional stochastic operational matrix based on Bernstein polynomial has been used to discretize the nonlinear fractional stochastic integral equation. Convergence and error analysis of the proposed method have been discussed.
Findings
Two illustrated examples have been presented to justify the efficiency and applicability of the proposed method. The corresponding obtained numerical results have been compared with the exact solutions to establish the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, nonlinear stochastic Itô–Volterra integral equation driven by fractional Brownian motion has been for the first time solved by using Bernstein polynomials. The obtained numerical results well establish the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method.
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The purpose of this paper is to present a theoretically-informed analysis of an exploratory study which included a focus on postdoctoral researchers' views of their training…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a theoretically-informed analysis of an exploratory study which included a focus on postdoctoral researchers' views of their training needs.
Design/methodology/approach
The wider mixed-methods study was focused on post-doctoral career trajectories at a time of ongoing policy interest in doctoral education. Bernstein's theoretical perspectives are used to illuminate the data, particularly his concepts of classification and regionalisation.
Findings
Respondents' reflections on their doctoral training showed a much stronger appreciation of training which was based in disciplinary practices, even if these were subject to regionalisation, as opposed to more generic professional skills training.
Research limitations/implications
The small scale and exploratory nature of the study is recognised, as well as the need for more independent research in this area.
Practical implications
The study has implications for the nature of the training provided as part of doctoral education. First, it is argued that this should include more explicit discussion of policy shifts relating to doctoral education. Second, rather than being glossed over in the imposition of generic competency frameworks (conceptualised through Bernstein as a generic performance mode), researcher training should attend closely to the social and cultural base of the skills and practices of different regions of knowledge production, at the same time as recognising these to be fluid and dynamic.
Originality/value
Overall, while recognised as exploratory, the study aims to contribute insights on doctoral graduates' perspectives on researcher training as well as suggesting the usefulness of Bernstein's theoretical framework for understanding the reconstruction of doctoral education in the UK.
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Davood Rostamy and Kobra Karimi
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a novel approach based on the high-order matrix derivative of the Bernstein basis and collocation method and its employment to solve an…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a novel approach based on the high-order matrix derivative of the Bernstein basis and collocation method and its employment to solve an interesting and ill-posed model in the heat conduction problems, homogeneous backward heat conduction problem (BHCP).
Design/methodology/approach
By using the properties of the Bernstein polynomials the problems are reduced to an ill-conditioned linear system of equations. To overcome the unstability of the standard methods for solving the system of equations an efficient technique based on the Tikhonov regularization technique with GCV function method is used for solving the ill-condition system.
Findings
The presented numerical results through table and figures demonstrate the validity and applicability and accuracy of the technique.
Originality/value
A novel method based on the high-order matrix derivative of the Bernstein basis and collocation method is developed and well-used to obtain the numerical solutions of an interesting and ill-posed model in heat conduction problems, homogeneous BHCP with high accuracy.
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S.A. Yousefi, Zahra Barikbin and Mehdi Dehghan
The purpose of this paper is to implement the Ritz‐Galerkin method in Bernstein polynomial basis to give approximation solution of a parabolic partial differential equation with…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to implement the Ritz‐Galerkin method in Bernstein polynomial basis to give approximation solution of a parabolic partial differential equation with non‐local boundary conditions.
Design/methodology/approach
The properties of Bernstein polynomial and Ritz‐Galerkin method are first presented, then the Ritz‐Galerkin method is utilized to reduce the given parabolic partial differential equation to the solution of algebraic equations. Illustrative examples are included to demonstrate the validity and applicability of the new technique.
Findings
The authors applied the method presented in this paper and solved three test problems.
Originality/value
This is the first time that the Ritz‐Galerkin method in Bernstein polynomial basis is employed to solve the model investigated in the current paper.
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