Teaching boys in neoliberal and postfeminist times: Feminization and the question of re-masculinization in the education system and policy field

This paper focuses on teaching boys, male teachers and the question of gendered pedagogies in neoliberal and postfeminist times of the proliferation of new forms of capitalism, multi-mediated technologies and the influence of globalization. It illustrates how a politics of re-masculinization and its reconstitution needs to be understood as set against changing economic and social conditions in which gender equity comes to be re-focused on boys as the ‚new disadvantaged‘. This re-framing of gender equity, it is argued, has been fuelled by both a media-inspired backlash discourse about ‚failing boys‘ and a neo-positivist emphasis on numbers derived primarily from standardized testing regimes at both global and national levels. A media-focused analysis of the proliferation of discourses about ‚failing boys‘ vis-a-vis the problem of encroaching feminization in the school system is provided to illuminate how certain truths about the influence of male teachers come to define how the terms of ensuring gender equity are delimited and reduced to a question of gendered pedagogies as grounded in sexed bodies. Historical accounts of the feminization of teaching in the North American context are also provided as a basis for building a more informed understanding of the present, particularly as it relates to the contextualization of policy articulation and enactment regarding the problem of teaching boys. In light of such historically informed and critical media analysis, it is argued that what is needed is a more informed, evidenced based policy articulation of the problem of teaching boys and a more gender sensitive reflection on the politics of masculinities in postfeminist times. (DIPF/Orig.)

Authentizität und Lernen - das Fach in der Fachdidaktik. Gesellschaft für Didaktik der Chemie und Physik Jahrestagung in Berlin 2015

Die 42. Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Didaktik der Chemie und Physik (GDCP) wurde im September 2015 an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin ausgerichtet. Zum Tagungsthema „Authentizität und Lernen - Das Fach in der Fachdidaktik“ diskutierten neben den Plenarreferentinnen und -referenten eine große Anzahl an Tagungsgästen. Der vorliegende Band umfasst die ausgearbeiteten Beiträge der Teilnehmerinnen und Teilnehmer. (DIPF/Orig.)

A competence model for environmental education

The goal of environmental education is ultimately to enable a person to strive for and to attain a more ecological way of life. In this article, we begin by distinguishing three forms of environmental knowledge and go on to predict that people's attitude toward nature represents the force that drives their ecological behavioral engagement. Based on data from 1,907 students, we calibrated previously established instruments to measure ecological behavior, environmental knowledge, and attitude toward nature with Rasch-type models. Using path modeling, we corroborated our theoretically anticipated competence structure. While environmental knowledge revealed a modest behavioral effect, attitude toward nature turned out to be, as expected, the stronger determinant of behavior. Overall, we propose a competence model that has the potential to guide us into more evidence-based ways of promoting the overall ecological engagement of individuals. (DIPF/Orig.)