Social effects of collaborative learning in primary schools

There is conflicting evidence on whether collaborative group work leads to improved classroom relations, and if so how. A before and after design was used to measure the impact on work and play relations of a collaborative learning programme involving 575 students 9e12 years old in single- and mixed-age classes across urban and rural schools. Data were also collected on student interactions and teacher ratings of their group-work skills. Analysis of variance revealed significant gains for both types of relation. Multilevel modelling indicated that better work relations were the product of improving group skills, which offset tensions produced by transactive dialogue, and this effect fed through in turn to play relations. Although before intervention rural children were familiar with each other neither this nor age mix affected outcomes. The results suggest the social benefits of collaborative learning are a separate outcome of group work, rather than being either a pre-condition for, or a direct consequence of successful activity, but that initial training in group skills may serve to enhance these benefits.

Social exclusion and social capital: A comparison and critique

Social exclusion and social capital are widely used concepts with multiple and ambiguous definitions. Their meanings and indicators partially overlap, and thus they are sometimes used interchangeably to refer to the inter-relations of economy and society. Both ideas could benefit from further specification and differentiation. The causes of social exclusion and the consequences of social capital have received the fullest elaboration, to the relative neglect of the outcomes of social exclusion and the genesis of social capital. This article identifies the similarities and differences between social exclusion and social capital. We compare the intellectual histories and theoretical orientations of each term, their empirical manifestations and their place in public policy. The article then moves on to elucidate further each set of ideas. A central argument is that the conflation of these notions partly emerges from a shared theoretical tradition, but also from insufficient theorizing of the processes in which each phenomenon is implicated. A number of suggestions are made for sharpening their explanatory focus, in particular better differentiating between cause and consequence, contextualizing social relations and social networks, and subjecting the policy 'solutions' that follow from each perspective to critical scrutiny. Placing the two in dialogue is beneficial for the further development of each.

Autobiography and Invention: Towards a Critical Understanding of Identity, Dialogue and Resistance in Improvised Musics

In this article I will argue that acts of improvisation are not productively understood in opposition to other practices which form our wider musical culture. Improvisation might be better understood as both rooted in, but not limited by, personal and cultural memory. Improvisational activities are legible to the performer and audience through a shared understanding of social norms, but only become a singular instance of improvisation through unique performative actions. This tension between experience and invention is played out in a dialogue between performer and listener, demanding a response that crucially takes the form of self-articulation, or autobiography. Finally, I contend that it is from this position that improvisation offers the possibility to transgress established personal and cultural identities.

Intergenerational Solidarity and Justice in Ireland: towards a new national dialogue

Gross domestic product plummets. Unemployment soars. Large-scale emigration reemerges after a decade of labor-market driven immigration. The International Monetary Fund and European Union are called to bail out the economy. Indebtedness haunts households in the aftermath of a spectacular housing market crash. The Celtic Tiger is firmly consigned to history books as Ireland’s economic fortunes have waned with unprecedented rapidity. The trials of the economy and policy are highly visible in the media and political debates. However, we know little about how these public travails are reflected in the private sphere where the recession is translated into mass emigration of young workers, defaults on mortgages, former twoearner households turning into no-earner families, and cutbacks in health and social care services that leave many younger and older citizens without the supports on which they could rely.

They’re not racist…’ Prejudice denial, mitigation and suppression in dialogue

Social scientific work on the suppression, mitigation or denial of prejudiced attitudes has tended to focus on the strategic self-presentation and self-monitoring undertaken by individual social actors on their own behalf. In this paper, we argue that existing perspectives might usefully be extended to incorporate three additional considerations. First, that social actors may, on some occasions, act to defend not only themselves, but also others from charges of prejudice. Second, that over the course of any social encounter, interactants may take joint responsibility for policing conversation and for correcting and suppressing the articulation of prejudiced talk. Third, that a focus on the dialogic character of conversation affords an appreciation of the ways in which the status of any particular utterance, action or event as 'racist' or 'prejudiced' may constitute a social accomplishment. Finally, we note the logical corollary of these observations - that in everyday life, the occurrence of 'racist discourse' is likely to represent a collaborative accomplishment, the responsibility for which is shared jointly between the person of the speaker and those other co-present individuals who occasion, reinforce or simply fail to suppress it.

Balancing Rights in Religious Education through Collaboration and Dialogue

While the right of parents to educate their children in their religious or philosophical conviction is recognised in Human Rights instruments (e.g. CoE 1952, protocol 1), educators must also attend to the right of a child to autonomy (UN 1989, Article 12.1) and the right of liberal democratic states to reproduce values of equity and freedom. This paper argues that certain forms of inter-religious dialogue and/or inter-religious collaborative learning can assist educators in balancing these rights where religion has significant influence and power over the management of schools and/or the curriculum. It is argued that in addition to the learning benefits which may result, the use of collaboration and dialogue goes some way in addressing three philosophical criticisms of religious education: first that religiously separate and religiously based education pays insufficient attention to the rights of children and, secondly, is likely to contribute to social fragmentation; and third, pupils will lack the skills to overcome prejudice or intolerance where they have no experience of others as a result of separate schooling or from a religiously narrow curriculum, and the latter may in fact support intolerant views. A rationale is developed that asserts the value of collaboration or dialogue as a pedagogical strategy that can, to some degree, mitigate potential negative outcomes from religious education. This argument is further supported with reference to a range of empirical studies.

We need to talk about managerialism: On the Importance of values dialogue and renewal within Catholic schools

Whilst reports of value tensions between new managerialism and Catholic education have emerged as a key theme in the academic literature there remains little empirical understanding of how teachers negotiate these complex terrains in Catholic schools. Drawing on qualitative data from teachers in two Catholic post-primary schools in Northern Ireland, this paper sought to explore how Catholic teachers developed a distinctively Catholic ethos against a culture of ‘creeping managerialism’. The paper has shown that despite the predominance of managerial practices, tensions between managerialist values and the ‘Catholic ethos’ did not emerge in either context: in one school managerialism permeated the school and the Catholic ethos was constructed within this context. In the other school a staff process of spiritual renewal had consolidated a commitment to the Catholic faith and social inclusion. It was argued that the dialogical engagement around Catholic values may help Catholic schools defend against the harsher manifestations of managerialism without compromising the pupils’ capacity to realise their academic potential