Teachers and time : histories and futures in education

The article discusses the concept of time and its significance to education. The author argues that the Australian curriculum is temporarily biased towards the past, and in order to create multi-faceted citizenship, more attention should be given to the development of temporality, with specific emphasis on futures. The author notes that the place of time and curriculum within schools predominantly occurs within the teaching of history.

Aiming for world peace by promoting 'violence' in education

In order to contribute towards UNESCO’s goal of pursuing world peace, aims of education must transcend the limited scope of national self-interest which has dominated schooling systems in the West for the last two centuries and further back when the survival of each polis in Ancient Greece was of paramount importance. Aims must therefore become different and the environment that is thought best for this to occur is a democratic one. The case is made that such a democratic environment should involve opportunities to evaluate the value of current aims of education and to explore others in light of the pressing need to pursue peace on a global scale. In order to promote such a democratic environment of discussion and debate the notion of ‘violence’ is considered as a potential framework for such a re-evaluation. The sort of ‘violence’ that is called for is in reference to its use by Emmanual Levinas who employed it emotively to misinterpret Kierkegaard. The use of this misapplied term ‘violence’ may nevertheless be of use in initiating the sort of inquiry of a Deweyean type regarded here to be necessary to improve aims of education democratically in order to pursue world peace.

Universiti Sains Malaysia, sustainability and the struggle for a vital centre in education

The agenda of Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) aims to engage the problems of values and ethics in the context of knowledge production and teaching in universities. In this sense, USM is seeking to re-imbue the soul of higher education by articulating a normative ’vital centre’ to the mission of USM by means of cultural respect,sustainability and commitment to the bottom billions that is the critical touchstone for reforming pedagogical practice in USM.

Defining educational research : a perspective of/on presidential addresses and the Australian Association for Research in Education

This paper is concerned with the definition of the field of educational research and the changing and developing role of the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) in representing and constituting this field. The evidence for the argument is derived from AARE Presidential Addresses across its 40-year history. The paper documents the enhanced complexity and diversity of the field over these 40 years, including the emergence of a global educational policy field, theoretical and methodological developments in the social sciences and new research accountabilities such as the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) measure. Specifically, the paper suggests that the evidence-based movement in public management and education policy, and the introduction of the ERA, potentially limit and redefine the field of educational research, reducing the usefulness and relevance of educational research to policy makers and practitioners. This arises from a failure to recognise that Education is both a field of research and a field of policy and practice. Located against both developments, the paper argues for a principled eclecticism framed by a reassessment of quality, which can be applied to the huge variety of methodologies, theories, epistemologies and topics legitimately utilised and addressed within the field of educational research. At the same time, the paper argues the need to globalise the educational research imagination and deparochialise educational research. This call is located within a broader argument suggesting the need for a new social imaginary (in a post-neoliberal context of the global financial crisis) to frame educational policy and practice and the contribution that educational theory and research might make to its constitution. In relation to this, the paper considers the difficulties that political representations of such a new imaginary might entail for the President and the Association, given the variety of its membership and huge diversity of its research interests.

Researching social inequalities in education : towards a Bourdieuian methodology

The injustices of ‘allowing certain people to succeed, based not upon merit but upon the cultural experiences, the social ties and the economic resources they have access to, often remains unacknowledged in the broader society’ (Wacquant, 1998, p. 216). Cognizant of this, the authors argue that education requires researchers’ renewed examination and explanation of its involvement in the construction of social and economic differences. Specifically, they make the case for researchers to consider the theoretical work of Pierre Bourdieu, outlining what they understand by a Bourdieuian methodology, which is informed by socially critical and poststructural understandings of the world. Such methodology attempts to dig beneath surface appearances, asking how social systems work. By asking ‘whose interests are being served and how’ (Tripp, 1998, p. 37) in the social arrangements we find, Bourdieu can help us to ‘work towards a more just social order’ (Lenzo, 1995, p. 17).

A doctorate by definition : exploring possibilities and opportunities in education

The author provides a diagram and table which reflect his conceptualisation of issues surrounding the definition of a doctorate. Two broad questions frame this characterisation: (i) what defines the doctorate? and (ii) where to now? In relation to the first question the author contends that the resources available to students, supervisors and institutions significantly influence what is regarded as a 'good' doctorate and the 'protection' of this standard. An overlapping set of issues is identified in response to the question 'where to now'? These are expressed as strategies in negotiating doctorate definitions and futures; some more reminiscent of times past and some cognisant of prevailing conditions, while others offer a qualitatively different strategy that explores (or generates) possibilities and opportunities within the parameters of the doctorate.

Socio-scientific issues in education : innovative practices and contending epistemologies

In the past decade, we have seen the well-established discourse of environmental education (EE) supplanted by that of education for sustainability (EfS). In some ways this change in terminology has been no more than a slogan change, with the actual educational practices associated with EfS little changed from those qualified by EE (Campbell and Robottom 2008). Environment-related education activities under both terms frequently focus on socio-scientific issues – which serve as the chief organising principle for a range of related curriculum activities – and are shaped by the particular characteristics of these issues. Socio-scientific issues are essentially constituted of questions that are philosophical as well as empirical in nature. Socio-scientific issues consist in contests among dissenting social, economic and environmental perspectives that rarely all align, giving rise to debates whose resolution is not amenable to solely scientific approaches. Socio-scientific issues, then, exist at the intersection of differing human interests, values and motivations and are therefore necessarily socially-constructed. An adequate educational exploration of these issues requires a recognition of their constructedness within particular communities of interest and of the limitation of purely applied science perspectives, and, in turn, requires the adoption of curricular and pedagogical approaches that are in fundamental ways informed by constructivist educational assumptions – at least to the extent that community constructions of socio-scientific issues are recognised as being shaped by human interests and social and environmental context. This article considers these matters within the context of examples of environment-related practice drawn from two geographical regions. The article will argue that a serious scientific element is both necessary and insufficient for a rigorous educational exploration of socio-scientific issues within either the EE or EfS discourses, and will consider some implications for professional development and research in this field.

Mauritian principals' responses to total quality management concepts in education

This research investigates the link between Total Quality Management (TQM) and school leadership in Mauritius. The findings indicate that whilst principals overwhelmingly agreed with progressive notions compatible with TQM, their discourses remained essentially theoretical. The research identifies opportunities for school leaders in twenty-first century Mauritius with its high-tech, world-class ambitions.