WAKING (TO) THINKING BEING: A STUDY OF EDUCATION, METAPHYSICS, MIND, AND LANGUAGE

This dissertation articulates the basic aims and achievements of education. It recognizes language as central to thinking, and philosophy and education as belonging profoundly to one another. The first step is to show that although philosophy can no longer claim to dictate the foundations of knowledge or of disciplines of inquiry, it still offers an exceptionally general level of self-understanding. Education is equally general and faces a similar crisis of self-identity, of coming to terms with reality. Language is the medium of thought and the repository of historical mind; so a child’s acquisition of language is her acquisition of rational freedom. This marks a metaphysical change: no longer merely an animal, she comes to exercise her powers of rationality, transcending her environment by seeking and expressing reasons for thinking and doing. She can think about herself in relation to the universe, hence philosophize and educate others in turn. The discussion then turns to the historical nature of language. The thinking already embedded in language always anticipates further questioning. Etymology serves as a model for philosophical understanding, and demonstrates how philosophy can continue to yield insights that are fundamental, but not foundational, to human life. The etymologies of some basic educational concepts disclose education as a leading out and into the midst of Being. The philosophical approach developed in previous chapters applies to the very idea of an educational aim. Discussion concerning the substantiality of educational ideals results in an impasse: one side recommends an open-­ended understanding of education’s aims; the other insists on a definitive account. However, educational ideals exhibit a conceptual duality: the fundamental achievements of education, such as rational freedom, are real; but how we should understand them remains an open question. The penultimate chapter investigates philosophical thinking as the fulfillment of rational freedom, whose creative insights can profoundly transform our everyday activities. That this transformative self-understanding is without end suggests the basic aims of education are unheimlich. The dissertation concludes with speculative reflection on the shape and nature of language, and with the suggestion that through education reality awakens to itself.

The Annual Condition of Education Report, 2015

Annual Condition of Education Report provides a rich tapestry of information about Iowa's Education system. The data presented in the report examines longitudinal trends about our students, our teacher and our schools from many perspectives. Information such as demographic characteristics, assessment results, college readiness, college readiness measures, courses taken, and financial health are just a few examples.

Report on the Iowa Department of Education for the year ended June 30, 2015

Report on the Iowa Department of Education for the year ended June 30, 2015

Governing through parents: a genealogical enquiry of education policy and the construction of neoliberal subjectivities in England

In this paper we explore the various spaces and sites through which the figure of the parent is summoned and activated to inhabit and perform market norms and practices in the field of education in England. Since the late 1970s successive governments have called on parents to enact certain duties and obligations in relation to the state. These duties include adopting and internalizing responsibility for all kinds of risks, liabilities and inequities formerly managed by the Keynesian welfare state. Rather than characterize this situation in terms of the ‘hollowing of the state’, we argue that the role of the state includes enabling the functioning of the parent as a neoliberal subject so that they may successfully harness the power of the market to their own advantage and (hopefully) minimize the kinds of risk and inequity generated through a market-based, deregulated education system. In this paper we examine how parents in England are differently, yet similarly, compelled to embody certain market norms and practices as they navigate the field of education. Adopting genealogical enquiry and policy discourse analysis as our methodology, we explore how parents across three policy sites or spaces are constructed as objects and purveyors of utility and ancillaries to marketisation. This includes a focus on how parents are summoned as 1) consumers or choosers of education services; 2) governors and overseers of schools; and 3) producers and founders of schools.

Agreed-upon procedures reports on twelve agreements between the Bureau of Nutrition and Health Services of the Iowa Department of Education and child care centers for the period October 1, 2014 through September 30, 2015

Agreed-upon procedures reports on twelve agreements between the Bureau of Nutrition and Health Services of the Iowa Department of Education and child care centers for the period October 1, 2014 through September 30, 2015

Inside out and outside in. Thinking a Tagorean Future of Education.

Rabindranath Tagore’s ideas can still inspire education in the East as well as in the West today. In this paper, I survey Tagore’s philosophical anthropology and argue that there is more coherence to his philosophy and pedagogy than is usually seen. For Tagore, the highest goal is to make the world one’s own, as well as to enlarge one’s self to encompass the world. The educational practices through which this ideal can be reached can be classified as “creative action,” “love,” and “freedom.” On the basis of such an ideal, realms such as the arts, nature, and movement no longer remain expendable additions to the kind of knowledge-driven education that aims primarily at making everyone economically productive.One of the problems with such a pedagogical strategy is that it treats human beings as means and not as ends. Tagore’s educational approach (his “method of nature”) refrains from turning children into adults as soon as possible and accepts the deceleration of learning and the simplification of living asmost forward-leading approach to a successful and comprehensive education.

The age of studies and reports: selected elements concerning the background of encounters defining the power of education

In the present paper, we discuss the time before the “age of reports”. Besides the Coleman Report in the period of Coleman, the Lady Plowden Report also appeared, while there were important studies in France (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1964; Peyre, 1959) and studies that inaugurated comprehensive education in Nordic countries. We focus on the period after the World War II, which was marked by rising economic nationalism, on the one hand, and by the second wave of mass education, on the other, bearing the promise of more equality and a reduction of several social inequalities, both supposed to be ensured by school. It was a period of great expectations related to the power of education and the rise of educational meritocracy. On this background, in the second part of the paper, the authors attempt to explore the phenomenon of the aforementioned reports, which significantly questioned the power of education and, at the same time, enabled the formation of evidence-based education policies. In this part of the paper, the central place is devoted to the case of socialist Yugoslavia/Slovenia and its striving for more equality and equity through education. Through the socialist ideology of more education for all, socialist Yugoslavia, with its exaggerated stress on the unified school and its overemphasised belief in simple equality, overstepped the line between relying on comprehensive education as an important mechanism for increasing the possibility of more equal and just education, on the one hand, and the myth of the almighty unified school capable of eradicating social inequalities, especially class inequalities, on the other. With this radical approach to the reduction of inequalities, socialist policy in the then Yugoslavia paradoxically reduced the opportunity for greater equality, and even more so for more equitable education. (DIPF/Orig.)

Comics as a literary-didactic method and their use for reducing gender differences in reading literacy at the primary level of education

The aim of the present study was to examine the effect of the systematic use of comics as a literary-didactic method to reduce gender differences in reading literacy and reading motivation at the primary level of education. It was assumed that the use of comics would have a positive effect on pupils’ reading literacy and reading motivation, while also reducing the aforementioned differences between boys and girls. The dimensions of reading literacy and reading motivation were examined in experimental and control groups, before and after the intervention, by means of questionnaires and tests for pupils. The sample consisted of 143 pupils from second to fifth grade from two Slovenian primary schools in a rural environment, of which 73 pupils participated in the experimental group and 70 pupils represented the control group. Effects of the use of comics as a literary-didactic method were not found: using comics as a literary-didactic method did not have a statistically significant effect on pupils’ reading literacy and reading motivation. However, when the four-way structure of the research (taking into account the age and gender of the pupils) was considered, some subgroups showed a statistically significant increase in reading interest and attitude towards reading. No reduction of gender differences in reading literacy and reading motivation was found. Based on the results, guidelines for further research are established and suggestions are offered for teachers’ work. (DIPF/Orig.)

CHALLENGES OF EDUCATION IN LINE FOR CHALLENGES TO EDUCATION BIBLIOTECÓLOGOS-DOCENTES/ONLINE-TEACHERS LIBRARIANS

This article tries to reflect about skills that librarian or information specialists should develop to design an online course. Define distance education, online education, and collaborative learning. Establish the importance of community sense. Describe the process to design online courses. Finally, compare the Mexican Librarianship and Information Sciences Schools graduate profiles with the skills required to design online courses.

Governing the transition to higher levels of education and differences between achievement and school grades by gender

The author will explore the performance of boys and girls in external examinations in Slovenia at the beginning of upper secondary and tertiary education. These are critical points in students’ educational career at which he/she has to choose a school/university. Since both transitions are managed centrally by appropriate authorities, this is also a question of Educational Governance. Transitions between levels of education should, above all, assure fairness in selection procedures. At the point of transition to upper secondary schools we will explore differences between students’ achievements in various school subjects tested at the national assessment of knowledge (NA), and their school grades by gender. Since only school grades are used as admission criteria to upper secondary schools, this comparison of school grades with external and more objective measure of students’ achievement will show possible bias. In Slovenia admission to tertiary education usually consists of (externally assessed) Matura results and school grades in the last two years of upper secondary school. The author will compare the effects of both most commonly used measures of academic achievement on admission in view of gender differences. Study courses where selection procedure was actually applied will be of specific interest since they can show signs of (un)fairness. Results show signs of bias and build case for better Educational Governance. (DIPF/Orig.)

Marketising Slovene adult education policies and practices using mechanisms of the Europeanisation of education

This article addresses the issue of marketisation in the field of adult education by reflecting on the Europeanisation of education currently taking place through the establishment of European adult education policies. The article argues that Europeanisation fosters marketisation of adult education and commodifies valuable knowledge and desirable forms of neoliberal subjectivity. An analysis of Slovene adult education policies from 2004-2015 reveals how a European economised vocabulary is being implemented in Slovene adult education policies and practices. The main argument of this article is that these practices are shaped through financial mechanisms that marketise the adult education field. This results in new relationships between governing bodies within the field, the unstable and decreasing role of public adult education institutions and the prevailing role of private providers of adult education, who offer training programmes to meet labour market needs. (DIPF/Orig.)

The Impact of Education and Socioeconomic and Occupational Conditions on Self-Perceived and Mental Health Inequalities Among Immigrants and Native Workers in Spain

There is limited evidence on the influence of social determinants on the self-perceived and mental health of immigrants settled at least 8 years in Spain. The aim of this study was to examine differences between workers related to migrant-status, self-perceived and mental health, and to assess their relationship to occupational conditions, educational level and occupational social class, stratified by sex. Using data from the Spanish National Health Survey of 2011/12, we computed prevalence, odds ratios and explicative fractions. Mental (OR 2.02; CI 1.39–2.93) and self-perceived health (OR 2.64; CI 1.77–3.93) were poorer for immigrant women compared to natives. Occupational social class variable contributes 25 % to self-perceived health OR in immigrant women. Settled immigrant women workers are a vulnerable group in Spain.

Doctoral Theses in History of Education: Spanish Balance (2000-2010)

The analysis of doctoral theses conducted in a scientific field is one of the pillars for the status of the field and this has been raised within the project Mapping the Discipline History of Education. With this work we intent to broaden and deepen our previous studies in the field of Doctoral thesis in History of Education. We have already presented some results about Doctoral thesis focused in one particular subject (History of Education in Franco’s times) in 2013, and Doctoral thesis registered in the Spanish database for dissertations, TESEO, in 2000, 2005 and 2010 in 2016. Starting from the works already presented about the thesis in France, Switzerland, Portugal and Italy, the aim of that article was to study the thesis included in TESEO which have among their descriptors “History of education”. We have analyzed variables such as national or local character, the study period and the duration. In ISCHE 38 (Chicago 2016), we intend to analyze the Doctoral thesis presented in Spanish universities during a decade but focusing neither on a particular subject nor on a database. Thus the main differences with our earlier researches are the criteria: On the one hand, we are going to decide if a doctoral thesis belongs or not to our field, and on the other hand we are not going to use only a database but we will try to find the Doctoral thesis in any base, repository or source.