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13489 results in Education, history, theory

Page 209 of 675

  • Chapter 5 - Using a bioecological model to analyse learning and development

  • from Part II - Using child development theory: What does theory allow us to see?
  • Marilyn Fleer, Monash University, Victoria
  • Book:
    Child Development in Educational Settings
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    16 January 2018, pp 97-127

  • Summary

    Introduction

    The work of Uri Bronfenbrenner has been used by many in the field of early childhood and primary education over the years. Even now, researchers draw upon both his original and contemporary model of human development (e.g. Ballam, Perry & Garpeln, 2016; Hayes, O‘Toole & Halpenny, 2017). It is still an important part of the New Zealand Curriculum (Te Wha¯ riki), which explicitly mentions the bioecological model (Ministry of Education New Zealand, 2017). Consequently, it is important to examine what Bronfenbrenner's theory affords for the field, and how his model informs what we understand about young children's development. This chapter seeks to give a detailed account of his original ecological model (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) and to discuss and critique his latest work – a bioecological model (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006).

    Through engaging with the content of this chapter, it is anticipated that you will:

  • • consider child development in relation to Bronfenbrenner's original and most recent theory

  • • think about the importance of conceptualising child development in relation to the future

  • • learn that theories determine what you see and how you act

  • • understand the importance of using theory to inform your analysis of children's development.

    • In this chapter you will also return to the Culturally Diverse Preschool and Resourceful Community case studies, where you will use Bronfenbrenner's original and most recent model of child development to understand the conditions that are created to support children's development. However, before you learn about Bronfenbrenner's theory of child development, it is important to meet the person behind the ideas.

    Researchers say that before Bronfenbrenner, child psychologists studied the child, sociologists examined the family, anthropologists the society, economists the economic framework of the times and political scientists the structure. As the result of Bronfenbrenner's groundbreaking concept of the ecology of human development, these environments – from the family to economic and political structures – were viewed as part of the life course, embracing both childhood and adulthood (Lang, 2005).

    Biography of Urie Bronfenbrenner

    Urie Bronfenbrenner was born in 1917 and died in 2005. He was born in Russia and immigrated to the United States when he was 6 years old. When he was a young child, Bronfenbrenner's father frequently drew attention to the interdependence between the environment and living things. These early beginnings laid the foundations for a very different approach to the study of human development in psychology.

  • Chapter 3 - Observing children and using theory to analyse learning and development

  • from Part I - The need for theory: Understanding the different contexts of child development
  • Marilyn Fleer, Monash University, Victoria
  • Book:
    Child Development in Educational Settings
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    16 January 2018, pp 28-62

  • Summary

    Introduction

    In this chapter, the focus will be on observing children and using theory to analyse learning and development. Two related sets of theories of child development are introduced as the framework for making observations of children: sociocultural/ cultural-historical theory; and maturational developmental theories. The intention of this chapter is to support you to actively engage in creating knowledge about child development through learning how to observe and analyse children in school/ centre and home communities. To achieve this, a range of examples of observing and analysing will be provided, and examples of how to make quality observations of children will be presented through the eyes of university students. The nuts and bolts of observing and analysing will be illustrated through the challenges and successes identified by these student teachers (see also Fleer & Robbins, 2004a, 2004b). Protocols for respectful and ethical practices when observing children will be highlighted in relation to culture, community and country. Country foregrounds Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives.

    Through engaging with the content of this chapter, it is anticipated that you will:

  • • be able to make holistic observations of child development in the family, community, preschool and school

  • • become aware of the importance of listening to the voice of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community in the context in which you will be teaching

  • • develop insights into the range of ways in which analysis can be framed, such as a sociocultural approach, as shown through Barbara Rogoff's three planes/ lenses of analysis; and maturational developmental views, through milestones and checklists

  • • learn that theories determine what you see and how you act

  • • be sensitive to cultural validity and ethical practices, where cultural ways of engaging with communities are central.

    • In this chapter, we link back to Chapter 2 and examine and build on the content of the Resourceful Community case study. The final two case studies, the Culturally Diverse Preschool and the Building Bridges Community, will be introduced briefly in this chapter. Together, this chapter and those that follow will provide you with the source material you need to successfully observe children and use theory to analyse learning and development.

Child Development in Educational Settings
  • Marilyn Fleer
  • Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    16 January 2018
  • Child Development in Educational Settings provides a comprehensive introduction to traditional and contemporary theories of development and learning in the contexts of early childhood and primary education. Drawing upon the experiences and perspectives of children, families, educators and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander scholars, Marilyn Fleer provides insights into significant theories and approaches, including cultural-historical, constructivist, social constructivist, maturational and ecological systems. The book features four major case studies, which are revisited throughout, to examine how learning and development can be re-imagined within socially, culturally and linguistically diverse communities. This approach enables readers to use theories to analyse and measure learning and development in planning and curriculum, and to feel empowered to enact change in their educational settings. Written in an engaging and accessible style, Child Development in Educational Settings is an essential resource for pre-service teachers and professionals alike.

  • Chapter 6 - Using cultural-historical theory to analyse learning and development

  • from Part II - Using child development theory: What does theory allow us to see?
  • Marilyn Fleer, Monash University, Victoria
  • Book:
    Child Development in Educational Settings
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    16 January 2018, pp 128-154

  • Summary

    Introduction

    In this chapter, you will study the central concepts of a cultural-historical theory of child development. The chapter will detail Vygotsky's theory of child development, as well as introduce key contemporary concepts by theorists such as Mariane Hedegaard and Elena Kravtsova. The specific cultural-historical concepts to be discussed are:

  • • periodisation

  • • crisis

  • • the social situation of development

  • • the relations between the ideal and real form

  • • the zone of actual and proximal development

  • • motives

  • • leading activity

  • • leading motives – the play motive and the learning motive.

    • Through engaging with the content of this chapter, it is anticipated that you will:

  • • meet the ideas of contemporary child development theorists working in education, such as Mariane Hedegaard and Elena Kravtsova (Vygotsky's granddaughter), and long-standing theorists Lev Vygotsky, Daniil Borisovich Elkonin and Lidya Ilyinichna Bozhovich

  • • be oriented to a cultural-historical theory of child development for informing educational practice

  • • become aware of those concepts that make up a cultural-historical view of child development.

    • Cultural-historical theory is complex because it captures and theorises children's development while it is taking place. This means that many concepts are needed to explain the complexity of children's development. The system of concepts that will be discussed, and that make up Vygotsky's theory, goes beyond what is traditionally associated with his work.

    In this chapter, you will build upon the sociocultural concepts introduced in Chapter 2 and the case study material presented thus far in the Resourceful Community case study.

    This chapter begins with an expansion of the two families already introduced in the Resourceful Community case study – the Peninsula and Westernport families. Through analysing the stories of the teachers, children and families, key concepts from a cultural-historical conception of child development can be better understood. However, before the details of a cultural-historical conception of child development are given, you will meet the giants who began and developed the theoretical concepts, and those who took the concepts further for use in contemporary contexts.

    The biographies of Vygotsky, Kravtsova and Hedegaard

    Lev (LS) Vygotsky is known as the founder of cultural-historical theory. He was born in 1896 and died in 1934. During his short life, he changed the course of research in many fields – particularly education and psychology. He became known as an original thinker who contributed a new theory of child development.

  • Chapter 7 - Children and families in Australia as agents of their own development

  • from Part II - Using child development theory: What does theory allow us to see?
  • Marilyn Fleer, Monash University, Victoria
  • Book:
    Child Development in Educational Settings
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    16 January 2018, pp 155-179

  • Summary

    Introduction

    In this chapter, you will think about child development in relation to Australian children, families, communities and educational settings. The conditions created in child-care centres, preschools and primary schools to support children's development will be foregrounded. This chapter draws upon the content of Chapter 6, but takes a step forward by examining the contexts of Australian children and families rather than the countries in which the dominant theories were developed (Russia, Denmark, Switzerland, the United States). Through introducing the concept of motives to explore the contexts of development, this chapter draws attention to a new way of thinking about child development and learning for Australian children. This chapter and Chapter 8 are designed for you to read, analyse and consider what might be unique about child development for Australian children from birth to 12 years.

    Through engaging with the content of this chapter, it is anticipated that you will:

  • • be oriented to the child's perspective when theorising about children's development

  • • learn how a theory of motives affords a new view of child development that positions Australian children and families with agency

  • • be aware of the motives of a selected group of Australian children from birth to 12 years

  • • analyse children's development in relation to dominant motives, meaningmaking motives and stimulating motives.

  • four - Religious education, collective worship and publicly funded education

  • John Holmwood, University of Nottingham, Therese O'Toole, University of Bristol
  • Book:
    Countering Extremism in British Schools?
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2023
    Print publication:
    29 November 2017, pp 87-104

  • Summary

    The Trojan Horse affair is largely about the claim that some schools in Birmingham – and Park View school in particular – allowed an undue religious influence over the curriculum and other practices in the schools. The further implication has been that this has undermined an appreciation of diversity and religious tolerance on the part of the children, and, therefore, has been in conflict with ‘British values’. There has also been the claim that segregation of boys and girls has taken place and that this, too, is detrimental to equalities of opportunity, although, as we saw in the last chapter, the guidance to schools is explicit that the separation of girls and boys is good practice for some activities where there are cultural sensitivities about the suitability of mixing.

    One of the key themes in reporting on the case is that practices which were alleged to have taken place at Park View school might have been unobjectionable had it been a ‘faith school’, but they were a problem because it was not. The implication of many reports (including, most egregiously, the Clarke Report) is that schools that are not ‘faith schools’ are, therefore, intended to be ‘secular’. As we shall see, this is not the case – all schools, whatever their designation – faith, non-faith, or whether they are LEA maintained, academy or ‘free’ – are required to hold daily acts of collective worship and teach religious education. The main difference between faith and non-faith schools concerns the recruitment of teachers and other staff – for example, whether a particular faith-background can be required – and pupil selection – for example, whether this can be from a particular faith background (though even the latter is regulated). In schools with a religious foundation, religious education and collective worship will reflect the Trust deeds of the school, whereas those schools without a religious foundation will either follow the locally agreed syllabus or, in the case of academies and free schools, a religious education syllabus of their choosing in line with their contract with the EFA.

    Before we address the allegations against PVET directly, we want to set out more fully the nature of the obligations concerning religion in schools in England (there are some differences with regard to other devolved jurisdictions in the UK, especially Northern Ireland and Scotland).

  • Conclusion: Lessons from the Trojan Horse affair

  • John Holmwood, University of Nottingham, Therese O'Toole, University of Bristol
  • Book:
    Countering Extremism in British Schools?
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2023
    Print publication:
    29 November 2017, pp 227-256

  • Summary

    We have had two aims in this book. One has been to expose a glaring injustice in the treatment of teachers and governors associated with PVET and the Trojan Horse affair. The disciplinary proceedings undertaken by the NCTL against the senior teachers were discontinued in May 2017, some three years after the allegations first hit the headlines. The reason was ‘an abuse of the process which is of such seriousness that it offends the Panel’s sense of justice and propriety’. No doubt the teachers are relieved, but they have been denied the opportunity to clear their names.

    As should be clear from the evidence we have presented throughout this book, we have no confidence that the Panel was on the way to a correct decision. In each of the different steps of the unfolding of the affair, the various investigations and how they have been reported have been stacked against those involved. As we have shown, the Ofsted reports on the school found ‘evidence’ of Islamic influence and failures of safeguarding, but they were not conducted in an independent manner and with regard to the very different findings of earlier Ofsted reports. In the latter reports, the same practices were praised by Ofsted inspectors as contributing to Park View’s success. In a similar manner, it became clear that the EFA Review of PVET was also conducted with a view to finding any evidence that might justify action against the Trust, based upon direction from the DfE’s Due Diligence and Counter Extremism Division. For their part, the Kershaw and Clarke Reports were also deeply flawed, not least because they failed to address the nature of the requirements for religious education and collective worship and the role of the DfE in supporting PVET and its incorporation of other schools as a sponsoring academy. Throughout the process the DfE has been exempt from any scrutiny and yet officials at the department and the Secretary of State did their best to exert their influence, first by influencing the EFA Review and then by setting up an investigation under Peter Clarke, former head of counterterrorism at the Metropolitan Police, and, finally, by influencing proceedings at the NCTL hearings.

  • one - ‘British values’ and community cohesion

  • John Holmwood, University of Nottingham, Therese O'Toole, University of Bristol
  • Book:
    Countering Extremism in British Schools?
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2023
    Print publication:
    29 November 2017, pp 25-44

  • Summary

    The Trojan Horse affair has shaped subsequent debates on community cohesion and the counter-extremism agenda, but it was, in its turn, shaped by preceding events. These earlier events – urban disturbances, claims that communities are self-segregating, perceived threats of terrorism, and specific acts of terrorism themselves – have produced a variety of political interventions. These have included policies designed to mitigate what were understood to be problems of community cohesion, threatening the social fabric and security. The interventions helped to create the narratives that were drawn upon in interpretations of the Trojan Horse affair, just as the latter has been taken as evidence of the veracity of those concerns and as a motivation for further interventions.

    The importance of promoting ‘British values’ is a recurrent theme, and is frequently reasserted as a new necessity, notwithstanding that policies reflecting this imperative have been in place for some considerable time. To some extent, this may appear to exemplify the claim of French social theorist Michel Foucault that modern neoliberalism ‘governs through failure’. That is, interventions produce unintended effects and problems – ‘failures’ – which in turn give rise to renewed exhortation and interventions. We will propose something a little different, arguing that policies and interventions – especially those associated with community cohesion and schooling – have actually been successful, but are, notwithstanding, represented as failing. This is particularly poignant with regard to the Trojan Horse affair. Park View school was an example of that success, yet it has come to represent failure and, in the process, its pupils (or, more precisely, those of its successor school, Rockwood Academy) have had their life chances severely diminished.

    Securing the community

    For our purposes, the emphasis on British values and community cohesion as an object of public policy can be traced to public debates after the summer 2001 urban unrest in Bradford, Oldham, Burnley and other northern towns. Of course, there had been similar disturbances in previous decades, as well as concerns over Irish republican terrorism, especially in Birmingham. Nonetheless, the unrest in 2001 gave rise to a wave of debate and subsequent policy interventions. There were two government reports, one interdepartmental, the other from the Home Office – the Denham Report and the Cantle Report, respectively – which focused on issues of ethnic difference and the ‘separate lives’ of ethnic minorities and local (similarly disadvantaged) white people.

  • nine - The NCTL hearings and their collapse

  • John Holmwood, University of Nottingham, Therese O'Toole, University of Bristol
  • Book:
    Countering Extremism in British Schools?
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2023
    Print publication:
    29 November 2017, pp 195-226

  • Summary

    In a short space of time – from early March to June 2014 – a particular narrative of the Trojan Horse affair became firmly established. This was that a small group of individuals, associated with PVET and operating with a hardline and conservative religious agenda, had taken over control of a number of local community (that is non-faith) schools in East Birmingham and had sought to establish an Islamic curriculum. In doing so, head teachers and other teaching staff had either been bullied into line or had been forced out. This narrative was given particular emphasis by the Clarke Report, which proposed that this conservative religious agenda was also extremist (as defined under Prevent) involving active hostility to ‘British values’.

    The nature of the evidence put forward was largely statements by witnesses involved in changes in local schools in the context of the government’s academies programme. There was little opportunity for those at the centre of the charges to provide their own account. Although Ofsted inspections allow some involvement by a school, there is no formal opportunity to engage with a draft report and have inspectors reflect upon and modify their judgement (though we have seen suggestions that the 2014 Ofsted report on Park View Academy was modified at the instigation of Ofsted or the DfE). Inspections are simply a description of what is said to be found at the time of the visit. Nor is there an obligation upon the inspectors to reflect on those findings in the light of previous reports. Equally, the Clarke and Kershaw Reports took witness statements from many individuals, but did not seek to test whether the events described had, in fact, taken place, or were as described to them. Indeed, the Clarke Report provides a list of 20 serious incidents at PVET, about which it comments, somewhat laconically, ‘it is only fair to point out that the Trust disputed most, if not all, of the allegations’. This comment is itself misleading, since, as we shall see, exculpatory evidence was provided not only by the Trust, but also by an official at the DfE responsible for the academies programme and by the religious education adviser at Birmingham SACRE, but those views are not presented in the Clarke Report.

  • two - Prevent: from hearts and minds to muscular liberalism

  • John Holmwood, University of Nottingham, Therese O'Toole, University of Bristol
  • Book:
    Countering Extremism in British Schools?
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2023
    Print publication:
    29 November 2017, pp 45-64

  • Summary

    In this chapter, we set out the ‘security’ context of the Trojan horse affair in relation to the government’s Prevent strategy for addressing extremism and radicalisation. It is noteworthy that at the time that the Ofsted inspections of 21 schools in East Birmingham were being carried out in March–April 2014, guidance to schools on how to implement the 2011 Prevent strategy had not been issued by the DfE. In fact, this guidance was not issued until July 2015 – more than a year after several of the schools had been inspected and downgraded by Ofsted for their failures to address extremism or to implement Prevent. Thus, the schools were penalised for their failure to implement a policy that had not yet received full articulation. It is also unclear, as we shall see in the next chapter, whether the requirement to address extremism and implement Prevent was applied to all schools in this period.

    So, why were these schools penalised for an alleged failure to implement a policy agenda that had yet to be fully articulated? To answer this, we need to examine the evolving nature of Prevent in that period – especially in relation to the changes to Prevent that followed the formation of the David Cameron-led coalition government in 2010 that significantly altered its remit and purpose. In particular, the definition of extremism within Prevent shifted towards a much wider focus on countering extremist attitudes – broadly defined – rather than preventing violent extremism, while its implementation shifted away from engagement with Muslim communities and organisations to a focus on charging personnel in public sector institutions with a responsibility to spot and report on signs of radicalisation.

    These changes embedded a significantly expanded approach to the remit and implementation of Prevent, and were, following the passing of the 2015 Counter-Terrorism and Security Act, imposed as a statutory duty across public sector institutions, including schools. As we shall see, at the time of the Trojan Horse episode in 2014, however, the Prevent policy was in flux, and the schools became entangled in an evolving counter-extremism agenda, in which the purported facts of the Trojan Horse affair were used to justify the expansion of the conceptualisation and remit of the government’s counter-extremism agenda.

  • Introduction: A plot to Islamicise schools?

  • John Holmwood, University of Nottingham, Therese O'Toole, University of Bristol
  • Book:
    Countering Extremism in British Schools?
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2023
    Print publication:
    29 November 2017, pp 1-22

  • Summary

    This is a book about multicultural Britain and its discontents. Some of the issues it raises were recently highlighted in the independent review by Dame Louise Casey into Opportunity and Integration. ‘Discrimination and disadvantage’, she wrote, is ‘feeding a sense of grievance and unfairness, isolating communities from modern British society and all it has to offer’. This is the general context for more specific concerns about underachievement in schools – most recently expressed about white working class boys, but also associated with ethnic minority pupils, especially those from Muslim religious backgrounds. Indeed, Dame Louise connected the issues, writing that she also found other, equally worrying things, ‘including high levels of social and economic isolation in some places and cultural and religious practices in communities that are not only holding some of our citizens back but run contrary to British values and sometimes our laws’.

    This narrative about disadvantage being self-produced within some communities has grown over the last decade. It is argued to derive from segregation and a lack of commitment to ‘British values’ of opportunity, democracy, the rule of law and religious tolerance. It is a criticism that has been directed at Muslim communities, notwithstanding that they show a higher degree of commitment to those values than do other minorities, as we shall see in the next chapter. In part, this follows from a general anxiety following the 9/11 and 7/7 terror attacks in New York in 2001 and London in 2005, and increased emphasis on countering violent extremism, especially from groups operating in the name of Islam.

    However, this narrative also received further impetus from events in Birmingham that came to the public attention in March 2014 involving an alleged plot by conservative and hardline Sunnis – ‘men of Pakistani heritage’, as one report put it – to Islamicise a number of state-funded schools where there were significant numbers of Muslim pupils. Attention was focused on one particular school, Park View Academy, and its associated Park View Educational Trust (PVET), incorporating two other schools, Nansen Primary and Golden Hillock secondary. The affair also drew in many others who were suspected of extremist activity – with 21 schools in Birmingham subjected to snap Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) inspections and included in the various inquiries into the affair.

  • three - Community cohesion, schooling and Prevent

  • John Holmwood, University of Nottingham, Therese O'Toole, University of Bristol
  • Book:
    Countering Extremism in British Schools?
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    21 April 2023
    Print publication:
    29 November 2017, pp 65-86

  • Summary

    The previous two chapters have set out the debate on ‘British values’ and the security agenda associated with Prevent. In this chapter, we will look at how these have been translated into policies for schools and how those policies have been implemented. The latter includes the role of Ofsted inspections, but we will save that discussion until after we have presented the obligations on schools for teaching religious education and daily collective worship in Chapter Four. The reason for this is that the promotion of ‘British values’, any duties under Prevent, and requirements concerning religious education are all governed by a single legislative framework, that of section 78 of the Education Act 2002, which informs Ofsted inspections.

    This Act states that:

    the curriculum for a maintained school or maintained nursery school satisfies the requirements of this section if it is a balanced and broadly based curriculum which – (a) promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school and of society, and (b) prepares pupils at the school for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life.

    Ofsted inspections, as we shall see, are directed toward section 28, within which they make their judgements about community cohesion, religious education and Prevent. The guidance provided to schools on these matters, then, is of crucial importance.

    One of the immediate consequences of the publicity surrounding the Trojan Horse affair was that the DfE reinforced the requirement on publicly funded schools in England to actively promote ‘shared values’, now called ‘fundamental British values’. The new guidance states that ‘schools should promote the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs’. It states further that schools should, ‘enable students to acquire a broad general knowledge of and respect for public institutions and services in England’.

    Schooling community cohesion

    The timing of this new initiative implied that the Trojan Horse affair was evidence of a failure to promote shared ‘British values’, or engagement with and respect for democracy, tolerance or respect for the rule of law, and that the failure derived, in part, from insufficient guidance to schools. This is not the case.

Page 209 of 675