"In this article I reflect on introducing critical pedagogy into social justice
teaching in an elite UK university as part of the Nottingham Critical Pedagogy
Project. I de-essentialise Freire's conceptualisation of the human subject and
her desire for transcendence with the introduction of Deleuze and Guattari's
politics of desire. This enables an adaption of critical pedagogy from its
original context of popular politics to the individualised elite setting of our
project. Our pedagogical objectives become the opening of spaces of possibility
which decentre the dominant regime of truth of the neoliberal university and
enable imagining and becoming "other". This involves disrupting normal patterns
of classroom performativity in terms of student as consumer and lecturer as
producer of commodities, transgressing dualisms between mind/body,
intellectual/emotional and teacher/student. Our pedagogical praxis is therefore
inherently political as by radically disturbing commodified subjectivities we
foster processes that lead to unanticipated, maybe even unspeakable,
transgressions."
"The questions that animate Sangeeta Ray's engaging new book on Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak bear upon teaching and learning. The push and pull of being
both student of Spivak's work and teacher of that work in the classroom and in
the medium of the book are palpable from the first pages. We begin with a
heading of "Partial Beginnings," and soon the "impossible" task of a book on
Spivak is invoked (1). "[H]ow would I write her without diminishing her
presence?" (1) asks Ray, facing, in fact, the double bind confronting every
teacher: how to respond responsibly to the subject they have to teach.
As Ray points out, Spivak calls attention to the play in Derrida's French
between répondre à and répondre de that formalizes
several options here. Thus, "give an answer to," "answering to,"
"being answerable for" (Spivak, "Responsibility," 61; Ray,
72).1 None is predictably the right thing. Caught in this
double bind, the teacher is left without a reliable device with which to
calculate what her answerability to the material to be taught should be. So we
receive "a version of the many possible books that were discarded and rewritten"
(Ray, 1). Maybe it all sounds a bit dramatic, but in fact it's an experience of
everyday life: like everyone, the teacher must decide how to go on, but every
"instant of decision is a madness . . . a decision of urgency and precipitation,
acting in the night of nonknowledge and nonrule" (Derrida, "Force of Law,"
255). In her continuously reflexive engagement with the texts of Spivak, Ray
does not cease reminding her readers that the urgent, productively
anxiety-inducing scene of pedagogy is acted out in those texts."
"Online education increasingly puts emphasis on collaborative learning methods.
Despite the pedagogical advantages of collaborative learning, online learners
can perceive collaborative learning activities as frustrating experiences. The
purpose of this study was to characterize the feelings of frustration as a
negative emotion among online learners engaged in online computer-supported
collaborative learning (CSCL) experiences and, moreover, to identify the sources
to which the learners attribute their frustration. With this aim, a
questionnaire was designed to obtain data from a sample of online learners
participating in the Master of ICT and Education program of the Universitat
Oberta de Catalunya (UOC). Results revealed that frustration is a common feeling
among students involved in online collaborative learning experiences. The
perception of an asymmetric collaboration among the teammates was identified by
the students as the most important source of frustration. Online learners also
identified difficulties related to group organization, the lack of shared goals
among the team members, the imbalance in the level of commitment and quality of
the individual contributions, the excess time spent on the online CSCL tasks,
the imbalance between the individual and collective grades, and difficulties in
communication, among other factors leading to frustration. The analysis of the
students' sources of frustration in online CSCL is followed by a list of
recommendations to the distance education stakeholders, aiming to reduce
students' frustration and improve the quality of their experiences in online
CSCL contexts such as the UOC."
"Alejo Carpentier's novel El siglo de las luces is a fictionalized account
of how Enlightenment ideals traveled during the Age of Revolution, a meditation
on how European, particularly French, ideas were transformed and implemented in
new and unique contexts (e.g., Spain, Cuba, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Haiti,
Suriname). Carpentier thematizes the passage of ideas as a process of
translation, both linguistically from French to Spanish, English, or Dutch, and
conceptually, from one specific culture to another with different demands of
relevance and applicability. The novel complicates the classic issue of the
translator's fidelity to the text in that the responsibility to convey a text's
original meaning collides with a need to adapt it to the new context. In El
siglo, the translator's fidelity to the original confronts the
revolutionary's fidelity to the Event in the practice of translating texts, such
as the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen and the 1793 French
Constitution, as well as the Event of the French Revolution itself. This paper
will explore the constellation of politics, translation, and fidelity in El
siglo, with special reference to the relationship between political
translation to propagate revolution and the revolutionary politics of
translation."
"It has long been a matter of concern that Indigenous students, as a group, do
less well educationally than their non-Indigenous counterparts. Despite the
evidence to support the fact that if students and their cultures are not
acknowledged, they tend to be less engaged in schooling than those students
whose cultures are presented as the norm. Indigenous studies are apt to be at
the margins of the curriculum. In this article, therefore, a case is made for
teaching Indigenous studies through a comparison of the author's home state of
Western Australia with Montana-one of the few states in the United States to
have mandated the teaching of Indian culture and history and to tease out
lessons that could be learned because the teaching of Indigenous studies is a
matter of social justice; indeed, it is a matter of urgency."
"Research has demonstrated that second language immersion is an effective means
of facilitating primary school students' second language acquisition without
undermining their competence in their first language. Despite the rapid growth
of Chinese-English bilingual programmes in China, limited empirical research has
been conducted thus far by which to evaluate the programme effectiveness in
relation to students' academic achievement, their cognitive development and the
teaching and learning processes with regard to teacher education. This article
presents evidence from several related empirical studies recently conducted in
three schools affiliated with the China-Canada-United States English Immersion
(CCUEI) project. These studies focus on three broad categories of findings:
first, on student academic achievement represented by English (L2), Chinese (L1)
and mathematics (both literacy and numeracy); second, on cognitive predictors of
English reading and listening achievement of these immersion students; and
third, on immersion teachers who teach within the context of Chinese-English
bilingual education. These combined results present a complex developmental
picture of students' academic achievement and cognitive development; and an
insight into the teachers who teach within the context of an aggressive fast
growth of Chinese-English bilingual programmes in China."
"This article aims to report a single case study of how an Islamic boarding
school (pesantren) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, prepared students for a
multicultural Indonesia. Despite negative portrayal by the Western media about
increasing Islamic radicalism in some pesantren, many pesantren
are in fact transforming into modern Islamic institutions, incorporating the
teaching of democratic values and practices, endorsing civil society and
community development, and inculcating cultural/religious diversity and
tolerance in students. Using schoolyard and classroom ethnographies, along with
in-depth interviews and focus group discussions (FGD) with teachers and
students, the study found that classroom and non-classroom practices of the
pesantren promote the development of multicultural education. Several
subjects within both curriculum developed by the government and curriculum
developed by pesantrens discuss a considerable number of issues that
relate to cultural and religious diversity, tolerance, citizenship and
democracy. The non-classroom practices of pesantren offer invaluable and
intensive experiences for students to socialise with peers from different ethnic
and cultural backgrounds. However, challenges remain for the kyai (the
pesantren's great leader) and other leaders, such as teachers' lack of
competency, unclear multicultural objectives in both the pesantren's
curricula and the pesantren's traditions, and unequal relations among
students and among teachers. These challenges must be overcome to further
develop education for cultural diversity."
"This paper explores the methodological basis for empirically researching moments
of major policy change. Its genesis is in the methodological challenges
presented by the initial stages of an ongoing research project examining the
current attempts to establish the first nation-wide Australian curriculum. We
draw on Dorothy Smith's development of institutional ethnography and Bourdieuian
field analysis to outline a methodological framework for research that has at
its centre a concern to understand the social and institutional processes that
enable, support and discursively prepare for significant educational reform.
Working with and between these two eminent contributions to sociological
enquiry, our paper explores the ways in which research can trace educational
governance through the production, reproduction and subsequent enactment of
generations of policy texts even before they are officially released for use in
schools. In particular, we suggest that examination of the day-to-day processes
involved in policy production shows how policy texts are progressively invested
with institutional meanings and come to instantiate and govern institutional
relations. The methodology we are developing foregrounds the creation and
dissemination of discourses that support specific orientations to educational
practice and governance, as well as the institutional practices that embed the
logics of the field."
"This paper considers the intersection of Aboriginal traditions surrounding
photography and the use of new technologies as both a research tool and a
community resource. Over recent decades Australian cultural institutions have
radically altered their management of photographic archives in response to
changing political and intellectual circumstances - especially Indigenous
advocacy. A sense of moral obligation has become the arbiter of new cultural
protocols that have moved far beyond legal provisions for protecting
intellectual property. Experiments with new digital tools attempt to understand
and balance the role of photographs of Aboriginal people within Indigenous and
Western knowledge systems. However, cultural protocols rely significantly upon
representations of "remote" Aboriginal communities in northern Australia that
emphasize difference and reify practices that may in fact be fluid, and overlap
with Western values. In the aftermath of colonialism, photographs are important
to Aboriginal communities, especially in southern Australia, not merely as an
extension of tradition, but also in the context of colonial dispossession and
loss. As a form of Indigenous memory the photographic archive may address the
exclusions and dislocations of the recent past, recovering missing relatives and
stories, and revealing a history of photographic engagement between colonial
photographers and Indigenous subjects."
"This article presents an overview of the perceived importance and accelerated
spread of English language education, both formal and informal, in three East
Asian countries (i.e. China, Japan and South Korea) against the backdrop of
globalisation and emergent ideological, sociocultural and educational trends. It
begins with a review of the recent developments in English language education in
each of the countries, the ostensible reasons for English language education and
the ideological issues contributing to the recent English language education
initiatives. This is followed by a discussion and a critique of the common
trends and themes manifested in the three countries' recent initiatives to
reform and improve English language education. The article concludes with a
number of policy recommendations for English language education in East Asia and
other countries, where English does not have an institutional role to play."
"Greater China is used in this article to refer to mainland China, Hong Kong,
Singapore, Taiwan and Macao. While a holistic approach is adopted to present and
compare the rapid spread of English and development in English language
education in these geographically close, and sociopolitically, culturally and
economically interrelated but hugely different societies, an emphasis is placed
on mainland China owing to its size and diversity of its population. Through
describing and juxtaposing English language use and education, this article
unfolds the stories of the spread of English in these societies in the past few
decades. It draws on the research data and discussions included in the author's
recent book English language education across Greater China, with
evidence and findings from other recent publications. On the basis of these
discussions, this article critiques the frequently cited models and notions used
to describe the spread of English in post-modern societies. It argues that there
is a need to come up with new conceptual models in order to catch the essence of
the phenomena in the contemporary societies."
"Compared with other countries in Asia, Japan is far behind in terms of
introducing and delivering bilingual education, let alone effective immersion
programmes. In order to make its citizens more bilingual, Japan has been
introducing innovative measures including the implementation of the teaching of
English in elementary education and a new curriculum guideline requirement of
using English exclusively in all high school English classes. However, these
innovations are met with opposition and obstacles. Before Japan can introduce
effective bilingual and immersion programmes comparable to those in Europe,
North America and other Asian countries, it is crucial that Japan addresses
these concerns. At the same time, other linguistic resources unique to Japan are
being neglected. To elaborate and explore the above issues, this article focuses
on public English education and ethnic bilingual schools in Japan."
"Germany's vocational education and training (VET) and corresponding
teacher-education programmes are known worldwide for their integrated framework.
Government legislation unifies companies, unions and vocational schools, and
specifies the education and training required for students as well as vocational
teachers. Changing from the Diplom programme model to the Anglophone Bachelor
and Masters degree model has raised concerns for VET teacher preparation. It is
within this context that we explore Germany's VET teacher-education system and
current academic debates. We further investigate challenges in the development
of Canada's VET teacher-education programmes and suggest some policy borrowing
from the German model."
"This paper contrasts the notion of 'independent learning' as perceived by two
informant groups at a UK institution of higher education: (1) teachers,
educators and providers of education and (2) their students or 'consumers' of
education. Both informant groups are staff and students studying in a culture
different to that of their first education. They are identified in their
receiving institution as 'international', or have identified themselves as such.
The experience of transition into a UK University was explored with both
informant groups, through interviews and focus groups, over a cycle of two
years. 'Independent learning' as rhetoric and practice emerged for both groups
as an issue in their transition from familiar to unfamiliar learning culture.
Three key insights emerged. Firstly, a mismatch is identified between teacher
perceptions and student interpretation of 'independent learning' expectations
and practice. Secondly, it emerges that student experience of the learning
culture is in a state of continuous flux, evolving between first arrival and end
of programme through cycles of bafflement and empowerment. Finally, both
students and teachers identify a number of strategies for dealing with this
experience of 'transitional' independence. The paper concludes by recommending a
notion of 'phased scaffolding' that might inform educational practice and by
reflecting on the implications for the educator in revisiting received
educational discourse from the perspective of participants negotiating a second
learning culture."
"In this article, we investigate the question of who benefits from language
minority research by analyzing the discourses of language rights and human
rights jointly, because language rights are perforce part of human rights. We
argue that some 'small' minority languages flourish and others fail unless
speakers of these languages articulate their voices and needs. We also explore
how human rights discourses relate to traditional practices. The interests of
local communities and the involvement of linguists do not enhance the status of
minority communities unless linguists traverse the gap between academic
discourses on rights and vernacular discourses on similar topics. African
linguists are themselves in a double bind: on the one hand, they seek to promote
the interests of local communities and, on the other hand, they have to meet
their professional obligations. They are not able to address the material needs
of local communities because advocating language and human rights cannot resolve
Africa's intractable problems. In addition, epistemologically, African
scholarship is not sufficiently contextualized to be relevant to complex,
labile, and polyvalent contexts. The defining epistemological trope contributing
to the crises in African scholarship on rights and other sociolinguistic topics
is 'theoretical extraversion': African linguists construe their professional
work as a space to test Western constructs rather than to develop endogenous
knowledge practices, a situation that is difficult to overcome."
"Intellectual freedom has long been a desirable ideal and a foundational value
for supporting democratic governance. Since 1948, it has been a universal human
right. Given the unique nature of education in democratic societies, schools
serve as a crucible for helping children understand and practise the rudiments
of intellectual freedom. Drawing on a diverse sample of exemplary secondary
school teachers across the United States (N = 81), this article describes
how these teachers help develop intellectual freedom in their classrooms. Using
their various disciplines as a vehicle, they primarily utilize collective
inquiry to foster communication and encourage values and attitudes conducive to
intellectual freedom."
"This article expounds on three central aspects necessary to comprehend the
critical dialogue between the humanities and social sciences and Cultural
Studies in Latin America: (1) The aesthetic and the critical versus the popular
and the technocultural; (2) Transdisciplinarity and the clashes between the
disciplines and (3) The displacement of literature in the redefinition of the
'Latin American' in the cultural theory of the 1980s in Latin America. This
critical narrative reveals that the technocooperativity of the culture market
demands that Cultural Studies leave aside knowledge of the negativity of the
splitted, the errant and the lost. It corresponds to art and literature, to
critical thinking, to reintroduce - in a minor key - the disorders of the
unclassifiable in the world of the classified and the classifier. Only with the
critical play of disobedient languages against the university technomarket can
the resigned homology between the politics of governability, the administration
of the social, the industrialization of the cultural and the professionalization
of useful knowledge be bankrupted."
"This paper examines the ways in which world Englishes studies are developing
into a distinct academic discipline, and discusses the consequences of this
regimentation of knowledge for teaching and research. By first outlining the
various ways in which bodies of knowledge are organized into discrete
disciplines, and then surveying the history and current status of world
Englishes studies according to these classificatory processes, the paper
presents a metadisciplinary inquiry into prevailing approaches to the study of
English in the world today. It is hoped that reflexive investigation of this
type can contribute to research and education in this area by making explicit
the organizational framework - in terms both of the politics and epistemology -
which structures present-day investigations into the worldwide use of the
English language."
"This article poses the following research question How do multilingual students
in higher education negotiate the multi in their multilingualism and
multiliteracies? The article presents data from a qualitative study conducted
with eight multilingual undergraduate university students in which the
participants describe their complex multilingualism and literacy practices in
interviews and provide samples of their formal and less formal literacies for
analysis. Findings show that participants creatively use their multilingual and
multiliterate competencies in safe informal contexts, but in high-stakes
academic contexts they relegate these competencies to conform to institutional
expectations of standard academic writing in English. Analysis involves an
interweaving of several theoretical perspectives: multilingualism as something
combined and hybrid rather than discrete languages, multiliteracies, academic
literacies, and identity formation as performed and negotiated in relation to
powerful social and institutional discourses. The authors find the participants
of the present study to be highly reflexive, knowledgeable, and skilled
transnational learners, a finding that challenges pervasive discourses around
multilingual learners that focus on deficit and remediation."
"This thematic issue on education and the politics of becoming focuses on how a
Multiple Literacies Theory (MLT) plugs into practice in education. MLT does this
by creating an assemblage between discourse, text, resonance and sensations.
What does this produce? Becoming AND how one might live are the product of an
assemblage (May, 2005; Semetsky, 2003). In this paper, MLT is the approach that
explores the connection between educational theory and practice through the lens
of an empirical study of multilingual children acquiring multiple writing
systems simultaneously. The introduction explicates discourse, text, resonance,
sensation and becoming. The second section introduces certain Deleuzian concepts
that plug into MLT. The third section serves as an introduction to MLT. The
fourth section is devoted to the study by way of a rhizoanalysis. Finally,
drawing on the concept of the rhizome, this article exits with potential lines
of flight opened by MLT. These are becomings which highlight the significance of
this work in terms of transforming not only how literacies are conceptualized,
especially in minority language contexts, but also how one might live."
Centre for Globalization and Cultural Studies
The objectives of the Centre are: to advance research on globalization and culture within a Canadian-based international dialogue involving collaborative, interdisciplinary investigation.