Pub Date : 2020-11-11DOI: 10.1177/0973184920969338
Olga Shugurova
In this reflective article, I explore a feminist dialogic pedagogy of inclusive education (IE) in the sociocultural context of my and my students’ lived experience. I ask what a feminist dialogic pedagogy means to my students. The purpose of this article therefore is to advance knowledge about a feminist dialogic pedagogy in teacher education with a focus on the formation of students’ critical consciousness of IE philosophy that is currently mandated by all Canadian provinces. My intention is to contribute to an evolving scholarship of feminist pedagogy in teacher education programmes with a grounded and creative understanding of teacher candidates’ lived experience. The article argues that feminist dialogic pedagogy creates a space of inclusion for all students. Despite and across social differences, this pedagogy leads a conscious change among students, impacting their daily lives. Consequently, students successfully achieve their academic goals because they feel critically attentive to and conscious of their situated knowledge (Haraway, 1988, Feminist Studies, vol. 14, pp. 575–599) in educational institutions.
{"title":"Feminist Dialogic Pedagogical Spaces in Teacher Education: Practical Inclusivity, Eye-opening and Change","authors":"Olga Shugurova","doi":"10.1177/0973184920969338","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0973184920969338","url":null,"abstract":"In this reflective article, I explore a feminist dialogic pedagogy of inclusive education (IE) in the sociocultural context of my and my students’ lived experience. I ask what a feminist dialogic pedagogy means to my students. The purpose of this article therefore is to advance knowledge about a feminist dialogic pedagogy in teacher education with a focus on the formation of students’ critical consciousness of IE philosophy that is currently mandated by all Canadian provinces. My intention is to contribute to an evolving scholarship of feminist pedagogy in teacher education programmes with a grounded and creative understanding of teacher candidates’ lived experience. The article argues that feminist dialogic pedagogy creates a space of inclusion for all students. Despite and across social differences, this pedagogy leads a conscious change among students, impacting their daily lives. Consequently, students successfully achieve their academic goals because they feel critically attentive to and conscious of their situated knowledge (Haraway, 1988, Feminist Studies, vol. 14, pp. 575–599) in educational institutions.","PeriodicalId":37486,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Education Dialogue","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0973184920969338","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44985052","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-10-19DOI: 10.1177/0973184920962702
Evaristo Haulle, Eliud Kabelege
Education is important for human development. It is a basic human right as articulated in the Constitution of United Republic of Tanzania of 1977. Since then, a series of reforms for improving access, quality and relevant education were adopted in the country. This study evaluates the relevance and quality of social science textbooks used in primary education. The study critically reviews primary education social sciences books. I argue that there were varieties of social studies textbooks and supplementary books used in primary education. These textbooks vary in terms of content, illustration, language and methodology. There is no harmony of content, while some textbooks had wrong contents altogether. Although teachers and learners benefited from using these textbooks, lack of content harmonisation deterred the effectiveness of achieving instructional and national objectives. The study recommends that a review and harmonisation of textbooks be undertaken, in order to attain the required national agenda.
{"title":"Relevance and Quality of Textbooks Used in Primary Education in Tanzania: A Case of Social Studies Textbooks","authors":"Evaristo Haulle, Eliud Kabelege","doi":"10.1177/0973184920962702","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0973184920962702","url":null,"abstract":"Education is important for human development. It is a basic human right as articulated in the Constitution of United Republic of Tanzania of 1977. Since then, a series of reforms for improving access, quality and relevant education were adopted in the country. This study evaluates the relevance and quality of social science textbooks used in primary education. The study critically reviews primary education social sciences books. I argue that there were varieties of social studies textbooks and supplementary books used in primary education. These textbooks vary in terms of content, illustration, language and methodology. There is no harmony of content, while some textbooks had wrong contents altogether. Although teachers and learners benefited from using these textbooks, lack of content harmonisation deterred the effectiveness of achieving instructional and national objectives. The study recommends that a review and harmonisation of textbooks be undertaken, in order to attain the required national agenda.","PeriodicalId":37486,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Education Dialogue","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0973184920962702","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47696857","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-10-12DOI: 10.1177/0973184920948364
V. Rajan
This article emphasises the discord between ‘mobile childhoods’ and ‘immobile schools’ as the fundamental problematic of educational inclusion of migrant children in India. Formal schooling system predicated upon static ideals of age, grade, learning, curriculum and language, fails to accommodate the lived realities of migrant children. By drawing upon field work narratives with migrant children in Bangalore, I show that migrant children’s educational exclusion cannot be understood in terms of their mobility alone, instead it needs to be problematised in the context of dominant spatio-temporal ideals of childhood and schooling.
{"title":"The Ontological Crisis of Schooling: Situating Migrant Childhoods and Educational Exclusion","authors":"V. Rajan","doi":"10.1177/0973184920948364","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0973184920948364","url":null,"abstract":"This article emphasises the discord between ‘mobile childhoods’ and ‘immobile schools’ as the fundamental problematic of educational inclusion of migrant children in India. Formal schooling system predicated upon static ideals of age, grade, learning, curriculum and language, fails to accommodate the lived realities of migrant children. By drawing upon field work narratives with migrant children in Bangalore, I show that migrant children’s educational exclusion cannot be understood in terms of their mobility alone, instead it needs to be problematised in the context of dominant spatio-temporal ideals of childhood and schooling.","PeriodicalId":37486,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Education Dialogue","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0973184920948364","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44993966","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-07-01DOI: 10.1177/0973184920923766
N. Bose
Children’s experiences in families, schools and neighbourhoods influence their childhoods as individuals learn to act in meaningful ways within social institutions. Many recent research works document challenges that economic and culturally disadvantaged students experience at colleges due to incongruence between their backgrounds and the culture at higher educational institutions. Rarely has early life experiences at one’s home and family been the focal point of inquiry. The present article explores the accounts of early family life provided by students first in their families to pursue higher education. It discusses the ways in which socialisation impacts one’s life trajectories related to education. Through emphasising on the process, the article focuses on the lived experiences of students marked by constraints due to poverty at home and its relation to the shaping of their academic decisions. In depth interviews with nine participants from Delhi studying in reputed colleges affiliated to a university at Delhi shows how one’s economic and cultural position affect one’s sense of belonging at home and educational spaces wherein students negotiate relationships and identity that are restructured and transformed while they navigate through them. Attempting to study student’s self-constructions, the article shows how formal education continues to function as a project of western modernity creating fragmented bourgeoisie subjects out of poor children.
{"title":"Growing up Poor: Early Family Life and Education","authors":"N. Bose","doi":"10.1177/0973184920923766","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0973184920923766","url":null,"abstract":"Children’s experiences in families, schools and neighbourhoods influence their childhoods as individuals learn to act in meaningful ways within social institutions. Many recent research works document challenges that economic and culturally disadvantaged students experience at colleges due to incongruence between their backgrounds and the culture at higher educational institutions. Rarely has early life experiences at one’s home and family been the focal point of inquiry. The present article explores the accounts of early family life provided by students first in their families to pursue higher education. It discusses the ways in which socialisation impacts one’s life trajectories related to education. Through emphasising on the process, the article focuses on the lived experiences of students marked by constraints due to poverty at home and its relation to the shaping of their academic decisions. In depth interviews with nine participants from Delhi studying in reputed colleges affiliated to a university at Delhi shows how one’s economic and cultural position affect one’s sense of belonging at home and educational spaces wherein students negotiate relationships and identity that are restructured and transformed while they navigate through them. Attempting to study student’s self-constructions, the article shows how formal education continues to function as a project of western modernity creating fragmented bourgeoisie subjects out of poor children.","PeriodicalId":37486,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Education Dialogue","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0973184920923766","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49467606","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-07-01DOI: 10.1177/0973184920931769
S. Rajasekaran, R. Kumar
In the multilingual, multicultural emerging economy of India, the language debate may seem to have settled with the adoption of the Three-Language Formula in the first National Policy of Education 1968. However, 50 years later, does this policy still hold? Has research on language acquisition informed our education policy and classroom practices, at the school level and the system level? This research attempts to understand how language practices manifest themselves in an urban middle-class English-medium school with multilingual and non-English-speaking students. We examine the students’ communicative practices to uncover some of the patterns in language acquisition across three primary grades and two income levels, using empirical data from survey questionnaires, classroom observations, videography and closed- and open-ended interviews. We present some hypotheses and analyse these against the organisational structure and culture of the school and the larger socio-economic and political context of the education system. The findings suggest that strict compartmentalising of languages for learning, at the cost of isolating social and linguistic identities, is likely to be counterproductive and unsustainable. The sooner we adapt our education policies and practices to support the multilingual practices of students and by association, their diverse identities, greater the possibility of building a strong and confident citizenry. The findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed in this article are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organisations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.
{"title":"How do Multilingual Children Experience English Language Acquisition in an Urban Indian School?","authors":"S. Rajasekaran, R. Kumar","doi":"10.1177/0973184920931769","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0973184920931769","url":null,"abstract":"In the multilingual, multicultural emerging economy of India, the language debate may seem to have settled with the adoption of the Three-Language Formula in the first National Policy of Education 1968. However, 50 years later, does this policy still hold? Has research on language acquisition informed our education policy and classroom practices, at the school level and the system level? This research attempts to understand how language practices manifest themselves in an urban middle-class English-medium school with multilingual and non-English-speaking students. We examine the students’ communicative practices to uncover some of the patterns in language acquisition across three primary grades and two income levels, using empirical data from survey questionnaires, classroom observations, videography and closed- and open-ended interviews. We present some hypotheses and analyse these against the organisational structure and culture of the school and the larger socio-economic and political context of the education system. The findings suggest that strict compartmentalising of languages for learning, at the cost of isolating social and linguistic identities, is likely to be counterproductive and unsustainable. The sooner we adapt our education policies and practices to support the multilingual practices of students and by association, their diverse identities, greater the possibility of building a strong and confident citizenry. The findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed in this article are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organisations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.","PeriodicalId":37486,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Education Dialogue","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0973184920931769","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46126037","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-07-01DOI: 10.1177/0973184920946966
Geetha B. Nambissan
In this article, I draw attention to the early 1850s in the Bombay Presidency when the colonial government first assumed responsibility for mass education. I show that in the subsequent decades, publicly funded schooling was narrow and extremely exclusive as a result of the strong opposition of dominant castes to the education of the Dalits (‘Untouchable’ castes) as well as ambivalences and compromises of the colonial state to equality in education. I argue that in the efforts towards shaping of a more inclusive and ‘equitable’ public education, the struggles of the most excluded and stigmatised castes, the Untouchables, were crucial and have hitherto received little attention. Initiatives from within the community as well as the role of radical social reformers (I refer to Phule), Dalit activists and leaders such as Ambedkar in political and social spaces in relation to education also deserve far more serious study and acknowledgement. The neglect of the Untouchable castes in histories of education has resulted in failure to recognise their extraordinary efforts to spread education within their communities and significant contestations from below as well as in shaping discourses and practices around the ‘public’ in schooling. It also reminds us that as we defend the public in education today, we must understand the politics around it.
{"title":"Caste and the Politics of the Early ‘Public’ in Schooling: Dalit Struggle for an Equitable Education","authors":"Geetha B. Nambissan","doi":"10.1177/0973184920946966","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0973184920946966","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I draw attention to the early 1850s in the Bombay Presidency when the colonial government first assumed responsibility for mass education. I show that in the subsequent decades, publicly funded schooling was narrow and extremely exclusive as a result of the strong opposition of dominant castes to the education of the Dalits (‘Untouchable’ castes) as well as ambivalences and compromises of the colonial state to equality in education. I argue that in the efforts towards shaping of a more inclusive and ‘equitable’ public education, the struggles of the most excluded and stigmatised castes, the Untouchables, were crucial and have hitherto received little attention. Initiatives from within the community as well as the role of radical social reformers (I refer to Phule), Dalit activists and leaders such as Ambedkar in political and social spaces in relation to education also deserve far more serious study and acknowledgement. The neglect of the Untouchable castes in histories of education has resulted in failure to recognise their extraordinary efforts to spread education within their communities and significant contestations from below as well as in shaping discourses and practices around the ‘public’ in schooling. It also reminds us that as we defend the public in education today, we must understand the politics around it.","PeriodicalId":37486,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Education Dialogue","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0973184920946966","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"65353986","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-07-01DOI: 10.1177/0973184920923225
S. Chaudhary
{"title":"David Singleton, Joshua A. Fishman, Larissa Aronin and Muiris O’ Laorie (Eds.), Current multilingualism: A new dispensation.","authors":"S. Chaudhary","doi":"10.1177/0973184920923225","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0973184920923225","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37486,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Education Dialogue","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0973184920923225","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47997465","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-07-01DOI: 10.1177/0973184920931772
G. Pal
In the Indian context, the problem of the high proportion of out-of-school underprivileged children as well as the learning deficits in many such children in primary schools have raised concerns. Preparing these children for their journey through schooling has therefore been under the spotlight. The national Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) policy recognises pre-school education (PSE) of these children as one priority area. Given that the increased privatisation of pre-schooling marginalises a large section of underprivileged children in rural India, the role of public pre-schools always remains significant. Although many pre-primaries in government and aided schools contribute to the PSE of these children, the public pre-school system at community level in the form of anganwadi centres (AWCs) under the national Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme remains the most viable and cost-effective opportunity for a high proportion of these children. This article examines the state of the PSE at AWCs through the lens of coverage, mechanisms of service delivery, quality of learning opportunities and inclusiveness. The paper draws evidence largely from a sample survey covering 4,800 households and over 200 AWCs spread across 192 villages in three sample states, besides other macro-level data and relevant literature on PSE. The findings show that the implementation of PSE through AWCs does not comply with many ECCE norms. There is a lack of targeted PSE interventions for learning opportunities and developing socio-emotional skills. Among other factors, functioning of AWCs for less than the stipulated duration in a day, inadequate earnestness among AWC workers and unequal opportunities even in scarce PSE services adversely affect the PSE of underprivileged children. The article calls for increasing the efficiency of this largest public pre-school system through professional development of service providers and setting up monitoring mechanisms to ensure school-readiness of underprivileged children.
{"title":"School-readiness Among the Underprivileged: The Neglected Dimension","authors":"G. Pal","doi":"10.1177/0973184920931772","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0973184920931772","url":null,"abstract":"In the Indian context, the problem of the high proportion of out-of-school underprivileged children as well as the learning deficits in many such children in primary schools have raised concerns. Preparing these children for their journey through schooling has therefore been under the spotlight. The national Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) policy recognises pre-school education (PSE) of these children as one priority area. Given that the increased privatisation of pre-schooling marginalises a large section of underprivileged children in rural India, the role of public pre-schools always remains significant. Although many pre-primaries in government and aided schools contribute to the PSE of these children, the public pre-school system at community level in the form of anganwadi centres (AWCs) under the national Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) programme remains the most viable and cost-effective opportunity for a high proportion of these children. This article examines the state of the PSE at AWCs through the lens of coverage, mechanisms of service delivery, quality of learning opportunities and inclusiveness. The paper draws evidence largely from a sample survey covering 4,800 households and over 200 AWCs spread across 192 villages in three sample states, besides other macro-level data and relevant literature on PSE. The findings show that the implementation of PSE through AWCs does not comply with many ECCE norms. There is a lack of targeted PSE interventions for learning opportunities and developing socio-emotional skills. Among other factors, functioning of AWCs for less than the stipulated duration in a day, inadequate earnestness among AWC workers and unequal opportunities even in scarce PSE services adversely affect the PSE of underprivileged children. The article calls for increasing the efficiency of this largest public pre-school system through professional development of service providers and setting up monitoring mechanisms to ensure school-readiness of underprivileged children.","PeriodicalId":37486,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Education Dialogue","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0973184920931772","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48030342","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-07-01DOI: 10.1177/0973184920922391
Hem Borker
{"title":"Journey from a Madrasa Student to Teacher: An Ethnographic Portrait","authors":"Hem Borker","doi":"10.1177/0973184920922391","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0973184920922391","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37486,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Education Dialogue","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0973184920922391","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44150042","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}