No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Power and criticism: Postruc-tural investigations in education
... Postmodernism advocates that school education should break the traditional educational principles of authoritarianism, generalisation and stereotyping; tolerate divergence; and reject hegemonic ideology (i.e., unchanged curricula and a teacher-centred learning environment), thus allowing students of different regions, races, cultures, religions, classes and genders to cultivate self-awareness to independently express emotions, feelings and ideas through adaptive education (Cherryholmes, 1988;Doll, 1993). Therefore, postmodern teaching beliefs prioritise the teacher engagement of students according to their aptitude and encourage teachers and students to develop an equitable relationship and identify and eliminate the differences between students' perspectives and learning styles through consultation and dialogue to improve and advance teaching (Doll, 1993). ...
... This lack of change indicates the persistent presence of traditional authoritarian teaching beliefs in the educational environment (Cuban, 1983;Cuban, 2016). Unlike traditional teaching beliefs, postmodernism stresses that knowledge comprises personal thoughts, creativity and life experiences (Cherryholmes, 1988;Doll, 1993;Peters et al., 2018;Shih et al., 2017;Shih et al., 2019). Therefore, curriculum content should preferably be void of consensus and stability. ...
... Pluralism and innovation are the cornerstones of prevailing teaching beliefs and, importantly, combine multiple cultures to form the first stones of the postmodern PE setting (Cherryholmes, 1988;Doll, 1993;Peters et al., 2018;Shih et al., 2017). The theory of multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1983) emphasises that variations in the cultural and social environment translate into discrepancies between individuals' intellectual development; however, individuals tend to exploit such bits of intelligence in a subtly unique way to accomplish tasks or solve problems effectively (Al Ardha et al., 2018;Bas, 2016;Castro-Sánchez & Sánchez-Zafra, 2019;Faidah et al., 2019). ...
For physical education (PE) teachers, teaching beliefs are vital to improving students’ aptitude, encouraging teachers and students to develop an equal relationship, and identifying and eliminating the differences between students’ perspectives and learning styles through consultation and dialogue to improve and advance teaching. Therefore, developing a PE-related teaching belief scale from a postmodern perspective is essential for PE development. This study adopted stratified random sampling to select 144 PE teachers for the exploratory factor analysis. We distributed a second round of questionnaires to 418 PE teachers from Taipei, who were randomised into two clusters for confirmatory factor analysis in terms of competing models (n=209) and cross-validation (n=209). The Teaching Beliefs Scale of Postmodern Physical Education demonstrated satisfactory reliability and validity. The internal model structure showed factor loadings of .70–.90, composite reliability values of .89–.94, and average variance extracted values of .62–.74. In adherence to the concept of postmodernism, all statistical data met the threshold conditions and hierarchy, and the four constructs (innovation, reflection, pluralism and criticism) were met. In the future, this scale can be applied to evaluate the development of teachers’ beliefs about teaching PE in the postmodern era.
... En övergripande utgångspunkt för studien är en kritiskt-pragmatisk ansats (Cherryholmes, 1988;2000), där Skrtics kritisk-pragmatiska tolkning av pedagogik och specialpedagogik varit viktig. Skrtic (1991) menar att vårt nuvarande utbildningssystem är byggt på funktionalism, där maskinell byråkrati parad med professionell byråkrati skapar standardiserade pedagogiska lösningar som inte tillåter variationer. ...
... Detta kallar Skrtic professionsbyråkrati. Rätten till utbildning, som den demokratiska utvecklingen lett till, riskerar att omintetgöras av det byråkratiska systemet. Skrtic (1991) menar att utbildningssystemet behöver dekonstrueras och omkonstrueras (Cherryholmes, 1988;2000). Först då kan skolväsendet fullgöra sitt demokratiska uppdrag, som han menar är att eftersträva både rättvisa (equity) och excellens (excellence), där rättvisa är en förutsättning för excellens (Skrtic, 1991). ...
... Inom kritisk pragmatism vänds intresset mot konsekvenserna av olika beslut och val (Cherryholmes, 2000). Cherryholmes (1988) beskriver utifrån en kritisk-pragmatisk ansats hur utbildningssystem återspeglar maktstrukturer. När utbildning planeras, administreras och genomförs är det inte neutrala händelser, utan resultat av val där olika grupper kan vinna eller förlora på förändringar (Cherryholmes, 1988). ...
Artikeln syftar till ökad kunskap om en grupp språkverkstadspedagogers arbete med studenter, vilka riskerar studiesvårigheter till följd av en funktionsnedsättning. Frågeställningarna rör hur språkverkstadspedagogerna uttrycker jurisdiktion och arbetsfördelning i dels handledningssamtal, dels andra arbetsuppgifter med målgruppen. Dataunderlaget utgörs av 8 intervjuer. Resultatet visar att språkverkstadspedagogerna har starkast jurisdiktion i handledningssamtalen, där kunskap om studiesvårigheter samt delvis andra metoder och förhållningssätt anges som viktiga för att kunna möta just denna studentgrupp. I övriga arbetsuppgifter söker däremot inte språkverkstadspedagogerna jurisdiktion över den specifika målgruppen. De gör i stället anspråk på ett arbete med alla studenter, och det arbetet vill de dela med universitetslärarna. Här framstår jurisdiktionen som svag, då språkverkstadspedagogerna avgränsar sitt arbets- och kunskapsområde olika och beskriver svårigheter att förhandla sin roll i relation till universitetslärarna. Detta tolkas i artikeln kunna påverka deltagandet för studenter ur den breddade rekryteringen, däribland studenter i studiesvårigheter. Slutsatser är att språkverkstadspedagoger bör ges möjlighet att utveckla en gemensam professionsidentitet, där perspektiv på och kunskap om studenters olika sätt att lära bör ingå. Vidare behöver språkverkstaden få ett samverkande uppdrag i syfte att kunna bidra till utvecklingen av en inkluderande högskolemiljö, där nya studentgruppers perspektiv kan tillvaratas och alla studenter bereds lika möjligheter. Detta ligger i linje med två viktiga mål inom högre utbildning: excellens och rättvisa.
... The interest is in teaching, not the teacher, and education, not the school per see. What is explored is the very discourse practices 4 establishing this as that, discourse as a reality lived, as embodied discourse (Cherryholmes, 1988). Therefore, and in line with such an approach the taming of educational thought and action is not so much a taming of form, as it is a history of domination of educational thought and practice itself. ...
... 157), and in that invention distancing himself from educational 3 I understand theoretical ideology as developed by Brante (1980) and others as that foundation that cannot be proven but which needs to be taken for granted for a particular theoretical structure and object of knowledge to carry any meaning. 4 Practices, like discourse, says Cherryholmes (1988), "are constituted by connected and overlapping sets of rules that organise and give them coherence" (p. 4). ...
Please, show me your world! A sophistical practice of teaching 1 Por favor, ¡muéstrame tu mundo! Una práctica sofística de la enseñanza Abstract This paper explores how education and teaching is or can be a sophistical practice. It takes inspiration from Cassin's readings of the sophists, Rorty's critique of Platonian philosophy, as well as Rancière's understanding of teaching as linking different worlds. The paper develops in detail what makes teaching a process of democratisation based on a sophistical discursive practice. The paper also develops a precise critique of the Platonian/Aristotelian line of thought within education through the work of Cassin and Jaeger. It shows how Platonian/Aristotelian thought establishes a foundational pattern of domination over education by philosophy and other disciplines. Such 'scientistic educational theory' is shown to link man and state through a socio-psychic pattern aiming at the perfection of both. The article is making problematic the original and patriarchal social scene at the heart of such theory and intends to replace such image with 'the mixture'; of interaction people in the everydayness of liveable life instead as the starting point for educational thought and practice. The insight shared with Arendt, that we live in an irreducible plurality of other people that are different from us and that we, therefore, need education and teaching to 1
... They also recognize the political setting in which education occurs, and recognize that schools are often racist and sexist. Some postmodernist writers that you may encounter include Baudrillard (1984), Cherryholmes (1988), Derrida (1982), , Giroux (1991), Lyotard (1984), andMcLaren (1991). ...
... In an attempt to bring together ideas of modernism, postmodernism, and feminism, Giroux (1991) links postmodern theory to feminist theory (human diversity in sexuality and gender) and cultural theory (recognizing and respecting cultural differences). From this viewpoint, education results from choices that are made with reference to community diversity and sets of values and interests in the community; all of these are entangled in power structures that need to be recognized (Cherryholmes, 1988). "Postmodernism is not a rejection of what is considered 'normal' by powerholders, just a demand that irregularity be accepted as well" (Elkind, 1994, p. 12). ...
... Lo político desempeña un papel ontológico en la concepción de lo social, es decir, que la sociedad se estructura en un cierto sentido básico, a través de sus articulaciones políticas. El discurso implica acción y la práctica es, en buena medida, discursiva, por lo que no sería viable afirmar la distinción entre discurso y práctica (Cherryholmes, 1998). ...
... Ninguna de ellas puede constituirse como una posición separada. docente es tributaria -aunque no análoga-de la de posición de sujeto (Laclau y Mouffe, 1985) y, en ese sentido, implica considerar a los sujetos docentes en su pluralidad, heterogeneidad y complejidad, lo cual requiere descartar la posibilidad de plantearlos como una entidad homogénea y anclada en fundamentos lineales, ahistóricos y de validez trascendente (Cherryholmes, 1998). Así, la idea de posición docente a la que aquí aludimos se compone de la circulación de sentidos y de los discursos que regulan y organizan el trabajo de enseñar, y se refiere especí ficamente a los múltiples modos en que, en ese marco, los sujetos enseñantes asumen, viven y piensan su tarea, y los problemas, desafíos y utopías que se plantean en torno de ella. ...
... Such schemes would lead to a fixed representation and understanding of the world, something that goes against nonteleological notions of educational practices in which newcomers always bring a new understanding and alteration of this "world." From a pragmatic perspective, the task (and challenge) of the social sciences (including educational science) is to maintain a (scientific) discourse that is neither objectivistic nor relativistic (see Rorty, 1982;Bernstein, 1983;Cherryholmes, 1988) by focusing on a qualitative progress of society while it remains in the uncertain or contingent by not formulating or pointing toward a specific telos (Dewey, 1916(Dewey, /1930. Pragmatism is, according to Rorty (1982, p. 165), characterized by three features. ...
... There were also socio-cultural perspectives (see, e.g., Säljö, 2003) that focused on the cultural and social aspects of knowledge and learning processes as well as phenomenographic perspectives that focused on students' own conceptions of a specific content of teaching (Marton, 1997). These approaches have been complemented by pragmatic or neo-pragmatic approaches to education (Biesta & Burbules, 2003;Cherryholmes, 1988) that resonate with the Didaktik approach, as they focus on normativity, justice, and meaning making in relation to a notion of teaching as a kind of democratic conversation about the world between teachers and students. Specific to these neo-pragmatic approaches are their notions of plurality and contingency, which draw the focus toward the unique and particular character of educational practices. ...
The purpose of the thesis is to put forth and explore a notion of teaching as a practice of attention formation. Drawing on educational philosophy and the Didaktik/Pädagogik-traditions, teaching is explored as a relational and lived-though practice that can promote, form, and share attention. In the context of teaching, attention is connected to the acts of showing and observing. As such, teaching can be seen as a complex of relations that emerges through the intersection of the intentions of the one who is showing and the one who is observing. This intersection creates a tension between the self-active student and the paths made possible for this self-activity. The pedagogical dimension of this tension can be expressed through the principles of the summons to self-activity and Bildsamkeit. By turning to some key-texts of the French philosopher Jacques Rancière, I explore how the notion of teaching as attention formation can be understood from within a radical relational perspective on education and also how attention itself can be thought of as an educational phenomenon. From this critical relational perspective, where the relation is seen as constitutive of educational situations and where the possibility for uniqueness, difference, and freedom are regarded as central characteristics for a democratic conception (and ethical realization) of education, I interpret Rancière’s notions of intellectual emancipation and partage du sensible as political/aesthetic analogues to the summons to self-activity and Bildsamkeit, respectively. While the event of intellectual emancipation, although constituted relationally, mainly addresses the unique attentive subject, the notion of le partage du sensible draws attention to the larger and shared context in which this event takes place. In the thesis, teaching as attention formation is addressed as a relational phenomenon in which the unique and irreplaceable subject is called into being and is given space to respond to the summons of the surrounding world and to strive against the materiality of that very same world. It is suggested that attention formation might be the educational event when someone, as a unique other, is called into presence and is given room to claim and to speak for his or her interest. It is an event made possible by those teachers who have the sensibility to discover its coming, the courage to let it happen, and the strength to accept the consequences of it.
... From a poststructural perspective (see Cherryholmes, 1988;Weedon, 1987;Shea, 1998), the authenticity of such social mappings would be highly problematic. Quite likely, dominant notions of identity and society would be descriptively formalized; the meanings that privileged groups attach to particular forms would be made to appear natural ("that's the way it is for everyone who speaks the language"), whereas important complexities, contradictions and differences-other ways of knowing and being in society-would be diminished or erased. ...
... 341-342). Deconstructionism, as noted by Shea and others (Cherryholmes, 1988;Norris 1987Norris , 1982Weedon, 1987) is a method or strategy that is especially characteristic of this line of thought, and Derrida's (1982) notion of différance foundational-if such a thing can be said in an area of inquiry that eschews foundations, universals and metanarratives. Différance builds upon Saussure's structuralist principles, particularly its relational semantics in which the meanings of words/signs are a produced within language through differences between other signs in a self-regulating language system. ...
This important volume on the critical pedagogical approach addresses such topics as critical multiculturalism, gender and language learning, and popular culture. Critical pedagogies are instructional approaches aimed at transforming existing social relations in the interest of greater equity in schools and communities. This paperback edition on the pedagogical approach addresses such topics as critical multiculturalism, gender and language learning, and popular culture. Committed to language education that contributes to social justice, the contributors explore the meaning of creating equitable and critical instructional practices, by exploring diverse representations of knowledge. In addition, recommendations are made for further research, teacher education, and critical testing.
... In poststructuralism, regarding "truth" as a quality one can get closer is available for critical analysis and interpretation. Cherryholmes (1988) asserts that without power, truth is irrelevant, and this is dictated by the arrangement of historical power to its truth (p. 34). ...
This discourse analysis of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) applies theories of genealogy to trace the lineages upon which ACEs is premised and to theorize how, as a product of their continuities and discontinuities, ACEs emerged as a truth regime and contemporary biopolitics. I unearth the lost history of the phrase “adverse childhood experiences” beginning in 1948, a full 50 years before Robert Anda and Vincent Felitti were able to publish the ACE Study (Felitti et al., 1998). I highlight the significant contributions of psychiatrist and psychologist Sir Michael Rutter, the credited founder of child psychiatry; developmental epidemiology; developmental genetics; and developmental psychopathology. It was Rutter who first applied the pharmacology of “dose-effect” to measure “doses” of deprivation (King's College London, 2021), a methodological contribution that would become foundational to ACE research , and whose scholarship examined adverse childhood experiences and the protective factors of resilience nearly two decades before the ACEs studies – but who Anda and Felitti never acknowledged, instead claiming their roles as pioneers of ACE science. I then
consider the rise of neoliberal shifts that led to the emergence of the second revolution of public health, in which the Healthy People Initiative, the United States’ leading public health framework, characterized contemporary biopolitical strategies for the role of individuals in public health outcomes and called for biometric surveillance strategies to measure, predict, and optimize wellness and increase national human capital. My genealogy contextualizes these shifts amidst adjacent events, which supported the expansion of public health agendas and paved the way for the ACE campaign. I argue that the biopolitics of ACEs – a dispositif whose truth regime; multinational, multi-sector public health campaign; frame for social policy; global data gathering regime, and centerpiece of intervention strategies – contribute to its eugenic genealogical continuities and neoliberal distinctions.
... I grounded my work in a critical analytical framework, assuming that social meanings are fluid and context-bound, subject to various cultural and historical (contextual) contingencies (Cherryholmes, 1988). This framework suspends the dominant assumptions about youth agency (mainly based on stable democracies) and allows knowledge production by the local participants in a theocratic (semi-)authoritarian context where I conducted the research. ...
Understanding and addressing conflicts underlying direct and indirect violence is necessary to build a just and sustainable peace. This study foregrounds youths’ voices and lived experiences of social conflicts in Iran, an understudied (semi-)authoritarian context in the Middle East. It examines selected youths’ socially constructed understandings of the conflicts and violence affecting their lives, their perceptions of their roles and agency in non-violently addressing those conflicts, and the learning experiences and social pedagogies (inside and outside school) available to them that might have contributed to forming their understandings and agency. The study’s intersectional gender- and social-class-sensitive design enables an understanding of how social-structural, cultural and political dynamics interacted with participating youths’ experiences of social conflicts and their peacebuilding citizenship agency. Findings show that social conflicts that the participating youths were concerned about varied in their differing gender and social class locations. In addition, despite the disconnections between the participating students’ lived experiences of conflicts and their learning opportunities at school, the findings point to spaces of feasibility for schools to enhance students’ opportunities to develop key aspects of peacebuilding agency, even in (semi-)authoritarian settings where citizenship and peace education are absent from the explicit curriculum. Moreover, the research expands the international conceptualisation of peacebuilding agency by showing that young people’s frequent responses to the social conflicts in their lives in (semi-)authoritarian contexts (avoidance, conformity, withdrawal and despair) cannot be simply interpreted as apathy or lack of awareness of the larger structural issues.
... This is an effective way for the teachers to realize if their pedagogical practices are open and inclusive for all their students, encouraging them to participate in actions involving social justice (Sommers, 2014). 3. Transformational theory investigates the ways that power is used by schools, whether it is helpful and rewarding for some students and, on the contrary, punishing others, according to their classification in the social hierarchy (Cherryholmes, 1998). 4. Four types of multicultural theories are proposed by Kincheloe and Steinberg (2002): ...
During the 21 st century, major social changes have occurred, such as technological development and the COVID-19 pandemic, along with war conflicts and economic crises, which have created refugee and migration flows. In addition, globally, by promoting social justice, efforts are made to combat any kind of discrimination and exclusion related to race, religion, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, and gender identification. School is an organization alive and open to society, affected by every social change. Within this organization, the citizens of the future are formed. Social justice in school education contributes significantly to this, as it is a process in which teachers and students actively contribute to the formation of a democratic, inclusive environment. This study presents the theoretical approaches of social justice in education, emphasizing, however, the critical multicultural theory, as it delves into finding the most effective ways to eliminate social inequalities and exclusion.
... In genealogy, power is viewed productively, circularly and positively (Davidson 1986;Dreyfus and Rabinow 1986;Fairclough 1992;Smart 1985;Sawicki 1991). So, in all, interpretive analytics explains how and why forms of knowledge become valorized (legitimized and become regimes of truth), and how and why they become suppressed (deligitimized and become subaltern) (Cherryholmes 1988;Dreyfus and Rabinow 1986;Flood 1991). ...
This article problematizes and critiques the change scenario which unfolded in the South African higher education (HE) landscape over the period 1999–2002. It locates its discussion and analysis within an ideo-critical discourse-interpretive analytics framework. It also employs the following conceptual tools: chaos theory; liminality; negative knowledge; manageri- alism and corporatism; marketization and technologization of discourses; and postmodernity and globalization. Against this backdrop, the article first argues that the change scenario, which occurred in some of South Africa’s higher education institutions (HEIs) during this period, was predicated on the aforesaid conceptual devices. Second, it contends that most of South Africa’s HEIs during that historical juncture were being inveigled into a postmodern condition, even though they were still epicentres of academic modernity. In the light of all this, the article counter-argues that the post- modern intervention in the HE system as driven by the state only served to worsen the difficulties faced by many of the then historically disadvantaged institutions (HDIs) which were part of this system. Finally, the article ends by offering some of the prospects that were in the offing for South Africa’s HEIs at that time.
... In genealogy, power is viewed productively, circularly and positively (Davidson 1986;Dreyfus and Rabinow 1986;Fairclough 1992;Smart 1985;Sawicki 1991). So, in all, interpretive analytics explains how and why forms of knowledge become valorized (legitimized and become regimes of truth), and how and why they become suppressed (deligitimized and become subaltern) (Cherryholmes 1988;Dreyfus and Rabinow 1986;Flood 1991). ...
Contents Access to, and Success in, Higher Education in Post-apartheid South Africa: Social Justice Analysis Chika Sehoole and Kolawole Samuel Adeyemo ....................1 Revisiting the Postmodern Condition of a Higher Education Landscape: South Africa’s Higher Education Epochal Archive, 1999–2002 Chaka Chaka & Mashudu Churchill Mashige .......................19 A Decade of Biomedical Research in West Africa (2005–14): A Bibliometric Analysis of the Ten Most Productive Countries in MEDLINE Williams Ezinwa Nwagwu ......................43 A Review of Academic Freedom in Africa through the Prism of the UNESCO 1997 Recommendation Kwadwo Appiagyei-Atua, Klaus Beiter & Terence Karran..................85 Reconnecting the University to Society: The Role of Knowledge as Public Good in South African Higher Education Michael Cross and Amasa Ndofirepi .............................119 Availability of Study Time for Undergraduate Finance Students at an Open and Distance Learning Institution in South Africa C.F. Erasmus and G.P.M. Grebe .........................141 Towards the Institutionalization of Research Uptake Management in Sub-Saharan African Universities Sara S. Grobbelaar and Tomas Harber ............................155
... För att tolka och förstå hur yrkesverksamma i skolan diskuterar, dekonstruerar och (re)konstruerar inkluderingsbegreppet genom samtal i grupp har teoretiska resonemang från kritisk pragmatism hämtats. Företrädare för kritisk pragmatism (Cherryholmes, 1988) ifrågasätter vetenskapliga och filosofiska anspråk om absolut objektivitet och sanning. I stället intresserar sig pragmatiker för de konsekvenser som våra tankar och handlingar får. ...
Tidigare forskning visar att begreppet inkludering
ofta ges olika innebörder beroende på vem
som tillfrågas. Få studier undersöker hur erfarna
skolledare och specialpedagogisk personal förstår
och diskuterar inkluderingbegreppet. I den
här artikeln presenteras resultaten från en fokusgruppsintervju
där yrkesgrupperna tillsammans
diskuterar, dekonstruerar och (re)konstruerar
inkluderingsbegreppet. Tre teman identifierades
i analysen efter fokusgruppsintervjun: Inkludering
som 1) en diffus och avlägsen vision 2) ett
begrepp i behov av konkretisering och 3) ett sätt
att utöva inflytande. Deltagarna i studien använde
sig av begrepp som likvärdighet, tillgänglighet
och tillhörighet för att konkretisera begreppet.
Inkludering lades på en övergripande nivå
och andra begrepp på en undre, mer konkret,
nivå. Studien utgör ett viktigt bidrag eftersom
yrkesverksamma med specifik kunskap och lång
erfarenhet uppmärksammas, vilka skandinaviska
studier ofta förbisett. Artikeln kan hjälpa verksamma
i skolan att gemensamt diskutera och
reflektera över olika begrepp som flitigt används
i skola och samhälle. Artikeln kan inspirera verksamma
att utveckla ett gemensamt yrkesspråk
och att undersöka egna goda exempel på inkludering
i skolans lärmiljö.
... They also suggested that a warrior, military, or business mentality predominates conceptions of effective superintendents and indicate that these androcentric perceptions disadvantage women superintendent candidates. Cherryholmes (1988) has suggested that professions are constituted by what is said and done in their name and that consistencies in what is said and done are based on shared beliefs and values. Consistent with this is the notion that male power holders in a given community (schools) are a dominant force, and the position of school leadership is viewed as powerful and masculine, so a woman wishing to move into leadership positions must define and use power in the same way as the community's male power holders in the past (Bruner, 1999). ...
This project explored the climate data of 33 elementary schools in an urban school system to determine the relationship among perceptions of effective school leadership and student achievement. Data was compiled from teachers (n = 847) at each elementary school in regard to their perceptions of effective leadership of their school principal. Data was compared to student achievement and disaggregated based upon the gender of the principal. In summary, female principals were rated significantly lower on their leadership skills than male principals by their staff. In contrast, when student standardized test data were explored and cross-referenced with the gender of the principal, student achievement at schools with female leadership was comparable with that of elementary sites with male leadership.
... By making a purposeful choice to begin beyond knowledge-action, student-teacher, science-society, new possibilities for collectively orienting around research can become 9 It is unhelpful because (1) scientists' work is shaped by the social and institutional structures and processes in which it is embedded, (2) situated challenges require various forms of knowledge and experience, as well as the integration of hybrid knowledge forms, (3) boundaries between science and society represent obstacles to collaboration by creating knowledge-action asymmetries, necessitating the separation of the political realm as mediating knowing and doing (4) technocratic approaches to science regularly uphold inequalities within society, rather than challenging them (Van Kerkhoff & Lebel., 2006). 10 The spectrum between pragmatism and criticality is somewhat connected to how engineers and nonengineers tend to approach complex challenges (engineers can be viewed as pragmatists by training, where they defer ethical responsibilities of "why" to build or design), where "efficiency is pursued in the absence of criticism, when actions are privileged over thought when practice is valued and theory disparaged when practice is divorced from theory (as if that were possible) for the sake of making things work 'better"' (Cherryholmes, 1988). Here, pragmatism is associated less with philosophical pragmatism, but with action-first conceptions that overbalance action at the expense of critical practice. ...
We live in a time of compounding ecological and social change. Given the uncertain and
urgent nature of ongoing transformations, contemporary forms of governance are
experiencing a central tension. The tension between controlling the present and nurturing
collective capacities to enact transformative change. Amidst a wave of interest in transitions
and transformations in-the-making, labs in real-world contexts have entered the discussion.
Labs have emerged as appealing, novel and highly complex entities that situate and localize
engagement around complex sustainability challenges. Labs carry a systemic view of
change; they comprise alternative and experimental approaches; they carry a normative
assumption that research has plural roles; and they hold an explicit learning orientation that
infuses knowledge with action.
Given the unfolding of labs in the real world, my involvement in their design, and ongoing
interests in treating both meanings and processes of sustainability, this thesis is organized
around a curiosity. Its overarching aim is to investigate how sustainability-oriented labs
could be unpacked, designed and evaluated in the context of sustainability transitions and
transformations. Underlaboured by a critical realist philosophy of science, this thesis
investigates sustainability-oriented labs by way of a qualitative-dominant, case-based
research strategy. It does this across three overlapping research phases, culminating in four
appended papers.
In research phase one, we adopt a systematic review of sustainability-oriented labs in real-world contexts, exploring and classifying a global sample of labs according to their
engagement with sustainability. In paper II, we identify and unpack 53 sustainability-oriented
labs in real-world contexts. Through a mixed-methods analysis, we explore the
distribution and diversity of these labs, discerning the research communities which
conceptualize labs and the dimensions of their practice. In Paper III, we present an
empirically grounded typology, arriving at six different types of sustainability-oriented labs:
1) Fix and control, 2) (Re-)Design and optimize, 3) Make and relate, 4) Educate and engage,
5) Empower and govern and 6) Explore and shape.
In research phase three, paper II presents a qualitative case-based inquiry into Challenge
Lab (C-Lab), a challenge-driven learning environment. Paper II conceptualizes challenge
framing as embedded within an open-ended learning process, both on a level of practice
and space. Experiences related to framing in C-Lab shed light on how students situate
themselves and see their role within existing challenges, how they navigate limits to
knowledge in complex systems, and how they self-assess their own sense of comfort and
progress. In addition, we introduce three dilemmas that are not owned by teachers or
students but emerge, as contradiction, within the learning space.
In research phase three, paper IV presents a multi-case comparison of evaluation practices
in various sustainability transition initiatives. We conceptualize and compare the role of
evaluation as a tool that can enhance the transformative capacity of sustainability-oriented
labs and its broader family of transition experiments.
This thesis and its appended papers provide practical-experiential, empirical-conceptual
and methodological contributions on the topic of sustainability-oriented labs in real-world
contexts. In addition, it contains a layered account of an undisciplinary doctoral journey. I
do this by (1) reflecting upon each research phase, (2) providing transparent accounts of
positionality in relation to my research, (3) conceptualizing and reflecting upon
undisciplinarity as a process of becoming, and (4) providing a mobile autoethnographic
account of staying on the ground as part of a broader commitment to interrogate
knowledge practices. Moving forward, I find myself motivated by three convictions: (1)
transformations are needed, and labs are invitations in between dualisms, (2) invitations
hold the possibility of flipping big assumptions and ethical practices, and (3)
transformations presuppose fundamental change from within both research and education
knowledge systems. They hinge upon the questioning of what both are, who they are for,
and what they might need to become. In conclusion, they compel us think big, start small,
and act now.
... Again, the present research emphasis was on the perceptions of those who were most closely involved with the contextual processes under investigation. In particular, the researcher wanted to recognize and accord status to the present study participants for the contextual knowledge and understanding they possessed (Cherryholmes, 1988). Further, it was out of these personal participant perspectives that data was generated which provided the base both for the present analyses and the grounded hypotheses generated for future researchers to investigate. ...
p>This qualitative investigation describes and analyzes the perceptions of four student teaching dyad groups; two working in a traditional site and two in an alternative design. The major research question focused on dyad group perceptions concerning the purpose of the mentor/cooperating teacher (M)CT) and student teacher (ST). Seven (M)CTs and eight STs working in the two sites (N = 30) teaching health and/or physical education provided data.
Major emergent findings derived from interview data indicated both (M)CT groups perceived self purpose to involve encouraging ST professional decision-making and pedagogical ideas. STs linked (M)CT purpose with opportunities for self direction in terms of ST experimentation and problem-solving.
Observer feedback in both sites was primarily focused on the correction and improvement of ST teaching performance. Written feedback which STs related to improved self reflection and professional development was perceived to be more important by STs than by the (M)CTs.
In terms of ST responsibilities, planning was identified by the (M)CT groups as very important; particularly, in the alternative site. Further, the alternative site STs were also more unified than the traditional STs in identifying personal proaction as a responsibility they owed to their (M)CTs.
Both (M)CT groups wanted ST achievement to include becoming more self confident, insightful, knowledgeable teachers. Likewise, ST perceptions also went beyond the idea of a skilful practitioner located solely in the classroom. However, while all dyad groups did identify ST achievement as also involving improved pedagogical skills, ST groups identified evaluation criteria that related more toward a personal orientation rather than a practical/technical.</p
... The method used in this research is a literature study with discourse analysis on the terms, conceptions, and traditions of citizenship. Discourse is a collection of rules and practices that regulate meaning in a particular area [34], as a distinctive product of historical and social conditions that provide the terminology, values, rhetorical style, customs, and truths that build it [35]. Therefore discourse is the main way an ideology is produced, reproduced, and circulated; as belief systems that help people to understand and act in the world, the frameworks of thinking and calculating about the world-the 'ideas' people use, as well as to find out how the social world works, what their place in it is, and what they should do" [36], through the way of speaking, writing, thinking, and the way of thinking, While citizenship discourses are available, none have yet focus on the conception of citizenship in the perspective of Pancasila and Ethno citizenship. ...
... However, in the long run and the final analysis, it can only be fully understood with reference to the economy (the 'base' or 'infrastructure'): the Final Arbiter, as it were. That is, despite disclaimers and endless qualifications and convolutions, the extremely problematical, ambivalent and controversial Althusserian notion of 'determination in the last instance' arguably continues to operate here, somewhat in the manner of a natural 'axiom': in one sense, still awaiting its scientific formulation; in another, necessarily inexplicable, 'magical', quite outside the possible framework of rational explanation: a kind of "transcendental signified" (Cherryholmes, 1988). ...
This paper is addressed to the notion of ‘crisis’ in English teaching, and in English curriculum studies more generally. The post-1960s period was widely perceived as a distinctive manifestation of crisis and change in popular-public schooling, certainly across the Western world, with new populations to be catered for and new economic conditions to be considered, along with new cultural practices and formations. This required both focused empirical analysis and reflexive work on the discourse and rhetoric of ‘crisis itself. Chapter 2 in an unpublished PhD dissertation (Green, 1991), the paper provides accordingly a critical assessment of the concept of 'crisis' in recent academic and popular debate, with particular reference to the alleged 'crisis' in education and schooling, and more specifically in English teaching. But it is also an early exploration of cultural politics and discourse theory specifically in the context of educational studies.
... Outside Norway there has been increasing interest in post-modernism and structuralism as radically different ways of understanding contemporary social and cultural trends and shifts. The concepts of the "post-modern" (Alvesson & Skölberg 2000, Cherryholmes 1988, Smith 1998) may be understood as complex and multiforms which resist reductive and simplistic explanations (Lather 2001). Hence the term "post-modern" does not refer to one unified movement. ...
... Critical theories derive from and are based on the German Frankfurt School. Even though they may have different permutations, but their rallying point is their critique of various forms of hegemony characterizing different spheres of society, of which dominant ideologies are but one example (Cherryholmes, 1988;Habermas, 1984;Hoy & McCarthy, 1994;Makgato et al., 2015;McCarthy, 1978;Poster, 1989;Thompson, 1984). Such theories include those that critique critical theory itself (see for example, Bassey, 2007;Makgato et al., 2015;Rabaka, 2009). ...
This study set out to evaluate three English as an additional language (EAL) textbooks used by junior high schools in the Ho West District of Ghana. It adopted a critical literacy framing and employed purposive sampling to select five junior high schools in the Ho West District. It utilised a modified version of Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy of cognitive dimensions and Cummins’ (1999) CALP, respectively, to evaluate the language contents of the three EFA textbooks: Book 1, Book 2, and Book 3. The three evaluated areas were: thinking skills; integration of various school subjects; and critical language awareness. Two of the findings of this study are worth mentioning. First, of the six cognitive dimensions of a modified version of Bloom’s taxonomy that are graded in degrees of cognitive complexity (e.g., from lower-order thinking skills to higher-order thinking skills), knowledge, as the first lower-order cognitive skill, was the most foregrounded in all the three textbooks. It was followed by understanding as the second lower-order cognitive skill. Second, all the three textbooks incorporated elements of other school subjects in their language contents in line with CALP. By contrast, all the three textbooks did not foster or develop critical language awareness. Overall, the three textbooks foregrounded lower-order thinking skills over higher-order thinking skills such as analysis, inventive thinking (synthesis), and evaluation.
... 25 Ironically, Gilbert's critique may be seen as similarly organized by a 'prescriptive theory' perspective, although in her case one emerging out of a particular reading of poststructuralist literary and cultural theory. 26 For the kind of argument concerning the problem of theory/practice relations in education that I would now endorse and want to draw on, albeit with certain qualifications, see Giroux (1983: 21) and Cherryholmes (1988); also, Yates (1990). 27 Hereafter referred to as the 'Kewdale Project'. ...
This paper presents a case-study of English curriculum politics in Western Australia, with specific regard to a period of roughly ten years, from 1979 to 1989 – that is, the 1980s. It is located within, and extracted from, a doctoral study of English teaching and cultural politics (Green, 1991), focused on the fate and fortunes of the ‘New English’, a distinctive curriculum formation emerging from the influential Dartmouth Seminar of the mid 1960s and opening up new possibilities for English curriculum praxis. Effectively a monograph, the paper provides an extended portrayal of English teaching, literacy debates and education policy in the Australian state of Western Australia in the period in question, as a significant moment in Australian educational politics and curriculum history. It marks the transition from a recognizably ‘progressive’ version of subject English to one framed more in accordance with the ‘New Right’ – a precursor to Neoliberalism – and the regulative principles of literacy and assessment. It also provides insight in the 1980s itself, as a distinctive period in Australai and more generally the Anglophone world, which saw questions of English teaching, language and literacy becoming overt objects of policy and public debate, and unprecedented degrees of State and governmental intervention (Green, 1999) – something arguably evident ever since. Please note that this is a lightly edited version of the chapter in question; otherwise it has been left as it was at the time of its final presentation (i.e. 1991), and is offered here as a resource for further historical investigation.
... As Lyotard (1984) has argued in general, and as Cherryholmes (1988) has argued with respect to education, modernist and structuralist thought tends to be based on metanarratives that lay claim to rationality, linearity, progress, and control. While these grand narratives of modernist thought have doubtless brought major developments to our material and intellectual well-being, they also seem indelibly linked to some of the most appalling horrors of the modem world, from Auschwitz to Hiroshima, from sexist and racist bigotries to nationalist idolatries, from stark poverty to excessive wealth, from massive pollution to pointless consumption. ...
... By describing and classifying, experimenting and replicating, scientifi c investigation and its patterns of logic and order have produced classifi cation systems that perpetuate a view of the world that, in essence, standardize a single theory or norm (Feuer, et al., 2002). Principles of structuralism manifest, for example, in bureaucratic theory, are so pervasive in modern thought that they often go unquestioned and unacknowledged, in part because they offer comforting promises of order, organization, and certainty (Cherryholmes, 1988). In effect, the doctrine of traditional scientifi c investigation has been a "sanctuary" of stability to researchers across disciplines, making education one of its principal homes. ...
The academy’s zeitgeist—standards of scientific investigation—has recently come to the fore in the national arena as the dominant moral and intellectual framework for educational research. In this article, we explore the re-emergence of “standards for scientific investigation” as a significant shaping force in education and the scholarly culture, particularly in regard to the fields of leadership and administration. With the recent advent of politically based decrees of quality defined exclusively by traditional standards, alternative approaches to exploring human issues, however rigorous they might be in the qualitative realm, tend to be marginalized. Traditional, experimental studies that involve large-scale statistical research design and randomization have been authorized, making single-subject research, naturalistic inquiry, self-study, and other qualitative research practices unlikely candidates for federal funding. For this discussion on “authorized” and “unauthorized” perspectives of research, we explore the impact of regulatory practices within the academy. (published in the Education Leadership Review journal)
... The first area of change in qualitative research was the inclusion of interpretive areas within the field. Some of these interpretive areas include critical theory (e.g., McLaren, 1989), feminism (e.g., Lather, 1991), action research (e.g., Argyris, Putnam, & Smith, 1985;Friere, 1970), cultural studies (e.g., Giroux, 1993), and postmodernism in general (e.g., Cherryholmes, 1988). The movement of this research direction was more clearly a move away from gathering data and building theory per se, and more towards the general critical theoretical notion espoused by Habermas (1972) of using empirical inquiry not only to verify theoretical claims, but also to understand and ameliorate ideological situations. ...
In this paper, I would like to show how qualitative research in education and semiotics can be brought together for the benefit of each field. Starting with attempts to define both qualitative research and semiotics in ways that can inform both disciplines, I hope to accomplish this task by mapping a series of three crossroads that define the past, present, and hopefully the future of the field.
... IFor considering the social sciences as fields of multiple intellectual traditions and discourses that are relational, see, e.g., Cherryholmes, 1988;Popkewitz, 1977;Wagner, 2001. 22 This provides a way to undo the binaries that have underly debates about science and mathematics that are concerned with uncertainty and certainty-idealism and realism. ...
This Chapter highlights methodological problems in food system research in West Africa. It historicizes the phenomenon of food insecurity from within the context of southern countries structural dependency. It is underscored that the region’s agro-ecological zones exhibit great varieties in their farm system characteristics and levels of integration into the market. This plethoric vista is compounded even further by the diversity of national policy contexts which themselves are markedly shifting with profound inconsistencies over time. Onerous challenges therefore go with any effort aimed at the fashioning of efficacious, cross-cutting research instruments and methods for the evaluation of agricultural policy outcomes across the region. This situation dictated the imperative for the interpretative mode of inquiry adopted in the book.
The inquiry discussed in this chapter reports on the experiences of a teacher educator during the COVID-19 pandemic. The chapter investigates how the pandemic shaped the teacher educator’s identity and pedagogical practice. The work is conceptually grounded in Deleuzo-Guattarian concepts. Methodologically the inquiry is a self-study in that it is self-initiated and aimed at improving professional practice. The results of this research focused on three emergent themes in relation to teacher educator identity: (a) the displacement of the body and the centering of the discursive; (b) the diminishment of pedagogical certainty and the expansion of pedagogical negotiation; and (c) the persistence of emotional fatigue and the requisite for self-care. This work contributes to the scholarly literature and provides an example of professional practice to support teacher educators in fully enacting a professional identity that aligns with their values and promotes their students’ success. Recommendations for research and teaching are provided.
At a time of converging and existential crises, the paper argues for, and examines the meaning of, a democratic culture and politics as first practice as necessary conditions for the transformative change needed for survival and flourishing. While acknowledging that such change needs to be comprehensive, including all education, the paper considers in particular the meaning of democratic culture and politics as first practice for early childhood education, and some of the processes that might bring them about.
This chapter explores how education and teaching are or can be a sophistical practice. It takes inspiration from Cassin’s reading of the Sophist, Rorty’s critique of Platonian philosophy, and Rancière’s understanding of teaching as linking different worlds. The chapter explores in detail what makes teaching a democratisation process based on a sophistic discursive practice.
Drawing on two critical incidents in classroom contexts, this entry makes the case that poststructuralism is relevant to applied linguistics because of three central characteristics. First, poststructuralism constitutes a set of theoretical stances that serve to critique prevailing assumptions regarding the sources and nature of identity, and the rational, humanist subject of the Enlightenment. Second, poststructuralism critiques the conditions and foundations of knowledge, particularly with reference to its apparent objectivity and universal applicability. Third, poststructuralism critiques the representational capacities of language and texts, foregrounding their intertextuality, multivocality, and indeterminacy. Through an analysis of the two critical incidents, the authors highlight how meaning is constructed across time and space, how identities are implicated in meaning making, and how knowledge and power are inextricably linked.
Drawing on two critical incidents in classroom contexts, Norton and Morgan make the case that poststructuralism is relevant to applied linguistics because of three central characteristics: First, poststructuralism constitutes a set of theoretical stances that serve to critique prevailing assumptions regarding the sources and nature of identity and the rational, humanist subject of the Enlightenment, particularly with respect to the construct of investment. Second, poststructuralism critiques the conditions and foundations of knowledge, particularly with reference to its apparent objectivity and universal applicability. Third, poststructuralism critiques the representational capacities of language and texts, foregrounding their intertextuality, multivocality, and indeterminacy. Through an analysis of the two critical incidents, Norton and Morgan highlight how meaning is constructed across time and space, how identities and investments are implicated in meaning‐making, and how knowledge and power are inextricably linked.
In der Bildungssoziologie spiegeln sich die großen theoretischen Stränge der Soziologie wider. Von den Ursprüngen in den klassischen Positionen bei Karl Marx, Max Weber und Émile Durkheim bis zu den zeitgenössisch einflussreichen Richtungen wie dem symbolischen Interaktionismus, dem Postmodernismus und der Kritischen Theorie wurde die Bildungssoziologie immer wieder von einer Vielzahl unterschiedlicher theoretischer Perspektiven beeinflusst. Dieser Beitrag bietet einen Überblick über die wichtigsten dieser Perspektiven in der Erziehungs- und Bildungssoziologie. Hierzu gehören – wie im Folgenden dargestellt – der Funktionalismus, die Konflikttheorie, der symbolische Interaktionismus und zeitgenössische Ansätze: Basil Bernsteins CodeTheorie, Pierre Bourdieus Theorie des kulturellen Kapitals, Randall Collins Theorie der Statuskonkurrenz, John Meyers Institutionen-Theorie sowie schließlich die postmoderne kritische Theorie [postmodern critical theory].
The crucial role language plays in constituting our reality, and in achieving political influence and control, has long been known in scholarship. However, appreciation of the role of language in understanding our social realities and power relations has not been fully translated to education or even to research beyond linguistically focussed academic strands. Bringing together well-established scholars from a range of disciplines, this book demonstrates why language awareness and discourse consciousness should be considered a key skill in business and professional life, and looks closely at language in areas such as entrepreneurship, leadership, human resource management, medical, financial, or business communication, ecology, media, and politics. The authors demonstrate how the understanding of the minutiae of language use in a variety of professional contexts leads to knowledge that will empower future generations of professionals and enable them to develop a self-reflexive, critical, and more ethical practice.
The crucial role language plays in constituting our reality, and in achieving political influence and control, has long been known in scholarship. However, appreciation of the role of language in understanding our social realities and power relations has not been fully translated to education or even to research beyond linguistically focussed academic strands. Bringing together well-established scholars from a range of disciplines, this book demonstrates why language awareness and discourse consciousness should be considered a key skill in business and professional life, and looks closely at language in areas such as entrepreneurship, leadership, human resource management, medical, financial, or business communication, ecology, media, and politics. The authors demonstrate how the understanding of the minutiae of language use in a variety of professional contexts leads to knowledge that will empower future generations of professionals and enable them to develop a self-reflexive, critical, and more ethical practice.
El estudio histórico investiga la génesis de la formación de docentes secundarios estatales entre 1889 y 1910 en Chile, la cuál está íntimamente ligada a un
proceso de transferencia educativa con Alemania propiciado por el Estado. La reconstrucción del Discurso Pedagógico fundacional de docentes secundarios legitimado
a través de la creación del Instituto Pedagógico en 1889, permite vincular ambos procesos, pues Discurso Pedagógico implicó la articulación y recontextualización
singular de prácticas y corrientes discursivas alemanas, tales como la herbartiana y el modelo de Universidad de Humboldt, que se tradujeron en un modelo original de formación de docentes -una invención-, con énfasis en la formación especializada y disciplinar, centrada en la producción de conocimiento además de su transmisión, así como en el despliegue de prácticas pedagógicas que otorgaría un lugar preponderante a la ciencia.
During the past thirty years, student (or pupil) voice has gained attention in education policy especially in many Western countries, accelerated by both the acceptance of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1990 and an emphasis on accountability in schools. Multifaceted and complex, student voice in schools incorporates a wide variety of practices associated with children expressing their views about their education. This article traces the evolution of the concept of student voice in schools over the past three decades, exploring how various understandings have impacted on practice. Using this historical perspective as a springboard, the article suggests a different approach to the practice of student voice in schools: as interwoven with, and integral to practice. Neither an accountability measure, nor a tokenistic rehearsal of democratic processes, the lens of critical pragmatism is utilised to argue that student voice can only be given meaning as an integral part of everyday critically reflexive practice.
O presente trabalho se debruça sobre a inserção da educação ambiental no ensino superior a partir da reflexão sobre o paradigma moderno e sua relação com a problemática ambiental. sta é compreendida de modo complexo e requer outro modo de educação para o seu enfrentamento. O objetivo geral desta pesquisa foi analisar que relações discursivas são estabelecidas entre o histórico no campo ambiental e na formação ao longo de uma disciplina a graduação. Especificamente, este trabalho visou caracterizar o histórico curricular e o contexto sociopolítico no qual é inserida a disciplina ‘Educação Ambiental e Cidadania’ da Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro; identificar como professores de ciências em formação descrevem discursivamente a educação ambiental e a questão ambiental. O caminho metodológico percorrido foi o levantamento e análise de conteúdo de documentos e currículos dos cursos de graduação dessa universidade, observação participante das aulas do primeiro semestre de 2019 e análise dos textos narrativos elaborados pelos estudantes na disciplina ‘Educação Ambiental e Cidadania’. A inserção da educação ambiental foi influencia pela ECO 92 e por outras políticas públicas de educação ambiental. Nesta universidade, a inserção da educação ambiental de forma disciplinar iniciou em 1993 nos cursos de biologia, num contexto de movimentos ambientalistas e após a ECO 92, e sua ampliação nos currículos da graduação foi influenciada pela Política Nacional de Educação Ambiental e Diretrizes Curriculares para a Educação Ambiental. A disciplina foi um espaço de participação, importante para o exercício democrático; para o enfrentamento do silenciamento, da desvalorização intelectual, e para a construção de uma cidadania real. A questão ambiental foi identificada como uma questão social e política e não
só ecológica; a natureza foi abordada como sujeito a ser preservado e também como recurso necessário para o desenvolvimento. Os estudantes incorporaram a atuação como educadores ambientais à de professores de ciências, que reforça a relação entre ensino de ciências e a educação ambiental, incentivada pelas discussões sobre a ciência, o pensamento moderno e a natureza. Houve a criação de um espaço disciplinar com interlocutores inter e transdisciplinar que embasa a possibilidade de existência de uma postura interdisciplinar mesmo na estrutura disciplinar do ensino formal, e a capacidade da EA de promover uma ecologia de saberes e a fim de formar novos conhecimentos. Diante do contexto autoritário, violento, individualista e plastificado, narrar o vivido e fomentar a diversidade, o pertencimento a natureza, e valorização da subjetividade são importantes para a sobrevivência e enfrentamento da crise ambiental. Em meio à crise e ausências, a educação ambiental é uma possibilidade de emergências.
Theory is fundamental to the cognitive structure of a field of study (Wells and Picou 1981). The nature and roles of theory have generated a great deal of debate, both within the field of comparative education specifically and within the general academic community. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the place of theory in comparative education, at least among comparative educators who publish in research journals (Rust 2003a, b). The contextual backdrop for the discussion will be globalization (Zajda 2020a). There are important theoretical differences in the field of comparative education, particularly during this period of globalization (Zajda and Rust 2016a, b). In fact, theory itself is a complex issue that requires some historical discussion to frame its many meanings.
Abstract
Unquestionably, every researcher is different; each has their own backgrounds and their cultures that make them unique. Nowadays, the higher education sector in developing countries is facing challenges from a dynamic environment characterised by swift technological change and in-creased demand. The challenge is to bring the formal processes of learning gained throughout a leader’s experience into meaningful for quality leadership in Higher Education institutions (HEls). Implementing quality leadership and management in higher education establishments is the main focus of the reform process currently undertaken by the Ministry of Higher education and Scien-tific Research in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
This study explores how leaders in higher education (Directors, Principals, Vice president and President) in Kurdistan perceive leadership and the leadership skills required to make them effec-tive. It also examines the challenges, which leaders face in leading and managing their institution and how to improve their leadership. Knowledge sharing is acknowledged as the most significant resources for competitive advantage and the key to improving innovation. The knowledge man-agement and the promotion of knowledge sharing among the members of an organisation are a vital part of the learning process as they help to convert the tacit knowledge. This research has an interest in understanding research participants’ subjective experiences as well as their general perception of the participative leadership. In order to decide on the position as a researcher to adopt differing ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions that underpin each paradigm in turn or ways of viewing by educational research.
The aim is to accomplish this in a way that influences me to position myself philosophically as a researcher that mixed an interpretivist with positivist. The study data analysis is based adopted an interpretive approach and attempted to address the research questions through developing a structured interview and questionnaire guide to facilitate the collection of data. This is because some of participates (23) they have accepted questionnaire only. The sample in this mixed methods case study is to investigate the perspective of the small cohort of 15 leaders comprising ten males and five females currently or recently holding senior positions in the HEls in Kurdistan in two state and five private universities, and they were accepted face-to-face interviews.
The finding showed that the nature of leadership for leaders in higher education are complex, demanding and requires a combination of leadership skills and management. This study captures insights the four aspects that define leadership, which are: leadership is distinct from manage-ment; Leadership relates to leaders’ characteristics, leadership is about influencing and leader-ship requires a vision. Correspondingly, leadership skills required for future university leaders to make them effective such as communication skills, and the four main challenges based on the findings, which are: difficult to share the leader’s vision, poor communication skills, lack of self-confidence and lack of motivation. Finally, the ways in which leadership of university leaders could be improved such as length of experience and highlights the possible inadequacies of for-mal leadership development for leader-academics in higher education in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Completed commentary for Doctorate in Education (by portfolio) on developing Curricula in Architectural Education
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.