{"title":"‘Our system fits us’: comparing teacher accountability, motivation, and sociocultural context in Finland and Singapore","authors":"Yue-Yi Hwa","doi":"10.1080/03050068.2022.2102754","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2022.2102754","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Every teacher’s classroom practice is embedded in a system of overlapping contexts that interact with their day-to-day decisions. In this paper, I focus on sociocultural context and how it interacts with teachers’ subjective responses to accountability instruments. Drawing on interviews with secondary school teachers in Finland and Singapore – education systems with contrasting but comparably effective approaches to teacher accountability – I find that one way in which sociocultural context interacts with teachers’ experiences of accountability instruments is by influencing the mental models of motivation that shape their responses to these instruments. This finding is relevant to two contentious areas in education policy. First, it suggests that teacher accountability policy is a socioculturally embedded matter, implying a need for caution rather than recommending specific forms of accountability across the board. Second, it adds to the growing body of evidence demonstrating that ‘best practices’ from high-performing education systems are contingent on implementation contexts.","PeriodicalId":47655,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80140863","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Education in radical uncertainty: transgression in theory and method","authors":"Annett Graefe-Geusch","doi":"10.1080/03050068.2022.2104497","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2022.2104497","url":null,"abstract":"lifetime ’ s work. Identity is a lifelong process – a project – of self-realisation. Moreover, it is a process of self-realisation that relies crucially on mutual recognition. Identity is formed in the space between the ‘ I ’ and the ‘ me ’ : the space between the self-a ffi rmation of the subjective self and the self that is perceived objectively by other subjective selves. We become ourselves within this inter-subjective – and linguistically organised – space. For, Auerbach network theory fails to grasp the fragility, super-complexity, and relationality of this space. He hangs on to the more homely notion of ‘ neighbourhood ’ : the crucial distinction being that ‘ I belong to the neighbourhood, whereas the network belongs to me ’ . An earthly neighbourhood with all its complex intertwining of belongingness and responsibility is, argues Bauman, what I belong to whether I like it or not. It is part of my belonging within the world. In these fi nal re fl ections by a great public intellectual and scholar there is – as always in his work – a sense of the unpredictability and precarity of our human world. For those interested in the methodology of comparison his work is of fundamental importance because of its insis-tence on the irreducible interconnectivity of the human, the social and the political. The ques-tion Bauman leaves me with is: how in a world where everything is connected with everything else – and where connectivity and con fl ict are inextricably entwined – might we fi nd the grounds to compare anything with anything? Are we not, rather, left with the incomparable di ff erences that comprise our in fi nitely varied world?","PeriodicalId":47655,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81956471","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Education and intercultural identity: a dialogue between Zygmunt Bauman and Agostino Portera","authors":"J. Nixon","doi":"10.1080/03050068.2022.2102325","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2022.2102325","url":null,"abstract":"lifetime ’ s work. Identity is a lifelong process – a project – of self-realisation. Moreover, it is a process of self-realisation that relies crucially on mutual recognition. Identity is formed in the space between the ‘ I ’ and the ‘ me ’ : the space between the self-a ffi rmation of the subjective self and the self that is perceived objectively by other subjective selves. We become ourselves within this inter-subjective – and linguistically organised – space. For, Auerbach network theory fails to grasp the fragility, super-complexity, and relationality of this space. He hangs on to the more homely notion of ‘ neighbourhood ’ : the crucial distinction being that ‘ I belong to the neighbourhood, whereas the network belongs to me ’ . An earthly neighbourhood with all its complex intertwining of belongingness and responsibility is, argues Bauman, what I belong to whether I like it or not. It is part of my belonging within the world. In these fi nal re fl ections by a great public intellectual and scholar there is – as always in his work – a sense of the unpredictability and precarity of our human world. For those interested in the methodology of comparison his work is of fundamental importance because of its insis-tence on the irreducible interconnectivity of the human, the social and the political. The question Bauman leaves me with is: how in a world where everything is connected with everything else – and where connectivity and con fl ict are inextricably entwined – might we fi nd the grounds to compare anything with anything? Are we not, rather, left with the incomparable di ff erences that comprise our in fi nitely varied world?","PeriodicalId":47655,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73722069","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Maintaining the legitimacy of school choice in the segregated schooling environment of Amsterdam","authors":"Shelby Sissing, W. Boterman","doi":"10.1080/03050068.2022.2094580","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2022.2094580","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In 2015, Amsterdam implemented a centralised primary school admissions policy, constraining school choice after a long history of highly autonomous schools and free parental choice which has resulted, in part, in the city's segregated schooling environment. Introduced out of concerns of inequality for parents and disorganisation by schools, this policy implemented a uniform choosing procedure and a distance-based priority mechanism. Drawing on interviews with school directors and municipal education officials, this paper examines how schools seek to maintain their legitimacy in a highly segregated school choice environment undergoing constrained change. The Amsterdam case serves as a unique example of local education officials confronting the well-documented negative effects of school choice through policies controlling school choice in an era of global school choice expansion.","PeriodicalId":47655,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84231424","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Examining Teach for All: International Perspectives on A Growing Global Network","authors":"Jacqueline Michl","doi":"10.1080/03050068.2022.2102324","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2022.2102324","url":null,"abstract":"Published in Comparative Education (Vol. 58, No. 4, 2022)","PeriodicalId":47655,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2022-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138504349","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Empowerment from what? Teacher ‘citizenship talk’ practices for migrant children in China","authors":"L. Yiu, Min Yu","doi":"10.1080/03050068.2022.2088691","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2022.2088691","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Drawing on two multi-site ethnographic projects in Beijing and Shanghai, we explore how teachers in both public schools and schools for migrant children have responded to state policies that restrict educational opportunities for migrant students. We argue the importance of political context in re-conceptualising empowerment by raising the question ‘empowerment from what?’ By making explicit what is normalised, we problematise the ways in which the predominant definition of empowerment has marginalised and trivialised the experiences of educators who are also engaging in powerful acts of empowerment in China. Importantly, this study sheds light on the ways in which Chinese teachers use ‘citizenship talk’ practices to engage in empowerment processes for migrant students. We contend that the value of this piece lies in pushing critical scholars to think more deeply about empowerment as socio-cultural transformation and advancing the field by generating debate on how context matters.","PeriodicalId":47655,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2022-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81239525","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Missing in action? The World Bank’s surveys of teacher absenteeism in sub-Saharan Africa","authors":"P. Bennell","doi":"10.1080/03050068.2022.2083342","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2022.2083342","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article critically evaluates the most important data set on teacher absence in sub-Saharan Africa, namely the World Bank’s national education service delivery indicator school surveys which have been conducted in 10 countries during the last decade. The three main conclusions of this review are (i) the very high levels of teacher absenteeism reported in these surveys are, for a variety of reasons, overestimated; (ii) the reporting and interpretation of the survey findings have been misleading and incorrect; and (iii) the failure to contextualise properly teacher absence leads to shortcomings in the proposed interventions for addressing this problem.","PeriodicalId":47655,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2022-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90620198","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Inclusion and social justice in neoliberal India: examining the world’s largest public-funded programme for private education","authors":"Tanushree Sarkar, Cravens Xiu","doi":"10.1080/03050068.2022.2074090","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2022.2074090","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT A provision of India’s Right to Education Act requires private schools to enrol 25% of children from ‘disadvantaged’ and ‘economically weaker’ backgrounds. Described as a unique public-private partnership, this policy has been widely debated for its promotion of private actors in ensuring equity and access to education. Within this controversial policy field is the increasing involvement of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that aim to reform the education sector through neoliberal logics and privatisation in India and globally. We analyse documents and reports from two NGOs and pay special attention to the discursive strategies employed. Among them, we find that establishing neutral expertise, legitimising educational privatisation, and promoting assimilationist pedagogy are noteworthy practices. We contribute to the extant literature by illuminating how NGOs implement this controversial provision and negotiate tensions around their position within a neoliberal policy landscape, which embodies privatisation in education yet touts social justice and equality as its objectives.","PeriodicalId":47655,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2022-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90717671","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Teaching Expertise in Three Countries: findings and policy implications from an international comparative study in early childhood education","authors":"A. Hayashi","doi":"10.1080/03050068.2022.2069327","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2022.2069327","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In this paper, Teaching Expertise in Three Countries project is used as an example to show the significance and contribution of international comparative research and to think about the possible implications for policy in early childhood education. The project studied the development of expertise in preschool teaching in Japan, China, and the United States by employing ‘video-cued multivocal ethnography’ to explore how teaching expertise is defined in each of these countries and what processes help teachers acquire advanced teaching skills. This project has shown similarities and culturally specific notions, in what the participants have to say about characteristics of less and more experienced teachers. These research findings raise issues and challenges in early childhood education that resonate with the situation not only in the three countries but also possibly in other countries, such as problematizing the role of remembering and reflection in professional practice and the value of experience.","PeriodicalId":47655,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2022-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87635925","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introducing the special issue on ‘Comparative studies in early childhood education: past, present and future’","authors":"D. Sousa, P. Moss","doi":"10.1080/03050068.2022.2071019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2022.2071019","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In recent years, Early Childhood Education (ECE) has emerged as a policy priority for many governments and international organisations. Yet while there has been much research about ECE, and despite some notable exceptions, comparative studies have figured less in ECE than in other sectors of education. This paper introduces the special issue on ‘comparative studies in early childhood education’. It provides the rationale for this issue alongside a brief historical overview of the relationship between ECE and comparative education, explaining how the embodiment of diverse forms of comparative enquiry can reveal interplays between policy, politics and practice in the past, present, and future comparative studies of ECE. It concludes by introducing the contrast between comparative education as a ‘science of solutions’ and as a ‘science of difference’, concepts that frame the special issue.","PeriodicalId":47655,"journal":{"name":"Comparative Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.3,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84482482","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}