Anna Robinson-Pant

The attractions of teaching: an investigation into why people change careers to teach

Questions related to motivation of trainee teachers who have changed careers and become trainee teachers are examined. Perceptions held by recruits that led them to choose teaching are then analysed and factors that may deter trainee teachers from remaining in the profession are considered.

Women and literacy: a Nepal perspective

Abstract This article looks at adult womens experiences of literacy and literacy learning in a remote area of Western Nepal. As part of a research degree at Sussex University, I spent eight months living in a small village community where an American aid agency was implementing a development programme, comprising of a literacy class with follow-up income-generating activities for women. Drawing on an “ideological” approach to literacy research, I investigated how women and men of differing ages and economic backgrounds used literacy in their everyday lives. My research aimed to move away from the simple polarisation of women and men, traditional and developed, to analyse what meanings of literacy and gender were shared or disputed between different groups of people and how they reacted to literacy interventions by a foreign aid agency. By looking at three main kinds of literacy practices which so-called “illiterate” women participated in—existing everyday practices such as religious reading; new everyday practices such as account keeping introduced by the aid agency; and the literacy class which ran every evening in the village—this article analyses how women reacted to different kinds of literacies and what they gained from attending a literacy class. Everyday literacies tended to be seen as separate or even in opposition to the literacy class or new practices since they were learnt informally in the home. Many new literacy practices, such as form filling or keeping minutes, were viewed by both men and women as symbolic of the agencys authority but not necessarily useful. The literacy class introduced women to new roles as “class participants” and more participatory methods of teaching, but they preferred the kind of education seen in local schools so encouraged the teacher to adopt chanting methods and mirror the hierarchical teacher–pupil relationship. Though the women contested the dominant model of literacy and gender presented to them by the aid agency—that reading and writing would help in their existing role as mothers or wives or were useful for income generating—they wanted to become “educated” by attending the literacy class. They felt they gained a new identity through becoming literate and valued the additional social space that the class gave them as a group of women from differing backgrounds. Certain new practices like creative writing, though imposed by the aid agency, were welcomed by women at the class as enabling them to have a new voice.

An international journal’s attempts to address inequalities in academic publishing: developing a writing for publication programme

Scholars around the world are under increasing pressure to publish in English, in Anglophone centre journals. At the same time, research on professional academic writing indicates that scholars from outside Anglophone centre contexts face considerable obstacles in getting their academic work published in such journals, relating to material and linguistic resources. This paper draws on current research to offer a brief outline of inequalities arising from the privileged status of English and critically discusses the experiences of Compare: a journal of comparative and international education, in trying to tackle some of these inequalities in publishing through a mentoring programme. Recognising that many writers submitting to the journal have rich and original material, and that the established reviewing procedures do not readily accommodate the mentoring required to support submission (and eventual publication), the programme was designed to offer writers access to resources not easily (or necessarily readily) available: ‘expert insider’ knowledge from Compare editorial board members and reviewers and English textual commentary by ‘academic literacy’ facilitators. We outline key features of Compare’s ‘writing for publication’ programme and critically discuss both the success and difficulties encountered, drawing on reflections of participants, writer profiles and numbers of submissions from the three years in which the programme was run.

'Why Literacy Matters': Exploring A Policy Perspective on Literacies, Identities and Social Change

Abstract This article looks at the methodological implications of bringing what has been termed an ‘ethnographic perspective’ on literacies, identity and social change, into the international policy discourse on education and development. Through an analysis of the UNESCO Global Monitoring Report 2006, Literacy for Life, I explore how and whether ethnographic insights can be translated into a policy context dominated by an economistic paradigm of development. The difficulties lie not just in how to avoid simplifying lengthy ethnographic analysis or generalising statistically from tiny unrepresentative samples but, also, around the kind of questions for which answers are being sought from researchers. I suggest that the predominantly instrumental approach to literacy, where literacy is discussed in terms of its ‘benefits’, contrasts with ethnographic research on multiple literacies and identities: for instance the ‘illiterate’ woman who is viewed by herself and others as ‘educated’. These more complex understandings of literacy, identity and social change might complicate the unambiguous message that Literacy for Life aims to put across to national and international policy makers: that ‘Literacy Matters’. I end by reflecting on how ethnographic researchers could contribute more effectively to policy debates on literacy.

Education for women: whose values count?

This article looks at how far educational approaches to gender equity can be packaged and exported to developing countries. I analyze current discourses on womens education at international, national and local levels. Drawing on detailed ethnographic data from Nepal, I argue that issues around gender and education need to be addressed as ideological in nature, rather than a technical matter of tackling ‘drop out’ from womens literacy classes or getting more girls into school. From talking about ‘change’, ‘transformation’ and ‘access’, we need to think more about what is being changed to what and whose values underlie specific educational approaches.This article looks at how far educational approaches to gender equity can be packaged and exported to developing countries. I analyze current discourses on womens education at international, national and local levels. Drawing on detailed ethnographic data from Nepal, I argue that issues around gender and education need to be addressed as ideological in nature, rather than a technical matter of tackling ‘drop out’ from womens literacy classes or getting more girls into school. From talking about ‘change’, ‘transformation’ and ‘access’, we need to think more about what is being changed to what and whose values underlie specific educational approaches.

Power, participation and decision making in the primary classroom: children as action researchers

This article discusses a project focused on children researching their role in decision making in their classrooms and schools, with a view to increasing their involvement. The action research project was carried out by children, their class teachers and university researchers in six Norfolk primary schools from 2004 to 2006. As the project aimed to introduce more participatory approaches to decision making in classrooms, this necessarily had implications for the ways in which adults worked with children as action researchers. The article explores the constraints encountered by both children and teachers in sharing decisions and in carrying out action research, and identifies two dimensions: the teachers’ thinking and action, as well as children’s research and decision making. The teachers struggled with their need to mediate the project aims in the context of the changing nature of their professional role in the current target‐driven school culture.

Special Issue on University Internationalisation--Towards Transformative Change in Higher Education. Internationalising Doctoral Research: Developing Theoretical Perspectives on Practice.

The current internationalisation agenda in UK higher education (HE) is still seen as most relevant to those university departments involved in international student recruitment and support. This approach has been influenced by the dominant ‘deficit’ discourses from earlier decades, which emphasise the need for international students to ‘catch up on’ English language and academic skills. By contrast, we argue that a more critical and holistic approach towards internationalisation can have implications for all staff and students in the university, and in all areas of activity, including curriculum development, assessment and research. Through examples from recent research conducted with doctoral students, we draw on conceptual approaches from the fields of academic literacies and intercultural communication to develop a lens for exploring educational research and teaching practices from an internationalisation perspective. We discuss some of the issues that arose in relation to the unfamiliar academic literacy and communicative practices that international students encountered in the UK institution. These included: negotiating different procedures and approaches when conducting research as a UK university-based researcher as compared to their ‘home’ institution; developing understanding of the supervisory relationship and feedback, and the challenges of reading and writing across cultures. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of these research findings for developing a ‘transformative’ approach to internationalisation of HE.

Enhancing participation in primary school and class councils through visual communication

In the context of citizenship education, many UK primary schools have recently set up school councils. Previous research has overlooked the importance of exploring communicative practices specific to school councils and the implications for childrens participation. This paper draws on an action‐orientated research project with teachers in three Norfolk primary schools, which began with ethnographic observation of school and class council meetings. By developing alternative visual strategies for facilitating communication in meetings (based on a methodology known as PRA), teachers were able to encourage involvement by more children and enable them to have a greater voice in decision‐making. We argue that the common focus on adult procedures in school councils puts the emphasis on teaching children about their future role as citizens and can limit childrens ownership of decision‐making processes. The alternative is to create contexts in which children have a sense of the democratic purposes of their school council in the here and now, by providing children with means (such as the visual strategies) that are consistent with those purposes and prioritizing action as an end.

Researching ethically across cultures:Issues of knowledge, power and voice

Background to this special issue In recent years, a greater focus on cross-cultural research and on research undertaken by multidisciplinary national teams has raised significant challenges with regard to how educational research is conceptualised, conducted and disseminated in an ethical manner. Increasingly, in international and comparative educational research, it is being recognised that existing ethical codes and paradigms either do not sufficiently address such issues or tend to be rather restrictive and insensitive to multiple and complex cultural and contextual differences. For international students in UK higher educational institutions, these contrasting assumptions about values and practices within research can be even more evident, as they are often obliged to conform to the requirements of their UK university research ethics committee when conducting fieldwork in their home countries. This special issue sets out to explore ethical issues and dilemmas encountered by educational researchers working across cultures – sharing insights with each other into the differing values and assumptions that shape research and writing practices. The aim is to develop a deeper understanding of: the relationship between researcher and the ‘researched’; issues of particular concern during field research, such as negotiating access and giving back; and the construction and ownership of knowledge. The contributions in this special issue move beyond instrumental discussions of research governance and further broaden the scope from an emphasis on ‘access’ (for instance, whether or how research participants will give informed consent) to a deeper consideration of the ethical implications of constructing and negotiating research and policy texts across cultures. The themes emerged partly from a symposium, in July 2011, organised by the Centre for Applied Research in Education (CARE) at the University of East Anglia on ‘Internationalising Research Ethics’. This event brought together researchers to deliberate on the following questions:

Compare: exploring a forty year journey through comparative education and international development

This special issue both completes and celebrates the 40th volume of Compare. We have been privileged to serve as editors of this important journal over the past six years. Both of us came to the role in 2004 and have completed our terms of office in 2009 and 2010 respectively. Part of the strict British Association for International and Comparative Education (BAICE)/Compare policy of appointing editors and all editorial members for fixed terms ensures a process of permanent renewal. Members of each incoming editorial team appraise the journal as they see it at the time. All do so from their own standpoints, perspectives, commitments and specialisms. This special issue has afforded us a rare opportunity to stand back and take a longer retrospective view, contacting past editors and inviting review and comment. We have experienced a journey back in time that has brought us to where we started, and in so doing we see the place differently, as for the first time. In this editorial, we share that journey with you, our readers. How did we perceive the journal and the task before us, when first appointed in 2004? We were assuming responsibility for a journal in good health, with a committed worldwide readership and a unique position as the official journal of BAICE. We had, of course, outlined some views and intentions during the appointment process. As a first step, we expected submissions – individually or (in the case of special issues) collectively – to have a stronger comparative dimension than was exhibited in many of the previous volumes. The comparisons could be systemic, historical, thematic, across subcultures or ways of learning: the main criterion being their significance for the international community of researchers and scholars. In this way we saw the journal as potentially able to incorporate work of a wider range of high quality educational research. As well as encouraging much more comparative analysis we wanted to ensure that important single country case studies, particularly in under-researched areas, became more strongly linked to wider themes of global or comparative significance. We also perceived a leaning towards articles on schooling in low and middle