Jan Ax

Action research in initial teacher education: an explorative study

The aim of the study was to describe students’ and teacher educators’ practical experience with action research and to identify a number of special points for consideration (opportunities and limitations) which could play a role in putting research into practice in concrete terms in the courses. Students and teacher educators on three Dutch initial teacher education programmes which treat action research as both a means of professional development and a necessary professional qualification were involved. These were programmes for specific teaching levels and subjects in Dutch schools. Four special points for consideration are identified: action research and the educational core qualifications of the profession; difference between action research by student teachers during their initial education and experienced teachers in their own workplace; students’ mixed experiences and perceptions of research; and embedded research‐based activities in the programme. The authors conclude that action research should be considered from different perspectives: as a professional approach, a body of skills that is needed to make the connection between knowing that and knowing why; and as a way of improving practice by systematically building up practice‐based knowledge.

Moral issues in educational praxis: a perspective from pedagogiek and didactiek as human sciences in continental Europe

In this paper we will define the object of study of Pedagogiek, followed by a brief discussion about current trends in educational policy, teacher education and educational research. We refer here to the continental European ‘pedagogy as human science’, or more precisely the ‘science of the child’s upbringing’ in the social context. Central in this tradition is the moral debate about the complex relation between pedagogische aims and methods. Praxis has remained an important concept in this discussion down the centuries; it is concerned with the moral intentions behind a person’s actions as well as the consequences of the actions in the social context.

Inquiry-Based Professional Learning in Educational Praxis: Knowing Why, What and How

A view of teachers and pupils consistently comes across in Susan Groundwater-Smith’s work that is far removed from current neoliberal thinking: thinking which is characterised by an emphasis on standardisation of education. The desire to standardise stems from a mechanistic view of humankind. Repudiation of a mechanistic view of humankind rests among other things on the idea that people construct their reality by giving meaning to it and that these meanings vary from person to person, from situation to situation and over time. Even more important, however, is the fact that a mechanistic view of education ignores its most fundamental attribute, which is that education is essentially a moral endeavour. In our chapter, we will argue that therefore the reality of education has to be reinterpreted over and over again. We will explore this idea with a praxis model that takes most of its inspiration from the work of Weber, Mannheim and Habermas. Praxis is social practice that can always be judged in terms of the ‘what, how and why’. We will then go on to relate our praxis model—which we have developed from empirical research—to inquiry-based professional learning in teacher education courses.

Searching For Educational Quality

Over the past few years the government has instigated measures aimed at a better match between secondary vocational education and the demands posed by society. This is the perception of quality adopted here. The basic policy ideas can be outlined as follows. A process of institutional reorganisation has resulted in a system comprising a relatively few but large institutions which, in principle, are able to offer a comprehensive range of training courses. This sector used to comprise of a loose collection of small schools offering training for a variety of specific occupations. Comprehensive means all types of training varying in content, level and duration, which are required to satisfy the demand from students and clients in the vicinity. These new institutions are called Regional Training Centres (Regionale Opleidingen Centra, ROCs). The institutional integration of training courses is aimed at a closer integration of the training offered (internal adaptation and co-ordination), optimal planning of training courses, increased transparency for the benefit of external parties, increased capacity for policy decisions at institutional level and the introduction of innovation in education.

Action Research and Praxis: Grasping the Mystery of What Happens?

The Enlightenment and humanist philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ‘discovered’ human beings as individuals who are able to influence their own lives and the context in which they live. In the words of Nietzsche in the nineteenth century, the human being turned out to be ‘dass noch nicht fest gesteltes Tier’, a creature with the capacity to learn, a creature that relies on being raised by adults. With the discovery of human beings as autonomous individuals came the ‘discovery’ of the possibility and need to raise children in certain ways. Kant for instance—one of the most influential philosophers of the modern age—contended that human beings only became human through their upbringing. He argued that human beings are not determined by inborn instincts or divine powers, but essentially by their capacity for autonomous moral judgment and actions. Human beings fulfil themselves as ‘creatures of pure reason […] and so they need to be brought up with an ethical outlook […]. The main task is to bring up children to be virtuous people and that does not happen as a matter of course’ (Smeyers & Levering, 2001, p. 25). It was from the ‘discovery’ of human beings as autonomous individuals who are dependent on their upbringing that pedagogy as ‘human science’ or, more precisely, ‘the science of the child’s upbringing’ developed. It is a science with strong German roots, dominant in many European countries (especially in the north and east, including the Netherlands). In this chapter, we hope to convey an impression of pedagogy in continental Europe in the past, present and future. We will briefly explore ‘praxis’ as its object of study. Then, we will sketch the background to this science by looking at three Enlightenment figures that concerned themselves with education and the raising of children. They are Rousseau (who had a huge influence on philosophers such as Kant and on educationalists who emphasise the individuality of the child and its development); Schleiermacher (who had a major influence on ideas about the nature of theory in continental European pedagogy); and Herbart (who was a significant figure in the thinking about teaching as an issue for pedagogy as human science right through until the mid-twentieth century). We will then go on to link the contributions made by these figures to important debates that have determined the further development of continental European pedagogy. We conclude with a discussion of current trends stemming from neoliberal and Anglo-American influences, which threaten the survival of pedagogic thinking as we know it and finally point to some challenges for the future.