Madeleine Arnot

A Sociology of Pedagogic Voice: Power, inequality and pupil consultation

The concept of student voice is problematic. This paper considers two different traditions which theorise the notion of voice. The first is located within critical sociological studies of youth identity, drawing upon the notion of the often silenced voices of the marginalised, “Othered” or subordinated as a means of exposing oppressive power relations. The paper outlines an alternative theorisation of student voice we call, following Bernstein, the sociology of pedagogic voice. Bernsteins distinction between voice and message plays a key role here in discriminating between: social and pedagogic identities; specialised voices based upon power relations and the realisation of those relations revealed in “talk”; and dominant and subordinate voices and the “yet to voiced”. This conceptualisation of voice suggests that pedagogies construct the voice/message which teachers and researchers hear—whether classroom talk, subject talk, identity talk or code talk. Caution is needed in assuming that power relations can be changed through the elicitation of student talk.

Equality and Democracy: a decade of struggle over education

Abstract According to the Conservative Party, the ‘age of egalitarianism is now over’. This article explores the development of egalitarianism in the United Kingdom in the last decade and the threat represented by the Education Reform Act 1988. It focuses on the political struggles over gender and ‘race’ equality in education since the significance of these struggles appears to have been neglected in current reassessments of social democracy. Teacher autonomy, child‐centred learning and freedom of curriculum choice, as defined by social democracy, have been challenged by campaigns for social equality. Yet calls for increased state intervention and more coercive strategies of reform were not conducive to a participatory democratic order. The analysis, therefore, demonstrates the tensions between equality and democracy as political goals within advanced capitalist societies, and suggests that not only liberal, but also the egalitarian approaches of the 1980s require critical re‐evaluation.

Sociology of education and the wasteland of refugee education research

Refugees are stateless ... They are outcasts and outlaws of a novel kind, the products of globalisation ... Refugees are human waste, with no useful function to play in the land of their arrival ... from their present place, the dumping site, there is no return and no road forward ... The act of assigning to waste puts an end to differences, individualities, idiosyncrasies ... All measures have been taken to assure the permanence of their exclusion. (Bauman, 2004, pp.76-78)

Feminism and social justice in education : international perspectives

SELECTED CONTENTS: Theories of Family Change, Motherhood and Education, Miriam E David Getting Out From Down Under: Maori Women, Education and the Struggle for Mana Wahine, Heidi Safia Mirza Shell Shock or Sisterhood: English School History and Feminist Practice, Gaby Weiner Othermothers: Exploring the Educational Philosophy of Black American Women Teachers, Michele Foster Contradictions in Terms: Women Academics in British Universities, Sandra Acker Feminism and Australian State Policy: Some Questions for the 1990s, Lyn Yates Feminism and the Struggle for a Democratic Education: A View from the United States, Kathleen Weiler.

Feminist Politics and Democratic Values in Education

AbstractThis exploratory article is threefold in purpose. In the first instance, it seeks to re-assess the contributions of feminist thought to our understanding of democratic values in education. We draw extensively upon the insights of feminist political theorists to conduct this re-assessment and suggest some new directions for the study of “Education Feminism” (see Stone, 1994). The second aim is to identify and describe the key feminist debates which have emerged about the gendering of liberal democracy. We revisit major but contrasting traditions of thought—that of liberal feminism and feminist theorizing from maternal, socialist, and post-structural positions—to illustrate shifts in thinking about democracy and democratic education. Our goal in conducting this re-evaluation is to highlight the necessity of developing a more explicit and systematic consideration of the relationship between feminism and democratic education. Our third aim is to describe the key levels of political analysis that have ...

Decentring hegemonic gender theory: the implications for educational research

The knowledge gathered and reviewed in the field of gender studies has been disseminated globally over the twentieth century but has paid relatively little regard to the contexts and meanings that have simultaneously emerged in other regions of the world. The emergence of global equality agendas in education associated with new frameworks and metrics for national growth provides a unique opportunity to bring together these diverse understandings of gender. This paper compares gender education theory in Western Europe and North America on one hand, and those from locations within Africa and South Asia on the other. We examine the major contributions of Southern gender theorists, two from Africa and two from South Asia, through four themes raised by these authors: the category of ‘third world woman’ and by implication the ‘girl child’; the othering of motherhood; the sexual/gendering of the body and the consequence of dislocation on academic positionalities. A new feminist research agenda is indicated that aims to reduce binaries, increase bi‐cultural workings, and readdress the role of positionality in the field of gender education research.

Compassion, caring and justice: teachers’ strategies to maintain moral integrity in the face of national hostility to the “non‐citizen”

Refugees commonly have just one remaining identity – that of being stateless and statusless. They represent the ultimate “other in our midst”. The humanism of our teachers in helping the children of asylum‐seekers and refugees is tested by the state, especially its immigration policy. This paper offers preliminary research findings on teachers’ concepts of compassion and their responses to the needs of asylum‐seeking and refugee children.

‘Gendered Citizenry’: new feminist perspectives on education and citizenship

Abstract This paper describes the recent development of feminist analyses of the role of education in creating ‘inclusive’ democratic citizenship. Four discrete feminist perspectives on citizenship are outlined: a theoretical critique of citizenship as a modern male narrative; a socio‐historical perspective on womens struggle for equal citizenship through education; deconstruction of the discourses of citizenship used by contemporary teachers and their gendered dimensions; and an emerging educational perspective on the gender principles which should affect education for citizenship in democratic societies. These four perspectives on citizenship offer opportunities to reflect critically on the past and continuing struggle of women for equality. They suggest, too, the complex issues which now face any programme of education for citizenship for the next century. More than one masculinised democratic discourse, it seems, would need to be transformed for women to achieve full political integration.

Youth citizenship and the politics of belonging: introducing contexts, voices, imaginaries

Over the past 10 years, citizenship has come in for a lot of attention in the academic sphere. Those in political studies, development studies and comparative education have been particularly interested in investigating and understanding its importance and role in nation building, in building social cohesion and democratic citizenship. Contemporary occurrences, such as the recent Arab Spring (Zakaria 2011) and UK riots in 2011 (The Guardian 2011), also encourage us to consider young people’s contemporary social movements, activism, their sense of belonging and their new understandings of citizenship. We also know that we live in an ever growing young world. According to the United Nations, there is now a record 1.3 billion youth aged between 12 and 24 in the world – many of whom (130 million globally) cannot read or write. Child and adolescent cohorts make up between 40 and 60% of the total population in South East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where there is increasing talk of a ‘demographic dividend’ (Bloom, Canning and Sevilla 2003; Lundberg and Lam 2007). This youth bulge has the potential for an acceleration in the rate of economic growth due to the fact that young people are more numerous, better educated and healthier (with lower rates of fertility) than at any other time in history. However, scholars argue that there is a limited window of opportunity for eliminating poverty. While some laud the presence of the youth bulge, recent commentators have shown how such phenomenon frequently foment conflict and how young people themselves have provided the groundswell for sea change in many cases (Urdal 2011). The Growing Up Global study (Lloyd 2005) argues that youth are the most vulnerable to poverty – they are in a limbo between childhood and adulthood. What happens in this period, affects their lives in ways that often seem to be irreversible. Youth, especially those who are from the poorest families, are most likely to experience violence, little or low income, to be homeless, to face dangerous diseases such as AIDS, to be outside formal institutions (even education), to be unemployed, to be the target of criminal activity and drug cultures, to have little participation in civic and political life and are less likely to vote. Young people also face considerable discrimination in the transition to economic independence. Even though many might have the right to vote, nevertheless they make up half of the total number of the world’s unemployed and are employed often in low skilled, casual and often dangerous work. Many are involved in child labour or as carers of their family members (parents, siblings, relatives and children). Globally, youth are being called upon to help carry the burden of forging a political or ‘civic order that must be attuned as much to the evolving future whilst sustaining and adapting the past’ (Youniss et al. 2002, 123). This political order of the new century is currently framed by the two structuring forces of democracy and capitalism, both of

Freedom's Children: a Gender Perspective on the Education of the Learner Citizen

Drawing on Ulrich Beck’s theory of “freedom’s children”, the present contribution examines contemporary concerns about educating young people for citizenship as well as educating them about citizenship. Under the first theme, the author focuses on the citizen as learner, highlighting some of the gender- and class-related inequalities that are typically associated with individualisation. Under the second theme, she looks at the learner as citizen in view of the fact that citizenship education courses often prepare learners for a gender-divided world — even though the processes of individualisation have themselves significantly reshaped contemporary gender relations. In light of current challenges facing citizenship education, the study concludes by reflecting on gender-related dimensions of individualisation and their implications for democracy and the learner-citizen.