Nerida Spina

Language, literacy, and pedagogy in postindustrial societies: the case of black academic underachievement

Mocombe and Tomlin’s Language, Literacy, and Pedagogy in Postindustrial Societies: The Case of Black Academic Underachievement is part of the Routledge Research in Education series. The purpose of the work is to set out a theoretical framework for understanding the black/white academic achievement gap in the age of globalisation and post-industrialism. The authors use each chapter to develop an explanation for the persistent black/white academic achievement gap, by theorising that the gap is an epiphenomenon of global capitalist, post-industrial structures, reinforced by education as an apparatus of the system...

The global testing culture: shaping education policy, perceptions and practice

of large numbers of teachers and limited resources, practising English teachers were chosen and trained to conduct in-service programmes for 80–100 teachers in 19 districts. Mukherjee reports on how a reflective/process approach affected programme participants and how being one of the teacher educators contributed to her own professional development opportunities. In Chapter 12, Maria Luz C. Vilches reports on four trainers’ experiences involved in a scheme which aimed to develop a bank of trainers to help large numbers of primary English teachers in the Philippines. These trainers valued the phased, context-sensitive nature of their training and the acknowledgement and engagement with their teaching experience. The editors’ aim that ‘SLTE practice and thinking will be enhanced by the broader international conversation which emerges from this volume’ (2) is definitely achieved. As a teacher educator I found this book extremely interesting. I was inspired by the contributors’ clever solutions to universal problems and impressed by the fact that most chapters were based on empirical research, often featuring data extracts from teachers and teacher educators. The common themes of process, change, context and interculturality are viewed and described from different angles, yet many common experiences recur across chapters. Each chapter is followed by a short response from another author in the volume which is an interesting and innovative idea. However, many responses are merely a summary and comparison to their own content, which, while interesting, seem to miss an opportunity to challenge or present different perspectives. In contrast, the responses by Kyungsuk Chang/Shelagh Rixon and Maria Luz C. Vilches involve more critical dialogue with questions and insightful comment which enrich and extend the chapter. As this volume is predicated on the belief that sharing experience can contribute to learning, Gee Macrory’s comment made in response to Susmita Pani’s chapter is significant: ‘Perhaps governments could learn from talking to each other in the way that we learn from each other in teacher education’ (197).

Governing by numbers: Local effects on students experiences of writing

Abstract The global neoliberal context and the emergence of new forms of ‘governance by numbers’ is now recognized as a ubiquitous educational phenomenon. In this context, large‐scale assessments such as are used to justify marketised ideals of education that rely on comparison by numbers. In Australia, one of the key arguments for large scale standardised testing is that it increases transparency and provides parents and policy makers with important data; and that it ultimately drives student achievement. Although standardised assessments purport to improve transparency, limited attention is given to how the quantification of education changes the nature of teachers’ work. This institutional ethnographic study investigated how student achievement data on standardised tests served to reorient the work of teachers in six Australian schools. As educators increased their efforts to ‘improve their data’ these efforts limited alternative curriculum and pedagogic possibilities, such as fostering student creativity in the teaching of writing.