Tom Stehlik

“I Am Working-Class”: Subjective Self-Definition as a Missing Measure of Social Class and Socioeconomic Status in Higher Education Research

This review provides a critical appraisal of the measurement of students’ social class and socioeconomic status (SES) in the context of widening higher education participation. Most assessments of social class and SES in higher education have focused on objective measurements based on the income, occupation, and education of students’ parents, and they have tended to overlook diversity among students based on factors such as age, ethnicity, indigeneity, and rurality. However, recent research in psychology and sociology has stressed the more subjective and intersectional nature of social class. The authors argue that it is important to consider subjective self-definitions of social class and SES alongside more traditional objective measures. The implications of this dual measurement approach for higher education research are discussed.

Mind the gap: school leaver aspirations and delayed pathways to further and higher education

The ‘gap year’ is defined as a time between the end of school and the beginning of further studies in which young people engage in a variety of activities, including paid or voluntary work. ‘Gapping’ is a significant trend globally for young people deferring formal study after completing school, before commencing further or higher education. A sizeable industry has grown up around the gap‐year concept with many volunteer placement agencies, websites, guide books and ‘time‐off consultants’ available to help young people plan their gap year, often at significant cost. It is claimed that a gap‐year experience will help participants acquire ‘soft skills’ needed in the modern world of work, develop social values allowing them to better adapt to university life and ultimately become more attractive to employers. Reference to the literature and data from surveys of Australian school and university students addresses the gap‐year phenomenon and how can it be defined and theorised. The paper explores reasons why school leavers delay transition into further education and what they do instead, queries whether gapping provides significant development of ‘soft skills’, and concludes that the gap‐year trend has implications for recognising work experience and informal learning in the workplace.

Parenting as a vocation: lifelong learning can begin in the home

The paper discusses the developmental aspects of lifelong learning and the notion of adult learning as a contextualized construct, as a framework for analysis of the relationship between individual and community development. This relationship is then analysed from the perspective of parents and their learning processes in the specific context of a Steiner or Waldorf School community, following a review of theories of adult learning grounded in Anthroposophy, the philosophy which underpins Steiner Education. Finally, the notion that parenting is a vocation and can provide a meaningful context and framework for lifelong learning is introduced and discussed in the light of this literature and based on a case study analysis of a Waldorf School in Australia.

Thinking, Feeling, and Willing: How Waldorf Schools Provide a Creative Pedagogy That Nurtures and Develops Imagination

The approach to education developed by Rudolf Steiner in 1919 is manifest in the worldwide Waldorf school movement and its curriculum, which is based on a firm foundation of child development as a gradual unfolding of the soul qualities of thinking, feeling, and willing. Teachers in Waldorf schools believe that a child’s imagination should be nurtured and encouraged to develop in a healthy way, using pedagogical approaches that avoid mass media and information technologies, especially screen-based technologies, particularly in the early years: One of the key aims of our method of educating is to help the child toward developing the faculty of free imagination. So, for example, we generally tell stories without offering printed pictures. Our words provide the raw materials. The child has to “clothe” the story with his or her own images. (Mt Barker Waldorf School Parent Association 2001)

The Challenges of Leadership in the Twenty-First Century

This chapter presents and discusses organisational leadership from a historical and theoretical perspective to identify issues and challenges for leadership going forward into the twenty-first century. Leadership and management theory, the global context, changing demographics and mobilities of workers, and contemporary perspectives on organisational structures are introduced and discussed. Particular reference is then made to the Australian context with a focus on the rail industry as an example of a large and established enterprise that is facing contemporary challenges in moving towards a workplace culture based on workforce development and participation models rather than traditional hierarchical, command-control structures and bureaucratic processes. The chapter begins with a review of external perspectives including an overview of leadership and management, and the latter part then focuses on internal perspectives including what it means to be a leader in Australia. We consider how developments in leadership and management theory and practice are viewed and dealt with in the Australian rail industry and conclude that robust evaluation tools and continuous improvement processes for leadership development programs are recommended for modern organisations to avoid costly and time-consuming mistakes.

Waldorf Schools as Communities of Practice for AVE and Social Sustainability

Communities of practice are characterized by an ability to generate social or cultural capital, not necessarily through formal educational provision but through informal learning, individual transformation, and cultural change arising from the collective involvement of like-minded people in a process, association, organization, or event, often based in practice. The associated theory of situated learning also suggests that for adults learning mainly occurs by situations, not subjects, and usually associated with social interaction. In this chapter I explore these notions in the context of a community of practice identified with a Waldorf School for Rudolf Steiner Education, which provided a case study for researching and analyzing the extent to which adults as parents engage in informal, social, and transformative learning. I conclude that the role of active parenting as a vocation and as legitimate work is enhanced and informed by involvement in a school that is defined by a specific educational philosophy which, inter alia, encourages the development of a learning community.

Predicting Unknown Futures

‘Twenty-first-century skills’, otherwise known as ‘soft skills’ such as communication, collaboration, cooperation, and creativity, are compared with ‘hard skills’ such as literacy, numeracy, and content knowledge in this chapter, in which I pose a number of questions. What will the classroom of the future look like in delivering these contrasting aspects of the curriculum, given the contemporary demands of the ‘fourth industrial revolution’? Can creativity and imagination be taught? How do we turn information into knowledge in a world of information overload? What is the process of the ‘getting of wisdom?

International Comparisons and Case Studies

This section of the book compares education systems, philosophies, and approaches in a number of different countries and cultures and shows that place, space, and ethos do make a difference to educational outcomes. Three case studies are introduced and discussed in this chapter. Firstly, a whole of country case study is made of Finland, its education system and its culture. Secondly, Steiner Education as an example of a holistic educational philosophy and a worldwide network of alternative schools is outlined and analysed. Thirdly, Green School Bali is presented as an example of a school purpose built to develop and deliver education for ecological and social sustainability.

The Importance of Philosophy

This chapter takes us back to classical Greece and the origins of the concept of philosophy, a term that combines the Greek words for love and wisdom and so literally means the love of wisdom. From the influential work of Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates, a brief history through time includes consideration of some of the major movers and shakers in philosophical and educational thought from ancient through to modern times. At the same time, the chapter introduces and unpacks key terms and concepts related to education that we have inherited and use daily but often take for granted.

Thinking Outside the Classroom

This chapter introduces and discusses alternative learning programmes that operate outside of the traditional confines of school, usually applying adult learning methodologies, often employing the creative arts as a point of interest for young people otherwise disengaged from the standard curriculum, and mostly delivered not by schoolteachers but by community educators, parents, and many others. They are a form of education now characterised as part of the ‘Not- school’ movement, which includes all out-of-school educational experiences such as homeschooling, which itself is part of an emerging trend of ‘unschooling’. School leaving age and school retention are all issues related to how long we expect young people to remain in institutionalised learning situations, while pathways to further education and/or careers are no longer simply linear, and gap years are becoming the norm. These trends require us to think outside traditional classroom and school structures.