Victoria Elliott

A critical analysis of the role of wait time in classroom interactions and the effects on student and teacher interactional behaviours

Extending the pauses between teachers’ and students’ turns (wait time) has been recommended as a way of improving classroom learning. Drawing on the Conversation Analysis literature on classroom interactions alongside extracts of classroom interactions, the relationship between these pauses and the interactional behaviour of teachers and students is examined. Extended wait time is built in to classroom interactions because of the IRF (Initiation–Response–Feedback/Follow-up) framework that dominates these interactions. Extending wait time can lead to a variety of changes in the norms of classroom interaction. The structures of interactions in formal classrooms are used to explain the previous findings relating to the extension of wait time. It is also shown that different uses of extended wait time lead to different interactional norms and maintaining extended wait times may not be desirable. Consequently, the article argues for a more nuanced understanding of wait time, desired student behaviours and the interaction of the two.

Empathetic projections and affect reactions in examiners of ‘A’ level English and History

The affective element of examiner thinking is an under-researched phenomenon. This paper explores the data from a ‘think aloud’ study, discussed in relation to the literature on decision-making, in which English and History examiners demonstrated a variety of affect reactions to scripts. They created detailed mental projections of candidates, with whom they created pseudo-dialogue, as seen elsewhere in the literature, and to whom they have empathetic affect reactions. Participants also attempted to separate themselves from their affect reactions, perceiving and mediating a potential cause of inaccuracy of judgement. The theory of cognitive dissonance is drawn on to suggest an explanation for examiners’ recurrent voicing of affect reactions while they construct them as irrelevant to the decision-making process.

‘Right nutrition, right values’: the construction of food, youth and morality in the UK government 2010–2014

Abstract This paper presents a critical discourse analysis, situated within a broad Foucauldian framework, focusing on the construction of food and eating within the context of youth, schools and education, drawing on speeches, documents and public texts produced or sponsored by members of the UK Coalition Government (2010–2014). Michael Gove, the then Secretary of State for Education, spoke of the ‘clear moral purpose’ (June 2011) of the education reform agenda, one key policy of which was the provision of free school meals for all infant school pupils from September 2014. Gove has said of this policy that ‘the reason that is so important is they won’t just get the right nutrition, they will get the right values’ (October 2013). The analysis draws on such statements, and other speeches, policy documents and public availably texts to delineate six discourses. These are the discourses of: School (Attainment and Community); Health; Party Political Identity; ‘Manners Maketh Man’; Economics; and ‘Good Parent/ Bad Parent’. Within these, two overarching themes emerge: a tension between neoliberalism and liberal paternalism, and a link between meals and morality.

The treasure house of a nation? Literary heritage, curriculum and devolution in Scotland and England in the twenty-first century

In January 2012, Scotlands First Minister Alex Salmond announced a radical measure that would see every Scottish school student study a Scottish text from a prescribed list. In 2010, Michael Gove announced that ‘Our literature is the best in the world’ and that every pupil should study particular authors. The ‘cultural heritage’ model of English is increasingly dismissed by teachers and students However, it is this ‘cultural heritage’ model which is preserved in the discourse of politicians. This paper explores the role that literary heritage texts play in the discourse of education policy in the context of devolution in twenty-first century Britain and considers the drivers and differences which can be seen in England and Scotland.

What does a good one look like? Marking A-level English scripts in relation to others

Abstract This article explores the use of representativeness as a guide to examining at English A‐level through an analysis of two training days on two different modules. Representativeness is a cognitive heuristic which guides decision‐making essentially by asking ‘how much does this example look as if it belongs to this class of things?’ A number of representative characteristics emerged during the training meetings including length, ‘adult’ writing and quality of written communication. The relation between representativeness and the mark scheme is also explored.

Roles as a route to being ‘other’: drama-based interventions with at-risk students

ABSTRACT Four drama programmes for at-risk youth run by a community theatre formed the basis for a 9-month participant observation and interview study. This paper focuses on the concept of roles, using this as a lens to explore participants’ experiences, and to suggest ways in which taking part in the programmes enabled young people to ‘be Other’ in their lives outside the drama space. We consider the unwanted role, role playing through previous experiences, role as a protective mask, role playing that provides respite, role playing that removes fear of failure and the increased confidence in interactions that result. These themes are considered within a framework that unites sociocultural concepts with concepts drawn from drama theory. Role is seen as an important tool which young people can utilise to escape negative stereotyping and to re-engage with schooling and family.

MARC: A Thought Experiment in the Morality of Automated Marking of English

Automated essay scoring programs are becoming more common and more technically advanced. They provoke strong reactions from both their advocates and their detractors. Arguments tend to fall into two categories: technical and principled. This paper argues that since technical difficulties will be overcome with time, the debate ought to be held in terms of the principles. A thought experiment, based on a technically perfect Automated Essay Scorer, is proposed in order to explore the moral questions related to this topic, such as whether students deserve to have their work read by a human. It concludes that affect is an important component both of writing and of the debate, but that if the move to automated scoring stops being an ‘all or nothing’ debate, then many of the objections on principle will be obviated.

Metrics in education—control and corruption

Neoliberalism is a form of governance that has free market economics at its heart: competition, deregulation, and macro-level quantification are its founding blocks. The term was coined in 1938 by Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek and was a reaction to forms of governance involving collectivism. The economist Milton Friedman is an iconic figure in the neoliberal field, as are some political leaders—Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Tony Blair, David Cameron, and Donald Trump. Adherents to neoliberalism subscribe to the belief that economic and individual well-being are best served by liberating individual entrepreneurial skills within a framework of strong property rights, free markets, and free trade. In societies that have come to be governed by neoliberal regimes, few people even recognise the term. This is the equivalent of living under communism or democracy without having heard such terms. In October 2017, when giving a keynote address at an international conference of examination boards, Baird asked the audience whether they had come across the term neoliberalism. Only one third of the participants put up their hands. Yet neoliberalism affects our lived realities as individuals, including through the metrics for which we are objects. Through those metrics we are coerced and controlled and at times rational actors seek to corrupt the system for a range of reasons. Neoliberalism is important for the conceptualisation of what is happening to education because neoliberal views have become such an accepted part of the discourse that they are presented as though there is no alternative. This is reminiscent of George Orwell’s dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, where the character Winston Smith explains that the regime’s aim is to narrow the range of thought such that ‘there will be no words in which to express’ certain thoughts. In this context, this Special Issue looks at a range of issues associated with the implications of neoliberal metric regimes in education. This Editorial provides a context for the individual cases in the articles. We discuss the foundational ideas behind metrics such as neoliberalism, performativity, the audit society, managerialism, and workfare. Some of the metrics in education are outlined, including known effects. We then turn to the focus of the Special Issue: gaming, malpractice, and cheating consequences of metrics. In the Florez et al. paper (this issue) and at the end of this Editorial, we ask what the future looks like for metrics systems. This Special Issue looks at a range of ways in which metrics have been introduced in education and how they have provoked unintended effects. The term ‘metrics’ is used for a quantitative measure of educational practice. Quantification brings the power of numbers, in all its forms: numbers can be more persuasive to certain audiences; through aggregation metrics are used to represent large-scale systems in an apparently coherent manner; calculations can be carried out upon them; and they can be compared. Assigning numbers to qualitative features of education gives these benefits, but the richness of life is lost in the process. The context in which the behaviour arose, the people involved, and the institutional arrangements are hard to capture in all of their OXFORD REVIEW OF EDUCATION 2018, VOL. 44, NO. 5, 533–544 https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2018.1504858

Playing the system: incentives to ‘game’ and educational ethics in school examination entry policies in England

ABSTRACT There has been a period of intense policy change involving GCSE examinations in England, proposed partly in response to schools using tactics to maximise performance against accountability measures. The reforms included a change to linear rather than modular entry, removing partial re-sits, and limiting early and multiple entry to examinations by changing school accountability measures. We present new empirical data from interviews conducted with senior teachers at 15 schools. The focus of these interviews has been in the English and mathematics departments; the first subjects to be examined in the new specifications. The data suggest that teachers acknowledge this practice of ‘gaming’ but only as something ‘other’ schools did. Whilst the reforms have now allowed for the system to be viewed as a more level playing field, teachers still describe a constant tension in the decisions surrounding examination entry. They describe the desire for a balance that is not just between school and student outcomes, but also between different outcomes such as motivation, performance, and engagement. Tensions arise between these outcomes when entry choices are being made.

What do we teach when we teach literature

What do we teach when we teach literature? The answer is manifold and steeped in context: in history, in emotion, in curriculum, in geography, in society, in danger, in identity, in theory, in powe...