The euphemism '21st century contexts' is often used to capture the transition from solid twentieth century education towards more uncertain social and educational conditions. These contextual ...narratives acknowledge the complexities of contemporary education that make decision- making, professional practice and leadership seem difficult. But they rarely explain the context of uncertainty, which, as research suggests, is linked to rapid change in practices of governing and their effects on nation states, the inter-state order, and established national educational knowledge-authority orders. This disjuncture raises questions about how, and with what effects, contexts shape educators ways of knowing and doing education. I use the concept of 'educational space-time' to understand how educators contextual understandings are implicated in educational change by drawing examples from studies of educational change in different historical periods and governing regimes. I argue that the way educators navigate change and uncertainty has effects on learning and citizenship but should also acknowledge the effects of changes in governing regimes. Contextual understandings that acknowledge shifts in governing-learning regimes can open the way to educational work that is not locked into binary choices between territorial government or multilateral governance. Author abstract
Climate change threatens human well-being and planetary health but is hardly addressed in education. Comparative education research has advised governments about education reforms since the ...nineteenth century, so what must change to sustain a liveable earth? I use the concept of 'educational space' to understand how comparative knowledge building has steered education. Then I re-read three volumes of the World Yearbook of Education (WYB) to show how comparative education has embedded knowledges that have steered governing, neglected experiences that complicate powerlessness, and constrained learning through measurement. I argue current education compromises humans facing challenging climate futures but could provide knowledges to support 'the other'.
In the lead-up to the 2007 Australian federal election, Labor candidate Kevin Rudd described climate change as the "great moral challenge of our generation". In the years since then, the heat in ...Australia has been rising - in terms of both temperature and climate politics -, but government action has slowed down. Endorsement of economic growth is prioritised, with only intermittent recognition of environmental costs. At grassroots level, citizens' attitudes are influenced by social norms. This kind of social learning is a major constraint on sustainability. Therefore, it seems useful to consider how educators might help build sustainable futures. To understand how historical context entangles social learning in ways that complicate policies associated with Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and practices of Education for Sustainability (EfS), the author of this paper draws on the concept of "space of orientation". Focusing on adult education, she traces the contradiction between "globalisation" and "sustainability" through policy logics, relational practices in Australian adult education and the "necessary Utopia" which provides a point of reference for making futures. She argues that spaces of orientation are a critical resource in this era of intensifying conflicts of interest between economic priorities of globalisation and environmental priorities intended to slow global warming, because they mediate context and orient learning in ways that clear a path towards sustainability through the entangled histories of this present. Développement durable et apprentissage social : recontextualiser l'espace d'orientation - Pendant la période précédant l'élection fédérale de 2007 en Australie, le candidat travailliste Kevin Rudd évoqua le changement climatique comme étant le « grand défi moral pour notre génération ». Depuis cette date, l'Australie s'est échauffée - à la fois en termes de température et de politique climatique -, mais l'action gouvernementale a connu un ralentissement. Le soutien à la croissance économique est prioritaire, accompagné d'une reconnaissance irrégulière des coûts environnementaux. Au niveau local, les comportements des citoyens sont influencés par les normes sociales. Ce type d'apprentissage social est un sérieux obstacle à la pérennité. Il semble par conséquent opportun d'examiner comment les éducateurs pourraient contribuer à édifier des avenirs pérennes. En vue de cerner comment le contexte historique influence l'apprentissage social au point de complexifier les politiques associées à l'éducation pour le développement durable et les pratiques de l'éducation pour un avenir viable, l'auteure s'inspire du concept « d'espace d'orientation ». Se concentrant sur l'éducation des adultes, elle traque la contradiction entre « mondialisation » et « pérennité » dans la logique des politiques, les pratiques relationnelles dans l'éducation des adultes en Australie, et « l'utopie nécessaire » qui fournit un point de repère pour construire des avenirs. Elle affirme que les espaces d'orientation sont une ressource décisive à cette époque d'intensification des conflits d'intérêts entre priorités économiques de la mondialisation et priorités environnementales destinées à ralentir le réchauffement planétaire; en effet, ils établissent un contexte et orientent l'apprentissage de sorte à tracer clairement la voie vers la pérennité à travers les historiques enchevêtrés du présent.
This paper was prompted by the call for submissions to the Rudd government's 2020 Summit in April 2008. It analyses the impacts of VET reform on the VET workforce in order to identify strategies that ...might inform an agenda to build the workforce capacity to support economic and innovation. The paper argues that VET reforms since the 1990s created disturbances and uncertainties in VET teachers' and managers' work, and working lives. In particular, these reforms failed to recognise and endorse teaching expertise that sits at the heart of VET practice. Top-down reforms and funding constraints, coupled with lack of recognition of VET occupational expertise, created perverse behaviours. These contradictory trends prompted occupational boundary work that drove innovations in the character and reach of VET teaching, yet without establishing the terms and conditions necessary to sustain such occupational expertise. Consequently these innovations continue to be vulnerable because new initiatives-identities cannot compete with established identities in the competition for recognition and resources. These trends run counter to government efforts aimed at engineering change in VET to support skill building in an innovative Australia. This model of reform is not followed by other countries, which recognise and deploy teaching expertise in productive ways to build capacities for innovation amongst young and older workercitizens. The paper concludes by suggesting that VET teaching expertise is an unacknowledged resource in the productivity challenge that could be mobilised in sustainable ways through professional renewal.
Large scale changes in work and education are a key feature of contemporary global transformations, with a pervasive politics that affects people’s experiences of workplaces and learning spaces.
This ...thought-provoking book uses empirical research to question prevailing debates surrounding compliance at work, education and lifelong learning, and emphasises the importance of debate and dissent within the current terms and conditions of work. Examining a number of types of work, including teaching, nursing and social work, through a transnational research space, the contributors investigate how disturbances in work both constrain and enable collective identities in practical politics.
Structured around three main themes, the book covers:
Disturbed work: with cases of occupational reform in nursing and vocational teaching in Finland and re-regulating work in Australia
Disturbing work: examining contested occupational knowledge in German school to work transitions, paraprofessional healthwork in the UK, social work in Finland, and mobilising professional expertise in US Community College faculty and Australian adult literacy
Transforming politics: negotiating an ageing workforce in Germany, young adults moving through identities and careers, building a politics of ‘we’ through a global book project
An enlightening collection of international contributions, this book will appeal to all postgraduate students, researchers and policy makers, in education, work, and lifelong learning.
Introduction- Disturbing work and transforming politics, Terri Seddon, Lea Henriksson and Beatrix Niemeyer 1. Disturbing Academic Work: Theorising a global book project Terri Seddon, Lea Henriksson and Beatrix Niemeyer Part 1 – Reconfiguring occupational orders 2. Human Service Labour Force in the Making: Spotlight on Finnish practical nurses Lea Henriksson 3. Disputing Managerial Architecture in Educational Work: Irony as a liberating strategy for Finnish vocational teachers Karin Filander 4. Disturbing Work, Workspaces and Working Lives: Three Australian case studies Anita Devos, Lesley Farrell and Terri Seddon Part 2 – The politics of expertise 5. Reconstructing US Community College Faculty: Mobilising professional expertise Richard L. Wagoner, John S. Levin and Susan Kater 6. German School to Work Transition Programs: ‘Disturbing work’ for educators Beatrix Niemeyer 7. Paraprofessional Development in the UK: Ambivalences and contradictions Chris Kubiak 8. Finnish Redefinitions of the ‘Social’ in Social Work: An eroding ethical discourse Päivi Niiranen-Linkama 9. Adult Literacy Teaching in Australia: Rethinking occupational knowledge Sue Shore Part 3 – Navigating work-learning careers 10. An Australian Worker Navigating Precarious Work and Fluid Subjectivity John Pardy 11. Employers Coping with Their Aging Workforce in East Germany Rudolf Husemann 12. Young Adults’ Career Prospects and Aspirations in East Germany and the US Antje Barabasch Coda 13. A Politics of Working Life Frigga Haug
"This thought provoking book, written in an accessible style, will be of value to social workers, educationalists and health care professionals. Contributions are made from an international arena including Finland, Germany, Australia, UK and the USA." - Megan Thomas, International Journal of Lifelong Education, 2012
Terri Seddon is Professor of Education at Monash University, Australia, and Director for Work and Learning Studies.
Lea Henriksson is Docent in Social Policy and an Academy of Finland Research Fellow at the University of Tampere, Finland.
Beatrix Niemeyer is Docent (PD) in Educational Science and Senior Researcher at the Institute of Vocational Education, University of Flensburg, Germany.
Research assessment exercises aim to identify research quantity and quality and provide insights into research capacity building strategies for the future. Yet with limited knowledge of the ecology ...of Australian educational research, there is little chance of understanding what research audits might contribute towards a capacity building agenda for such a complex field. This article draws on secondary data analysis of research outputs submitted by 13 Australian higher education institutions to the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) 2010 and 2012 national research assessment exercises, to show where Australian educational research is conducted. Findings offer a profile of education researchers by location in academic organisational units within universities. By analysing data not accessible through reported ERA data the authors were also able to present information about appointment profiles, specifically levels and type of appointment within universities, as well as data on institutional and geographic region, and patterns associated with type of outputs (books, book chapters, journal articles, conference papers and other outputs) and field of research. Analysis of the data reveals definitive shifts in the nature of the published outputs and in employment profiles of researchers and their location across university and regional groupings. Research audits are administrative processes that reshape institutional and disciplinary governance structures, policies, individual outputs, work practices and careers, but they are not the sum total of the field per se. Author abstract
Processes of national research assessment, such as Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) are a type of audit technology that confronts and steers established institutional identities and ...traditions. This nexus between policy and practice drives boundary work that diffracts prevailing policy logics, organisational practices, and habits of mind. The authors use this notion of 'boundary work' as an analytical lens for understanding the nature and effects of ERA in the Australian educational research space. This article explains the methodology that informed the AARE-ACDE research reported in Strategic Capacity Building for Australian Educational Research. It documents the policy logic of ERA and the way it cuts across the established ecology of educational research, revealing social and symbolic work that is remaking the boundaries of educational research. The authors report on the historical trajectory of Australian educational research, the way ERA codes research outputs, and how educational researchers are repositioning in this shifting research space. The authors argue that there are specific loci of boundary work where capacity building in Australian educational research can make a difference to future educational knowledge building. Author abstract
Experiencing Europe after the Brexit shock Seddon, Terri; Niemeyer, Beatrix
European educational research journal EERJ,
11/2018, Letnik:
17, Številka:
6
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This introduction to the special issue questions the idea of ‘Brexit shock’. It uses this discursive theme to focus on the way policy discourse that unfolds through the space of governing Europe has ...become disconnected from everyday discourses that unfold through the space of experiencing Europe. This dilemma identifies the point of departure for this special issue, which focuses on experiencing Europe.
This article reflects on the geography of Australian educational research in the context of the ERA 2010 and 2012 assessments results. These results reflect significant changes to the nature of ...educational research over the past decades, where this research is conducted and by whom. The authors recap the historical changes to the formation of educational institutions and their impact on research outputs to demonstrate that interdisciplinary work is growing in a context where there has been a shift in research outputs away from the traditional area of school education. The ERA results demonstrate a high level of research activity in the intersections between previously distinct discipline areas, particularly in the scholarship of teaching and learning. The future of ERA itself is addressed in order to propose interventions that might make a difference to an ecology that is anchored in traditions and tends towards inertia. Finally, the authors argue that efforts by universities to build research capacity are likely to continue to be competitive, to focus on the individual rather than on departments and schools, and to be subject to an increasingly pervasive culture of accountability. Against this discourse of accountability, and an accompanying loss in autonomy and creative 'think-time', the authors propose that academics in education actively engage in a community of research. The authors conclude with interventions designed to build a high-quality, analytical and theoretically intensive research culture to underscore educational research in Australia. Author abstract
Contemporary global transitions are remaking education as a social institution and re-positioning educators in a lifelong learning political order. In this paper, I reflect on a research project that ...investigated the teaching occupation in learning societies in order to explain the concept of 'educational work': the form of labour that makes, orients and enacts spaces, which yield learning and build citizen capabilities. I report on a case study of educational work in a global-national lifelong learning space, a small private training provider in Melbourne to illustrate this analysis. The analysis reveals how educators formed, supported and secured an educational space for learning, and its effects on citizen capabilities. I argue that the transition from the political order of public education re-frames and reforms education and the labour of educating that historically formed citizens but it does not dissolve educational work, or the importance of securing citizen capabilities. Understanding 'educational work' as a practice of governing and a contradictory process of making 'subjects' and 'citizens' reframes the debate about 'education' and 'training' and highlights its continuing importance as a means of securing democratic politics.
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