Religions and education in England: social plurality, civil religion and religious education pedagogy

In England, religious groups have been involved since the nineteenth century in partnership with the state in the provision of schools and the curriculum subject of religious education. Institutionally, the Church of England holds a privileged place as the established church. Changes in society have led to more equality within education between religious traditions, initially for the Roman Catholic and Jewish communities and more recently for other traditions. These changes included increasing secularisation in the 1960s and 1970s; and the pluralisation of society, mainly through migration. Britain has had long experience of migration and settlement of peoples, especially from former colonies in South Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. In the light of the 2001 census data, considered together with figures on regular church attendance, Britain might be described as a society combining various kinds of Christian, secular and multifaith elements

Assessing how closely postgraduate translation programmes fit the reality of professional practice: a case study of the Spanish context

This paper presents the results of an empirical descriptive and contrastive study designed to assess how closely postgraduate translation programmes fit the reality of professional practice. Focusing on medical translation, the case study analyses the convergences and divergences between the competences that professional medical translators deploy in their work and highlight as being essential and those that students are expected to acquire in postgraduate courses in which medical translation is taught. Two empirical studies were conducted. The first study focused on a socio-professional perspective: 167 English-to-Spanish medical translators were surveyed to obtain information about their profiles and their opinions on the competences needed for medical translation. The second study focused on an academic perspective: the syllabuses of postgraduate courses in which medical translation is taught in Spain were analysed to determine the competences students are expected to acquire. The results of these two studies, which are analysed, compared and discussed, show that there are a significant number of convergences, but also some divergences, between the university courses and the professional practice. These raise interesting questions which need to be taken into account when designing, planning and improving existing and new postgraduate courses

AN EXEMPLAR-APPRENTICE MODEL FOR TEACHING DANCE COMPOSITION THROUGH PERFORMANCE IN SECONDARY EDUCATION (NSW. AUSTRALIA)

Volume 2 and other video files are available from British Library's EThOS service.Dance education in New South Wales focuses on the three components of the artform - performance, composition and appreciation. However,, historically there has been a prescribed emphasis on performance on the assumption that performance informs composition and appreciation. In preliminary investigations, data gained via questionnaires to students; examination markers' reports; and examination results, showed the above assumption to be erroneous. It is hypothesised that, although in NSW teachers choreograph the dances performed for assessment, the emphasis on skill acquisition to achieve the highest level of performance possible mitigates against making connections between these dances and the composition components in the syllabuses. This research aimed to develop, test, and evaluate new methods of teaching these dances to simultaneously enhance students' knowledge, understanding and skill in dance composition and appreciation. The resultant Exemplar-Apprentice model -a development of the traditional master-apprentice system with the teacher functioning in concurrent roles as an exemplar-artist and as a teacher-pedagogue - is recommended because the students, as apprentices, have access to the exemplar-artist's knowledge, intuition, experience and creativity and through the teacher-pedagogue this develops a more holistic appreciation of dance as an artform. Ninety-three students from Years 10 to 12 (ages 14-17) at one sample school participated in six interventions to test the exemplar-apprentice methodology. Appropriate analytical frameworks and qualitative research instruments were employed to establish internal validity within this action research project. Analysis of the data collected supports the proposition that the Exemplar-Apprentice model can enhance knowledge, understanding and skills in dance composition and appreciation, as well as in performance. Although claims for external validity of the model are proposed, a Resource Template is offered to facilitate use of it in contexts beyond the research site. Such testing, further adaptations and applications of the Exemplar-Apprentice model by other dance teachers will extend and enhance the teaching of dance performance in NSW and across the world

Mathematics teachers' positions and practices in discourses of assessment

Mathematics teachers ’ positions and practices in discourses of assessmen

Teachers, learners and mathematics : an analysis of HSRC research reports on mathematics education 1970-1980

Bibliography: pages 177-183.The dissertation is concerned with the production of a systematic analysis of HSRC research reports into mathematics education in South Africa between 1970 and 1980. Drawing on the theoretical language of Dowling (1995), the analysis focuses on the (re)production of voice and message in the reports. This entails an analysis of positioning strategies that il1ark out voices in the texts and distributing strategies that distribute message across voices. Voices include bureaucratic, academic, teacher and learner voices and knowledge and practices that constitute message distributed to voices relate to mathematical knowledge, pedagogic knowledge and curriculum innovation practices. Positioning and distributing textual strategies with respect to learner and teacher sub-voices are related to the (re)production of theories of instruction that constitute models of acquirers, transmitters and pedagogic contexts and define pedagogic competence in particular ways. The (re)production of theories of instruction in turn are related to the reproduction of social relations in the broader society. It is hoped that the analysis illustrates the generality of Dowling's language for analysing texts. The substantive focus of the study is the analysis of the reports and the language developed in the analysis is used to make some suggestive comments about current mathematics curriculum development in South Africa. It is hoped, in particular, that the focus in this study on discourses in mathematics education in South Africa in the 1970s will contribute to the documenting of the history of mathematics curriculum development in South Africa

A report to the Queensland Studies Authority : assessment approaches in Queensland senior science syllabuses

This commissioned paper deals with appropriate assessment in senior science subjects in Queensland. The terms of reference were: To investigate the theoretical underpinnings of the two approaches to criteria-based and standards-referenced assessment in the Queensland senior science syllabuses; To make recommendations as to which approach is the more applicable in the current context; and To model the proposed approach, and provide advice about implementation