The emergent curriculum: navigating a complex course between unguided learning and planned enculturation

This study uses the ‘logic’ of emergence to rethink the practice and purposes of modern Western schooling which, conventionally, is organized around a representational epistemology and aims to enculture the student into a particular way of being. The idea of ‘planned enculturation’ is, however, problematic for contemporary multicultural societies for it raises the question of which or whose culture should be promoted through schooling. The authors argue that emergentist challenges to representational epistemology have not released schooling from its problematic function of planned enculturation. However, if the logic of emergence is applied not only to knowledge but also to human subjectivity then the educational problem of planned enculturation disappears. When emergentist logic is applied in this double sense, it becomes possible to understand the primary responsibility of the educator not as a responsibility to promote a particular way of being, but as a responsibility to the singularity and uniqueness of each individual student. If this is what counts as ‘educational responsibility’ then this would distinguish ‘responsible’ educational practices from unguided learning on the one hand and practices of planned enculturation/socialization (training) on the other

Unveiling professional development: A critical review of stage models

In research across professions, the development of professional skill traditionally was seen as a process of accumulation of knowledge and skills, promoted by practical experience. More recently, this view has been modified to incorporate skillful know-how that is progressively acquired by passing through developmental stages, such as novice, competent, and expert. The authors of this article critically review contemporary stage models that are typically applied across professions. Their principal critique is that a focus on stages veils or conceals more fundamental aspects of professional skill development. On the basis of their critique, the authors propose an alternative model that builds on the strengths of previous models while seeking to overcome their main limitations. Finally, the authors outline the implications of their alternative model for professional education, workplace practices, and research on professional development

'Education, education, education' : legal, moral and clinical

This article brings together Professor Donald Nicolson's intellectual interest in professional legal ethics and his long-standing involvement with law clinics both as an advisor at the University of Cape Town and Director of the University of Bristol Law Clinic and the University of Strathclyde Law Clinic. In this article he looks at how legal education may help start this process of character development, arguing that the best means is through student involvement in voluntary law clinics. And here he builds upon his recent article which argues for voluntary, community service oriented law clinics over those which emphasise the education of students

Reclaiming the ‘competent’ practitioner: furthering the case for the practically wise coach

The principal purpose of this paper is to further the case for phronesis as a progressive coaching concept. It is thus argued that coaching be considered (1) as a ‘geneology’ (Foucault, 1971), (2) as contextualist in nature, (3) as being imbedded in the minutiae of action, and (4) as ethical practice. To these we add the notions of emergence and situational literacy. Although to a degree theory-led, we co-constructed the argument through recourse to an 18 month ethnographic study of the Norwegian national female handball team, and in particular the actions of head coach Marit Breivik during the period of investigation. What was embarked upon here was akin to a contested dialogue between phronetic theory and the available empirical data. In advocating the general case of coaching to be informed by phronetic principles, we reclaim the coach as a ‘competent’ practitioner, a term involving emergent self-awareness and discernible judgement in relation to contextual goings on

Transitions in Human Computer Interaction: From Data Embodiment to Experience Capitalism

This article develops a critical theory of human–computer interaction (critical HCI) intended to test some of the assumptions and omissions made in the field as it transitions from a cognitive theoretical frame to a phenomenological understanding of user experience described by Harrison et al. (the three paradigms of HCI. Paper presented at the Conference on human factors in computing systems. https://people.cs.vt.edu/~srh/Downloads/TheThreeParadigmsofHCI.pdf, 2007) as a third research paradigm and similarly Bødker (when second wave HCI meets third-wave challenges. In: NordiCHI ‘06 Proceedings of the 4th Nordic conference on human–computer interaction: changing roles, 1–8. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1182476; 2006, Interactions 22(5):24–31; Bødker, Interactions 22(5)):24–31, 2015) as third-wave HCI. Although this particular focus on experience has provided some novel avenues of academic enquiry, this article draws attention to a distinct bridge between the conventional HCI disciplinary concerns with predominantly task-based digital work and use context and a growing business interest in consumer experiences in digital environments. Critical HCI addresses the problem of experience in two interrelated ways. On one hand, it explores the role market logic plays in putting user experiences to work. On the other hand, it engages with ontological understandings of experience hitherto realized in HCI by way of a phenomenological matrix (Harrison et al. The three paradigms of HCI. Paper presented at the Conference on human factors in computing systems. https://people.cs.vt.edu/~srh/Downloads/TheThreeParadigmsofHCI.pdf, 2007). The article concludes by bringing in an old thinker (A. N. Whitehead) to consider experience in novel ways that relate ontological concerns to a broader political concept of experience capitalism

Reframing professional development through understanding authentic professional learning

Continuing to learn is universally accepted and expected by professionals and other stakeholders across all professions. However, despite changes in response to research findings about how professionals learn, many professional development practices still focus on delivering content rather than enhancing learning. In exploring reasons for the continuation of didactic practices in professional development, this article critiques the usual conceptualization of professional development through a review of recent literature across professions. An alternative conceptualization is proposed, based on philosophical assumptions congruent with evidence about professional learning from seminal educational research of the past two decades. An argument is presented for a shift in discourse and focus from delivering and evaluating professional development programs to understanding and supporting authentic professional learning

Epistemic Constraints on Autonomous Symbolic Representation in Natural and Artificial Agents

We set out to address, in the form of a survey, the fundamental constraints upon self-updating representation in cognitive agents of natural and artificial origin. The foundational epistemic problem encountered by such agents is that of distinguishing errors of representation from inappropriateness of the representational framework. Resolving this conceptual difficulty involves ensuring the empirical falsifiability of both the representational hypotheses and the entities so represented, while at the same time retaining their epistemic distinguishability. We shall thus argue that perception-action frameworks provide an appropriate basis for the development of an empirically meaningful criterion for validating perceptual categories. In this scenario, hypotheses about the agent’s world are defined in terms of environmental affordances (characterised in terms of the agent’s active capabilities). Agents with the capability to hierarchically-abstract this framework to a level consonant with performing syntactic manipulations and making deductive conjectures are consequently able to form an implicitly symbolic representation of the environment within which new, higher-level, modes of environment manipulation are implied (e.g. tool-use). This abstraction process is inherently open-ended, admitting a wide-range of possible representational hypotheses — only the form of the lowest-level of the hierarchy need be constrained a priori (being the minimally sufficient condition necessary for retention of the ability to falsify high-level hypotheses). In biological agents capable of autonomous cognitive-updating, we argue that the grounding of such a priori ‘bootstrap’ representational hypotheses is ensured via the process of natural selection

Non-affirmative Theory of Education as a Foundation for Curriculum Studies, Didaktik and Educational Leadership

This chapter presents non-affirmative theory of education as the foundation for a new research program in education, allowing us to bridge educational leadership, curriculum studies and Didaktik. We demonstrate the strengths of this framework by analyzing literature from educational leadership and curriculum theory/didaktik. In contrast to both socialization-oriented explanations locating curriculum and leadership within existing society, and transformation-oriented models viewing education as revolutionary or super-ordinate to society, non-affirmative theory explains the relation between education and politics, economy and culture, respectively, as non-hierarchical. Here critical deliberation and discursive practices mediate between politics, culture, economy and education, driven by individual agency in historically developed cultural and societal institutions. While transformative and socialization models typically result in instrumental notions of leadership and teaching, non-affirmative education theory, previously developed within German and Nordic education, instead views leadership and teaching as relational and hermeneutic, drawing on ontological core concepts of modern education: recognition; summoning to self-activity and Bildsamkeit. Understanding educational leadership, school development and teaching then requires a comparative multi-level approach informed by discursive institutionalism and organization theory, in addition to theorizing leadership and teaching as cultural-historical and critical-hermeneutic activity. Globalisation and contemporary challenges to deliberative democracy also call for rethinking modern nation-state based theorizing of education in a cosmopolitan light. Non-affirmative education theory allows us to understand and promote recognition based democratic citizenship (political, economical and cultural) that respects cultural, ethical and epistemological variations in a globopolitan era. We hope an American-European-Asian comparative dialogue is enhanced by theorizing education with a non-affirmative approach