Childhood, Complexity Orientation and Children's Rights: enlarging the space of the possible?

This paper begins by considering some of the performative dilemmas associated with the enactment of children's rights by adults. In particular, it is argued that the mobilisation of children's rights often tends to involve multiple forms of complexity reduction (Osberg and Biesta, 2010), the net effect of which is to limit children's expressive powers and attenuate rights-based approaches. A focus of this paper is the specific understanding of childhood that necessarily accompanies any appeal to rights as specifically an appeal to children's rights, as distinct from, for example, adults' rights, or rights as such. In other words, some image of childhood will necessarily and variously haunt, and inform, mobilisations of children's rights discourse by adults. Three scenarios, drawn from a recently completed research project, Moving Image Literacies, are used to think through some of the material, relational and spatial effects of different mobilisations of childhood. The paper argues that it is necessary to attend to both the orientation to complexity that informs a given approach, together with the characterisation of childhood that is mobilised, if spaces are to be created that enlarge the space of the possible

Partnership as Educational Policy Imperative: An unquestioned good?

“Partnership” is often promoted as an unquestioned “good” for higher education institutions in relation to its various stakeholder organizations. This paper seeks to problematize this uncritical valorization through a critical interrogation of the concepts and socio-material practices associated with partnership. In the name of partnership, new forms of governance are inaugurated that have far-reaching effects. More specifically, this paper is concerned with a critical analysis of partnership in relation to a longitudinal study of the relational practices between a university and five local authorities within a Scottish educational context. In particular, we trace how a “signature event” transformed a partnership assemblage, from one characterized by a grammar of participation, to a formal partnership aligned with a set of principles that we characterize as a grammar of representation. We argue that this transition led to a new assemblage that enacted new accountabilities, performativities, and alignments under the sign of partnership

Beyond the Disneyesque: children’s participation, spatiality and adult-child relations

The article describes a case study of children and young people's participation and the attendant effects on professional practice and child-adult relations. We consider the findings under four headings: professional learning, child-adult relations, childhood memories and the spatial dimensions of change. Evidence indicates that adults and children were finding new ways of working and relating and that these processes were inherent in efforts to reconfigure space. The analysis shows how adult and child identification, relations and associated constructions of childhood and adulthood were connected. We argue that changes occurred in and through the shaping of real and imagined places

Using artefacts and qualitative methodology to explore pharmacy students’ learning practices

Objective: To investigate how pharmacy students negotiate the pedagogical demands of a revised pharmacy curriculum and to understand students’ learning practices and to explore the impact of assessment and feedback regimes in one School of Pharmacy. Methods: Using qualitative methodology and artefacts to explore pharmacy students’ learning in order to understand their learning practices in negotiating a field of inquiry as well as identifying difficulties encountered along the way. Data collection took the form of individual semi-structured interviews with undergraduate pharmacy students. Participants were asked to select three artefacts (a photograph, an object, a song, a picture or something else) that represented what learning as a pharmacy student meant to them and bring that along to an interview. Data were analyzed thematically using mind-mapping and subsequently, Law’s25,26 concepts of practices and collateral realities and Ingold’s12,12 concept of dwelling were used to make sense of the analysis. Results: Findings were grouped into five distinct themes: study practices or strategies adopted, rituals associated with learning and studying, pharmacy knowledge, motivation for learning and ways of learning. In the following section, each of these identified thematics is summarized, with illustrations from the data given. The affective dimensions of learning was a strong emergent theme throughout the data. Conclusions: The use of artefacts in the research process afforded in-depth insight into the specific study practices adopted by a group of pharmacy students. Findings from this study suggest that qualitative methods can be useful in surfacing students’ practice as regards strategies deployed, and difficulties faced in their negotiation of new pharmacy curricula

The International Economy of Children's Rights:Issues in Translation

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is an international legal text that necessitates multiple translations into national policy contexts if it is to become mobilised within professional practice. The aim of this paper is to foreground this process of translation and to identify some of the limitations inherent within present mobilisations of the UNCRC. On the basis of this diagnosis, we then raise a series of ethical considerations that might inform a more critical and open-ended approach.  We characterise current approaches to mobilising the UNCRC as an international economy of rights and we represent this diagrammatically. This economy, we contend, involves multiple translations of the UNCRC text into a series of performative demands to which adults become accountable in situations of professional practice with children and young people.  We then critically analyse this economy as presently instituted and point to a number of inherent limitations. We argue that a failure to address the issue of translation from legal text to relational practice has led to a technical resolution. The potential challenge of the UNCRC as an authoritative text of critique is further weakened by the promotion of a consensus thinking that privileges agreement over the complexities associated with ethical thinking. In the light of this critique, the paper identifies new lines of questioning to inform debate concerning how a children’s rights agenda might be refracted differently in future

Understanding disability with children's social capital

This paper examines disability arts and its role in identifying exclusion and barriers to participation within society. The work of selected writers, poets and musicians is presented and its value as a form of ideological critique is explored. It is suggested that disability arts has the potential to succeed where other forms of ideological critique fails because of the way in which difference is deployed, playfully and pragmatically, in order to make a political difference

Teaching in nature

SNH has a remit for people’s enjoyment and understanding of the natural heritage as well as the care of it. The potential for the educational use of National Nature Reserves (NNRs) (and similar ‘wild’ places for nature) is not well understood. This research was designed to enable practicing teachers from primary and secondary schools to collaboratively explore how National Nature Reserves could be used to provide for learning across a range of subject areas. This work was conducted within the context of the new national curriculum initiative in Scotland, Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) (LTS, 2010). For further information (including videos of outdoor excursions, lesson plans, and supporting commentaries), visit the project website: http://teachinginnature.stir.ac.u

Teaching in Nature: A Research Briefing: Summary Findings

SNH has a remit for people's enjoyment and understanding of the natural heritage as well as the care of it. The potential for the educational use of National Nature Reserves (NNRs) (and similar 'wild' places for nature) is not well understood. This research, funded by SNH, was designed to enable practicing teachers from primary and secondary schools to collaboratively explore how National Nature Reserves could be used as sites for outdoor educational provision across a range of subject areas. This work was conducted within the context of the new national curriculum initiative in Scotland, Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) (LTS, 2010). For further information (including video of outdoor excursions, lesson plans, and supporting commentaries), visit the project website: http://teachinginnature.stir.ac.u