A Framework for Improving the Teaching of Mathematics to Bi/Multilingual Learners

To teach mathematics well to bi/multilingual learners, we propose that mathematics teachers should consider the following five elements: know the content, know the language, know the learner, engage the community and assess meaningfully. This chapter defines each of these elements, explores how they are put into practice, and shares the responses of teachers who have participated in online professional development organized around each element. By approaching mathematics teaching with these elements in mind, teachers can more effectively support high levels of learning and achievement for bi/multilingual learners across levels of English proficiency and grade levels

Ogbu and the debate on educational achievement: an exploration of the links between education, migration, identity and belonging

This paper looks at some of the issues raised by Ogbu’s work in relation to the education of different minority ethnic groups. Ogbu poses questions such as the value attached to education, its links to the future and its measurable outcomes in terms of ‘success’ as experienced by black participants. The desire for better life chances leads families to consider migration to a new country or resettlement within the same country, thus making migration both a local and a global phenomenon. As an example, attention is drawn to the situation facing South Asian children and their families in the UK. In terms of ethnicity and belonging, the wider question that is significant for many countries in the West after ‘Nine-Eleven’ is the education of Muslim children. A consideration of this current situation throws Ogbu’s identification of ‘autonomous minority’ into question. It is argued that a greater understanding of diverse needs has to be accompanied by a concerted effort to confront racism and intolerance in schools and in society, thus enabling all communities to make a useful contribution and to avoid the ‘risk’ of failure and disenchantment

Schools, teachers and community: cultivating the conditions for engaged student learning

This paper reveals the nature of the actions, discussions and relationships which characterised teachers' and associated school personnel's efforts to engage poor and refugee students through a community garden located in a school in a low socio-economic urban area in south-east Queensland, Australia. These actions, discussions and relationships are described as both revealing and producing particular 'practice architectures' which help constitute conditions for practice-in this case, conditions for beneficial student learning. The paper draws upon interview data with teachers, other school staff and community members working in the school to reveal the interrelating actions, discussions and relationships involved in developing and using the garden for academic and non-academic purposes. By better understanding such interrelationships as practice architectures, the paper reveals how teachers and those in schooling settings learn to facilitate student learning practices that likely to assist some of the most marginalised students in schooling settings

A review of assessment methods for river hydromorphology

The work leading to this paper has received funding for the EU’s FP7 under Grant Agreement No. 282656 (REFORM

Talk the talk, walk the walk: Defining Critical Race Theory in research

Over the last decade there has been a noticeable growth in published works citing Critical Race Theory (CRT). This has led to a growth in interest in the UK of practical research projects utilising CRT as their framework. It is clear that research on 'race' is an emerging topic of study. What is less visible is a debate on how CRT is positioned in relation to methodic practice, substantive theory and epistemological underpinnings. The efficacy of categories of data gathering tools, both traditional and non-traditional is a discussion point here to explore the complexities underpinning decisions to advocate a CRT framework. Notwithstanding intersectional issues, a CRT methodology is recognisable by how philosophical, political and ethical questions are established and maintained in relation to racialised problematics. This paper examines these tensions in establishing CRT methodologies and explores some of the essential criteria for researchers to consider in utilising a CRT framework. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

Critical Race Theory and Education: racism and anti-racism in educational theory and praxis

What is Critical Race Theory (CRT) and what does it offer educational researchers and practitioners outside the US? This paper addresses these questions by examining the recent history of antiracist research and policy in the UK. In particular, the paper argues that conventional forms of antiracism have proven unable to keep pace with the development of increasingly racist and exclusionary education polices that operate beneath a veneer of professed tolerance and diversity. In particular, contemporary antiracism lacks clear statements of principle and theory that risk reinventing the wheel with each new study; it is increasingly reduced to a meaningless slogan; and it risks appropriation within a reformist “can do” perspective dominated by the de-politicized and managerialist language of school effectiveness and improvement. In contrast, CRT offers a genuinely radical and coherent set of approaches that could revitalize critical research in education across a range of inquiries, not only in self-consciously "multicultural" studies. The paper reviews the developing terrain of CRT in education, identifying its key defining elements and the conceptual tools that characterise the work. CRT in education is a fast changing and incomplete project but it can no longer be ignored by the academy beyond North America

Education policy as an act of white supremacy: whiteness, critical race theory and education reform

The paper presents an empirical analysis of education policy in England that is informed by recent developments in US critical theory. In particular, I draw on ‘whiteness studies’ and the application of Critical Race Theory (CRT). These perspectives offer a new and radical way of conceptualising the role of racism in education. Although the US literature has paid little or no regard to issues outside North America, I argue that a similar understanding of racism (as a multifaceted, deeply embedded, often taken-for-granted aspect of power relations) lies at the heart of recent attempts to understand institutional racism in the UK. Having set out the conceptual terrain in the first half of the paper, I then apply this approach to recent changes in the English education system to reveal the central role accorded the defence (and extension) of race inequity. Finally, the paper touches on the question of racism and intentionality: although race inequity may not be a planned and deliberate goal of education policy neither is it accidental. The patterning of racial advantage and inequity is structured in domination and its continuation represents a form of tacit intentionality on the part of white powerholders and policy makers. It is in this sense that education policy is an act of white supremacy. Following others in the CRT tradition, therefore, the paper’s analysis concludes that the most dangerous form of ‘white supremacy’ is not the obvious and extreme fascistic posturing of small neonazi groups, but rather the taken-for-granted routine privileging of white interests that goes unremarked in the political mainstream

Antiblackness in English higher education

This article highlights antiblackness pervading English higher education. This antiblackness is attributed to a majoritarian view, which not only upholds the view that education is value-neutral, meritocratic, colour-blind, but also has a cultural disregard for those racialized as Black Minority Ethnic (BME). There has been considerable attention drawn to the achievement gap issue in English higher education in which those racialized as BME are less likely to obtain a ‘good honours’ degree than those identified as white upon graduation. However, there is no critical work, as of yet, which examines university responses to addressing it. This paper sets out to investigate this, as well as the extent of institutions embracing a majoritarian view of race inequalities in education. This is done through reframing the issue by examining race equality action plans of six English universities. These six universities all received positive national recognition for their race equality work. A reframed reading of these institutional policy documents concludes that colour-blind interpretations of inclusion reproduce not only a misrecognition of differences of students of colour but also a rejection of their humanity

The effects of online negative word‐of‐mouth on dissatisfied customers:A frustration–aggression perspective

Conceptualizing how customers construe online negative word‐of‐mouth (nWOM) following failure experiences remains unsettled, leaving providers with inconclusive recovery strategy programmes. This empirical study recognizes online nWOM as a co‐created encounter between the complainant (i.e., the initiator of the online nWOM) and the recipient (i.e., the consumer who engages with the online nWOM), examining their idiosyncrasies to discern their understanding of the experience. It introduces frustration–aggression theory to online WOM literature, recognizing that it can support a higher‐order understanding of phenomena. Through phenomenological hermeneutics, interviews and focus groups, data were collected from millennials in Albania and Kosovo that provided accounts of nuanced and distinctive online nWOM realities. The emerged insights extended extant theory to a three‐fold online nWOM typology (i.e., lenient online nWOM, moderate online nWOM and severe online nWOM) recognizing the negative impact customers have on a provider, which is controlled by frustration–aggression tags. Frustration–aggression variations across online nWOM led to the construct of three types of customers that engage in online nWOM, namely tolerable online nWOM customers, rigorous online nWOM customers and confrontational online nWOM customers. Findings culminated with satisfactory recovery strategies aligned to customer inferences regardless of the nWOM context