The place of forest school in English primary schools: senior leader perspectives

Focussing on the place of Forest School in English primary schools, we explore the perspectives of school leaders. We use Biesta’s model of educational purpose as a critical lens to consider possible justifications for the inclusion of Forest School in the curriculum. Four distinct accounts, based on an analysis of in-depth interviews, illustrate a range of participant responses: risk, intervention, respite and the right thing. One of these, we contend, represents a tentative step towards a form of resistance on the part of a school leader in the face of current pressures to follow a diminished set of educational purposes

The educational potential of the Harmony Project

This research, funded by Canterbury Christ Church University, involved semi-structured interviews with senior leaders from ten schools in England who are engaging with principles of Harmony. Interviews were conducted between May and July 2019 by research intern Julie Marshall and the project was led by Nicola Kemp and Alan Pagden. The aim was to explore the educational potential of the Harmony approach in different school contexts

Adam Smith and Colonialism

In the context of debates about liberalism and colonialism, the arguments of Adam Smith have been taken as illustrative of an important line of anti-colonial liberal thought. The reading of Smith presented here challenges this interpretation. It argues that Smith’s opposition to colonial rule derived largely from its impact on the metropole, rather than on its impact on the conquered and colonised; that Smith recognised colonialism had brought ‘improvement’ in conquered territories and that Smith struggled to balance recognition of moral diversity with a universal moral framework and a commitment to a particular interpretation of progress through history. These arguments have a wider significance as they point towards some of the issues at stake in liberal anti-colonial arguments more generally

A wider Europe? The view from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine

On the evidence of national surveys conducted between 2000 and 2006, there is a declining sense of European self-identity in the three Slavic post-Soviet republics of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Attitudes towards the European Union and the possibility of membership are broadly supportive, but with a substantial proportion who find it difficult to express a view, and substantial proportions are poorly informed in comparison with the general public in EU member or prospective member countries. Those who are better informed are more likely to favour EU membership and vice versa. Generally, socioeconomic characteristics (except for age and region) are relatively poor predictors of support for EU membership as compared with attitudinal variables. But ‘Europeanness’ should not be seen as a given, and much will depend on whether EU member countries emphasize what is common to east and west or establish ‘new dividing lines’ in place of those of the cold war

Sino-UK educational differences: the impacts of cultures and the current educational curricular on students in computer science

With the increased worldwide mobility of students, the need to understand the impact of different cultures and educational curricular also increases. This chapter focuses on how the National University Entrance Examination or Gaokao and Confucianism influence the way Chinese students learn. Questionnaires were distributed to senior secondary school students, undergraduate students and parents both in China and the UK with the aim of understanding their decision-making processes regarding their education, as well as their views on the quality of the degrees from different Asian and European countries. The views of lecturers from both China and the UK were also obtained with regard to student’s proficiency in Mathematics and Computer Science, as well as how their receiving and transmitting skills in English may impact the learning of students from different Asian and European countries. The findings show that parents shape student’s educational development choices through their investments which may have been influenced by their cultures. Compared to other Asian and European students, the English language skills of Chinese students are lower; however according to their educators, this does not impact how well they can learn in subject areas such as Computer Science. For British higher education institutes to maintain their brand image as the most celebrated and respected education providers in China, some adjustments should be made to those that deliver UK content to Chinese students

Current debates in urban theory: a critical assessment

Urban studies today is marked by many active debates. In an earlier paper, we addressed some of these debates by proposing a foundational concept of urbanization and urban form as a way of identifying a common language for urban research. In the present paper we provide a brief recapitulation of that framework. We then use this preliminary material as background to a critique of three currently influential versions of urban analysis, namely, postcolonial urban theory, assemblage theoretic approaches, and planetary urbanism. We evaluate each of these versions in turn and find them seriously wanting as statements about urban realities. We criticize (a) postcolonial urban theory for its particularism and its insistence on the provincialization of knowledge, (b) assemblage theoretic approaches for their indeterminacy and eclecticism, and (c) planetary urbanism for its radical devaluation of the forces of agglomeration and nodality in urban-economic geography