Some determining factors in the continuation school curricula

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University, 1928. This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

A systematic review of the contribution of art education to cultural learning in learners aged 5–16

This review was prompted by a concern to collect evidence about art education and cultural identity formation. Art is widely viewed as one of the main communication systems in most cultures and as a medium for transmission and transformation of culture. In the past, art curricula tended to be dominated by an elite tradition of western fine art. The wider range of cultural practices and identifications being advocated as a result of multicultural reform raises practical difficulties for art teachers. These are widely debated: for example, how to teach cultural heritage and which kind of cultural content to include. Governments are increasingly advocating the use of art education to redress pressing societal problems, such as social exclusion and culture conflict. However, the nature of such curriculum interventions and their impact on learners’ cultural identifications is unclear. This systematic review covers a section of the research literature on art and cultural learning. The literature is first described in a map and then assessed for quality and synthesised. Aim The aim of the review is to provide evidence about the contribution of art to cultural education for learners aged 5–16 (i.e. understanding of self and others in relation to culture). Conclusions Policy Probably the most significant finding is that the extensive literature discussing the positive contribution of art to cultural learning in the United Kingdom is not supported by empirical research. The review highlights the worrying possibility therefore that publicly funded policy in art and cultural understanding is without a significant evidence base. Practice The majority of studies included in this review are doctoral theses. They were carried out in collaboration with school teachers and were practice based. Although this probably caused them to be quite small scale, they provide detailed examples of experimental curricula. This is perhaps indicative of a desire by some practitioners for research evidence to guide them on the topic. Research The research reports included in this review are small-scale evaluations of curriculum experiments by the participants. There was very little hard, empirical evidence in them to support claims that art education affects positive changes in learners’ understanding of others and self. This suggests that more reliable and valid research in this area of the art curriculum needs to be carried out. The Arts Council of England (2002), for example, could see it as one of its functions to investigate systematically the impact of art education interventions on identity formation and cross-cultural understanding as part of its Creative Partnership Scheme

“No Direction Home”: The Life and Literature of Bob Dylan–From “Desolation Row” to the Nobel Prize

Using the Nobel Prize as a prism through which to view the life and literature of a difficult-to-define artist, this article argues that Dylan’s output is one in which life and literature become, and have always been, indistinguishable. It is the life which has made the literature, through years lived in a particular niche of 1960s counter-cultural history; the lyrics gave voice to a man who was never at ease in the formalities of interview. For a supposed spokesman of a generation Dylan spoke very little except through his songs. So too in the more difficult-to-define later decades, little of his life was spoken of except through song, and some samplings of autobiography. Detailing the historically distinctive features of the Nobel Prize, the article shows how Bob Dylan has, through life and literature, broken down the boundaries between the literary and the popular. The article’s title is drawn, of course, from a famous line in Bob Dylan’s era-defining “Like a Rolling Stone,” one which Martin Scorsese used to title a full-length documentary on the life of Bob Dylan. Dylan here occupies the borderlands where art imitates life, and life imitates art. I argue, contrary to critical consensus, that there is a direction home. In Dylan’s lifetime of existentially staring death (political death, the death of romance) in the face, there is some glimpse of home. It is that glimpse which gives the poet’s lyrical output its endurance as literature

Re-conceptualising radicalization: The Educational Research Context of Counter-Extremism through the Prism of Worldviews and Value Learning

This chapter reconceptualizes current and much vaunted notions of extremism and radicalization within the contexts of a broad, cross-disciplinary research literature and a diverse range of counter-extremism political policies across nation states worldwide. Where intense policy and research interest in ‘radicalization’ and ‘extremism’ have intensified rapidly over recent years, the resultant research findings and national/ international policies often conjointly highlight the importance of the educational contexts of youth in simultaneously detecting risks towards radicalization and preventing ideological extremism, along with its (rarer) manifestation in terroristic violence. What tends to be lacking, however, in both the research and policy spaces is sustained critical attention to the perspectives of youths’ own views on these matters. Drawing on our current (2018–2023) empirical research project funded by the Academy of Finland, our chapter makes a distinctive contribution to the research literature on radicalization by presenting historical-contemporary analysis and current empirical findings on the context of extremism through the prism of worldviews and value-learning. A particular feature of this contribution is the advancement of a life trajectory model of ‘Value Learning Trajectories’ (Kuusisto and Gearon 2017a), and a reconceptualization of radicalization within the broader frame of a human-rights-centered ‘spectrum of value.’Peer reviewe

Mapping the NGSI-LD Context Model on Top of a SPARQL Event Processing Architecture: Implementation Guidelines

NGSI-LD is an open specification released by ETSI which proposes an information model and an API for an easy to use and standard management of context information. The NGSI-LD information model is framed within an ontology and adopts JSON-LD as serialization format for context information. This paper presents an approach to the implementation of the NGSI-LD specification over a SPARQL Event Processing Architecture. This work is being developed within the European-Brasilian H2020 SWAMP project focused on implementing an Internet of Things platform providing services for smart water management in agriculture