5.15-7.00 in 1WN 3.8, 23/10/07 and the 25/10/07

As usual, after our check in, I'd like to focus on any writings you bring, and on quotes and readings that you want to share.

After that I'd like to quickly show you the notes for last Saturday's workshop  (20/10/07) on Practitioner Enquiries and Living Educational Theories at York St. John University with their masters group.

The notes are at: http://www.actionresearch.net/writings/jack/jwlivthyorkstjohn2.htm

and can also be accessed from the What's New section of http://www.actionresearch.net . You'll see that I had time to show Ros' Claire's and Joy's writings to the group from the master educators' programme page. (Just emphasing the importance of making public your embodied knowledge!)

After showing the notes I'd like to see if I can help to enhance the quality of critical evaluations of the ideas of others, using the September 2007 Special Issue of Educational Action Research, Vol. 15, No. 3.  on Young People's Voices.

What I've got in mind is enhancing our critical evaluations through focusing on the validity of Marie's response to the contents of the Special Issue where she is emphasizing the educational significance of creating our own understandings of ourselves, the world we want to live in and the standards of judgment by which we decide whether we are living a worthwhile life.

Marie writes:

"... it is the pupil voice I am working on - the educational influence they have in their own learning, the learning of others and their school as community - but beyond the idea of learning being the delivered to the creation of their own understandings of themselves and the world they want to live in and contribute to and the standards of judgement by which they decide whether they are living a worthwhile life. I am reading the references from the journal you gave me - I have got them on line - and I am wondering if they continually miss the point. It is words like - underachievement, potential, failure... that takes me into believing they are talking about the 'delivered' and the 'professional' voice. Are they ignoring the unique presencing that I have understood to be what Biesta is talking about?" 

I've included below the details of all the contributions to the Special Issue of EAR below and I'm hoping that if you've had the time and got your BUCS password that you have checked that you can now access the contents electronically from outside the university. If not I'll go through the procedures this evening (and next week if you want me to). As well as a couple of copies of the Journal, I'll also bring along a paper from the Westminster Studies in Education from 1990 where I was critical of the evidential base of Jean Rudduck's writings in relation to pupils' voices, to show what I'm meaning by a critical evaluation of the ideas of others that is appropriate in masters writings.

The reference to the paper is:

Whitehead, J. (1990) How Can I Improve My Contribution to Practitioner Research in Teacher Education? A Response to Jean Rudduck. Westminster Studies in Education, Vol. 13, pp. 27-36.

What I'm hoping will happen in our conversations is that we will see what we are accepting as evidence in our own writings that we have gone  'beyond the idea of learning being the delivered to the creation of their own understandings of themselves and the world they want to live in and contribute to and the standards of judgement by which they decide whether they are living a worthwhile life.'

Looking forward to seeing you this evening (or to hearing about your half-term break next Tuesday/Thursday!)

Love Jack.

Articles in Educational Action Research Vol. 15, No. 3. September 2007.                       

Jean Rudduck (1937-2007) 'Carving a new order of experience': a preliminary appreciation of the work of Jean Rudduck in the field of student voice 323 – 336

Author: Michael Fielding

Students as researchers: engaging students' voices in PAR 337 – 349

Authors: Derek Bland; Bill Atweh

'If I am brutally honest, research has never appealed to me ....' The problems and successes of a peer research project 351 – 369

Authors: Rosemary Kilpatrick;  Claire McCartan;  Siobhan McAlister; Penny McKeown

The power of adolescent voices: co-researchers in mental health promotion 371 – 383

Author: Candace Lind

So round the spiral again: a reflective participatory research project with children and young people 385 – 402

Authors: Niamh O'Brien; Tina Moules

If they'll listen to us about life, we'll listen to them about school: seeing city students' ideas about 'quality' teachers 403 – 415

Authors: Kristien Marquez-Zenkov;  Jim Harmon;  Piet van Lier; Marina Marquez-Zenkov

Exclusion in an inclusive action research project: drawing on student perspectives of school science to identify discourses of exclusion 417 – 440

Author: Eva Nyström

Developing the skills of seven- and eight-year-old researchers: a whole class approach 441 – 458

Author: Ros Frost

Consulting pupils in Assessment for Learning classrooms: the twists and turns of working with students as co-researchers 459 – 478

Authors: Ruth Leitch;  John Gardner;  Stephanie Mitchell;  Laura Lundy;  Oscar Odena;  Despina Galanouli; Peter Clough

THEORETICAL RESOURCE

Engaged voices - dialogic interaction and the construction of shared social meanings 479 – 488

Author: Leora Cruddas                      

BOOK REVIEWS 489 – 497

Authors: Jane Reeves;  Ruth Leitch; Susan Groundwater-Smith