“I am concerned with the future of my children”: the project economy and shifting views of education in a Tibetan pastoral community

Tibetan pastoralists have been subject to large-scale state-led development policies over the past three decades. The provisioning of institutionalized state schooling, in particular, has all along been part and parcel of these development projects, including urbanization and resettlement initiatives. However, for a variety of reasons, the promotion of schooling in Tibetan pastoral areas has been a challenge since the first Maoist efforts in 1950s. By focusing on a case study of a Buddhist monk’s persistent effort to build a primary school in his home village in the eastern region of Tibet in 1990, and on how Tibetan villagers’ views of him and his school project have changed over time, this paper examines the nexus of relationships between schooling, and social and cultural changes in pastoral Tibet. I also aim to relate Tibetan pastoralists’ shifting values of schooling to the larger social and political context, particularly the ubiquitous Chinese xiangmu (project) economy and Tibetan pastoralists’ ever-increasing dependence on the state. This paper argues that although state schooling is highly contested, it has been one of the driving forces of social change in Tibetan pastoral areas today.     

Nonviolence as teacher education: a qualitative study in challenges and possibilities

This paper explores the challenges and possibilities of teaching nonviolence in teacher education. Using qualitative teacher research, this paper discusses teacher education students’ responses to the notion of nonviolence and how to create beneficial pedagogical conditions for students to learn nonviolence and its meanings for education. The data were collected from three graduate classes that, to different degrees, addressed the role of nonviolence in education. Three shifts in students’ understanding of nonviolence as a result of their learning are identified: the shift from a narrow to a broad understanding, the shift from a passive view to a proactive view, and the shift from looking outside to looking inside and engaging in emotional work. The pedagogical conditions that facilitated these shifts are also discussed, including strategies for engaging students’ inner work, creating experiential relationships with the other, and transforming classroom relational dynamics. This study also suggests the need not to approach violence and nonviolence as binary but to approach nonviolence as a daily practice to continuously unlearn violence and promote nonviolent relationships. Implications of this study for teacher education are discussed last.     

Alcohol-related Rape Among University Students

Background: Alcohol-related rape among university students is clearly a major concern. However, there have been no large-scale surveys of the prevalence of this offence among university students in the UK. The aim of the current paper is to investigate the prevalence and characteristics of alcohol-related rape among university students in seven universities in Wales.

Methods: All universities in Wales were approached to take part in the research. Eight of the nine universities agreed to take part and seven universities emailed their students as planned. On the launch date, emails were sent by the universities to all students requesting that they take part in the survey. The email contained a link to a questionnaire covering a range of topics including: demographics, lifestyle factors, and substance misuse.

Results: In total, 7,846 students submitted a questionnaire. Overall, just under six per cent of females reported being the victim of alcohol-related rape while at university compared with one per cent of males. Sexual orientation was significantly correlated with alcohol-related rape, with three per cent of heterosexuals reported being the victim of alcohol-related rape, compared with eight per cent of lesbians or gays. Students who drank alcohol frequently and those involved in binge drinking were also significantly more likely to report the offence.

Conclusions: The government and universities should play a more direct role to ensure that actions are taken to deter, prevent, and treat the consequences of these largely unreported offences.     

Educação do Campo [Education for and by the countryside] as a political project in the context of the struggle for land in Brazil

Latin American and Brazilian rural social movements believe that significant social transformation requires the collective construction of a political project of an historical character. Education is conceived as an historical–cultural and political project to transform the peasantry into an historical subject through emancipatory educational–pedagogical praxis. The Landless Workers Movement (MST), the most emblematic peasant movement in Brazil, has played the leading role in this debate, which also includes many other peasant organizations. The MST has identified education as the key element in forging an historical–political actor out of the landless peasantry. This is articulated through the struggle for education for rural peoples, and along a theoretical–epistemic axis that revolves around the emergent concept of Educação do Campo (‘Education for and by the Countryside’). I ask how the MST conceptualizes education, and what the role is of education in strengthening peasant resistance and sharpening the dispute between political projects for the countryside. I focus on the epistemic dimensions of the concepts of education and pedagogy in the trajectory of the MST in Brazil, and I examine Educação do Campo as an educational-political project and in terms of policy conquests in the political dispute between the rival political projects for the Brazilian countryside of peasants and capital.     

Violent attacks on education in the tribal areas of Pakistan and the role of NGOs in providing educational services

Education is no longer safe from attacks during times of armed conflict. In many regions of the world, armed groups intentionally target schools, teachers and students and violate the right of children to get an education. Such is the case in Pakistan, where militant violence and continued armed conflict has disrupted the education of hundreds of thousands of children, particularly girls. The present study addresses a call for a better understanding of how non-governmental organisations (NGOs) function and contribute to peace-building and development through the provision of educational services in conflict zones. Based on field research, the study finds that in spite of challenges, NGOs have been playing a vital role in providing educational services to the conflict-affected communities. Disseminating information, solutions for resuming education, improving school enrolment, psychosocial support and promoting quality education lies at the forefront of NGOs’ battle in the tribal areas of Pakistan. However, the state needs a comprehensive policy to protect education from violent attacks.     

Linking Public Housing to Education: A Comparative Case Study of HOPE VI

This research examines the federally funded HOPE VI urban revitalization program’s influence on neighborhood public school performance. A comparative case study was conducted in two HOPE VI neighborhood public schools, one that improved significantly (Philadelphia), and one that experienced a decline (Washington DC). The analysis revealed several insights into neighborhood factors that may influence school performance: the most vulnerable residents were least likely to gain reentry, mixed income housing residents often opt out of traditional public schools, and partnerships between public housing and education officials have been historically overlooked.     

What We Wish We Knew: Reflections of Brand-New Teaching Assistants

The learning curve on how to become a Teaching Assistant (TA) can be rather steep. In this paper, the authors explore three areas they wish they were advised in prior to beginning their teaching careers. The lessons are centered on balancing expectations and responsibilities in the following areas: 1) prioritizing their own work and research over teaching and vice versa, 2) the dual role of instructor and mentor, and 3) adapting prepared lesson plans when unexpected circumstances arise. The authors are three doctoral students in political science with approximately three years of teaching experience each. As such, they offer a unique perspective: each are settled into their position as TA but remember the challenges they faced while on the path to this role.     

Opening up to OERs: Electronic Original Sourcebook Versus Traditional Textbook in the Introduction to American Government Course

Traditional American Government textbooks are expensive and often unpopular with students. New technologies and Open Educational Resources (OERs) open up the potential for change, but questions of quality are ever present: can OERs really help students learn better, or are they just cheaper? I developed an OER based on original sources and compared student learning outcomes with the OER section to those in a free digital textbook section. While the OER I created did not work as well as I had hoped, I nonetheless developed a redesign of my course and my approach to teaching, which is the true benefit of adopting OERs.     

Peace education,militarism and neo-liberalism: conceptual reflections with empirical findings from the UK

This article explores ‘peace days’ in English schools as a form of peace education. From a historical overview of academic discussions on peace education in the US and Great Britain since the First World War, we identify three key factors important for peace education: the political context, the place in which peace days occur and pedagogical imperatives of providing a certain narrative of the sources of violence in politics. Although contemporary militarism and neoliberalism reduce the terrains for peace studies in English schools, peace days allow teachers to carve out spaces for peace education. Peace days in Benfield School, Newcastle and Comberton Village College, Cambridgeshire, are considered as case studies. We conclude with reflections on the opportunities and limitations of this approach to peace education, and on how peace educators and activists could enlarge its reach.     

Semiotising the student perception of learning outcomes in British higher education

This article presents a semiotic analysis of the student perception of learning outcomes in British higher education. It centres on three annotated images in Frank Furedi’s article “The Unhappiness Principles”, published in Times Higher Education in 2012. Drawing upon Peircean semiosis and iconicity, it provides a rhetoric-infused interpretation of the word–image complementarity exhibited in student participants’ written commentaries on the three images. This leads to a dialectical view of formative and summative assessment, in which process and product create each other through the same continuum of learning and teaching. In highlighting intellectualism as central to the ethnography of university life, this article argues that learner autonomy and the potential for transformation is deemed essential to the student experience in higher education.