Primarily methodological in its orientation, this paper offers a presentation of 'research outcomes' in ways that challenge and disrupt commonplace notions of data and analysis. In an attempt to write against the grain of conventional qualitative research practice and to experiment with alternative encounters with data and analysis, I present…

Over the centuries, changes in technology and education have transformed people's attitudes towards the arts, making them more accessible. Bohemianism and modern art in the 18th century challenged the elitist perception of the arts, democratizing access. Digital tools and online resources have further opened doors to creating and experiencing…

The study reported in this dissertation is a response to the call for school science argumentation interventions to shift from a focus on argument framework towards epistemic criteria valued by the scientific community, and to focus on the practice of critiquing in addition to constructing arguments, as both practices are part of scientific…

It is one sign of the lack of understanding of the value of the humanities, to educational research and inquiry as well as to our world more widely, that such justifications of them as are offered frequently take a crudely instrumental form. The humanities (which in this essay are not distinguished from the arts) are welcomed insofar as they are…

This paper provides a critique of the performative assumptions of the teacher professional learning policy direction being adopted in Australia. Through international policy borrowing, the policy direction in Australia is similar to many other countries in that it encourages increasingly standardised teaching practice to afford a more quantitative…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of critical policy analysis (CPA) in the fields of educational leadership and policy. In addition to exploring how CPA compares to traditional research approaches in educational leadership and policy, the authors consider the influence of long-established ways of knowing, why scholars choose…

Environmental education owes its very existence to a particular interpretation of reality. The author's purpose in this article is to examine critically the "selected fictions" on which that view of reality is based--to examine the ways in which perceptions of environmental problems and issues are "conditioned by our position in…

This article draws on a pedagogical case study in order to reflect on the value of using a Humanities disciplinary practice (the "close reading" of literary studies) as a method of educational enquiry and to provide a worked example of this approach. We explore the introduction of a pedagogic strategy--students writing abstracts for…

This article reports on the design and implementation of an alternative form of writing assessment in a UK English for Academic Purposes (EAP) pre-sessional course. The assessment, termed processfolio, was a response to research inquiry into how writing assessment in a local context negated student agency and inculcated disempowering models of…

If academic development is to contribute to (re)shaping the purposes and means of pedagogy in higher education, then it has to be based on educational inquiry, for only inquiry will allow us to undertake a critical analysis of educational policies, practices and beliefs with the goal of transforming them. However, the conditions under which…

Inquiry-based learning (IBL) has become a common theme in both school and higher education in recent years. It suggests a model of curriculum development and practice that moves educational debate beyond teacher or student-based approaches towards a model of teaching and learning in which the endeavour is shared. This paper discusses an…

This paper provides a critical review of the changes to the role of practical work in the science curriculum in England over the last forty years. The science curriculum over this period appears to place an emphasis on an approach to practical enquiry that suggests school students can act like "real" scientists. This paper provides a…

We present a case study to analyze how higher education students attending a Spanish University (N = 100) democratize the virtual classroom by assuming responsibility for their learning and that of the other members of the class; participate actively in social, cognitive, and teaching issues; and collaborate by creating a learning community and…

This paper presents a critical analysis of the representation of physical education (PE) in the 1992 Senate inquiry into "Physical and Sport Education" in Australia. Analysis focuses specifically upon how and why a new professional discourse, fundamental motor skills (FMS), gained a privileged position in the inquiry, the inquiry report…

This paper reports on a qualitative teacher inquiry conducted in a tertiary, English-as-a-foreign-language classroom in Taiwan. The purpose of the study was, first, to implement a poststructuralist view of critical literacy that focuses not only on texts but also on the practice of reading as constructed and contested, and second, to examine the…