Time: Wednesday, 28/Aug/2024: 13:45 - 15:15 Session Chair: María Begoña Vigo-Arrazola |
Location: Room B230 in ΘΕΕ 02 (Faculty of Pure & Applied Sciences [FST02]) [Floor -2] Cap: 30 |
Paper
School Involvement in Non-Formal Digitalised Educational Arrangements. Comparing Practices and Ways of Participation of Marginalised Youth.
University of Cologne, Germany
Presenting Author:New PISA results show that educational inequality in Europe is prevalent as many countries score below average in socio economic fairness and/or inclusion in core subjects as compared to other OECD countries (OECD 2023). In striving for more educational equity, it is paramount to understand conditions within educational arrangements that enable or impede participation for marginalised youth.
In accordance with the German tradition of “Bildung”, education is understood as a transformation of self-world-relations (Jörissen/Marotzki 2009). Digital media have become essential for self-world-relations, as they have created new options for participation as well as new requirements and obstacles for orientation (ibid.). According to this understanding, although formal education is often prioritised within public and academic discourse, non-formal (as well as informal) education is increasingly essential in the acquisition of relevant skills in a digitalised society (Spanhel 2020).
The term “non-formal” is used to describe organised educational arrangements outside of formal education (e.g. afterschool activities, sports clubs, youth clubs or school holiday activities; Rohlfs 2011). In Germany, non-formal educational institutions often aim at targeting marginalised youth, for example by residing in ‘deprived’ urban areas, potentially creating opportunities to reduce educational inequalities among youth. In arrangements that recognise their disadvantaged target groups’ realities and enable participation, trust and respect are considered important factors in reducing inequality (Fujii et al. 2021; Streicher et al. 2014; Walther 2014).
Some non-formal educational arrangements deal with the usage of digital media, such as coding, robotics, 3D-printing or photography (henceforth referred to as “non-formal digitalised educational arrangements”) and claim to be relevant for ‘Bildung’ in a digitised society. On the one hand, this potentially decreases educational inequalities among youth by enabling transformations of self-world-relations through learning and the experience of self-efficacy in relation to digital media. On the other hand, inequalities may be reproduced within these arrangements, if e.g. specific media practices are delegitimised. In this case, structures of educational arrangements may (unintentionally) exclude marginalised youth (Fujii et al. 2021; Kutscher/Farrenberg 2017; Schäfer/Lojewski 2007). The question emerges, whether non-formal digitalised educational arrangements succeed at enabling educational participation. Moreover, it remains to be examined whether and under which conditions those institutions are actually successful in including marginalised youth (Dawson 2014).
The joint research project “DILABoration”, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research, aims at analysing conditions under which opportunities for participation and transformation of self-world-relations are enabled or impeded within non-formal educational arrangements, specifically regarding marginalised youth.
Most arrangements considered in this research are organised independently by non-formal institutions, offered free of charge, take place in the institutions’ premises and do not aim at any formal qualification. However, some arrangements are implemented as collaborations between schools and non-formal educational institutions (e.g. extracurricular activities). These arrangements challenge the distinction between “non-formal” and “formal” educational contexts (Gosse 2020).
This leads to the question how potentials of non-formal digitalised educational arrangements unfold in arrangements involving schools as opposed to arrangements not involving schools. This paper will therefore compare both kinds of arrangements with regard to participation of marginalised youth.
“DILABoration” fits in with the ECER’s 2024 theme “Education in an Age of Uncertainty” as, on one hand, ‘Bildung’ in relation to digitality is characterised by contingencies while, on the other hand, it may enable subjects to confront and adapt to the new and unknown (Marotzki/Jörissen 2009). Consequently, the conditions of non-formal educational arrangements that enable youth to appropriate (media) practices apart from predefined skills and competences need to be researched.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used
The ethnographic field study is carried out in two different institutions in Germany and aims at reconstructing conditions of non-formal educational arrangements that enable or impede participation and processes of ‘Bildung’. The institutions provide a variety of non-formal digitalised educational arrangements that include activities such as coding, 3D-printing, gaming and streaming. Some of the arrangements involve schools while others do not. In order to empirically reconstruct educational practices and participation, the youth’s and employee’s daily practices within those arrangements are examined through focused ethnographies (Knoblauch 2001), including participatory observation and videography.
The data is analysed based on Grounded Theory Methodology (Corbin/Strauss 2015) as well as Artefact Analysis (Lueger/Froschauer 2018). Situational Analysis (Clarke et al. 2018) is applied in order to visualise constellations and relations between different human and non-human entities.
By applying a reconstructive approach and practice theory (Schatzki 2002) as a sensitising concept, practices and conditions of participation within educational arrangements can be identified. Additionally, by focusing on the dimension of materiality, structures and practices involving artefacts such as digital hardware and software as well as non-digital artefacts are considered, relating these to the facilitation of transformation of self-world-relations for youth.
So far, 19 different programmes have been examined in 43 participant observations. Schools are involved in 11 out of 19 programmes in different ways (e.g. extracurricular activities, projects, afternoon activities within schools, visits to the non-formal institution). 8 programmes (5 school collaborations) have additionally been videographed to be further analysed. This data allows for comparative analysis of specific conditions, elements and challenges regarding arrangements involving schools as opposed to arrangements not involving schools.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings
In an ethnographic field study, the research project “DILABoration” reconstructs (1) different conditions in non-formal educational arrangements, (2) learning and educational processes, specifically regarding digital media use as well as 3) the accessibility resp. forms of participation within those arrangements from a (marginalised) youths’ perspective in two non-formal institutions in Germany. It aims at identifying conditions under which these arrangements enable or impede meaningful participation, thus facilitating the transformation of self-world-relations.
This paper presents analytical stances on conditions in non-formal digitalised educational arrangements enabling or reinforcing educational participation of (marginalised) youth, therefore reducing social and digital inequalities. Frequent collaborative arrangements involving schools raise the question of how conditions as well as potentials of non-formal arrangements unfold in different constellations. We will therefore compare non-formal digitalised educational arrangements with similar arrangements involving schools. Different conditions, educational practices and modes of participation will be examined regarding their potential of enabling or impeding participation of (marginalised) youth on a subjective level.
After giving an insight into the research process and methodological approach, the comparison will be presented and discussed in relation to empirical material. Situational maps (Clarke et al. 2022) will be used to illustrate the different kinds of arrangements in which specific practices unfold.
References
Clarke, A. E./Washburn, R./Friese, C. (2022): Situational analysis in practice: Mapping relationalities across disciplines (London: Routledge).
Corbin, J. M./Strauss, A. L. (2015): Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory (SAGE).
Dawson, E. (2014): Equity in informal science education: developing an access and equity framework for science museums and science centres. Studies in Science Education, 50, pp. 209–247.
Fujii, M. S./Kutscher, N./Niermann, K.-M. (2021): Grenzen pädagogischen Handelns: Medienbildung zwischen Anerkennung und Handlungsbefähigung. In Wahl, J./Schell-Kiehl, I./Damberger, T. (eds.) Pädagogik, Soziale Arbeit und Digitalität: Education, social work and digitality (Weinheim: Juventa Verlag).
Gosse, K. (2020). Pädagogisch betreut: Die offene Kinder‐ und Jugendarbeit und ihre Erziehungsverhältnisse im Kontext der (Ganztags‐)Schule (Bd. 8). Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-29077-1
Jörissen, B./Marotzki, W. (2009): Medienbildung - eine Einführung: Theorie - Methoden - Analysen (Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt).
Knoblauch, H. (2001): Fokussierte Ethnographie: Soziologie, Ethnologie und die neue Welle der Ethnographie. Sozialer Sinn 2, pp. 123–141.
Kutscher, N./Farrenberg, D. (2017): Teilhabe und soziale Kompetenz durch die Nutzung von digitalen Medien: Herausforderungen für die Kinder- und Jugendpolitik. Expertise zum 10. Kinder- und Jugendbericht der Landesregierung NRW (Universtiät Vechta). Retrieved September 14, 2010 www.mkffi.nrw/sites/default/files/asset/document/10-kjbnrw-expertise-kutscher_farrenberg_u.a.pdf (04.09.2020).
Lueger, M./Froschauer, U. (2018): Artefaktanalyse: Grundlagen und Verfahren (Wiesbaden: Springer VS).
OECD (2023): PISA 2022 Results (Volume I): The State of Learning and Equity in Education. OECD. https://doi.org/10.1787/53f23881-en.
Rohlfs, C. (2011). Ein neuer Bildungsbegriff? Zur Unterscheidung formaler, non-formaler und informeller Bildung: Konturen des aktuellen Bildungsdiskurses. In C. Rohlfs, Bildungseinstellungen (S. 33–54). VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-531-92811-1_3
Schäfer, M./Lojewski, J. (2007): Internet und Bildungschancen. (München: kopaed).
Schatzki, T. R. (2002): The site of the social: A philosophical account of the constitution of social life and change (Pennsylvania State Univ. Press).
Spanhel, D. (2020): Kinder, Jugendliche und junge Erwachsene in digitalisierten Lernwelten. In Kutscher, N./Ley, T./Seelmeyer U./Siller, F./Tillmann, A./ Zorn, I. (eds.), Handbuch Soziale Arbeit und Digitalisierung, pp. 101–114 (Beltz Juventa).
Streicher, B./Unterleitner, K./Schulze, H. (2014): Knowledgerooms - science communication in local, welcoming spaces to foster social inclusion, Journal of Science and Communication,13 (02).
Walther, A. (2014): Aneignung und Anerkennung. Subjektbezogene und soziale Dimensionen eines sozialpädagogischen Bildungsbegriffs. In Deinet, U./Reutlinger, C. (eds.), Tätigkeit-Aneignung-Bildung, pp. 97–112, (Wiesbaden: Springer VS).
Paper
Distinction. The Social Construction of Potentialities in Mathematics Education
Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
Presenting Author:This paper is part of the project "Discretionary spaces and practices of recontextualization of curriculum objectives across three cases", funded by the German Research Foundation (Jablonka & Gellert, 2022). The focus is on mathematics education in 3rd-5thgrade elementary and 8th-9th grade secondary school, located in both, deprived and affluent contexts. The project is underpinned by sociological theories, which attend to the discursive and non-discursive relations that constitute the social construction of school mathematics and its (pathological) side effects (Straehler-Pohl & Gellert, 2015). The paper refers to data from 9th grade of an affluent school in Berlin. Our ethnographic approach aims to uncover potentials for critique and transformational change (Beach & Vigo-Arrazola, 2021).
The choice of the school subject mathematics in the project is motivated by its core position in curricula worldwide. ‘Unsatisfactory’ results in the mathematics achievement tests of the OECD’s PISA in many countries have led to far-reaching reforms, such as standardization, performance measurement, and curriculum related programs (Budde, 2013; Jablonka, 2007). The shift to an evidence-based paradigm, in which output management becomes the dominant policy strategy, has had decisive impact on the respective education systems: the functional/technocratic focus on education prevails and (external) evaluation practices influence educational decision-making processes (teaching for the test), as instruction strategies need to be adapted (Brinkmann, 2016; Meyer & Zehadi, 2014; Gellert et al., 2013). Such curriculum adaptations might unintentionally mitigate or reinforce unequal access to mathematical knowledge: on the one hand, to the generative principles and styles of mathematical reasoning that underpin disciplinary knowledge, and on the other, to more skill-based reproducible forms (e.g. Dowling, 1996; Jablonka & Gellert, 2012). In this context, the overall goal of the project is to explore how curricular choices are made, which contingencies/variations of shared curriculum objectives are realized, and to what extent teachers perceive curricular freedom/restriction. In this paper, we approach these questions by means of an investigation of classroom practice and the teachers’ discursive reflections.
Theoretical Horizon
– Habitus and Subjectification: Bourdieu’s notion of ‘habitus’ (1977) is useful to comprehend the interrelations of schooling, power, and positionings in the social field. Especially the concept of ‘disposition’, which involves both, structure and agency, plays an eminent role in terms of accumulated/accumulating symbolic capital. Dispositions influence the perception of oneself and others as well as practices of distinction.
Foucault’s ‘dispositive’ (1979) provides an elucidating conception to discover the relationality between discourses and non-discursive practices, contributing to an understanding of organizational/institutional dynamics, power and their spatial-temporal changes. It also discloses contradictions, disruptions, and interferences in the process of subjectification, which potentially unfold transformative power.
– Curriculum Recontextualization: State-mandated curricula are intended to control the recontextualization of curriculum objectives by schools and teachers for the transfer of ‘valuable’ knowledge and skills (Bernstein, 2000; Dowling, 1996, 2014). Whereas Bernstein’s approach focuses on rules by which recontextualization is regulated, such as classification (between contexts), framing (within contexts), and pedagogical device (transmission rules), among others, Dowling provides a scheme of discourse domains (esoteric, public, descriptive, expressive) by which mathematical texts and settings can be described in relation to knowledge distribution. He reveals significant distinctions regarding these domains of different mathematical discourses and practices, realized in institutionalized pedagogic settings with reference to assumed (future) social positions of students.
Based on these theoretical considerations, the analysis presented in this paper aims to shed light on curriculum realizations in classroom practice and the teachers’ discursive reflections through an analysis of data from a STEM and a non-STEM course, in order to unpack variations of shared curriculum objectives and related teachers’ perceptions.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used
An appropriate way to contribute to knowledge about the social construction of schooling (Hammersley, 2018) consists in an ethnographical approach. “Schools generally work […] by separating pupils in two types; of capable intellectual learners, on one hand; and those, defined as less intellectual and more practical, but the graduation is not a naturally quality, it is cultural, socially constructed, and interactively maintained” (Beach & Vigo-Arrazola, 2021, p. 680). Being in the field can help to understand how the participants construct their learning environment, by exploring on which conceptional basis curricular choices are made by the teachers and how contingencies in realization are generated – despite shared (mathematics) curriculum objectives. Thereby the focus cannot be limited to the social construction of discourses; practices encompass relations to spatial, material and immaterial aspects.
The data are from the aforementioned project hosted at Freie Universität Berlin taking place 2023-2025 with partner universities in Santiago de Chile and Izmir, Turkey. The international dimension allows to de-familiarize the researchers’ conceptions (Hammersley, 2018) and eventually coordinate emic and etic perspectives.
In each context the project includes reading curriculum documents, participant class observations, informal conversations with teachers and students, semi-structured interviews with the current math teachers of the observed classes, group discussions with interested teachers from the mathematics conference, as well as interviews with key stakeholders, such as experts of official education policy and experts of educational quality development.
The changes in the education system provoked by OECD’s PISA induce curriculum discourses motivated by human capital theory, in particular recruiting students into future STEM professions. In this paper we draw on data of four math-lessons from a STEM and a non-STEM course in the 9th grade of an affluent secondary school in Berlin, initial and reflective teacher interviews and group discussions with mathematics staff. Data generation included participant observation and video-recordings. Ethical issues have been approved by the regional school administration.
As to the approach of interpreting the data, based on the theoretical sensitivities outlined above, we loosely align ourselves with the recursive process of data and theory processing as conceived in grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) to find out (in)coherences in mathematics education and concomitant distributive effects regarding forms of knowledge. Our approach is also inspired by studies in the context of critical ethnography (Beach & Vigo-Arrazola, 2021), which might help to explore potential for critical awareness and (future) change.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings
School subjects are constituted by the (re)production of social/political — and therefore also subject-specific — discourses, non-discursive constituents, and (inter)action modes. In this sense, mathematics education can be seen as an evolving process of enculturation, which ought to enable subjects to accumulate present and future (symbolic) capital and cultural participation.
The analysis of the data of practices and discourses discloses, how in STEM as well as in non-STEM courses teachers base their (scope of) action on distinction practices regarding the ascribed performance of their students within and between the respective groups. Different forms of mathematical knowledge became visible in variations in lesson design within the same curriculum. Also, teachers’ attributions to their students’ mathematical dispositions dis-posed them differently, as surfaced in the lessons and interviews. However, distinctions are realized not only due to these attributions; rather, modes of distinction are also shaped by the respective teachers’ habitualized practices and their perceived discretionary spaces. Ambivalences and incoherencies were observed at all levels of the recontextualization of mathematical curriculum. For example, in the interviews teachers’ discretionary spaces were discussed and previously assumed restrictions became challenged.
Altogether, our preliminary findings point to spaces of possibilities that counteract the technocratization of mathematics education, which in the wake of OECD’s PISA indeed might have become attractive in an age of uncertainty.
References
Beach, D. & Vigo-Arrazolo, M. B. (2021). Critical Ethnographies of Education and for Social and Educational Transformation: A Meta-Ethnography. Qualitative Inquiry, 27(6), 677– 688. http://doi.org/10.1177/1077800420935916
Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity. Rowman & Littlefield.
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge University Press.
Brinkmann, M. (2016). Datengesteuerte Leistungsmessung und evidenzbasierte Bildungsforschung – von den perversen Effekten Neuer Steuerung in Schule und Unterricht. http://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.24587.87843
Budde, J. (Ed.) (2013). Unscharfe Einsätze: (Re-)Produktion von Heterogenität im schulischen Feld. Springer.
Dowling, P. (1996). A Sociological Analysis of School Mathematics Texts. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 31(4), 389-415.
Dowling, P. (2014). Recontextualizing in Mathematics Education. In S. Lerman (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Mathematics Education (pp. 525-529). Springer Science+Business Media.
Foucault, M. (1979). The history of sexuality. Volume 1: An Introduction. Allen Lane.
Gellert, U., Espinoza, L. & Barbé, J. (2013). Being a mathematics teacher in times of reform. ZDM – The International Journal on Mathematics Education, 45(4), 535-546.
Glaser, B. G. & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The Discovery of Grounded Theory. Aldine.
Hammersley, M. (2018). What is ethnography? Can it survive? Should it? Ethnography and Education, 13(1), 1-17.
Jablonka, E. (2007). Mathematical Literacy: die Verflüchtigung eines ambitionierten Testkonstrukts. In T. Jahnke & W. Meyerhöfer (Eds.), Pisa und Co. Kritik eines Programms (2nd ed., pp. 247-280). Franzbecker.
Jablonka, E. & Gellert, U. (2012). Potentials, pitfalls, and discriminations: Curriculum conceptions revisited. In O. Skovsmose & B. Greer (Eds.), Opening the cage: Critique and politics of mathematics education (pp. 287-308). Sense Publishers.
Jablonka E. & Gellert, U. (2022). Discretionary spaces and practices of recontextualization of curriculum objectives across three cases. Project no.
446370134. https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/446370134?context=projekt&task=showDetail&id=446370134&
Meyer, H. D. & Zehadi, K. (2014). Open Letter to Andreas Schleicher. GDM Mitteilungen 97, 31-33.
https://ojs.didaktik-der-mathematik.de/index.php/mgdm/article/view/339/335
Straehler-Pohl, H. & Gellert, U. (2015). Pathologie oder Struktur? Selektive Einsichten zur Theorie und Empirie des Mathematikunterrichts. Springer VS.