This book employs Lacanian psychoanalysis to develop new ways of understanding educational domains. It analyses events, practices and policies that occur in school classrooms, teacher education and higher-degree studies including educational research. It provides an accessible introduction, description and analysis of those aspects of Lacan's work concerned with language, identity and subjectivity directly relevant to the field of education. Regulative discourses and practices in education are a central concern and the authors demonstrate how Lacanian theory empowers our understanding of how such discourses are instrumental in forming teacher and researcher identities. The book also shows how regulatory practices and discourses are relevant to research methodologies that arise in the field of action research in education.

This is a book for practitioners, university educators, workplace learning educators, researchers and the professions. It draws together two key elements of the lives of these people: professional practice – what people do, and practice discourse – what they write and say about what they do. And, it focuses these discussions around two spaces – the core and the margins, of practice and discourse. Writing in the margins of texts has a very long history. People have always left part of themselves – their ideas, personality and reflections – in the margins of texts. In this book we have taken up the idea of such written marginalia and we have expanded it into writing into the texts of practice discourse as well as speaking and acting in the margins of professional practice. Such deliberate practice changes in marginal practice spaces and in written practice discourse provides ways of shaping and critically appraising current and future professional practice. This book provides a dialogue between two fascinating phenomena: professional practice and discourse. In the 21st century these two are facing challenges as they negotiate their contested spaces in a rapidly changing global society. They draw on strong established traditions and expectations but they cannot be complacent in these illusory stabilities. Rather they must be awake to the imperatives of their own re-invention and re-claimed relevance to today’s society and today’s professional class in the workforce. Across the chapters we explore the core spaces of professional practice discourse from the vantage point of the margins of this space, and the margin spaces as they interact with the core. Marginalia serves as an architect of destabilisation, challenge, revolution, reflection or sometimes affirmation of the central discourse space. There are five sections in the book: Section One: Professional practice discourse, Section Two: Leading the practice discourse, Section Three: Writing from inside practice, Section Four: Writing onto and into practice and Section Five: Marking trails and stimulating insights. Readers are invited to contribute to our exploration of the phenomenon and practice of professional practice discourse marginalia.

This book examines the emergence of psychologised discourses of the self in education and considers their effects on children and young people, on relationships both in and out of school and on educational practices. It undertakes a Foucauldian genealogy of the discourses of the self in education in order to scrutinise the ‘focal points of experience’ for children and young people. Part One of the book offers a critical analysis of the discourses of the self that operate within interventions of self esteem, self concept, self efficacy and self regulation and their incursions into education. Part Two provides counter-narratives of the self, drawn principally from the arts and politics and providing alternative, and potentially radical, ways of when and how the self might speak. It also articulates how teachers may support children and young people in giving voice to these counter-narratives as they move through school.

This fourth volume in the Discourse, Power, Resistance series takes the theme into new territory, setting educational thinking and practice firmly in its global political context. Drawing on schools of thought as diverse as Marxism and eco-feminist theology, the contributors to Part 1 (Global Imperialism and Terror: The Theory and Practice of Othering), led by Peter McLaren, examine the possibilities for critical thinking and transformative practice in the aftermath of 9/11 and the new age of cultural and political imperialism. In Part 2 (Praxis: Thinking and Doing) contributors draw on a range of critical perspectives to examine both the theory and practice of education, taking the reader from the self to the system and back again via dynamic systems theory, flow theory and a multiplicity of diverse (and often conflicting) practices of subversion. The book closes with two radical departures from the norm: a seriously playful transgression into the fields of pop art and film, and a searing poetic lament on the current state of educational policy and practice. As educators, we are all, in William Pinar's words, 'behind enemy lines', in a field which, despite our continued bids for autonomy, is increasingly hijacked by globalizing political forces. This book offers modes of resistance which are startling, unsettling and challenging. It will be of deep interest to students, tutors and researchers in education, policy studies and related fields, and to those who are involved in training, or becoming, the educators of the future. The contributors are Peter McLaren, William Pinar, Mike Cole, Lisa Isherwood, Elizabeth Atkinson, Tamsin Haggis, Sue Clegg, Gill Boag-Munroe, Ros Ollin, Victoria

Distinctive and unique in its approach, this book opens up art education to the broader field of social enquiry into practice, subjectivity and identity. It draws upon important developments in contemporary philosophy and the social sciences and applies this to the professional field of art in education. It opens new perspectives for teachers, teacher educators and student teachers.

This book focuses on discourses of effective learning environments globally for reducing discrimination in schools. It offers innovative ideas concerning the future directions that education and policy reforms could take, in order to promote equality, social justice, and access to quality of education for all. The chapters offer a timely analysis of current issues affecting schooling and strategies for creating effective learning environments globally for overcoming discriminations in schools. It is argued that that one of the most significant variables in creating effective learning environments for reducing classroom discrimination is the student’s cultural identity, the self-concept and self-esteem. The next variables influencing students’ learning environment are motivational strategies, self-regulated learning, and students’ active engagement in constructivist learning. This book contributes in a very scholarly way, to a more holistic understanding of the nexus between globalisation, comparative education research and education reforms for reducing discrimination. It will be beneficial for a broad spectrum of users, including policy-makers, academics, graduate students, education policy researchers, administrators, and practitioners.

Debates in Art and Design Education encourages student and practising teachers to engage with contemporary issues and developments in learning and teaching. It introduces key issues, concepts and tensions in order to help art educators develop a critical approach to their practice in response to the changing fields of education and visual culture. Accessible, comprehensive chapters are designed to stimulate thinking and understanding in relation to theory and practice, and help art educators to make informed judgements by arguing from a position based on theoretical knowledge and understanding. Contributing artists, lecturers and teachers debate a wide range of issues including: the latest policy and initiatives in secondary art education the concepts, skills and dispositions that can be developed through art education tensions inherent in developing the inclusive Art and Design classroom partnerships across the visual arts sector creativity in the Art and Design curriculum visual art and globalisation establishing the significance of ‘Design’ art practice as educational research. Debates in Art and Design Education is for all student and practising teachers interested in furthering their understanding of an exciting, ever-changing field, and supports art educators in articulating how the subject is a vital, engaging and necessary part of the twenty-first century curriculum. Each chapter points to further reading and each section suggests reflective questions to help shape art educators’ teaching. In particular, Debates in Art and Design Education encourages art educators to engage in research by providing an essential introduction to critical thinking around contemporary debates.