Abstract:

This article is a sequel to the conversation on learning initiated by the editors of Educational Researcher in volume 25, number 4. The author’s first aim is to elicit the metaphors for learning that guide our work as learners, teachers, and researchers. Two such metaphors are identified: the acquisition metaphor and the participation metaphor. Subsequently, their entailments are discussed and evaluated. Although some of the implications are deemed desirable and others are regarded as harmful, the article neither speaks against a particular metaphor nor tries to make a case for the other. Rather, these interpretations and applications of the metaphors undergo critical evaluation. In the end, the question of theoretical unification of the research on learning is addressed, wherein the purpose is to show how too great a devotion to one particular metaphor can lead to theoretical distortions and to undesirable practices.

Sfard, A. (1998). On Two Metaphors for Learning and the Dangers of Choosing Just One. Educational Researcher, 27(2), 4-13.  https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X027002004

Abstract:

Abstract

In June 2015, the British government presented ‘the social justice case for an academic curriculum’ as the justification for recent radical changes to educational policy. However, this justification failed to account for both the key changes in the newly-revised National Curriculum for Music and the place of music in the National Curriculum as a whole.

Through a critical evaluation of the National Curriculum for Music, this study will propose how the place of music could successfully be justified within an education system wholly committed to ‘social justice’. Using the ‘habit concept’ of classical philosophical pragmatism, it will assess how and why music's educational value should be understood not through its ‘academic rigour’ but through its distinctive, inherently destabilising nature.

Abstract

Within a theoretical framework drawn from sociologists of education Bourdieu and Bernstein, this paper will examine some of the findings of an ethnographic case study conducted with a secondary school music teacher and one class of her pupils in Wales. This teacher attracted 25% of Year 10 (14-year-old) pupils to study music as an optional subject against a national background of 8% average. The study attempted to examine the lived experiences of the participants in music at home and school. Teacher and pupils had much to say about music teaching and learning in the classroom and beyond. Much of the success of this particular music curriculum model appeared to stem from the teacher's ability to empathise with her pupils’ musical interests and recontextualise the National Curriculum for music to reflect these. Pupil voice was instrumental in curriculum design and delivery and the teacher showed the empathy required to ‘kick’ her Western Art Music-informed habitus to enable her to enter her pupils’ musical worlds. There were however points of tension between teacher and pupil evaluations of the curriculum reflecting differences of habitus and unequal distribution of power: the ultimate power over curriculum and pedagogy rested firmly with the teacher. Furthermore, in order to work with her pupils in the time allowed the teacher had to make compromises as to the instruments she could allow the majority of her pupils to play. For many of her pupils, this did not appear to present a problem but for a significant number it alienated them from their music education. ‘Informal’ pedagogy might offer a solution to these problems by locating the production and development of musical knowledge with the pupils themselves – for the pupils at the research school this would mean, among other things, allowing groups of pupils opportunities to choose their own curriculum material, providing opportunities for pupils to work in groups sharing knowledge of ‘real’ instruments and techniques and a substantial alteration of the balance of power in lessons, allowing pupils increased control over the pace and sequence of their learning. If such pedagogy is to become more widespread, there are big questions to be asked about the type of person suited to becoming a music teacher and the sort of music education and initial teacher education and training they require. How we as a profession respond to the challenges ahead may well be crucial to the future survival of music in schools.

Wright, R. (2008) Kicking the habitus: power, culture and pedagogy in the secondary school music curriculum, Music Education Research, 10:3, 389-402, DOI: 10.1080/14613800802280134

Abstract:

Pruitt, L., Ingram, D. and Weiss, C. (2014) 'Found in Translation: Interdisciplinary Arts Integration in Project AIM', Journal for Learning through the Arts: A Research Journal on Arts Integration in Schools and Communities, 10(1).

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1050606.pdf

Philpott, C. and Spruce, G. (2012) Debates in music teaching. London: Routledge. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203117446.

Abstract

The premise of this paper is that the acknowledged gap between research and practice is primarily a gap between two sharply contrasting kinds of knowledge. The nature of this contrast is described and it is suggested that these two kinds of knowledge are at the opposite ends of a spectrum of kinds of knowledge related to classroom teaching and learning. Three possible ways of bridging this gap are explored. The first of these is derived from research. To bridge the gap, it is suggested, several steps are necessary from each of the two extremes before a balanced dialogue is likely to be possible. The process culminates in the critical trial by teachers of research‐based suggestions in the context of their own practice. A second complementary way of bridging the gap is through the choice of research strategies designed for that purpose. Three principles that might guide the choice of such strategies are suggested and exemplified; and it is noted that relatively little educational research in the UK has been in line with these principles. It is also noted that this second approach can facilitate, but not replace, the first. The third way of bridging the gap is through the development of ‘knowledge‐creating schools’ and the related idea of ‘Mode 2’ research. Being located near the middle of the continuum, and being designed to incorporate the complementary strengths of both ends of the continuum, such research might eliminate the gap entirely. Despite major issues concerning the validation and dissemination of knowledge claims, the development of all schools as knowledge‐creating schools is seen as an attractive idea, but not one that can replace the first approach.

Donald McIntyre (2005) Bridging the gap between research and practice, Cambridge Journal of Education, 35:3, 357-382, DOI: 10.1080/03057640500319065

Abstract

The paper begins by arguing that knowledge-blindness in educational research represents a serious obstacle to understanding knowledge-building. It then offers sociological concepts from Legitimation Code Theory – ‘semantic gravity’ and ‘semantic density’ – that systematically conceptualize one set of organizing principles underlying knowledge practices. Brought together as ‘semantic profiles’, these allow changes in the context-dependence and condensation of meaning of knowledge practices to be traced over time. These concepts are used to analyze passages of classroom practice from secondary school lessons in Biology and History. The analysis suggests that ‘semantic waves’, where knowledge is transformed between relatively decontextualized, condensed meanings and context-dependent, simplified meanings, offer a means of enabling cumulative classroom practice. How these concepts are being widely used to explore organizing principles of diverse practices in education and beyond is discussed, revealing the widespread, complex and suggestive nature of ‘semantic waves’ and their implications for cumulative knowledge-building.

Maton, K. (2013) ‘Making semantic waves: A key to cumulative knowledge-building’, Linguistics and education, 24(1), pp. 8–22. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2012.11.005.

Maton, K 2013, Knowledge and Knowers : Towards a Realist Sociology of Education, Taylor & Francis Group, London.