Section archive - Theories & Approaches

This essay looks mainly at the reviewing and, to some extent, the editing of the writing for publication which most of us carry out as academics, educational developers, and through the range of our roles. The findings reveal tensions, richness, processes and practices. Some of the responses concern academic identity, some the relationship to the discipline, while others focus on the processes and the politics of reviewing and editing, the actual practice, finessing, justice and fairness. Several themes emerge concerning the politics and practices of writing, reviewing and editing for successful publication which include: (1) Publishing and the academic role: academic identities as writers and peer reviewers. (2) Practice of reviewing: ‘tough love’ – reviewers balancing support with gatekeeping. (3) Professionalising editing and reviewing.

This article describes an innovative teaching approach that uses a fund-raising activity as a method of acquiring social entrepreneurship (SE) skills and knowledge. The programme involved students working with different stakeholders in an interactive learning environment to generate real revenue for social enterprises. The three main areas of contribution made in this study are: (1) to provide an insight into how SE education can be delivered more effectively through the use of real world projects; (2) enhance the understanding of the nature and use of a collaborative learning approach within higher education; and (3) provide a model on which university lecturers can build to help students develop the required skills and competences of a social entrepreneur.

Using a phenomenological lens, the authors argue that this approach to teacher education is flawed in two respects: (1) the intellectualist approach misses prepropositional forms of meaningful coping and dealing with an environment that define everyday teaching and (2) does not adequately describe what constitutes “excellence.” In conclusion, they suggest teacher education curricula shift from promoting teaching as critical self-reflection to promoting tactful coping.

This article starts with an overview of the literature aiming to answer the question of what the knowledge aspect of teacher competence entails in urban schools. The conclusion of the overview identifies five areas of expertise needed by teachers who are to teach classes of pupils from diverse backgrounds: (1) language development, (2) pedagogy, (3) social interaction and identity, (4) parental involvement, and (5) schools and community. The second part of the article describes the results of an analysis of the curriculum of a teacher training college in one of the largest cities in the Netherlands. The authors conclude with recommendations regarding the curriculum.