This article focuses on higher education research and policies in small and/or peripheral countries that usually occupy a marginal position in contemporary international debates. This aspect has remained virtually untreated in previous research, and this article brings important new insights that can enrich the international discussion in this field. The region discussed here is South-eastern Europe and especially the Western Balkans. First, an outline of emerging research centres and the developments in higher education research over the past two decades is given. The original survey carried out in 2012 is discussed and then the problems that have occurred in the policy transfer from ‘centres’ to the ‘periphery’ (i.e. this region) and the policy transformation in local contexts are analysed. In the final section, specific problems in the development of higher education in the region arising from the dichotomy between the ambition for the nation-building and pressures of the global market are discussed. The results of this research were also presented at an international meeting of the institutes (departments) for higher education research in Shanghai, and contribute primarily to a better visibility of the "peripheral region/country" and to understanding the negative effects of mechanical transfer ("copy-pasting") of higher education policies from "centers" into "peripheries". The article contributed to our participation in the international project NEAR EU; gl. below, pt. 21, project 5.
COBISS.SI-ID: 10189129
The contribution is a result of exploring the theory of the act in education; it methodologically belongs to the field of philosophy of education and deals with certain fundamental questions of raising a child in the early childhood. The article establishes the thesis that in moral education, particularly in the first years of the child’s development, unreflexive acts or unreflexiveness in certain behaviours of adults is a condition for the development of the personality structure and virtues that enable autonomous ethical reflection and a relation to the Other. With the notion of unreflexiveness we refer to resolvedness in the response of adults when it is necessary to establish a limit, or cut, in the child’s demand for pleasure, as well as to resolvedness as one of the structurally essential elements in behaviours with which the adult subordinates the child to the symbolic order or language. In philosophy, a symptomatic position in this context is represented by Kant’s theory of education. On the basis of the “traditional” concept of “negative education”, and through Freud’s and Lacan’s psychoanalytic concepts, we identify two principles that should, in contemporary times, be an essential part of the moral educational behaviours of adults: (1) the principle of a delimited response to the child’s demand for the satisfaction of pleasure, and (2) the principle of reasoned, reflected, but nevertheless certain, persevering, resolved unreflexiveness in the subordination of the child’s desire to the symbolic order (the discourse). On the basis of the preceding analysis, we highlight certain consequences of this structure of the subject for the contexts of particular theoretical discussions and for school practice. The publication confirms the international relevance of this issue and our involvement in the ongoing debate on these issues in the main international journals in the field.
COBISS.SI-ID: 10061385
The article among the first on the international level shows that between the population of deaf and hard of hearing pupils and their peers do not have significant differences in self-esteem, as the deaf and hard of hearing have achieved average results in the dimensions of social, emotional and physical self and confidence. The analysis further showed that the results are independent from the gender, levels of hearing loss, and we obtained very few differences by age. However, the differences were shown according to the school that they were attending - deaf or hard of hearing students from mainstream schools had a significantly higher self-esteem in the dimensions of emotional and physical self and confidence. The final grades in Slovene was an important predictor of pupil's self-esteem in the dimension of confidence. These findings certainly contribute significantly to the identification of factors at the institutional level, which substantially contribute to the implementation of inclusiveness. The results require further analysis in order to determine what has changed in mainstream schools or in deaf and hard of hearing population themselves, since the results are so striking and encouraging. In any case, they confirm the general thesis that man is making the most progress in heterogeneous environments, although in this population various experts have argued that due to the specificity of communication, they must be in homogeneous groups.
COBISS.SI-ID: 9840969
The paper discusses the question whether teacher candidates’ prior beliefs about inclusion matter relative to admissions criteria or whether it can be assumed that all of the needed competencies and positive beliefs about inclusion will be acquired during the teacher education programme. To investigate these questions, this study focuses on student teachers enrolled in three teacher education institutions (two in Serbia and one in Slovenia) using diverse admission criteria. The study indicates that student teachers’ beliefs about inclusive education relate more to differences in the educational systems and societies as a whole than to admissions criteria for teacher education institutions. Implications of the study for teacher education and admissions criteria are discussed. The relationship between admissions criteria, the preparation provided by teacher education programmes and student teachers’ beliefs about inclusive education are rarely made explicit although this question is often raised in analysis of effectiveness of inclusion in schools. The article is important for all those dealing with the admissions criteria for teacher education institutions and all those asking the question how to ensure quality education for teachers. Thus the paper is important for teacher educators as well as for education policies.
COBISS.SI-ID: 10304073
The article analyses attitudes towards education held by Roma pupils whose socio-economic status is comparable to the majority population, and considers their perspective. The research was conducted with Roma pupils attending primary school in Maribor, Slovenia. To collect data, interviews were conducted. The study results suggest that the majority of Roma pupils from Maribor like attending school and value formal education; the majority indicated that they want to complete primary school and continue their education. The results also show that Roma pupils can be highly academically motivated when improved life conditions and improved education opportunities are provided to the Roma population. When analysing the reasons behind the academic underachievement of Roma pupils, suggestion that Roma people do not value education and that Roma children have negative attitudes towards school is often emphasised. With increasing frequency, Roma pupils from low socio-economic backgrounds are being researched and the research primarily adopts the perspectives of teachers and schools’ professional staff. Contrary to that in this research, as already mentioned, perspectives of Roma pupils from socio-economic status comparable to the majority population are being analysed. Results of the analysis contradict general opinion that Roma pupils do not value school. The results are important for promoting positive attitudes towards Roma pupils in schools and higher expectations for their academic achievements among professional stuff. Thus the results of the research are important for promoting non-discriminatory operation of pedagogical stuff and inclusive practice.
COBISS.SI-ID: 10904905
The article analyses parallels between phenomenology and radical constructivism (as an epistemic model of knowledge formation that has found especially fertile ground in the field of education). The list of methodological and epistemic problems of both paradigms is outlined as well a number of opportunities for their mutual collaboration. Special emphasis is given to the analysis of possibilities of first-person empirical research, grounded in the constructivist epistemological framework. Guidelines for participatory empirical (phenomenological) research that does not ignore its self-referential nature are proposed. The article contributes to the wider area of educational studies mainly by integrating two conceptual frameworks – empirical phenomenology and constructivism – that have each in its own way changed the understanding of the knowledge formation and related phenomena.
COBISS.SI-ID: 10949961
This article, written in co-authorship with a colleague from the University of Sussex (UK), is an umbrella study in a monograph that discusses the fragmentation in the policies and practices of teacher education in a European context. The focus is on a past 20-year period in which teacher education as an exclusive national area has gradually begun to internationalize and “europeize”. The article primarily analyses the logic and impact of some prominent European research and development projects in the field of teacher education and their implications for the development of specific policies in this field. In this context, it highlights the problem of fragmentation of the field of teacher education, which is reflected both at the institutional (higher education institutions) and national policy levels. It also analyses and presents the negative effects of globalism and neo-liberalism on the today’s teacher education policies and practices: this is conceptually visible in relation to understanding education as the public good, and materially in government austerity measures. In the final part of the article, authors analyse the possible effects of the European integration crisis (e.g. Brexit) on the further directions of teacher education in Europe. The significance of the contribution is, on the one hand, in the summary and critical overview of the development of teacher education policies from the mid-1990s onwards and, on the other hand, in challenging researchers and decision-makers to take a thorough reflection on teacher education policies for the near future.
COBISS.SI-ID: 11546697
As part of the study of family changes, one of the determinants of educational process, this article focuses on the specific question of how social changes influence the understanding of women as mothers. It appears that the understanding of maternity remains, despite many changes in this field, still based on the biological notion. Social changes during the last thirty years have brought about changes in the concept and definition of family life, while the concept of maternity is still primarily based on the concept of modernist maternity developed by the biological ideology. Technological changes, a higher level of education and the entry of women into the public sphere in the postmodern period create a new dimension of women's social participation, while maternity is more or less subordinate to the classical division: mother, nature, society. The article shows how this kind of understanding of motherhood prevents systemic changes in the field of division of labour, which also greatly influences the socialization functions of the family. Such a purely biological understanding of motherhood has important consequences for the socialization of children and adolescents, where research shows that children with behavioural and emotional problems come from families who, due to various reasons, cannot succeed in performing their socialization function, therefore systemic changes are urgently needed in this field.
COBISS.SI-ID: 11423561
By the theoretical and comparative analysis of the new study programmes, whose main purpose is to encourage the implementation of inclusiveness in our school system, we have found that by the implementation of inclusiveness we should derive from the knowledge of the pedagogy, which relies mainly on humanistic and social paradigm and stresses the effects of pedagogical processes on education and socialization. The pedagogy examines aspects that relate in particular to the school organizational and social condition of the pedagogical process and does not seek out the factors only within the individual specifics, which is at the forefront of special pedagogy. The second conclusion is that two out of three study programmes studied are based on a special pedagogical paradigm which does not only focus primarily on the aspect of learning progress, and neglects vzgoja, i.e. promoting the child’s comprehensive development, but focuses only on the population of people with special needs. Therefore, a question arises: which concept of inclusiveness will the inclusive pedagogues of these three study programmes actually implement? These findings are important since they show the need for interdisciplinary cooperation in the design of study programmes, not to mention the clear definition of the concept of inclusive education which would come even before. The article will come at the time when the international and domestic public are shaken by various challenges of coexistence in a society of diverse, and in this context of reflection on the transformation of pedagogical study programmes, it provides important starting points and suggests some solutions in these processes.
COBISS.SI-ID: 11823689
Empirical research of lived experience of formation of beliefs is crucial for the understanding of phenomena such as learning and – more broadly – knowledge construction. However, such research is faced with troublesome self-referentiality: every attempt at examining the experience seems to change the experience in question. The article focuses on this so-called excavation fallacy and attempts to examine the act of reflection and its role in gathering phenomenal data. The study is based on the constructivist position, taking into account the inevitable entanglement between the act of observing and the observed – the excavation “fallacy” is recognized as an intrinsic characteristic of reflection, co-determining rather than distorting its results. By providing a provisional model of the dynamics of the experience of the reflective act, the article paves the way to ecologically valid understanding of experience of knowledge construction. We plan to use the results of the study as the framework for further empirical efforts.
COBISS.SI-ID: 11950153