This article analyses the means and boundaries of professional autonomy elementary school teachers enjoyed in the second half of the nineteenth century on the territory of modern day Slovenia which used to be part of the Austrian or Austro-Hungarian Empire. While their work had been regulated in great detail since the Elementary School Act 1774 which laid down even contents and methods of teaching, the Act of 1869 stipulated that teachers could become members of school boards as means of providing them with an opportunity to influence education policies. Teachers were required to attend teachers’ conferences where, among other things, participants discussed successful teaching methods and developed detailed curricula and lesson plans. Teachers expected these changes to bring them greater autonomy, a say in school policies and public confidence in their professional authority. The intention of this paper is to analyse whether or not this expectation was fulfilled. Our analysis of school board reports and reports from teacher conferences published in the Slovenian educational press shows that in this period an important shift occurred in the way effectiveness and supervision of teachers’ work were ensured. A system was put in place which at the same time facilitated and monitored the implementation of teachers’ ideas, and ensured and restricted their professional freedom. There was a significant change in authoritarian techniques which quickly developed yet still facilitated growth in teachers’ professional authority as teachers gained power and space to fight with authorities for their ideas and status.
COBISS.SI-ID: 11762249
The paper examines a recent interpretation of Varela's enactivist epistemology project, proposing »groundless« co-determination between being and knowing. The mode of being required by such position is examined. Research-oriented existential attitude is seen as an alternative starting point for empirical phenomenological researh, replacing standard step-by-step techniques, mostly used in current second-person research. The paper concludes with ethical implications of research-oriented being.
COBISS.SI-ID: 11849801
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 analyzes 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 analyze the possible effects of the European integration crisis (e.g. Brexit) on the further directions of teacher education in Europe.
COBISS.SI-ID: 11546697
This chapter aims to discuss the conceptualisation of pedagogy as a distinctive science in Slovenia, and its fundamental research subject – that of vzgoja. The concept implies an intentional process aimed at reaching goals related to the holistic development of children. The concept has some specificities that influence pedagogic practices, from preschool to upper secondary education. We defend the thesis that ideas and theories related to vzgoja cannot be fully conceptualised, researched and applied in practice solely by deploying the social scientific approach. On the contrary, we claim that simultaneous references to the humanities and the social sciences are crucial and can strengthen pedagogy. Pedagogy needs to preserve its humanistic attitude towards developing normative principles and the theory of vzgoja. We explore this argument by discussing two distinctively Slovenian pedagogical concepts – the first is related to the pedagogical micro level (pedagogical relationship) and the second to the pedagogical macro level (pedagogical school plan). We also show that these concepts are both theoretical and applied as they shape pedagogical practice. The chapter also discusses the issue of translatability and comparability of the concepts and theories developed in different academic communities. This is a pressing concern, particularly for smaller, non-Anglophone, academic communities.
COBISS.SI-ID: 64575330
In the years of the Bologna Process, a significant number of mainly normatively composed documents emerged. In the text, we attempt to integrate and interpret specific concepts and certain findings of experts and expert groups in these processes regarding what the fundamental structure of study programmes in the field of teacher education should be in order to educate contemporary teachers on an appropriate level. We reconsider the relationship between knowledge of scientific disciplines and competences, and reflect on the ontological status of university teacher’s knowledge in teacher education and education sciences, and on the thesis that the university teachers-researchers who teach at the university teacher education programmes have to become “scientific amphibians”.
COBISS.SI-ID: 11829065