Located in the northern part of Italy, seated in a valley surrounded by the Dolomites, is the beautiful town of Bolzano. A better host for the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) than the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano is hard to imagine. It is early in the morning – 7.30 to be exact – and…
As a former international school music teacher, I always enjoyed teaching music terms to diverse groups of students. ‘Unison’ was one of those terms. We would find other words which began with the prefix ‘uni-‘ to understand singing in unison. Universe, united, university all came to mind; one place, one mission, one school. When we…
The different studies into school choice within families in Chile have identified practices contrary to what economic theory assumes is ‘school choice’: the option for a better quality school and parental freedom to decide. These practices are characterised by restrictions that families – principally disadvantaged groups – confront at the moment of choosing, in particular,…
Las distintas investigaciones sobre la elección de escuela de las familias en Chile, han identificado prácticas contrarias a lo que asume la teoría económica del ‘school choice’, sobre la opción por una escuela de mejor calidad y libertad de los padres de elegir. Estas prácticas se caracterizan por las restricciones que las familias –principalmente de…
How can we create sustainable economies and societies for all without gender equality? This is an important question to ask. For all societies are patriarchal and we cannot speak of full gender equality in any given country. Furthermore, gender inequality is difficult to remove completely in countries with more entrenched and stratified gender norms. Turkey…
As a former music teacher and arts advocate, No Child Left Behind and the accompanying push for ‘back to basics’ education in the early 2000s felt like a direct attack on music education in US public schools. Recently, ‘STEM education’, ‘coding for all’ and ’21st century skills’ are being popularized as a way to expand…
When we are constantly told that there is no alternative, it can be hard to imagine that an alternative might ever exist. This point is illustrated quite starkly in an animated adaptation of Platos’ Allegory of the Cave . The short film was first shown to me by a Mexican critical pedagogue and fellow Masters…
‘Refugees are stateless … They are outcasts and outlaws of a novel kind, the products of globalisation … Refugees are human waste, with no useful function to play in the land of their arrival … from their present place, the dumping site, there is no return and no road forward …’ (Bauman, 2004). The above…
2011 was a special year for education in Chile. Between April and September, high school and university students carried out important mobilizations and protests, demanding that the authorities – amongst other actions – put an end to the profit of state-subsidized private school providers and make education free. At that time, while looking for press…
El 2011 fue un año especial para la educación chilena. Entre abril y septiembre, los estudiantes secundarios y universitarios llevaron a cabo importantes movilizaciones y protestas, buscando que las autoridades – entre otras medidas – terminaran con el fin de lucro de sostenedores de establecimientos educacionales y que la educación fuera gratuita. En aquel tiempo,…
Al terminar mis estudios de pregrado en Sociología, ingresé a trabajar en la Junta Nacional de Jardines Infantiles (JUNJI), una institución estatal que administra y financia programas de educación inicial. Esta institución forma parte de la “red pública”[1] de la educación inicial y busca focalizar el acceso a familias y niños de sectores desaventajados. Desde…
When I finished my undergraduate studies in Sociology, I started working for the National Board for Early Childhood Education Centres (Junta Nacional de Jardines Infantiles or JUNJI), a state institution which administers and finances programmes of early childhood education. This institution forms a part of the ‘public network’ [1] of early childhood education and seeks…
After reading David Örbring’s post (or in Swedish here) about knowledge in the Swedish curriculum, I thought back to my own experiences dealing with knowledge as part of curriculum design. In my time as a music teacher, the most formative of all my experiences with “knowledge” was when I was a moderator for the International Baccalaureate Organization’s…
If you analyze school systems from a comparative perspective, the Chilean case stands out for its accelerated and high level of privatization. To understand this distinctiveness, you need to put the changes to the regulation of state-financed private education from the beginning of the 1980s into historical perspective. Although private education [1] was recognized as educational…
Si se analizan los sistemas escolares desde una perspectiva comparada, el caso chileno destaca por su acelerado y alto grado de privatización. Para comprender esta particularidad, es necesario poner en perspectiva histórica los cambios en la regulación de la educación particular [1] que es financiada por el Estado, desde inicios de la década de 1980.…
Raising Voices in Education 