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Background: Robot assisted laparoscopic abdominal wall surgery (RAWS) has seen a rapid adoption in recent years. The safe introduction of the robot platform in the treatment of abdominal wall hernias is important to safeguard the patient from harm during the learning curve. The scope of this paper is to describe the current European training curriculum in RAWS.Methods and Analysis: The pathway to competence in RAWS will depend on the robot platform, experience in other abdominal procedures (novice to expert) and experience in the abdominal wall repair techniques. An overview of the learning curve effect in the initial case series of several early adopters in RAWS was reviewed. In European centres, current training for surgeons wanting to adopt RAWS is managed by the specific technology-based training organized by the company providing the robot. It consists of four phases where phases I and II are preclinical, while phases III and IV focus on the introduction of the robotic platform into surgical practice.Conclusion: On behalf of the Robotic Surgery Task Force of the European Hernia Society (EHS) we believe that the EHS should play an important role in the clinical phases III and IV training. Courses organized in collaboration with the robot provider on relevant surgical anatomy of the abdominal wall and procedural steps in complex abdominal wall reconstruction like transversus abdominis release are essential. Whereas the robot provider should be responsible for the preclinical phases I and II to gain familiarity in the specific robot platform.

The aim of this study was to explore the note-taking experiences of university students using paper-based (non-electronic) and paperless (electronic) resources. By means of a hermeneutic phenomenol...

Taking the European Credit and Transfer System as its departure point, this article describes the (mis)fortunes of the figure of the independent learner. This figure is conceptualized by analyzing ...

Over the last years, the European Commission has heavily promoted various forms of digital education. In this article, we draw upon two recent European policy documents as key articulations of Europe’s contemporary governing apparatus: Opening Up Education and the Digital Education Action Plan. The article more particularly conceives of both policy documents as offering a point of departure to analyze how this apparatus is presently seeking to enact a specific mode of existence of the contemporary learner. We argue that this educational mode of existence is being enacted by the fabrication of highly specific sorts of time and space. In order to highlight the particularity of the enacted sorts of time and space exemplified in the policy documents, we start this article with a discussion of how a traditional, modern governing apparatus aims to fabricate linear time and institutional space. The article proceeds by arguing that the present-day European governing apparatus that is concerned with digital education fabricates different sorts of times and spaces, namely potential (rather than linear) temporalities and ecological/networked (rather than institutional) spatialities. Likewise, the concrete instruments (such as platforms, portals, credits and certificates) presently adopted in order to do so largely differ from modern instruments. Conclusively, we argue that the presence of these newly emerging (often digital) instruments, and the times and spaces that are fabricated through these instruments, call for an opportunistic mode of existing as a contemporary learner. ispartof: Educational Philosophy And Theory vol:52 issue:6 pages:640-652 status: published

¿Un nuevo movimiento escolar?

The bankruptcy of tailor-made education. The need for pedagogic (work)places Education, youth work and youth care confront many challenges which are interpreted in many different ways and receive various responses. However, one type of response seems to be widely applauded: education and care should be tailor-made or become so: tailored to children and youngsters, to their talents and their lifeworld. This call for tailor-made education and care is often accompanied by an emphasis on the need for the development of talents and on the value of feeling-well. In this contribution we indicate how this response entails an approach to education as form of socialization. I.e. as practices that assist the (re-)production of a particular societal regime which calls upon us to conceive of ourselves as entrepreneurs and to permanently take care of our profile. The experience of a meaningful life risks thereby to become exclusively dependent on social recognition and comparison. In so doing tailor-made education risks to deny youngsters the chance for a pedagogical workplace i.e. a place where the world is presented and disclosed to them in such a way that it can provide them with a measure outside of themselves and allows them an experience of a meaningful life in relation to the work which is taking place there. ispartof: Pedagogiek vol:39 issue:3 pages:349-366 status: published

© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. The question concerning the relation between thinking and the university is the starting point of this paper. After a very brief outline of some reflections on this topic, the case of Campus in Camps, a Palestinian experimental university, is presented to shed light on this issue. Inspired by Isabelle Stengers’ ecology of practices, it is possible to discern four requirements on thinking in the work of Campus in Camps, namely storytelling, comparing, mapping, and using. It will be argued that the particularity of thinking at the university, is that it is done via artifices that initiate processes of composition, problematization, and attention. In the concluding section, the paper proposes to understand the study practice of Campus in Camps as an adventure that activates a sense of the possible, and hence opens up futures that are different from the ones that present themselves as obvious or unavoidable. ispartof: ETHICS AND EDUCATION vol:14 issue:2 pages:184-197 status: published

Groin hernia management has a significant worldwide diversity with multiple surgical techniques and variable outcomes. The International guidelines for groin hernia management serve to help in groin hernia management, but the acceptance among general surgeons remains unknown. The aim of our study was to gauge the degree of agreement with the guidelines among health care professionals worldwide.Forty-six key statements and recommendations of the International guidelines for groin hernia management were selected and presented at plenary consensus conferences at four international congresses in Europe, the America's and Asia. Participants could cast their votes through live voting. Additionally, a web survey was sent out to all society members allowing online voting after each congress. Consensus was defined as 70% agreement among all participants.In total 822 surgeons cast their vote on the key statements and recommendations during the four plenary consensus meetings or via the web survey. Consensus was reached on 34 out of 39 (87%) recommendations, and on six out of seven (86%) statements. No consensus was reached on the use of light versus heavy-weight meshes (69%), superior cost-effectiveness of day-case laparo-endoscopic repair (69%), omitting prophylactic antibiotics in hernia repair, general or local versus regional anesthesia in elderly patients (55%) and re-operation in case of immediate postoperative pain (59%).Globally, there is 87% consensus regarding the diagnosis and management of groin hernias. This provides a solid basis for standardizing the care path of patients with groin hernias.

Despite the growing interest in deliberative and dialogue models the research literature lacks investigations of the underlying assumptions of deliberative methods. Starting from the current popularity as well as the broad use of the method of deliberative inquiry -one example of such a deliberative method- this article aims to identify approaches and underlying assumptions of deliberative inquiry. Therefor a systematic literature review of empirical research, of descriptions of practical deliberative procedures and of theoretical research of deliberative inquiry is used. This review demonstrates that the method of deliberative inquiry is elaborated and used within different contexts with a corresponding range of rationales: From (1) a procedure to tackle curriculum questions through (2) a way of investigating and agreeing upon policy actions to (3) collaboratively researching issues. By describing the three approaches and by investigating the assumptions of deliberative inquiry within each approach, we demonstrate a range of rationales behind this method. Despite the distinctions, the primary goal of all manifestations of deliberative inquiry is similar: to contemplate a practical problem in a systemic and collaborative way, to weigh arguments for possible solutions and to make (even temporarily) a decision. This article concludes with future research perspectives. ispartof: Systemic Practice and Action Research vol:32 issue:2 pages:193-217 status: published

OBJECTIVE:: To compare if watchful waiting is noninferior to elective repair in men aged 50 years and older with mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic inguinal hernia. BACKGROUND:: The role of watchful waiting in older male patients with mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic inguinal hernia is still not well-established. METHODS:: In this noninferiority trial, we randomly assigned men aged 50 years and older with mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic inguinal hernia to either elective inguinal hernia repair or watchful waiting. Primary endpoint was the mean difference in a 4-point pain/discomfort score at 24 months of follow-up. Using a 0.20-point difference as a clinically relevant margin, it was hypothesized that watchful waiting was noninferior to elective repair. Secondary endpoints included quality of life, event-free survival, and crossover rates. RESULTS:: Between January 2006 and August 2012, 528 patients were enrolled, of whom 496 met the inclusion criteria: 234 were assigned to elective repair and 262 to watchful waiting. The mean pain/discomfort score at 24 months was 0.35 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.28–0.41)] in the elective repair group and 0.58 (95% CI 0.52–0.64) in the watchful waiting group. The difference of these means (MD) was −0.23 (95% CI −0.32 to −0.14). In the watchful waiting group, 93 patients (35·4%) eventually underwent elective surgery and 6 patients (2·3%) received emergent surgery for strangulation/incarceration. Postoperative complication rates and recurrence rates in these 99 operated individuals were comparable with individuals originally assigned to the elective repair group (8.1% vs 15.0%; P = 0.106, 7.1% vs 8.9%; P = 0.668, respectively). CONCLUSIONS:: Our data could not rule out a relevant difference in favor of elective repair with regard to the primary endpoint. Nevertheless, in view of all other findings, we feel that our results justify watchful waiting as a reasonable alternative compared with surgery in men aged 50 years and older.

In the age of web 2.0, the university is constantly challenged to re-adapt its ‘old-fashioned’ pedagogies to the new possibilities opened up by digital technologies. This article proposes a rethink...

Unter Bezugnahme auf den bisher nur auf Franzosisch erschienenen Text Rancieres ‚Ecole, production, egalite‘ (1988), versuchen die Autoren den haufig anzutreffenden Eindruck zu korrigieren, dass mit dem ‚unwissenden Lehrmeister‘ die Schule als solche, als institutionelle Form grundsatzlich infrage gestellt werde. Im fokussierten Text argumentiert Ranciere fur ein Verstandnis der schulischen Form als eines Freiraums, in dem weder die Herkunft noch andere Merkmale der Schuler*innen eine Rolle spielen und der gleichzeitig von gesellschaftlichen oder okonomischen Erfordernissen und Zielvorgaben entkoppelt ist. In dieser scholastischen Fabel bildet die Schule einen Raum, der per se mit anderen gesellschaftlichen Zugehorigkeiten bricht und so ein Spiel des Lernens (einen ‚espace de jeu‘) ermoglicht, in dem unter gleichen Voraussetzungen und in einer geteilten Gemeinschaft, Handlungsfahigkeiten erworben werden, die keiner vorgegebenen Ordnung entsprechen mussen. Jene Fabel erzahlt davon, dass hier jeder grundsatzlich alles lernen kann. Fur die Autoren bildet diese Form der Erzahlung einen Bezugspunkt, um die mit den industriellen Revolutionen einsetzende funktionale Ausrichtung schulischer Lernprozesse zu kritisieren.

Today the issue of ‘educational change’ is widely discussed. Such change, so we can hear, is needed because of increasing linguistic heterogeneity and cultural diversity, because of technological developments and because of the persisting correlation between social background and educational success. In this context ‘educational’ seems to refer to the institutional practice of the school. But what do we mean by school? In our contribution, we offer some elements of what we call an internal pedagogical perspective on school and on scholastic learning which clarifies its emancipatory potential as pedagogic form. This will allow us to address the issue of educational change differently and to substantiate a plea for bringing more ‘school’ into our educational institutions. We (1) distinguish between an internal perspective and various external perspectives on the school. We, than, (2) sketch the basic assumptions, operations and experiences of the school as pedagogic form emphasizing (3) that school is technically, pedagogically and practically composed and (4) indicating very briefly how school has and is been tamed. Finally (5) we suggest some challenges for making or reinventing school today, relating it briefly to the issue of teacher education.

Is there (still) something specific about academic practice in contemporary neoliberal times? This article reports on a sociomaterial, ethnographic study informed by Deleuze’s untimely empiricism conducted at two research centres of a research university. We unfold the specificity of ‘the academic’ by elaborating upon two central notions: relational aspirations (the attachments of these academics, and the operations that such attachments generate) and mode of existence (the way academic practice comes into being by and through these attachments). The article discerns four types of relations that are typical for academic practice and argues that the way in which academic practice exists nowadays is characterized by a continuous distancing in action, that is, by drawing things together and by slowing things down. ispartof: Critical Studies in Education vol:60 issue:2 pages:226-244 status: published

© 2016 Pedagogy, Culture & Society. Although a large amount of ethnographic research has been conducted in schools, little is known about the particularity of the school, about what makes the school–as a school–different from other (learning) environments. As school ethnographies focus primarily on the perspectives and interpretations of pupils and teachers, the school itself remains largely ignored. Drawing on ethnographic research within six Flemish secondary schools, the particularity of the school is examined through its possible regime of enunciation. By focussing on both sociomaterial and discursive elements within school practices, we look for markers which point at a specific pedagogical regime of enunciation within these practices. Attention is then paid to the manner of speech, to the elements at stake when sayings occur, to the knitting together of objects, time(s) and space(s) as they are enacted through and as part of practices at school. ispartof: Pedagogy, Culture and Society vol:25 issue:1 pages:105-119 status: published

This paper discusses the constructivist, negotiated perspective to INGO accountability. According to this perspective, INGO accountability is a process of mutual negotiations between different INGO stakeholders who hold different accountability demands. Acknowledging that this perspective provides a good starting point for a better understanding of INGO accountability, we comment on this conceptualization of INGO accountability. Through an analysis of accountability instruments and procedures, we examine closely how the demands of the INGO’s stakeholders are embedded in particular relationships of accountability which are sustained by particular accountability logics. From this analysis, we point out that, due to the differences that exist between these accountability logics, processes of negotiation are likely to be filled with complex tensions and trade-offs. Moreover, as some accountability logics are much clearer and more compelling than others, a constructivist perspective on INGO accountability does not automatically coincide with an understanding of INGO accountability in which primordial importance is given to the beneficiaries. ispartof: Voluntas vol:28 issue:4 pages:1529-1561 status: published

During the last years, MOOCs (massive open online courses) are part of the most discussed developments in educational technology. MOOCs swept the landscape of educational technology in no time. However, through all this enthusiasm, it is difficult to see the contribution of MOOCs to computer-based education. Even though there is a surge in MOOCs as well as in MOOC-research, it is unclear how an effective MOOC-pedagogy can be developed. What is this MOOC-phenomenon? And how can we, as educators, teachers, pedagogues, educational researchers, develop MOOC-pedagogy? In the first part of this paper, we’ll start with an overview of the MOOC-phenomenon. In the second part, we’ll discuss the implicit philosophical attitudes towards educational technology that underlies much of the MOOC-debates. We then argue that, rather than a theoretically grounded approach to educational technology, common sense attitudes of essentialism and instrumentalism prevail. In the last part of the paper, we suggest to concentrate on the educational design of technology and on the development of practices of study necessary to deal with technology, in order to develop a meaningful educational practice.

In this review essay we examine the consequences for education of the insights shared in the book Scarcity by Mullainathan and Shafir (2013). After a brief summary of the book, we describe three possible links between scarcity and 1) the creation of slack at school, 2) the student’s personal environment and 3) and the turning of learning into a production process. Based on these three possible consequences further avenues for research are presented.

This article reports of an ethnographic study conducted in two academic research centers. The article is centrally directed at the role of digital technologies and devices in contemporary academic work, and more particularly at the role of the screen in the daily composition of this work. Three central questions are raised. First, which positional relations do academics need to uphold with the screen in order for the screen to be able to operate? Second, in which forms do these digital devices come into being? Third, which sorts of (in)compatibility between activities are established because of the mutual interplay between academics and screens? By adopting a relational, sociomaterial approach, the study gives an account of the established choreographies that are enacted likewise, provides an overview of the role and operations of the screen in contemporary academic work, and analyzes which sorts of time and space are generated likewise.

There are several ways to discuss how the work of Michel Foucault has been used in educational philosophy and theory. After retracing some of the main references and debates, this contribution clarifies how Foucault discusses two traditions in philosophy – the analytic and the existential-ethical – in order to locate himself within the second, the existential-ethical tradition. This perspective allows us to explore Foucault’s relevance for philosophy of education at the level of philosophical ethos. This raises the question of the extent to which Foucault was often circling around educational issues, without really focusing on education.

Against the background of the many attacks on the school as being outdated, alienating, ineffective and reproducing inequalities we offer a morphological understanding of the school as distinguished from functionalist understandings (sociological or economical perspectives in terms of functions and roles) and idealistic understandings (philosophical ones in terms of ‘ideas of education’). Our educational morphology approaches the school as a particular scholastic ‘form of gathering’ i.e. a particular time–space–matter arrangement (including concrete architectures, technologies, practices and figures) that deals in a specific way with the new generation, allows for a particular relation to the world, and for a particular experience of potentiality and of commonality (of making things public). We elucidate how this form performs particular operations of suspension, profanation and formation of attention and how these operations imply a slowing down and an opening of future. Finally, we emphasise the potenti...

The transnational independent learner has become the new hero of the European learning space. In order to describe the mode of existence of the independent learner, an analysis in terms of deinstitutionalization falls short. Such analysis focuses on what disappeared but easily loses out of sight what comes instead. Especially in the case of the independent learner, the risk is taking the proclaimed ambition of liberation and emancipation of the learner from institutional settings for real. The person of the learner is not just what simply appears when the student is liberated from national and institutional frames. It is the carefully measured, calculated, monitored and framed architecture of new learning spaces that allow for recognizing oneself as a person, that is, as someone with specific learning needs. The need for authorization and recognition is part of the learner’s ontological make-up and means that the learner’s mode of existence is susceptible to verification, calculation and tracing. It is argued that this is the present-day manifestation of what Foucault termed as the ‘double bind’; what turns someone into an independent learner is subjecting her at once to governmental intervention.

There is a substantial burden of disease in countries where the majority of the world’s groin hernia patients live. Although herniorrhaphy is one of the most commonly performed surgeries in undeserved areas, needs exceed capacity. This surgical “under-production” over time results in high hernia prevalence in populations. This in turn results in a high proportion of emergency surgery and significant morbidity and mortality. This, despite the fact that groin hernia repair is highly cost effective.

This paper is centred on the issue of emancipation in education practice in general, and in VET in particular. We aim to contribute to the discussion of particular traditions of emancipation in education in connection with VET practices. In our overview of ongoing educational debates on VET policy making and the issue of emancipation in VET, we have observed that ultimately emancipation in VET is understood as a specific function for social and economic integration. In this paper, we discuss this functionalist orientation and contrast it with a vision on emancipation as a feature of an educational process rather than an educational outcome. Freire’s and Rancière’s core concepts of emancipation guide our discussion regarding the latter interpretation of emancipation in VET practices. ispartof: Studies in Continuing Education vol:36 issue:3 pages:275-289 status: published

© 2014 Taylor & Francis. There is an increasing emphasis today on different forms of evidence-based policy in education. Several authors address the related emergence of new patterns of governing and describe forms of governing by numbers and related practices of governing by comparison. There is, however, less focus on the governmental use of soft evidence such as examples of good practice. Drawing on the analysis of governing practices in Belgium (Flanders) and Europe, this article attempts to examine in detail how soft evidence, among other elements, constitutes the current governing configuration. It is argued that this configuration includes several mechanisms that appear as evident but have far-reaching consequences: imposing spaces of meaning and discussion, deciding on what is within one's control and what is not, making people believe there is no longer something beyond themselves that is an excuse for actual self-improvement. What takes shape as part of techniques of contextualization, personalization, and permanent monitoring is ‘the power of the example’: learning from examples in view of increased performance. The conclusion expresses some concerns about the tendencies toward a manipulative society. ispartof: Discourse Studies in Cultural Politics of Education vol:36 issue:5 pages:712-731 status: published

Over the last two decades, a sense of awareness has arisen that universities are facing important challenges. This article focusses on the challenge that could be broadly termed as ‘the digitization of academic work’, yet without assuming that this digitization would be an explanatory factor clarifying the precise nature of contemporary academic work. On the contrary, and adopting a relational actor-network theory (ANT) approach, this contribution stresses the concrete composition of academic work without making any general presumptions regarding how the university is looking like nowadays. Furthermore, by introducing a specific interview technique as methodological approach and different visualizations as (qualitative) analytical approach, this article offers a threefold exploratory textual and visual analysis of academic practice in the making. First, the constitution of an academic practice is discussed, showing the prevalence of multifarious human and non-human actors, and how each of these actors is embedded in a network of interactions with other actors. Second, we show how academic practice is distributed into different regions of interacting actors. Third, the association of these different regions is analyzed with special attention for boundary actors (between different regions) and digital actors. The article concludes, firstly, that it makes not much sense anymore to talk about academic practice in terms of humans or non-humans, material or digital, etc. Instead, perhaps it makes more sense to speak of actors in academic practice as being humandigital. Secondly, the article concludes that sociomaterial approaches might constitute a fruitful addition to more traditional research about the university that is inclined to focus on epochal changes that are suggested or expected to alter the position of academics and the university. ispartof: European Educational Research Journal vol:13 issue:1 pages:89-106 status: published

This article takes a particular interest in the doings of educational standards. Accordingly, it does not discuss the contents, objectives or various states of implementation of educational standards. Rather, it follows a strange and peculiar thing and traces how it gets to work in localised practices. Building on Bruno Latour's exercises of socio-technical analysis, various modes to register and describe these practices are being put to the test. In so doing, the aim is to gather pieces of evidence on how standardising takes shape and what sorts of workings it generates. Undertaking such socio-technical exercises, this research argues, offers an entry point to readdress the ubiquity of educational standards today.

In current literature on the university it is generally accepted that processes of digitization play an important role regarding both the daily functioning of the university as an institution and the academics that give shape to it. This article contributes to our understanding of the role that digitization plays in contemporary academic practices and does this by adopting a relational theoretical framework informed by sociomaterial studies. Furthermore, the article introduces a specific interview technique as methodological approach and makes use of topological visualizations in order to qualitatively analyze the composition of academic work in digital times. As such, combining textual and visual analysis, the article should be conceived as an explorative atlas. The atlas gives an account of how daily academic practices are relationally composed, which sorts of spatiotemporal constellations are enacted in these practices and how the digital is enacted in these practices. Based on three profiles of academic practices, this atlas concludes by exploring whether contemporary academic practices are characterized by a typical mode of existence, and gives some pointers as to how this mode of existence of the university is typically enacted nowadays. ispartof: Open Review of Educational Research vol:1 issue:1 pages:116-143 status: published

Contemporary research on the European policy space in education has paid much attention to decentralisation, deregulation and new modalities of privatisation and marketisation, but there is less focus on how these processes and policies are actually played out in education. It is argued that understanding the role of commercial actors, new local and global markets and public—private partnerships in the governing of education becomes increasingly important. The aim of the article is to introduce the special issue on commercialisation of the European Educational Research Journal by discussing some general issues: theoretical and methodological considerations when studying privatisation and commercialisation in the governing of education, conceptual clarifications, and finally, possible themes and topics for study, but also for further debate.

This paper has as central argument that the recently emerging sociomaterial approach to education has an inherently critical potential, but that this capacity is not yet fully deployed and explored in educational studies. In order to make this argument, this paper starts, first, with a concise description of representationalist versus relational thinking, and argues that sociomaterial studies have to be situated in the latter current. Consequently, the role of critique that is largely upheld in representationalist thinking –that is, a role primarily directed at debunking and unveiling– needs to be rethought. In order to reconceive this role, the paper secondly elaborates upon the key characteristics of sociomaterial studies in education in order to show such relational thinking takes shape in and during the conduct of sociomaterial research. These characteristics are crucial in order to fully apprehend the critical prospect of sociomaterial approaches in education. The role of critique, then, amounts to an engaged attitude vis-à-vis the practices under investigation, and more particularly points to critical creativity as offering some horizons of change., Este artículo tiene como argumento central que el recientemente emergente enfoque sociomaterial tiene un inherente potencial crítico para la educación, pero esta capacidad no ha sido completamente puesta en práctica o explorada en estudios educativos. Para argumentar estas ideas, este artículo empieza, en primer lugar, con una concisa descripción de representacionalismo en contraposición al pensamiento relacional, y propone que los estudios sociomateriales deben situarse en esta última corriente. En consecuencia, la función crítica que es ampliamente apoyada en el pensamiento representacional –que es una función principalmente dirigida a desacreditar y develar– requiere ser repensada. Para concebir nuevamente esta función, el artículo en segundo lugar profundiza sobre las principales características de los estudios sociomateriales en educación para demostrar que tal pensamiento relacional toma forma dentro y durante la realización de la investigación sociomaterial. Estas características son decisivas para aprehender completamente la perspectiva crítica de los enfoques sociomateriales en educación. La función de la crítica, entonces, equivale a una actitud comprometida con las prácticas objeto de investigación y dirige la atención hacia la creatividad crítica que ofrece algunos horizontes de cambio., Cet article a comme argument central que l’approche sociomatériel récemment émergent dans la recherche éducative a un potentiel intrinsèquement critique, mais que cette capacité n’est pas encore totalement déployée et explorée dans les études pédagogiques. Afin de rendre cet argument, cet article commence, d’abord, avec une description concise de la pensée représentationaliste et la pensée relationnelle, et argumente que les études sociomatérielles doivent être situées dans le dernier courant. Par conséquence, le rôle de la critique qui est largement adopté dans la pensée représentationaliste –i.e., un rôle adressé principalement aux démystification et dévoilement– doit être repensée. Afin de ressaisir ce rôle, le document explique deuxièmement les caractéristiques clés des études sociomatérielles dans l’éducation, afin de montrer que telle pensée relationnelle prend forme dans, et pendant, la conduite de la recherche sociomatériel. Ces caractéristiques sont essentielles pour appréhender pleinement la perspective critique des approches sociomatérielles dans l’éducation. Le rôle de la critique, puis, s’élève à une attitude engagée vis-à-vis des pratiques sous enquête, et plus particulièrement à la créativité critique qui offre des horizons du changement.

This article takes up a text that Ranciere published shortly after The Ignorant School Master appeared in French, ‘Ecole, production, egalite’[School, Production, Equality] (1988), in which he sketched the school as being preeminently the place of equality. In this vein, and opposed to the story of the school as the place where inequality is reproduced and therefore in need of reform, the article wants to recount the story of the school as the invention of a site of equality and as primordially a public space. Inspired by Ranciere, we indicate first how the actual (international and national) policy story about the school and the organizational technologies that accompany it install and legitimate profound inequalities, which consequently can no longer be questioned (and become ‘invisible’). Second, the article recasts and rethinks different manifestations of equality and of ‘public‐ness’ in school education and, finally, indicates various ways in which these manifestations are neutralized or immunized in...

This article takes its point of departure in the current tendency of education policy to become more and more evidence-based. The use of statistics and numbers seems to be a prerequisite for conducting a policy that is both efficient and effective. The kind of knowledge thus produced is regarded as factual and scientific. This article tries to get a grasp on value-added modelling, a commonly used method supposed to produce such knowledge. Drawing on some conceptual underpinnings of actor-network theory, the article advances that such factual matters often take the form of matters of educational performance that are shaped and produced by means of calculative and inscription devices. However, the adagio that measures of performances should guide education policy is only one,albeit strong, point of view. Taking not only performances but also public issues into account could lead to what could be called a more ‘concern-oriented’ policy. ispartof: International Studies in Sociology of Education vol:21 issue:2 pages:115-135 status: published

The ongoing development of mobile devices like cell phones, iPods, PDAs, and so on is seen by an increasing number of educationalists as a chance to focus on a new kind of learning. This mobile learning, as it is called, should enable students to learn while on the move. Rather than giving a genealogy of the use of mobile equipment in education, this article tries to add understanding to the processes that made possible the emergence of this new research domain. In doing this, the authors use one specific theoretical approach, actor-network theory, which will lead to a profound elaboration of the processes involved in new, emerging research fields. ispartof: E-Learning and Digital Media vol:8 issue:1 pages:8-18 status: published

Background/Context The article reflects on the public role of education on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Hannah Arendt's essay, “The Crisis in Education” and in facing the current transformation of public policy into “new public management.” Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study Based on Arendt's essay, “The Crisis in Education,” the article explores that peculiar setting and architecture between family and world that is called school. The leading concern for this investigation is the school's public meaning. The point of departure is that today, the public role of education is an urgent concern, that is, the school's public role is questioned in view of the current processes of privatization, and what is critically described as the “capitalization of life.” In this contribution, based on a reading of Arendt's essay and relying on the analysis of a specific school design by the architect Wim Cuyvers, two different ways of thinking the public meaning of school education are explored. One way of thinking takes the school as an infrastructure of “intro-duction,” while the other way of thinking regards the school as an infrastructure of “e-duc(a)tion.” Research Design This article is an analytic essay. Conclusions/Recommendations The article shows that it is impossible to think “a new beginning in our world” without thinking the school as public space. Drawing on some thoughts of Agamben and the school architecture of Cuyvers, the article offers an outline for elaborating the Arendtian thinking of the “perfect school.” This school is conceived of as a space where people are exposed to things, and being exposed could be regarded as being drawn outside (or as e-ducation), that is, into public space. Public space is a “free space” or the space of “free time.” This free time is precisely the sense that the Greek “scholé” seemed to indicate—a space where (economic, social, cultural, political, private …) time is suspended and where people have time at their disposal for “a new beginning.” Whereas the museum is the setting that accumulates time, the school could be seen as the setting for suspending time. The school as “public architecture,” then, is not a space/time of “intro-duction” and “in-between,” but a space/time of “suspension” and “e-ducation.”

The article presents an introduction to the Special Issue on the French philosopher Jacques Ranciere who raises a provocative voice in the current public debate on democracy, equality and education. Instead of merely criticizing current practices and discourses, the attractiveness of Ranciere's work is that he does try to formulate in a positive way what democracy is about, how equality can be a pedagogic or educational (instead of policy) concern, and what the public and democratic role of education is. His work opens up a space to rethink and to study, as well as to ‘re‐practice’, what democracy and equality in education are about. He questions the current neutralisation of politics that is motivated by a hatred of democracy. This questioning is for Ranciere also a struggle over words. Against the old philosophical dream of defining the meaning of words, Ranciere underlines the need for the struggle over their meaning. The aim of the article is to clarify how and why education, equality, and democracy a...

Starting from a Foucaultian perspective, the article draws attention to current developments that neutralise democracy through the ‘governmentalisation of democracy’ and processes of ‘governmental subjectivation’. Here, ideas of Ranciere are introduced in order to clarify how democracy takes place through the paradoxical process of ‘political subjectivation’, that is, a disengagement with governmental subjectivation through the verification of one's equality in demonstrating a wrong. We will argue that democracy takes place through the paradoxical process of political subjectivation, and that today's consensus society tends to depoliticize all processes of subjectivation. A final step in the argumentation is to introduce the concept of ‘pedagogic subjectivation’—to be understood as the experience of potentiality—that is to be distinguished from governmental subjectivation and also from political subjectivation. The concept ‘pedagogic subjectivation’ is proposed as a way of thinking of the school as a publ...

This article explores how universities can function as spaces where a world citizenship takes shape. First, Kant's distinction between the ‘private use of reason’ and ‘domestic gathering’, on the one hand, and the ‘public use of reason’ and ‘public gathering’, on the other, is elucidated. This distinction is used, secondly, to argue that the actual university organises ‘domestic gatherings’. In the name of excellence, it requires an entrepreneurial ethos of its staff, i.e. an ethos of obedience to a permanent quality tribunal, implying a permanent (self-)mobilisation confining the entrepreneur to a domestic gathering and the private use of reason (‘private citizens’). Based on this understanding, the third section develops a proposal for a world university inhabited by ‘learned individuals' acting as world citizens. It is a habitat in which an experimental and attentive ethos is present and where the public use of reason is ‘finding (a) place’. This public use of reason is not just about making things known, but of making them present. The aim of the final section, then, is to make the proposal more specific, based on an exploration of ‘public lecturing’ as the time and space of public (world) gathering where things are made public.

Could anyone reasonably oppose the idea that quality and excellence are essential to the university? However unlikely it seems, that is exactly what we would like to do in this article: we would like to reject the demand for quality and excellence in the university. We would like to arrive at a point at where the need for quality is no longer necessary. In this article, such a refusal will direct us to a proposal for using the spaces offered by the university and its teaching and research in a different way; in a way that transforms the university into a world university. This paper will argue that a world university is concentrated around attentive pools of worldly study. It is a university that has to invent new languages in order to answer the question “How can we live together?” In order to answer this question, and to be “present in the present,” we will clarify our argument that both acceptance and attention are needed in the world university. This position implies a kind of curiosity that is not driven by the “will to know” but by a caring attitude to what is happening now.

With the growth of the European Union – both in terms of its size and in terms of its influence and importance – questions have emerged about the relationship between the European Union and the inhabitants of its member states. These questions are increasingly being framed in relation to the idea of citizenship. The issue here is not only whether such a thing as European citizenship can exist. The issue is also what we should understand by European citizenship and, in relation to this, how European citizenship can be promoted and advanced. These questions are first of all considered to be important in relation to the democratic legitimacy of the European Union on the assumption that the legitimacy of democratic governance crucially depends on the extent to which it is supported and ‘owned’ by its citizens. But they are also considered to be important in relation to wider questions about social cohesion and integration and the emergence of something like a sense of a European identity. Whereas many opportunities for civic participation and identification are located at national and sub-national levels, there is at least one area where over the past decade something with a more European identity has been emerging. This is the field of higher education.[1] While compulsory education and, to a slightly lesser extent, vocational education have largely remained tied to national priorities, agendas and policies, the field of higher education is rapidly evolving into a sector which transcends national borders and agendas. Although the economic imperative is central in the policies that drive these developments, particularly in relation to the ambition of the European Community to become ‘the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion’ (Lisbon European Council, 2000), policy makers are clearly aware of the wider potential of universities in relation to questions of social cohesion and European citizenship (see, for example, European Commission, 2003, 2006). This is also what has been emphasised by the European universities themselves, who have stressed that their role encompasses more than just the creation of the next generation of workers for the knowledge economy, but includes a responsibility for cultural, social and civic development at national and European level (see, for example, European University Association, 2003). There are indeed good reasons for focusing on the higher education sector in relation to questions about European citizenship. One reason goes back to the Humboldtian tradition, which has always given the university a special role in the development of the democratic nation-state, a line of thinking which is now extended to the European level. This line of thought traditionally stresses the unique role of ‘academic’ education, that is, the edifying potential of research-based education in institutions for higher education. A second reason for a focus on higher education has

Instead of asking how universities can contribute to active citizenship and democratic participation (and seeking for ways to improve their contribution), this article asks what it is that universities, due to their specific mission, have to offer. After describing the transition of the historical university (and its focus on modernisation) to the entrepreneurial university (focused on innovation), the authors discuss the current framing of the university's public role in terms of civic employability. The notion ‘strategies of immunisation’ is introduced to point to the implications of the current focus on citizenship. Finally, an alternative conception of the public role of the university is introduced: the university can be regarded as a space and time to constitute a public by gathering people around matters of concern, and to make something a public concern for people.