Search

The topic of citizenship education and the promotion of democratic citizenship in schools has risen to the top of educational policy agendas in Europe over the past three decades. This rise in attention, however, appears to be accompanied by an apparent lack of attention to the specific manner in which citizenship, education and the assumed relationship between both are currently conceptualised and understood in this policy context. The currently dominant notions of citizenship education centre around a concept of "citizenship-as-competence," illustrating a certain assumption of equivalence between citizenship and formal education in schools, without further elaborating on this assumption. By means of a critical re-reading of key European educational policy texts referring to citizenship education, and their use of the key concepts of citizenship and education, our analysis shows how the competence-based approach to citizenship education in European educational policymaking entails tensions with its own assumptions, therefore falling short of its own proclaimed purpose of emancipating young people in Europe to become autonomous, engaged and critical democratic citizens.

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 phenomenological approach, the note-taking experiences of 18 students from an international program at a university in Belgium were examined throughout a semester. In order to document these students' practices with paper-based and paperless resources, four data collection methods were used: (a) in-depth interviews (b) observations (c) focus group discussions and (d) document analysis of students' lecture notes. The results showed that students experience note-taking as a complex phenomenon in which lived body, lived human relations, lived space and lived time come into play, and in which they try to find a balance between multiple engagements, between autonomy and authority, between attention and distraction, and between being original and mirroring others. This struggle for balance occurs irrespective of which medium (paper-based or paperless) they choose to use. These results provide an in-depth view of the phenomenon, and also highlight the complexity of the note-taking experience.

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 the expectations of the European learning space that is enacted in discourses, instruments and practices. The independent learner is a de-institutionalized learner who is permanently in need of qualifications, calculations and mobility, and what takes shape is a 'governing by personalization and debt'. Key components of today's European learning space are no longer disciplinary norms (with inspection) and administrative rules (with sanctions), but personalizing profiles (with feedback). Understanding current forms of governing is of importance in order to perceive that what is appreciated today in terms of liberation and independence is in fact the inscription of the student in new forms of governing. The analysis concludes by raising the question of where university pedagogy begins and governing education should hold off.

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.

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.

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.

Introduction: Currently, it is common practice in the emergency department (ED) for pain relief in hip-fracture patients to administer pain medication, commonly systemic opioids. However, with these pain medications come a high risk of side effects, especially in elderly patients. This study investigated the safety profile and success rate of fascia iliaca compartment block (FICB) in a busy ED. This ED was staffed with emergency physicians (EPs) and residents of varying levels of experience. This study followed patients’ pain levels at various hourly intervals up to eight hours post procedure. Methods: Between September 2012 and July 2013, we performed a prospective pilot study on hip-fracture patients who were admitted to the ED of a teaching hospital in the Netherlands. These patients were followed and evaluated post FICB for pain relief. Secondary outcome was the use of opioids as rescue medication.Results: Of the 43 patients in this study, patients overall experienced less pain after the FICB (p=0.04). This reduction in pain was studied in conjunction with the use and non-use of opioids. A clinically meaningful decrease in pain was achieved after 30 minutes in 62% of patients (54% with the use of opioids, 8% without opioids); after 240 minutes in 82% of patients (18% with opioids, 64% without opioids); after 480 minutes in 88% of patients (16% with opioids, 72% without opioids). No adverse events were reported.Conclusion: In a busy Dutch ED with rotating residents of varying levels of experience, FICB seems to be an efficient, safe and practical method for pain reduction in patients with a hip fracture. Even without the use of opioids, pain reduction was achieved in 64% of patients after four hours and in 72% of patients after eight hours.

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 rethinking of the relation between university and (digital) technologies by focusing not on how technologies function in the university, but on their constituting a meta-condition for the existence of the university pedagogy of inquiry. Following Ivan Illich's idea that textual technologies played a crucial role in the inception of the university, we will first show the structural similarities between university thinking and the text as a profanation of the book. Secondly, we describe university thinking as a type of critical thinking based on the materiality of the text-on-the-page, explaining why the text has been at the centre of university pedagogy since the beginning. In the third part, we show how Illich came to see the end of the culture of the text as a challenge for the university, by describing the new features of the text-as-code incompatible with the idea of reading as study. Finally, we challenge this pessimistic reading of Illich's and end with a call for a profanatory pedagogy of digital technologies that could mirror the revolutionary thinking behind the mediaeval invention of the text.

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.

Over the last few years, different sociomaterial research orientations have emerged. In this article, we argue that most of these orientations are relying on a relational mode of thinking, that is, a way of conceiving of educational practices in terms of the relations between the different actors present in these particular practices. In doing so, these various sociomaterial studies share many of their theoretical assumptions with social topology, an approach inspired by the mathematical field of topology. In educational research, however, this connection between sociomaterial and sociotopological accounts is not commonly made. Therefore, this article calls for a more intricate interweaving of topological thinking with better-known sociomaterial approaches. Furthermore, we assert that using visualisations might play a crucial role in this respect. To that effect, we introduce the Foucauldian and Deleuzian notion of the diagram. This notion of the diagram, as the technique that brings the orders of the visual and the articulable together, is conceived as a promising technique in order to investigate different aspects of educational practices. In a concluding section, the article offers some suggestions as to what the general potential of adopting such relational studies in the field of education might be.

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.

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 potentially revolutionary character of the scholastic form and discuss contemporary attempts at taming or neutralising the school.

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.

This paper focuses on the issue of emancipation in education practices in general and in vocational education and training (VET) in particular. The principal aim is to contribute to the discussion of particular traditions of emancipation in education in connection with VET practices. The exploration of ongoing educational debates on VET policy-making and the issue of emancipation in VET reveals that, ultimately, emancipation in VET is understood as a specific function for socio-economic integration. The paper discusses this functionalist orientation and contrasts 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 the discussion regarding the latter interpretation of emancipation in VET practices.

Over the last two decades, a sense of awareness has arisen that universities are facing important challenges. This article focuses on the challenge that could be broadly termed as "the digitisation of academic work", yet without assuming that this digitisation 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 article stresses the concrete composition of academic work without making any general presumptions regarding how the university looks at present. Furthermore, by introducing a specific interview technique as methodological approach and different visualisations as (qualitative) analytical approach, this article offers a threefold exploratory textual and visual analysis of academic practice in the making. The article concludes, firstly, that it makes not much sense any more 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.

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.

Central to this article is a case study of one particular governmental instrument in Flanders, the educational magazine "Klasse voor Ouders" (Klasse for Parents). This popular magazine aims to provide information for and communication with parents as one of the target groups in the educational field. Despite the claimed formal and neutral character, in this study, we assume that "Klasse voor Ouders" plays a larger role by contributing to the (re-)organisation of the public debate. We suggest that through the "order of discourse" and thus, through what is said and written, an educational reality is created in which parents and the government are "positioned" and are asked to reflect on themselves and to act in a well-defined way. By means of a critical discourse analysis in line with Fairclough, we illustrate how parents are understood as having a continuous "drive" for improving the quality of their own parenting practice while the government is positioned as in charge of and in control for creating a kind of "parental learning community".

In this article, the focus is on educational governing in the making. Drawing on conceptual underpinnings of socio-technical approaches, this implies an interest both on the way in which a sound knowledge base for policy measures is created, as on the distribution of that knowledge through publically available instruments. Governing by evidence only is possible when it relies on concrete instruments, such as feedback reports, publically consultable audits and examples of good practice. Since knowledge-related practices increasingly make use of online tools where knowledge is accessible for each and all, three websites are analysed in a particular way to describe the making of evidence. First, considered as active devices, the websites are analysed as essential components of the governing by evidence: by publishing specific data and information in a particular way, they come to constitute "what" comes to count as evidence and the way in which it comes to count. By addressing their visitors in a particular way, moreover, they constitute "for whom" it comes to count as evidence. As such, we argue, it becomes visible that digital spaces of evidence actually make schools real, and, at once, that there are different modes for schools to exist.