ERIC Number: EJ870746
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2009-Dec
Pages: 16
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0305-4985
EISSN: N/A
Making "Right" Choices? An Ethnographic Account of Creativity, Performativity and Personalised Learning Policy, Concepts and Practices
Beach, Dennis; Dovemark, Marianne
Oxford Review of Education, v35 n6 p689-704 Dec 2009
This article uses ethnographic research from two Year 8 classes in two middle-sized secondary schools about a kilometre apart in a Swedish west-coast town to examine how new policies for personalised learning have developed in practice, in the performative cultures of modern schools in a commodity society. One school stands in a predominantly middle-class area of privately owned "low-rise" houses. The other is in an area of "high-rise" rented accommodation, where the first language of many homes is not Swedish. The differences are important. According to the article, personalised learning mobilises material and social resources in these schools that support new forms of individualistic, selfish and private accumulations of education goods from public provision and a valorisation of self-interest and private value as the common basis for educational culture. The article describes this cultural production in school and links it to processes of cultural and social reproduction.
Descriptors: Ethnography, Secondary Schools, Foreign Countries, Educational Policy, Middle Class, Second Language Learning, Swedish, Housing, Creativity, Grade 8, Competition, Consumer Science, Immigrants, Academic Achievement, Educational Attitudes, Educational Practices
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Grade 8; Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Sweden
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A