Historical Analysis of School Choice in Ontario: Freedom and Inequality

The article analyzes the contemporary school choice debate in Ontario in relation to the neoliberal models of education instituted by other provinces, and places key issues of the debate within Canada’s historical context. In the first section, this paper focuses on tracing out the push for neoliberal school choice in Ontario within the broader history of its development in Canada, with particular attention to Alberta and British Columbia. The second section examines two aspects of the school choice debate: the issues of freedom of choice, as well as racial and social inequality. Finally, these aspects of school choice are placed alongside Milton Friedman’s voucher school model and the history of education in Ontario. This juxtaposition reveals some of the regulations needed to mitigate the harmful effects of school choice in Ontario.

Forms and functions of the contemporary school: erasures between modernity, postmodernity and neoliberalism

This essay aims to problematize how certain school practices are enabled and supported for their existence, since different economic discourses in statements that materialize in the school and students. From this perspective, we believe that rethinking the school space with characteristics of modernity in a post-modern scenario is to enhance essential functions for the continuation of our own existence as a public and collective institution. We assume that to question the potentialized discourses of neoliberalism in education, rooted in the development of economic progress and the ultra-market, in which interests and responsibilities of the State shift and mix from private social actions in the school space with interests of market, becomes an indispensable task. We argue that neoliberal marketing languages ​​are active in the forms and functions of contemporary schools, advocating the need for a debate that emphasizes education based on the development of school subjects committed to the public and the social.

SOCIOCULTURAL COMPONENT OF THE CONTENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEXTBOOKS FOR TECHNICAL UNIVERSITIES

Ориентация стандартов высшего технического образования на развитие у студентов универсальных компетенций в категориях «Коммуникация» и «Межкультурное взаимодействие» и одновременно превалирование в иноязычной подготовке будущих инженеров направленности на коммуникацию в социально-бытовой и профессиональной сферах требуют применения в обучении иностранным языкам в технических вузах элементов социокультурного подхода. Данный подход полноценно разработан в научных исследованиях, однако проблемы его реализации в учебниках для технических вузов остаются актуальными. Проанализировано содержание отечественных и зарубежных учебников по иностранным языкам для технических вузов, изданных в текущем столетии, на предмет социокультурного компонента их содержания. Полученные результаты могут быть значимы для разработчиков соответствующих вузовских учебников, преподавателей иностранных языков. The current standards of higher technical education provide for the development of universal competencies of students (groups of competencies “Communication”, “Intercultural interaction”), which should be implemented within the framework of the study of the discipline “Foreign language” and, accordingly, reflected in the content of educational support. As a few decades ago, and today, future engineers and university teachers of foreign languages recognize the inadequacy of teaching foreign language communication only in everyday and professional spheres. The sociocultural approach in foreign language teaching is well characterized in scientific research, and the content of most contemporary school textbooks on foreign languages is saturated with relevant topics and language material. At the same time, the problems of implementing this approach in the content of textbooks for universities, especially technical ones, remain relevant and insufficiently studied. The purpose of the study is to compare, analyze the content of domestic and foreign (authentic) university textbooks in English and German for students of technical universities, published in the current century, for the socio-cultural component of their content (topics, speech material, sociocultural commentary, etc.). In total, the author of the article analyzed 40 textbooks of this direction. The results obtained can be taken into account by the developers of the corresponding university educational literature, teachers of foreign languages of technical universities.

Tendências discursivas sobre aprendizagem no campo pedagógico contemporâneo brasileiro

The objective of the article is to reflect on and problematize the contemporary processes of naturalization of discourses about learning and their effects in the Brazilian current pedagogical field. This reflection has stemmed from the convergence of different research focused on teaching in contemporary school education and on the theoretical production in the educational field since the Escola Nova movement in Brazil. The empirical body of research consisted of 57 narratives of Brazilian teachers, collected between the years 2012 and 2016, and 90 issues of Revista Brasileira de Estudos Pedagógicos published between the 1940s and 1960s. These different investigative exercises have enabled a reflective reading of the present, as well as an exercise of historical analysis. The conclusions are that, although the Escola Nova movement had proposed an educational renewal by the first half of the 20th century, tendencies exist toward a type of educational proposition that does not discard the pedagogical function of transmission, unlike the pedagogical tendencies that currently prevail. It is also concluded that the revisited teaching practices may be able to operate against the practices of endogenous subjective decomposition, as they occur within the school.

School librarians supporting students’ reading for pleasure: A job description analysis

Reading for pleasure is an undervalued but highly beneficial practice conferring a range of educative and socio-emotional advantages. School librarians may play a key role in supporting reading for pleasure and associated literature advocacy; however, relatively little is known about how reading for pleasure may be valued within the job description of contemporary school librarians. It cannot be assumed that reading for pleasure is positioned as a valued aspect of the school librarians’ educative role in the United States and Australia, given factors such as evolving demands placed on the profession. Through hybrid content analysis of job description documents, this article explores which aspects of the current school librarian role are related to supporting reading for pleasure, comparing expectations between nations. While there are some similarities in the nature of the reading for pleasure role in the United States and Australia, Australian school librarians are far more likely to be expected to foster reading for pleasure.

Library E-Learning

This paper analyzes the state of learning spaces as they impact library education. Specifically, it reviews the literature about current trends in designing learning environments that facilitate e-learning. The report also lists cited examples of good practice in contemporary school library e-learning spaces.

Musical Education aspects in the contemporary school based on the Theory of Multiple Intelligence

What is intelligence? Which are the most important characteristics of it? Starting from these two questions that have a powerful impact over the researchers, Gardner fulfill to present a new meaning sense of the termen - intelligence, which continues to be discussed. During the article we will present some connections between the musical education systems of the 20th-21st centuries and the Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Even though some of them appeared before the theory, through his affirmations, Gardner manages to prove that the musical intelligence isn’t just a talent, it is in every human being. The study of the Theory Multiple Intelligence and the deepening of some of the well-known music education systems led to design and develop of some attractive and efficient music activities in school.