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ROBIN ALEXANDER |
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Research and evaluation
Policy and practice in primary education Comparative and cultural studies in education Pedagogy, discourse and the improvement of teaching Teachers and teacher education Education and education reform in India
Policy and practice in primary education
(In this and the subsequent six sections full bibliographic references are provided only for those texts which do not appear under publications).
Robin Alexander is one of a handful of individuals who have consistently worked to get primary education taken with the seriousness it deserves by both academics and policy-makers. Building on his wide-ranging 1984 critique of the then dominant policies, values and practices of British primary education, he has undertaken a succession of empirical studies on various aspects of this phase of education: teacher thinking and decision-making, LEA administration and influence, the curriculum, assessment, school management, classroom practice, teacher-student interaction and discourse. These have fed into both national debate and school practice. Alexander’s 1991 Leeds report led directly to the then government’s commissioning the ‘three wise men’ primary education enquiry, on which he served. Yet he has also been strongly critical of government policy on primary education, especially during the periods immediately after the 1988 Education Reform Act and the election of the Blair government in 1997.
For information about The Primary Review, see separate page.
Representative funded research projects: Primary Teachers’ Knowledge in Action (University of Leeds, 1985-6), Primary Needs Independent Evaluation Project (1986-91, Leeds City Council), Heinemann Our World Primary Curriculum Development Project (Heinemann Educational, 1989-92), Evaluation of National Curriculum Assessment at Key Stage 1 (SEAC, 1990-2), Changes in Curriculum-Associated Discourse and Pedagogy in the Primary School (ESRC, 1991-3), Primary Education in Five Cultures (Leverhulme Trust, British Council and University of Warwick, 1994-8); Curriculum Management in Primary Schools (the LEAs of Birmingham, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire, 1997-8).
Key books and reports: Primary Teaching (1984), Changing Primary Practice (1989), Curriculum Organisation and Classroom Practice in Primary Schools: a discussion paper (1992 - the ‘three wise men’ report), Versions of Primary Education (1995), Policy and Practice in Primary Education: local initiative, national agenda (1997), Time for Change? Curriculum Managers at Work (1998), Culture and Pedagogy: international comparisons in primary education (2001).
Examples of critical commentaries on recent government policy on primary education: ‘The primary curriculum: an overdue case for reform’ (2005); ‘Back to the drawing board’ (2005); ‘Excellence, enjoyment and personalised learning: a true foundation for choice?’ (2004); ‘Still no pedagogy? Principle, pragmatism and compliance in primary education’ (2004); ‘The Curriculum in Successful Primary Schools’: a commissioned response’ (2002); ‘Basics, cores and choices: towards a new curriculum’ (2001).
Comparative and cultural studies in education
In the early 1990s, Robin Alexander initiated what was to become his most substantial and widely-known piece of research, a comparative study of culture, policy and pedagogy in England, France, India, Russia and the United States conducted at national, school and classroom levels. After four years of fieldwork and three years of analysis and writing, the resulting book, Culture and Pedagogy, won top education book prizes in the United States and Britain. The study culminated in a close-grained analysis of the teacher-student talk which both mediates culture in the classroom and conditions the character and quality of children’s learning. It led to a follow-up study in the same five countries and to a research and development programme which seeks to transform classroom interaction in order to capitalise fully on the capacity for cognitive empowerment which classroom talk at best provides but all too often does not. In parallel, Robin Alexander joined with others in re-assessing the purposes and methods of international comparative research and participated in Ofsted’s renewal of interest in comparative enquiry, working in Denmark and Finland. He has also studied schooling in China and Cuba.
Representative funded projects: Primary Education in Five Cultures (Leverhulme Trust, British Council and University of Warwick, 1994-8), Theories, Methods and Applications in Comparative Educational Research (ESRC, 1997-9), Primary Education in Five Cultures Follow-Up Study (Leverhulme Trust, 2002-4).
Key texts: Culture and Pedagogy: international comparisons in primary education (2001); Learning from Comparing: new directions in comparative educational research, Volume I: Contexts, Classrooms and Outcomes (1999), Volume II: Policy, Professionals and Development (2000); Other Primary Schools and Ours: hazards of international comparison, (2000); The Education of Six Year Olds in England, Denmark and Finland: an international comparative study (2003); ‘Pédagogie, culture et comparaison: visions et versions de l’école élémentaire’, (2003); ‘Talk in teaching and learning: international perspectives’ (2003); ‘Dichotomous pedagogies and the promise of comparative research’ (2002); ‘Border crossings: towards a comparative pedagogy’ (2001).
Pedagogy, discourse and the improvement of teaching
Robin Alexander’s pedagogic research has a number of strands: conceptual and theoretical exploration of the nature of pedagogy; empirical studies of teaching; and more focused enquiry and development work on the relationship between talk, effective teaching and the empowerment of the learner. The latter started with the Leeds and CICADA studies of 1986-91 and 1991-3, was taken forward into the ‘five cultures’ comparative study of 1994-8, and is currently being refined and applied under the banner of ‘dialogic teaching’ with UK local education authorities and the UK government’s Primary National Strategy.
Representative funded projects: Primary Needs Independent Evaluation Project (1986-91, Leeds City Council), Changes in Curriculum-Associated Discourse and Pedagogy in the Primary School (ESRC, 1990-2); Primary Education in Five Cultures and Primary Education in Five Cultures Follow-Up (Leverhulme Trust and others, 1994-8 and 2002-4); Evaluation of the Talk for Learning Project (North Yorkshire County Council, 2002 - ); Evaluation of the Teaching Through Dialogue Initiative (Barking and Dagenham Council, 2003 - ).
Key texts: Primary Teaching (1984); Versions of Primary Education (1995); ‘Discourse, pedagogy and the National Curriculum: change and continuity in primary schools’ (with John Willcocks and Nick Nelson, Research Papers in Education, 11:1, pp 83-122, 1996); Questions, Answers and Feedback in Primary Teaching: international perspectives, (by Karen Mills, with contributions from Robin Alexander, 1998); ‘Oracy, literacy and pedagogy: international perspectives’ (2003); Culture and Pedagogy (2001); ‘Still no pedagogy? Principle, pragmatism and compliance in primary education’ (2004); Towards Dialogic Teaching: rethinking classroom talk (2004, 4th edition 2008); ‘Talking to learn: oracy revisted’ (2005), Essays on Pedagogy (2008).
See separate page here
Teachers and teacher education
Robin Alexander has been involved in teacher education in various capacities: as teacher and course director in Manchester and Leeds, as a member of national advisory and accrediting bodies - the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA) and the Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (CATE) - and as a researcher. While on CATE he played a leading part in the development of the 14/93 national criteria for the accreditation of primary pre-service teacher training courses. He is currently a member of the Cambridge-based research team for the government-funded study of teacher status and professionalism.
Representative funded research projects: The evaluation of new courses in a college of education (SSRC, 1975-7); Validation in Teacher Education (Nuffield Foundation, 1979-81); consultant to the Teacher Status Project (DfES, 2002-6).
Key texts: Initial B.Ed Courses for the Early and Middle Years (editor, CNAA, 1983); Primary Teaching (1984); Change in Teacher Education: Context and Provision Since Robbins (1984); ‘Partnership in Initial Teacher Education’, in Wilkin M., Furlong J., Booth M. (ed) Partnership in Initial Teacher Training (Cassell, 1990).
Long before institutional self-evaluation was caught up in the shift from traditional models of school management to ‘distributed’ and ‘learning-centred’ school leadership, Robin Alexander was pioneering ethical and methodological frameworks for democratic educational evaluation. During the late 1970s he developed a self-evaluation system for a college in Manchester and since then has undertaken several commissioned evaluations, always seeking to balance participant perspectives and ensure that the main political danger of commissioned evaluation - those at the top escape both scrutiny and culpability – is avoided. One of the largest of these projects entailed the evaluation of a major reform programme covering over 230 primary schools in one of Britain’s largest cities. Alexander has also been involved in the evaluation of major national initiatives – the first full run of national testing for 11 year olds in England, and the contribution of the EC to the world’s largest multi-lateral education reform programme, in India.
Representative funded projects: The evaluation of new courses in a college of education (SSRC, 1975-7); Primary Needs Evaluation Project (PRINDEP) (Leeds City Council, 1986-91); Evaluation of National Curriculum assessment at Key Stage 1 (SEAC, 1990-2); Evaluation of EC Involvement in the Government of India District Primary Education Programme (EC, 2001-2); Evaluation of the North Yorkshire Talk for Learning Project (North Yorkshire County Council, 2002 - ); Evaluation of the Barking and Dagenham Teaching Through Dialogue Initiative (Barking and Dagenham Borough Council, 2003 -).
Key texts: The Self-Evaluating Institution: practice and principles in the management of educational change (1982); Primary Education in Leeds (1991); Policy and Practice in Primary Education: local initiative, national agenda (1997); Mercer, M.M., Alexander, R.J., Ramachandran, H., Rao, P. and Singh, A.K. (2002) Final Report on the Evaluation of EC Support for Primary Education in India 122pp, Brussels: European Commission; Talk for Learning: the first year (2003); Talk for Learning: the second year (2004); The Teaching Through Dialogue Initiative, Year 1 (2005).
Education and education reform in India
India is one of the five countries in Robin Alexander’s Culture and Pedagogy research programme and he has worked there for a part of almost every year since 1994. Alongside this research Alexander has provided technical consultancy in support of the Government of India’s District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) reform initiatives, which have aimed to universalise primary (5-11) and currently upper primary (11-14) education. He has contributed to DPEP-linked research conferences, has served on the Government of India's multilateral DPEP review missions, has participated in the evaluation of the European Commission’s role in supporting DPEP and preparing for SSA, and most recently has participated in the 2007 SSA Implementation Completion Report Mission on behalf of the UK government’s Department for International Development (DfID).
In these various contexts Robin Alexander has visited and worked in schools and NGOs in Delhi and the states of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, and has been a regular visitor to India’s apex educational research and development institute, the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) in Delhi. Together with Karen Lennox he has also developed a working relationship with the Krishnamurti Foundation’s Rishi Valley Education Centre, a remarkable experiment in education, health, ecology and rural re-invigoration in one of the most drought-prone districts of southern India.
Representative texts published in India and Brussels: Education for All, the Quality Imperative and the Problem of Pedagogy (Delhi 2007, CREATE 2008); ‘Indicators of teaching quality: a model from comparative classroom research’ (Delhi, 2003); Final Report on the Evaluation of EC Support for Primary Education in India (Brussels, 2002); Reflections on Equity, Quality and Local Planning in the District Primary Education Programme (Delhi, 2001); ‘Unfinished journey: pedagogy and discourse in school effectiveness research’ (Delhi, 1997); ‘Task, time, talk and text: signposts to effective teaching?’ (Delhi, 1996).
For further information about Rishi Valley, go to www.rishivalley.org.
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