| CODE | EDS4107 | ||||||||||||
| TITLE | Education, History and Society | ||||||||||||
| UM LEVEL | 04 - Years 4, 5 in Modular UG or PG Cert Course | ||||||||||||
| MQF LEVEL | 6 | ||||||||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 4 | ||||||||||||
| DEPARTMENT | Education Studies | ||||||||||||
| DESCRIPTION | Education, History, and Society is based on the fundamental sociological insight that education is a site of struggle for different power groups to establish their agenda for education and for formal schooling. Such struggles take place over a number of issues, including the definition of the aims and purposes of education, access to education, the structures of education systems, the financing of education, what counts as knowledge worth knowing (curriculum), how to teach that knowledge (pedagogy), how to assess knowledge acquisition (forms of assessment), and so on. Historically, and across most if not all countries, the outcomes of such struggles are determined by the relative power, status, and influence of groups which are identifiable by their class, gender, and ethnicity – and in some cases by their religious, linguistic affiliation, as well as their cultural and sexual identities. The struggles between different interest groups leads to specific forms of accommodation at specific points in time, and these in turn give rise to new tensions in the way the nature of schooling is defined. This study-unit considers some of the struggles over formal education and schooling in Malta across time. The first semester focuses on a historical sociological engagement with some of the key contestations over education, starting with the late Middle Ages and Early Modern Malta, and concluding with the comprehensive education reform movement in the late 1970s. The second semester focuses on more recent and contemporary struggles over education. Mediated by local protagonists of current curricular and structural reforms, and drawing on recent comparative and local studies, as well as on current theoretical debates, the second part of the study unit focuses on the intersections between social class, gender and ethnicity and educational achievement. Some of the issues that will be addressed include: gender and achievement, social class and educational trajectories; religions and unequal access to the national curriculum; migration and education; centralisation vs autonomy in the curriculum; generalist vs specialised curricula; academic vs vocationalist curricula; cultural hegemony and the curriculum; and teacher formation and educational achievement. Study-unit Aims: This study-unit aims to provide student-teachers with the conceptual, historical and sociological tools to make sense of the tensions surrounding educational policy-making. Future teachers will thus be in a better position to critically de-code initiatives and practices in education, seeing them as manifestations of complex sets of interests that work to the advantage of some groups, and against the interests of other groups in Maltese society. As a result, student-teachers will be able to go beyond the declared goals for education, in order to identify the ways in which policies and practices serve to reinforce power and privilege. They will also be in a better position to examine the ways in which their everyday work in classrooms schools, and as critical intellectuals in the wider public sphere, can further the equity agenda. Learning Outcomes: 1. Knowledge & Understanding: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: [1st semester] - Understand the importance of history in making sense of contemporary educational debates and issues. - Recognize different ways of writing educational history, the epistemological issues that arise, and the strengths and weakness of each approach. - Identify the key landmarks of educational development in Malta, and how these are linked to economic circumstances, specific social movements, ideological currents, and local, regional, and international politics. - Become sensitive to the ways different educational policies and practices can be traced back to specific group interests. - Understand the inevitable interrelationship between education, politics, and power. [2nd semester] - Recognise the importance of empirical research in drawing conclusions on educational achievement. - Understand that educational achievement is not neutral and that educational choices are mediated by social contexts. - Engage critically with current structures and practices in local education. - Understand curricular dilemmas. - Recognise and acknowledge the complex nature of curriculum reform. - Engage critically with current reforms and reformers. - Visualise alternative curricular paradigms. 2. Skills: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: [1st semester] - Critically appraise historical texts. - Find and use archival texts and resources. - Use historical material in order to deepen one’s understanding of contemporary educational developments. [2nd semester] - Strengthen skills related to collection and interpretation of educational data. - Use of data to build solid arguments. - Strengthen dialogical skills in the context of a large audience. - Synthesise and integrate theoretical, empirical and experiential knowledges. - Build a personal ideological and pedagogical profile. Main Text/s and any supplementary readings: [1st semester] Key text: Sultana, R.G. (ed.)(2001) Yesterday’s Schools: Readings in Maltese Educational History. PEG: Malta. Supplementary readings: Zammit Mangion, J. (1992) Education in Malta. MAS: Malta. Zammit Mangion, J. (2000) L-Istorja ta’ l-Edukazzjoni f’Malta. Independence Publications, Kullana Kulturali: Pieta’. [2nd semester] Books: Apple, M.W., AU, W. & Armando Gandin, L. (2009) The Routledge Companion to Critical Education. New York: Routledge. Borg, C. (ed.) (2013) L-Edukazzjoni hi Politika. Ġabra ta’ Kitbiet ta’ Paulo Freire (Education is Politics: Paulo Freire Reader). Malta: Horizons Sadovnik, A. R. (ed.) (2010) Sociology of Education: A Critical Reader. New York: Routledge. Sultana, R.G. (ed) (1996) Inside/Outside Schools. Malta: PEG. Reports: European Commission reports on Lilfelong Learning, 2005-2012. International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement: TIMMS 2011 Results in Mathematics. International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement: PIRLS 2011 Result in Reading. OECD reports on education and education gaps, 2005-2012. |
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| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture | ||||||||||||
| METHOD OF ASSESSMENT |
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| LECTURER/S | Carmel P. Borg BERNARD CAUCHI |
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The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2025/6. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
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