Key Idea: Refraction
Refraction is a concept which allows us to explore the mediations and negotiations which emerge when ‘world movements’ or global initiatives are embedded in national and local systems and structures. In the study of seven national European systems carried out the book Professional knowledge and Educational Restructuring in Europe (Goodson and Lindblad, Eds, 2010) we explored the different national and regional responses to global movements of change and educational restructuring.
The ranges of refraction show how patterns of reinterpretation and re-contextualisation can substantially influence and potentially re-direct world movements and global initiatives which seek to reconstruct our systems and services.
References
Developing a concept of 'refraction': Exploring educational change and oppositional practice; Goodson, I. F., & Rudd, T. (Forthcoming)
Professional Knowledge and Educational Restructuring in Europe
Read about Refraction in the chapter: Developing a Conceptual Framework for Understanding:- Certainly restructuring has the features of a world movement that political elites are promoting but we can see how the different historical...
- Generational differences in the professional strategies towards restructuring are expressed as differentiated attitudes towards intensification...
- The report shows responses that are quite like aspects of the Portuguese and Greek (certainly older generation) work life narratives....
- The Spanish case points up to conceptual complexity of professional responses, highlights the differences between the teachers noted above and...
- At the end point of the multi-layered refraction process sits the individual or professional. Still we should remember a key player, probably...
This study combines two kinds of narrative research: a study of the...