MA International Education (TESOL)

This unit helps students to think creatively, practically and critically about what schools serving high poverty contexts can do to support their children, families and local residential communities. It challenges the idea that schools are just about academic outcomes and invites students to think about how schools can support children’s wider well-being – their health, safety, economic security, and positive community participation – and do so in all the contexts where they learn and develop – in school, at home, and in their local community. As well as using theories to explore these ideas, students are required to think about some of the practical challenges and dilemmas schools may face when acting on these aims. This unit will be of interest to students open to exploring how schools might extend their roles to help tackle inequities.   

The unit aims to support students to:

• Understand how schools can work with children, families and communities in high poverty contexts to improve a wide range of outcomes  
• Think critically about the wider roles schools can play in a community, beyond their formal teaching and learning
• Think critically about how families and local communities can work with schools and/or provide alternative educational opportunities 
• Develop awareness and understanding of community schooling and extended education (i.e. where schools take on a wider role) as an international field
• Engage with key debates in community schooling and extended education  
• Develop critical arguments about the rationales underpinning community schooling and extended education

Students will develop an appreciation of educational inequities associated with experiences of poverty and an understanding of what schools may (and may not) be able to do to help tackle these. This will support students who may go on to teach or work in high poverty contexts to understand – conceptually and practically – the kinds of challenges with which they will need to engage. It will also support students who go on to work in cultural institutions or in business to think about how their organisation can exercise its social responsibility by working with schools and communities. Additionally, the unit will develop students’ group work and independent study skills.

Syllabus (indicative curriculum content):

The unit explores inequities in education in high poverty contexts and how schools may respond to these. These responses include afterschool and out-of-hours activities, community/extended school strategies, schools working in partnership with other organisations, community assets, area-based initiatives and museum education. Theories are introduced to support students to think about what schools may (or may not) be able to achieve in practice to tackle inequities. Practical examples and scenarios are used throughout to illustrate the issues being explored.    
 

The main method is synchronous seminars (10x2hrs). Seminars have a mix of taught content and group discussion activities that build on pre-session independent study activities. Directed preparation for seminars includes engaging with academic articles and examples of real world contexts (e.g. through television broadcasts, youtube videos, websites). There are also two field visits to contextualise and support learning in this unit: (1) to Manchester museum where students complete the museum’s independent study activities for primary age pupils (1x2hrs), and (2) a visit to a school (1x4hrs). Remaining learning hours are assigned for independent study to extend on learning from seminars and work on individual assignments.

• Identify how schools work with children, families and communities
• Critically appraise the rationales underpinning different approaches to working with children, families and communities
• Apply relevant educational theories to these practices and rationales.

• Analyse and compare school case studies   
• Develop and sustain a coherent analysis of practices in extended education and community schools
• Synthesise theoretical information with examples from practice and literature
   

• Learn to engage with professional contexts as academic researchers.
• Effectively source and communicate information in written formats
• Reflect on individual learning
   

• Develop research and evaluation skills
• Develop skills to engage with professionals in the field.

Individual feedback on Tii 15 days after submission
 

Cummings, D., Dyson, A, and Todd, L. (2011) Beyond the School Gates: Can Full Service and Extended Schools Overcome Disadvantage? 1st Edition. Routledge

Ecarius, J., Klieme, E., Stecher, L., Woods J. (2013) Extended Education – an International Perspective. Barbara Budrich Publishers

James and Williams (2017) School-Based Experiential Outdoor Education: A Neglected Necessity. Journal of Experiential Education. Vol. 40(1) 58–71

Lawson, H. and Van Veen, D. (eds) (2016) Developing Community Schools, Community Learning Centers, Extended-service Schools and Multi-service Schools. International Exemplars for Practice, Policy and Research. Springer

Noam, G. (2004)  After¿School Worlds: Creating a New Social Space for Development and Learning. Jossey-Bass.

Schüpbach, M, Lilla, N. (Eds.) (2019) Extended Education from an International Comparative Point of View

WERA-IRN Extended Education Conference Volume. Springer