I shall use this editorial to express my mixed feelings about the COVID-19 pandemic that affected our lives strongly, personally and professionally, in very different ways for over two years. Going back to our schools, colleges and universities, without even wearing facemasks, sometimes feel a bit unfamiliar. This unfamiliarity also touches upon the way we think and act in our daily work. We are virtually standing at a crossroads: are we returning to our previous routines or moving ahead by incorporating our new pandemic-related experiences into our routines?
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Brains and gender, separately and in their interrelatedness, are hot items today in popular journals and academic literature. It is in particular the complexity of the interdependence of physical-, psychological-, and contextual-related developments of feminization in education that we focus on these contributions. We argue that a combination of recent findings of brain research and Marcia's psychological model of identity development in a “provocative pedagogy”—combining youngsters’ (boys and girls) need for exploration, console, and support—is a promising “stepped care” strategy for religious development of youngsters in a multicultural and multireligious context.
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Ecological Pedagogy is the “Pedagogy of the whole”. It assumes a continuous interaction between the individual and his or her environment (e.g. Bronfenbrenner (1977)). Traditionally, Pedagogy has been aimed at separate aspects, such as the school, the family, the neighbourhood or government policies. By contrast, Ecological Pedagogy is characterised by an integral approach. The perspectives of children, parents, educators and other stakeholders are in the middle and are approached by taking into account all their important interrelations. In this essay, a plea ismade for a broad research perspective in Ecological Pedagogy in which qualitative and quantitative methods are treated by addressing their similarities rather than their differences.
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The project aims to improve palliative care in China through the competence development of Chinese teachers, professionals, and students focusing on the horizontal priority of digital transformation.Palliative care (PC) has been recognised as a public health priority, and during recent years, has seen advances in several aspects. However, severe inequities in the access and availability of PC worldwide remain. Annually, approximately 56.8 million people need palliative care, where 25.7% of the care focuses on the last year of person’s life (Connor, 2020).China has set aims for reaching the health care standards of the developed countries by 2030 through the Healthy China Strategy 2030, where one of the improvement areas in health care includes palliative care, thus continuing the previous efforts.The project provides a constructive, holistic, and innovative set of actions aimed at resulting in lasting outcomes and continued development of palliative care education and services. Raising the awareness of all stakeholders on palliative care, including the public, is highly relevant and needed. Evidence based practice guidelines and education are urgently required for both general and specialised palliative care levels, to increase the competencies for health educators, professionals, and students. This is to improve the availability and quality of person-centered palliative care in China. Considering the aging population, increase in various chronic illnesses, the challenging care environment, and the moderate health care resources, competence development and the utilisation of digitalisation in palliative care are paramount in supporting the transition of experts into the palliative care practice environment.General objective of the project is to enhance the competences in palliative care in China through education and training to improve the quality of life for citizens. Project develops the competences of current and future health care professionals in China to transform the palliative care theory and practice to impact the target groups and the society in the long-term. As recognised by the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC), palliative care competences need to be developed in collaboration. This includes shared willingness to learn from each other to improve the sought outcomes in palliative care (EAPC 2019). Since all individuals have a right to health care, project develops person-centered and culturally sensitive practices taking into consideration ethics and social norms. As concepts around palliative care can focus on physical, psychological, social, or spiritual related illnesses (WHO 2020), project develops innovative pedagogy focusing on evidence-based practice, communication, and competence development utilising digital methods and tools. Concepts of reflection, values and views are in the forefront to improve palliative care for the future. Important aspects in project development include health promotion, digital competences and digital health literacy skills of professionals, patients, and their caregivers. Project objective is tied to the principles of the European Commission’s (EU) Digital Decade that stresses the importance of placing people and their rights in the forefront of the digital transformation, while enhancing solidarity, inclusion, freedom of choice and participation. In addition, concepts of safety, security, empowerment, and the promotion of sustainable actions are valued. (European Commission: Digital targets for 2030).Through the existing collaboration, strategic focus areas of the partners, and the principles of the call, the PalcNet project consortium was formed by the following partners: JAMK University of Applied Sciences (JAMK ), Ramon Llull University (URL), Hanze University of Applied Sciences (HUAS), Beijing Union Medical College Hospital (PUMCH), Guangzhou Health Science College (GHSC), Beihua University (BHU), and Harbin Medical University (HMU). As project develops new knowledge, innovations and practice through capacity building, finalisation of the consortium considered partners development strategy regarding health care, (especially palliative care), ability to create long-term impact, including the focus on enhancing higher education according to the horizontal priority. In addition, partners’ expertise and geographical location was also considered important to facilitate long-term impact of the results.Primary target groups of the project include partner country’s (China) staff members, teachers, researchers, health care professionals and bachelor level students engaging in project implementation. Secondary target groups include those groups who will use the outputs and results and continue in further development in palliative care upon the lifetime of the project.
Dominante onderwijsbenaderingen zien de school als plaats waar je wordt voorbereid op later. Echter, de student leeft nu en in een complexe wereld waarin voorbereiding nooit af is. Wat betekent dat inzicht voor de docent-student-relatie?Doel Met dit onderzoek willen we bijdragen aan een verdere emancipatie van de leerling. Dit behelst dat we ruimte willen vergroten voor de existentiële vragen en ervaringen die de leerling bezig houden en de wijze waarop ze al op jonge leeftijd actief kunnen bijdragen aan de samenleving. Door dit te verbinden aan de rol van de leraar en praktijkervaringen van leraren leggen we de focus op de docent-student-relatie. Resultaten Koen verdedigt op 24 juni 2022 zijn proefschrift "Pedagogy of entanglement: a response to the complex societal challenges that permeate our lives" ("Pedagogiek van verstrengeling: een antwoord op de complexe maatschappelijke uitdagingen die ons leven doordringen…") aan de Universiteit Utrecht. Populaire samenvattingen van zijn proefschrift zijn te vinden onder deze links: populaire samenvatting Nederlands en populaire samenvatting Engels. De wetenschappelijke samenvattingen zijn eveneens te downloaden (zie hieronder). Een pdf of fysieke versie van het proefschrift zijn op te vragen bij Koen (k.r.wessels@uu.nl) Eerdere impressies van zijn onderzoek: Digitale HU-lezing juni 2020 en/of Podcast september 2020 rondom thema "Verstrengeling". Looptijd 01 maart 2018 - 28 februari 2022 Aanpak In de context van het onderzoek gaan we samen met docenten op zoek naar nieuwe manieren om leerlingen en de eigen rol als docent te zien. Hiertoe doet Koen biografische interviews en focusgroepen met een groep docentonderzoekers. Ook doet Koen literatuurstudie en bouwt hij voort op casuïstiek afkomstig uit zijn eigen projectmatige werk in het onderwijsveld verbonden aan De Bildung Academie.
The project Decolonising Education: from Teachers to Leading Learners (DETeLL) aims to develop a multi-site approach for interventions towards inclusion and decolonisation in order to change the hierarchical nature of higher education in the Netherlands. DETeLL identifies the model of the ‘traditional teacher’ as embodying the structural exclusions and discriminations built into the classroom and proposes the figure of a ‘Leading Learner’ as a first step towards a radical change in the educational system. In collaboration with the education departments in the Theatre and Dance Academy at ArtEZ, the post-doc will build up a research and teaching programme that engages with students and teachers in the faculty to create a prototype of an inclusive and diverse educational practice. RELEVANCE: Education should be the critical space in which changes occur in order to shape best possible futures. In DETeLL’s acceptation, decolonisation refers to a complete change in the way of thinking and behaving. It does not refer only to the urgency of dealing with historical colonial legacies embedded in society, but also to the subversion of the deeply oppressive colonial culture that (also unconsciously) regulates public and private living, whether this is related to gender, race, class or sexuality issues. RESULTS: 1) Create a theory and practice-based scientific base-line of decolonisation and art education; 2) Provide a definition of ‘Artist educator as Leading Learner’ following a practice- based methodology of intervention; 3) Design and Pilot a new teaching programme for theatre education at ArtEZ to be then upscaled to all educational departments in a follow-up project); 4) Produce a strong interdisciplinary and international output plan: 3 academic publications, 2 conferences, 4 expert group workshops. NETWORK: ArtEZ; University of Amsterdam (UvA); Ghent University; UCHRI; Hildesheim University; Cape Town University. The partners will serve as steering committee through planned expert group meetings.
