The articles in this issue of “International Dialogues on Education: Past and Present” demonstrate in their own special way the claim of our journal to be a contemporary forum in which educational scientists and pedagogical practitioners can inform and exchange information about research results and discussions in the field of education and related human and social science disciplines.
Leanna B. Aker & Arthur K. Ellis examine in their meta-analysis the scientific commitment of middle school students in the context of compulsory scientific courses. What it means to be committed is not thoroughly agreed. Although a coordinated operational definition of commitment is still in the process of being developed, there is an emerging consensus in research literature about a tripartite model of student commitment. The authors thus develop a synthesis of the existing primary research of the scientific commitment of early youths within the framework of this emerging conceptualization. They show that teaching methods, class characteristics and competence predictors represent particularly strong relationships to scientific engagement in this age group. The students’ self-reports also revealed sub-types of their affective and cognitive engagement.
Tatjana V. Paliyeva deals with the conceptual foundations of poly-cultural education in the Republic of Belarus. The author first deals with global, philosophical and pedagogical problems in the thematic environment and then with the Belarusian term “polycultural education” which is similarly understood as “multicultural education” in the Anglo-American region or “interkulturelle Bildung” in the German language. The specificity of the theory and practice of polycultural education in Belarus is due to geographical, historical, denominational, cultural, sociolinguistic, social and pedagogical factors. Although Belarus is a practically multi-ethnic country with a rather low level of migration, the development of a multicultural personality is nevertheless seen as an important national task to prepare the younger generation for life in modern society.
In their contribution, Abdulaziz M. Alshaikh & John B.B. Bond examine the relationship between the principle of self-efficacy and the organizational citizenship behavior of teachers. They show that so far there has been no study dealing with this relationship or context. However, self-efficacy and organizational citizenship behaviour in schools are crucial for understanding the interactions between school principals and teachers. Following constructivism and Bandura-based social cognition theory, they present self-efficacy as individual behavior that is not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system and promotes the efficient and effective functioning of the organization as a whole.
Galina, A. Berulava & Mikhail N. Berulava deal with important factors of personality development and its dynamic role in the modern world and especially in higher education. The authors criticize that neither the organized education system nor the teachers are now a primary source of personality development, but the electronic media, which have an increasingly negative influence on the development of individual and social competencies. The authors call for more detailed philosophical, sociological and psychological analyses of the role of electronic media in the education of people facing the challenges of our time.
Manfred Oberlechner’s contribution deals with aspects of migration pedagogy in the context of early school dropouts. The author discusses the connection between educational poverty, migration background and school drop-out as well as educational reforms with a view to inclusion. In doing so, he questions the institutional self-image of educational institutions within migration societies because it is predominantly ethnically-nationally and linguistically-homogeneously conceived. Bourdieu’s educational concept and Mecheril’s definition of migration pedagogy are the theoretical foundations of his argumentation.
The research question in Sharon H. C. Chiang & Arthur K. Ellis’s contribution was whether and to what extent the expectations of parents influence the parent-child relationship, and how this can be demonstrated in particular by the example of selected Chinese groups. The authors initially assume that the family is the most important learning environment and the first social network for children. Parallel to school education, the critical influence of parental expectation finally extends to all aspects of a person’s life. The study examines parental expectation and its influence on parent-child relationships using quantitative and qualitative research methods. This explorative study offers the potential to stimulate further research on expectations and relationships.
In his historical-pedagogical contribution, Hein Retter explores the question of how the project method of the American educator and co-founder of the international Progressive Education Movement, William H. Kilpatrick, came to Germany. In his research, Hein Retter can rely on previously unknown archival documents as well as on Kilpatrick’s digitized diaries and, among other things, shed light on American-German educational relations up to the beginning of the Nazi era in Germany. For various reasons, the IDE editorial board did not (exceptionally) insist on a shortening of the article to our usual length of about 12,000 words, because this article not only represents the thematic conclusion of a number of other contributions by the author in this journal, but also because of the complexity of this topic and the inclusion of previously unknown documents.
So far on the contributions for this issue.
As already written in earlier Editorials and at other places in our journal, we would like to emphasize our positions and expectations regarding future contributions:
- We will continue to maintain a broad thematic focus on educational developments from historical, international and comparative perspectives. Furthermore, not only educational scientists and practitioners can exchange information about their research results, but also representatives of related fields in the human and social sciences. We publish articles that are scientifically verifiable, permeated by humanistic, democratic values, social responsibility, respect for autonomy, diversity and the dignity of individuals, groups and communities. We stand for liberal, independent educational research and publication activity and against the unrestrained commercialization of access to scientific publications.
- We publish two issues per year; the first is published at the end of May and the second at the end of November. This means for the next issue:
- For editorial planning reasons, it is recommended that the provisional titles of the intended contributions be submitted to the Editorial Board as early as possible.
- The deadline for sending the complete articles is 15 October 2019.
- Authors are requested to strictly adhere to our editorial standards and requirements in the Instructions to Contributors.
We look forward to further high-quality contributions: articles, essays, book reviews, conference reports and information on research and teaching projects.
Reinhard Golz – on behalf of the Editorial Board