Individuals and Leadership in an Australian Secondary Science Department: A Qualitative Study

In this article, we consider the complex and dynamic inter-relationships between individual science teachers, the social space of their work and their dispositions towards teacher leadership. Research into the representation of school science departments through individual science teachers is scarce. We explore the representations of four individual teachers to the assertions of teacher leadership proposed by Silva et al. (Teach Coll Rec, 102(4):779–804, 2000). These representations, expressed during regular science department meetings, occur in the social space of Bourdieu’s “field” and are a reflection of the “game” of science education being played within the department. This departmentally centred space suggests an important implication when considering the relationship between subject departments and their schools. The development of an individual’s representation of teacher leadership and the wider “field” of science education appears to shape the individual towards promoting their own sense of identity as a teacher of science, rather than as a teacher within a school. Our work suggests that for these individuals, the important “game” is science education, not school improvement. Consequently, the subject department may be a missing link between efforts to improve schools and current organizational practices.     

高校院系办公室管理策略探微

高校院系办公室管理策略可以概括为:院系办公室的协调策略;院系办公室自身建设发展策略;个人适应组织发展策略,它对当前改进和完善高校院系办公室管理工作有重要的借鉴意义.     

加强与完善高校院(系)的独立性建设的途径及其在高校发展中的地位

高等学校的内部管理具有一般行政管理与专业教育管理的双重属性,是区别于一般行政管理的独特管理。高等学校的内部管理要服从于行政与学术两个权威,管理运行要遵循教育与学术两个规律,如果仅将其理解为一般行政管理,那将使高校的内部管理行政化,管理目标将无法实现。高校职能的     

How Communities Can Use Research to Hold School Systems Accountable

This article examines how community organizations can use research to identify community education interests and influence school systems to serve those interests. A case study of the Southeast Education Task Force in Baltimore, Maryland, analyzes the organization's efforts to develop a school facility plan and persuade the school system to adopt and implement it. The organization combined formal research on school facilities, political research on allies and decision-makers, and informal collection of local knowledge. It used this research to develop short-term and long-range facility and capital improvement plans. With the research, the organization persuaded the school system to repair school facilities and assisted the system in persuading State decision-makers to approve a new neighborhood school. The article identifies conditions under which community organizations are likely to conduct and use research, as well as conditions under which they may use research influentially with a school system. The case illustrates ways community organizations can use research to hold school systems accountable for responding to community agendas.     

Picture This: Multimodal representations of prospective teachers' metaphors about teachers and teaching

Metaphors are often used to help prospective teachers' articulate ideas and knowledge about teachers and teaching. This article reports the results of a study focused on a multimodal project completed by prospective teachers (N = 52) for the express purpose of identifying, capturing, displaying, and articulating their metaphorical definition(s) of teachers and teaching. Findings suggest that multimodality offered varied and nuanced ways for participants to represent and share metaphors. Findings also suggest that offering prospective teachers with opportunities to consider and articulate metaphorical ideas through multimodal means may further contribute to their development as they learn to teach.     

积极心理教育在高职和谐宿舍建设中的应用

宿舍是高职学生中一种较为特殊的形式,这样一个群体具有＂正式群体＂与＂非正式群体＂两重性。根据这一群体的特点,运用积极心理教育来开展和谐宿舍的建设工作。     

Scenario-Based e-Learning: Evidence-Based Guidelines for Online Workforce Learning by Ruth Colvin Clark

This qualitative interpretive case study used Wenger’s (1998) communities of practice (CoP) framework to analyze how the electronic learning community (eLC) process at an established state virtual high school operated like a community of practice. Components of the eLC process were analyzed according to elements of the CoP framework, which provided a theoretical lens through which to analyze data gathered through interviews, observations, and document collection. Findings revealed several areas of alignment between the eLC process and the CoP framework, particularly with Wenger’s notion of practice within a CoP as a duality between participation and reification.     

Holistic school pedagogy and values: Finnish teachers’ and students’ perspectives

The purpose of the study was to identify the components of holistic school pedagogy as identified by a sample of Finnish secondary school teachers and students from two schools. Holistic pedagogy concerns the development of the whole student and acknowledges the cognitive, social, moral, emotional and spiritual dimensions of education. The data were gathered in spring 2008 and include 19 interviews of Finnish secondary school teachers of different subjects and 37 interviews of their students. The teachers and students came from two schools that both emphasize mathematics in their curricula. Analysis of the teachers’ and students’ interviews revealed three different components in holistic school pedagogy. These components were values and worldviews, field-invariant pedagogical components (which are important regardless of the content or the subject) and field-dependent pedagogical components (subject- or context-specific issues, such as pedagogical content knowledge of mathematics or the type of school). Holistic school pedagogy also emphasized the importance of the whole school community for the best pedagogical practices in schools.     

学习型组织的形成与教师队伍建设

影响学校学习型组织的形成与教师队伍建设的原因主要有管理者、学校、教师三个层面。形成学校学习型组织的对策包括:(1)校长任用制改革;(2)发展性的校长评价理念;(3)正确认识教师工作与学习的关系;(4)树立以教师为本的管理思想;(5)建立共同愿景;(6)与教师实现信息共享。与此同时,通过建立学校内部合作机制、完善教师的知识结构、倡导教师间的良性互动、建立公平合理的教师评价制度和“校本教研”制度,来提高教师队伍的素质,使学校成为有利于教师成长的学习型组织和社区。     

公共生活中学校共同体的建构

人类社会以共同体的形式出现。在人类历史发展过程中,不同阶段共同体的性质和形式是不同的。当代社会共同体是指向个体性的共同体,它以契约为中介把人联系起来,因此是公民共同体。学校是社会的一部分,作为一个社会组织,在性质上与社会共同体具有一致性,属于公民共同体。学校是充满理性和友爱的公民共同体,是师生交往的共同体,是彰显公共性的共同体。但学校共同体还具有教育自身的特殊性。建构学校公民共同体,既要按照公民共同体的要求,追求个人的合理利益,以契约构建政治共同体;又要超越契约,追求共同体的公共性,以道德的关爱构建教育共同体。     

“I wanted to go here”: Adolescents’ perspectives on school choice

New Zealand legislation removing school zones radically reshaped school choice, resulting in increased school stratification from parental choice frequently driven by social factors such as ethnic makeup of the school community. This article considers school choice through the eyes of 1,465 adolescents from 12 secondary schools in Dunedin (New Zealand). The most common reasons for school choice included: preference for a coeducational school, school’s facilities, positive comments from parents/students, and friends’ enrollment. Reasons for school choice differed by who was making the decision. Social factors and school programs/facilities, rather than proximity to home, influenced school choice decisions in Dunedin.     

Re/cognising the discursive fr/Ames of equity and widening participation in higher education

ABSTRACT

Policy and program language in the UK and Australian higher education sectors consistently deploys the term aspiration in ways that adhere to the hegemonic neo-liberal ideal of the entrepreneurial competitor-individual, de-meaning and de-valuing ‘other’ personhoods. University Equity and Widening Participation (EWP) outreach programs that engage with marginalised groups in school and community settings challenge people to perform particular aspirations from what can be a deeply uncertain present. This paper presents a cautionary tale from the Australian Equity and Widening Participation (EWP) context that emerged from a research-informed practice PhD, spanning two methodologically different phases. The paper argues that the discursive framing of certain aspirations as legitimate works in subtle ways to shape the perceptual horizons of EWP practitioners and participants. Specifically, the work takes issue with policy frames that create conditions for misrecognition(s) that are themselves difficult to re/cognise. A metaphorical pedagogical tool is developed using the Ames Room illusion.     

构建高职院校系部二级就业指导服务机构的意义与途径

目前高职院校很少在系部建立二级就业指导服务机构,但从就业指导服务工作的性质、特点和趋势看,构建高职院校系部二级就业指导服务机构是大势所趋,它可以缓解校级就业指导服务部门的工作压力,增强就业指导服务的针对性和实效性,利于构建全程化的就业指导服务体系。     

What Role Do We Expect Secondary Master Reading Teachers to Play?

In this article, we explore and identify the varied roles that have been assigned over time to the master reading teacher at the secondary level. Despite the fact that there are fewer master reading teachers (MRTs) at the secondary level, they are often required to take on even more responsibilities than MRTs at the elementary level. Secondary MRT roles have included working as a reading interventionist and instructor, reading coach, and school liaison to homes and community. Additionally, secondary MRTs also take on the role of content/disciplinary reading expert. Based on our literature review, we argue that the wide-ranging and multi-faceted roles assigned to the secondary MRT may not be the best deployment of responsibilities. We suggest that the roles of the secondary MRT be re-examined for the purpose of defining specific and limited roles and responsibilities to be assigned to these professionals so as to maximize their effectiveness within those identified domains of responsibility.     

Shifting the Zone of Mediation in a Suburban New Immigrant Destination: Community Boundary Spanners and School District Policymaking

This paper explores the context of reception for immigrant students and English learners in one medium-sized suburban school district in the northeastern United States. Using qualitative methods, the authors describe how, despite a troubling context of reception emerging from a normative and political community context that harbored resentment toward the new immigrant population, a community-based organization whose members served as boundary spanners between the school district and the community helped prompt district leaders toward more equity-minded policies. Given increasing culturally and linguistically diverse student populations in suburban school districts across the United States, findings from this paper have important implications for community engagement and school district policymaking.     

莱考夫“恒定原则”和“上层词位映射”的缺陷

从有别于前人的角度对莱考夫提出的"恒定原则"阐发几点商榷性的意见,并就Lakoff"映射只在上层词位上进行"的论断提出新的看法。"恒定原则"在其内容表述上有失谨慎,对有些隐喻映射缺乏解释力。"映射只是在上层词位而不是在下层词位上进行"的论断过于片面,对于隐喻双重性的分析和解释还需要借助于下层词位的映射。     

Changing contexts: Teacher professional development and ICT pedagogy

This paper examines data from a series of visits to secondary schools in England which have been identified as doing innovative work with ICT. The paper argues that stable definitions of innovation are difficult in this context and require an understanding of both the technological contexts of innovation and the concept of a school as a dynamic learning community. Data is presented in the form of vignettes to demonstrate how the school visits formed a kind of “performance” in relation to the schools’ own claims about innovations and the enquiries of the research team. Discussion of the data focuses on three key themes which emerge: the changing roles of teachers; new technologies/new pedagogies and the public face of the school. The paper concludes with the observation that innovation is necessarily complex but pupil agency and creativity should always play a vital part.     

Bringing down the fence through school-community partnership: a case for the Community Education Forum framework

Abstract

This article proposes that a metaphorical fence between schools and communities can be brought down by using democratically elected Community Education Forums (CEFs). The CEF concept was piloted in a participatory-action research project that was conducted in three rural communities in Limpopo, one community in Mpumalanga, one in Eastern Cape and in one informal settlement in KwaZulu-Natal, between 2005 and 2006. In this pilot project, the CEF concept was found to be effective in providing a platform that would facilitate a dialogue among different stakeholders such as school governing bodies, community policing forums, educators and education officials. The CEF's strength is rooted in its inclusivity of all community structures and in giving an equal voice to all. Thus through effective community participation the CEF framework has a potential to break down that “fence” that separates schools from the communities they serve. The data from all sites indicated positive responses from participants, ranging from evidence of active collaboration to the willingness to collaborate. The signs of collaboration among different stakeholders in each site included the utilisation of human resources and skills to address urgent educational challenges cost-effectively. Such collaboration and partnerships are positive in terms of facilitating a relevant and integrated curriculum delivery.     

Opportunity,community, and teen pregnancy in an Appalachian state

This study examines female adolescents' responses to opportunities, costs, and community in West Virginia. It is posited that adolescent women's responses to structurally determined contextual factors will be the most important determinant of the teen birth rate. It is posited that girls avoid becoming pregnant and work to stay in school as a wise investment in their future. The variation in males' participation in contributing to teen pregnancy is not considered due to data limitations. West Virginia is a state with low teen abortion rates and limited teen mobility out of state. Community is construed as having a positive sense of affiliation and value for adolescents. Community is measured by school size and a range of 7 measures of community social organization: percentage of urban population in the district, percentage Black, percentage neither Black nor White, level of educational attainment, percentage of college preparatory students, percentage of college students, and percentage of service employees. The 7 factors were reduced with principal component analysis to a measure of modernity. Findings indicate that the birth rate increased by 8% for every increase of 100 students in average school size. The modern variable, which indicates departures from traditional patterns of community organization, was positively, statistically significantly related to the teenage birth rate. The college degree variable was related to increased teen pregnancy as a departure from traditional norms and decreased teen pregnancy as a measure of opportunity. Findings contrast with traditional interpretations of teen pregnancy. Findings indicate that teen pregnancy reflects a lack of opportunity, a decline in traditional community patterns, and the replacement of traditional social relations by shifting labor market relations. Teen births are consequences of disadvantage and disruption as context-driven factors.