Special education and the regular education initiative: basic assumptions

The regular education initiative (REI) is a thoughtful response to identified problems in our system for educating low-performing children, but it is a not a detailed blueprint for changing the system. Educators must achieve consensus on what the REI actually proposes. The authors infer from the REI literature five assumptions regarding the roles and responsibilities of elementary regular classroom teachers, concluding that these teachers and specialists form a partnership, but the classroom teachers are ultimately in charge of the instruction of all children in their classrooms, including those who are not succeeding in the mainstream. A discussion of the target population and of several partnership models further delineates REI issues and concerns.     

Teacher perceptions of the regular education initiative

A survey of 381 special and regular educators assessed perceptions and opinions surrounding the regular education initiative. Confirmatory factor analysis supported an a priori hypothesized structure of teachers' responses. Items factored into 14 categories. These factors describe issues related to preferred placement of students with mild disabilities, teachers' responsibility and ownership, teacher preparedness for meeting the needs of these students, achievement outcomes for all children, and the changes that would result from adopting the proposed consultant model rather than a pullout program. Results favored current special education practices (pullout programs) in elementary schools.     

Redesigning regular education support in The Netherlands

In The Netherlands new policy guidelines have resulted in grouping regular and special schools in school clusters, in redistributing the funding of special needs and in appointing a support coordinator in every school. Since the support coordinator, or interne begeleider, is a rather new phenomenon in most schools, data about their roles and tasks were not available. This study attempted to gather such data. The results indicate that support coordinators in The Netherlands are involved in making individual educational programmes, in supporting the class teacher and in coordinating special needs education in their school. The coordinators in this research state that the available time for these tasks is insufficient.     

The graduate diploma in physics and education: A teacher training initiative

In Victoria, students intending to become physics teachers must choose to study physics in the final two years of high school, and then for at least two years at tertiary level. For those who have not taken this route there has been little access to the study of physics at a tertiary level and to a career in physics teaching. The Graduate Diploma in Physics and Education at La Trobe University offers graduates who have not studied physics as part of their undergraduate degree an opportunity to train as physics teachers. Implementation of the diploma has entailed a re-examination of the content and teaching style of undergraduate physics. In this paper, the course structure as a whole will be outlined and the physics taught as part of the diploma described. The preliminary results of the on-going course evaluation will be presented. Specializations: Physics education, gender and science teaching. Specializations: Physics education.     

The general education initiative in Hong Kong: organized contradictions and emerging tensions

In 2012 all Hong Kong universities will be extending the length of the undergraduate degree from 3 to 4 years and adding General Education as a degree requirement. This reform initiative represents a unique case of comprehensive organizational change of higher education on an unprecedented scale. This paper examines several of the most significant contradictions and tensions facing this initiative—the current structure of higher education based on the British system and the prevailing culture of teaching and learning in Hong Kong. The nature of these pre-existing conditions, and their contradictory relationship to the substance and purpose of general and liberal education, are outlined. The contradictions and tensions generated by the general education initiative are situated within the larger organizational tension between theory and practice, and structure and action. The paper delineates some of the strategies developed to address the existing and emerging tensions.     

Implementing the Contract: the technical and vocational education initiative

Participating schools have a contractual responsibility to recruit a ‘balanced intake’ of students to TVEI courses. However, in many schools it is form teachers who have the eventual job of promoting TVEI to both sexes ‘across the ability range’.

What this recruitment structure does not allow for is that form teachers may be affected by a number of ‘sources of influence’, the effects of which do not coincide with this objective.

The aim of this paper is to build up a picture of the school as an ‘open ended’ interrelating totality, within which form teachers confront the demand for a ‘balanced intake’ alongside a number of other, potentially conflicting factors.     

Adult education and the Cornish Miner: A study in Victorian initiative

Abstract

This paper examines some of the problems of periodisation that arise in attempts to compare historical developments in the education systems of two or more countries.     

Documenting diversity: an early portrait of a collaborative teacher education initiative

This article documents a two‐year journey developing and implementing a teacher education programme that required preservice teachers and teachers, administrators, and students in six cooperating schools to address issues of diversity, multi‐/transculturalisms, inclusion, anti‐racism/anti‐oppression and social justice. We describe approaches and analyse changing attitudes, commitment and activism among those who participated in this ‘Diversity’ cohort initiative—a collaboration between the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Education and the Vancouver School Board. We profile the courage and commitment of those who began to see themselves as important allies and agents of change in Canada’s most multicultural environment. We acknowledge the less successful aspects, and generate implications for teacher education partnerships that seek to embrace ‘critical’ multicultural, inclusive, and social justice education.