Human Rights Education through the ‘Facing History and Ourselves’ Program

Abstract

This study examined the effects of the Facing History and Ourselves (FHAO) human rights program on moral development and psychological functioning. The FHAO curriculum significantly increased 8th grade students’ moral reasoning (Rest's 1979 Defining Issues Test) without adversely impacting on their psychological well‐being (scores on depression, hopelessness or self‐worth inventories). Girls were more empathic and had higher levels of social interest; boys had higher global self‐worth scores; there were no differences between boys and girls in their moral reasoning scores and no gender differences in the psychological impact of the course. This study adds to the literature which suggests that human rights education positively affects students’ moral development.     

Exploring preservice teachers' attitudes towards inclusion

This study responds to a call for research into existing teacher-education programmes and their impact on teacher candidates' attitudes. An inclusive education course that examined the difference between ‘soft inclusion’ (inclusion which addresses the issue of place rather than substance of learning) and genuine inclusion was used to explore pre-existing teacher candidate beliefs and assumptions. Using the Opinions Relative to Mainstreaming-Adapted, four classes of students from two different teacher-preparation programmes within the Faculty of Education at York University in Toronto, Canada, were surveyed pre- and post-course. A statistically significant change in the scores was found for all of the classes. A significant difference was also found between the changes in scores of the two programme groups. Results indicate that the course was successful at shifting preservice students towards inclusion and gave the students a foundation that will hopefully translate into practice.     

Changing the attitudes of high school students towards intellectual disabilities: the contribution of a social coexistence programme

Students’ attitudes towards peers with intellectual disabilities are mostly negative, and negative attitudes appear more among secondary education students than any other age group. Social coexistence programmes are intervention programmes implemented by school psychologists to manage and change negative attitudes and enforce social interaction with students with disabilities. The research sample consisted of 193 public high school students in Greece who were given the Chedoke–McMaster Attitudes Toward Children with Handicaps (CATCH) Scale. The study aimed to explore whether there is a change in the attitudes of high school students towards peers with intellectual disabilities after participation in a social coexistence programme. The findings showed that students who participated in the programme had more positive attitudes towards people with intellectual disabilities after the completion of the programme. The above findings confirm the research on the possibility of changing attitudes of secondary school students towards peers with disabilities and reinforce the need for the systematic development of social coexistence programmes for the entire student population. Future research should focus on the benefits of students with disabilities from their participation in social coexistence programmes.     

Association of group learning with mathematics achievement and mathematics attitude among eighth-grade students in the US

This study examined a large, nationally-representative sample of eighth-grade students in the US to assess how the frequency of group learning activity in mathematics classrooms was associated with mathematics achievement and three measures of attitudes toward mathematics. Results showed that moderate amounts of group work in class had positive effects on mathematics achievement scores. Moreover, a significant interactive effect was evident, with girls showing greater achievement benefits from group work than boys. Increased levels of group work were also associated with more positive attitudes toward mathematics.     

Examining secondary school students’ views of model evaluation through an integrated framework of personal epistemology

The aim of the study was to investigate students’ views of model evaluation through the lens of personal epistemology. We developed an integrated analytical framework by combining a developmental framework, including absolutist, multiplist, and evaluatist, with a multi-dimensional framework, including limits of knowing, certainty of knowing, and criteria of knowing. Furthermore, we examined the potential influence of the question contexts and the students’ grade levels. A total of 188 secondary school students were surveyed. Students answered two sets of model evaluation questions based on two scientific contexts. After reading the information about the two models, the students had to choose from three epistemic assumptions and then provide written justifications explaining their choice of assumptions. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted for the multiple-choice questions and the written responses. In both contexts there were higher percentages of 11th-grade students choosing the evaluatist assumptions than the eighth-grade students. For students choosing multiplist and evaluatist assumptions, the 11th-grade students were more likely than the eighth-grade students to think in terms of pragmatic and evidential criteria as the criteria of knowing. Different contexts of the questions evoked different views of model evaluation particularly regarding the limits of knowing. Four additional categories of epistemic levels also emerged from the data. This study provides a new framework for understanding students’ thinking about model evaluation. Implications and suggestions for future research are provided.

     

Secondary school renewal: the effect of classroom learning culture on educational outcomes

The study was grounded on theoretical propositions and empirical research concerning school effectiveness, classroom effectiveness, school improvement and school renewal. In particular, improving student learning outcomes through improving and renewing schools is dependent on changing classroom cultures of learning and teaching. A model of classroom culture consisting of student educational values (dependent variable), formal learning outcomes (dependent variable), and the attitudes and behaviours of students, teachers and parents (independent variables) was proposed. Hypothesised relationships between the dependent and independent variables were tested by multiple regression analysis of data from 988 students obtained from administration of a Rasch-model instrument assessing classroom culture. The classroom learning attitudes and behaviours of students were found to relate directly to educational outcomes, as were teacher expectations and parent attitudes and behaviours. The attitudes and behaviours of students and teachers towards classroom collaboration and caring were not confirmed to relate directly to learning outcomes. The findings of the investigation are discussed in the light of the theoretical assumptions upon which the study was based, including identification of the implications of the empirical results for understanding and facilitating renewal of secondary schools with the intention of improving educational outcomes in classrooms.     

The impact of study attitudes and study behaviour on satisfaction of online students with the implementation of online study programmes

The main objective of the research was to analyse the study attitudes and study behaviour of online students at DOBA Business School. Furthermore, the aim was to evaluate the interrelationship between study attitudes and study behaviour and to assess the predictive value of the two sets of variables for students’ general satisfaction with the study programmes. A total of 331 students participated in the web survey. Participants expressed the most positive attitudes towards the use of technology and flexibility of online learning, while the absence of personal contacts was also perceived as highly favourable. Average scores for both deep and strategic approaches were quite high, while the surface approach was much less prominent . Participants were highly engaged with their teamwork assignments, whereas proactive communication was somewhat less developed . Study attitudes seem to be far more powerful predictors of general satisfaction than study behaviour, which is not surprising. Satisfaction is thought to be the result of the complex subjective evaluation of all relevant aspects of the study programme implementation, as they were measured by attitudinal subscales.     

Comparison of Two Methods of Studying History

This study examined the effects of team teaching on selected attitudes and achievement of ninth grade students in English and World History after 1 year. Seventy-four ninth grade students from a local school were randomly assigned to a team teaching treatment group while the remaining seventy-one members of the freshman class received traditional instruction in three separate classrooms. A teacher constructed test was employed to measure achievement in subject matter, and a personality inventory was used to measure changes in selected attitudes. The findings indicated that the team teaching approach did not appear to complement academic growth over traditional teaching methods but it did have a significant impact on student attitudes toward teachers, interest in subject matter, sense of personal freedom, and self-reliance.     

Effects of a 1-day environmental education intervention on environmental attitudes and connectedness with nature

Besides cognitive learning effects, short-term environmental education (EE) is often regarded as ineffective in intervening with participants' environmental attitudes and behaviour. However, in Germany, school classes often participate in such 1-day EE programmes because they better match the school curriculum in contrast to longer (residential) programmes. We therefore monitored a 1-day outreach EE programme on global climate change to reveal whether environmental attitudes and/or connectedness with nature of tenth graders are affected. Students from German high schools (college preparatory secondary school level, ‘Gymnasium’) (N?=?114) from age 14 to 19 participated in the programme (treatment group). It consisted of two student-centred learning units on the topic of climate change. Additionally, we chose a control group of students who did not participate in the programme. To measure students' environmental attitudes and connectedness with nature, we administered the Two Major Environmental Values (2-MEV) and the Inclusion of Nature in Self scale in a pre-, post- and retention test design. The pre-test was administered 1 week before, the post-test directly after and the retention test 4 to 6 weeks after programme participation. Analyses revealed a positive long-term effect only for utilitarian values (one of the two major environmental factors of 2-MEV) which decreased significantly. Therefore, depending on the programme's content, short-term EE programmes indeed may have an influence on participants' environmental attitudes.     

Self-Determination and Cultural Empowerment: Reader Histories Reveal Learning and Adaptation Strategies

This article explores the issues of cultural transmission and discontinuity, as well as the implications of culturally based assumptions and attitudes and their potential influence in schools. Through interviews based upon questions specifically related to literacy and literacy acquisition conducted with five seventh-grade students and one eighth-grade student who were perceived to have achieved various levels of success or failure in school-related tasks, insights about student learning and adaptation strategies are revealed which may have pedagogical implications for educators. Arguments are made that adjustments in culturally based assumptions and attitudes by members of the community and the school may influence the academic success or failure of our children.     

Attitudes and self‐efficacy of pre‐service teachers towards inclusion in Pakistan

This study sought to determine the attitudes and teaching self‐efficacy of pre‐service teachers towards the inclusion of students with disabilities into regular classrooms. A questionnaire was administered to 194 pre‐service Pakistani teachers (male 73, female 121) enrolled in a 1‐year teacher education programme at a government university in Pakistan. Overall, male pre‐service teachers expressed more positive attitudes than their female counterparts regarding the inclusion of students with disabilities in regular classrooms. Surprisingly, those pre‐service teachers majoring in special education did not express more positive attitudes towards inclusion than their counterparts who were preparing to teach in mainstream schools. However, participants with training in special education, knowledge of disability legislation, teaching experience and personal experience with a disability reported higher levels of self‐efficacy towards teaching within inclusive settings. The findings of the study are discussed with possible implications for policy‐makers and teacher educators in Pakistan and other countries in the South Asian region.     

Connecting Classrooms in Pre-service Education: Conversations for learning

Many students enter pre-service education programmes believing that their practical learning experiences will occur in schools and that their theoretical learning experiences will occur in the university or college setting. Research shows that frequently student teachers retain this perception throughout their programmes without acknowledging the interplay of theory and practice in their learning. Through the use of communication technologies, student teachers participating in the Bachelor of Teaching degree at the University of Otago are encouraged to make connections between the activities in their university-based classes and those of classrooms in primary schools. Frequent dialogue through fax, audio-conference and e-mail between student teachers based in the university and children and their teachers in classrooms enables them to access the thinking of children and teachers, and provides additional opportunities to theorise their practice and practise their theory. Student teachers are provided with a range of opportunities to explore the potential of information technologies in education while interacting with children and teachers beyond the traditional practicum experience. The use of technology to connect student teachers to learners in classrooms challenges the conventional teacher education curriculum.     

Statement-Pie: a strategy to improve the paragraph writing skills of adolescents with learning disabilities

This study investigated the effects of teaching a metacognitive text structure strategy upon the paragraph writing skills of eighth-grade students with learning disabilities. The technique, called Statement-Pie (Hanau, 1974), teaches students to understand the relationship of supporting details to a main idea. Four students were taught to use an outline as a paragraph planning guide, which they then used to convert information into written expository paragraphs. All subjects reached instructional outcome criterion on the writing of comparison/contrast and sequence paragraphs. One week after reaching mastery in the special education classroom, students generalized their paragraph writing skills to other teachers and to different classrooms. The results of this investigation indicate that when provided with direct, intensive instruction in a text structure strategy, adolescents with learning disabilities can improve their skills in paragraph writing.     

Does a transformation approach improve students’ ability in constructing auxiliary lines for solving geometric problems? An intervention-based study with two Chinese classrooms

We conducted an intervention-based study in secondary classrooms to explore whether the use of geometric transformations can help improve students’ ability in constructing auxiliary lines to solve geometric proof problems, especially high-level cognitive problems. A pre- and post-test quasi-experimental design was employed. The participants were 130 eighth-grade students in two classes with a comparable background that were taught by the same teacher. A two-week intervention was implemented in the experimental class aiming to help students learn how to use geometric transformations to draw auxiliary lines in solving geometric problems. The data were collected from a teacher interview, video-recordings of the intervention, and pre- and post-tests. The results revealed that there was a positive impact of using geometric transformations on the experimental students’ ability in solving high-level cognitive problems by adding auxiliary lines, though the impact on the students’ ability in solving general geometric problems as measured using the overall average scores was not statistically significant. Recommendations for future research are provided at the end of the article.     

Learning environment, attitudes and conceptual development associated with innovative strategies in middle-school mathematics

This study of middle-school students in California focused on the effectiveness of using innovative teaching strategies for enhancing the classroom environment, students’ attitudes and conceptual development. A sample of 661 students from 22 classrooms in four inner city schools completed modified forms of the Constructivist Learning Environment Survey (CLES), What Is Happening In this Class? (WIHIC) questionnaire and Test of Mathematics Related Attitudes (TOMRA). Data analyses supported the factor structure, internal consistency reliability, discriminant validity and the ability to distinguish between different classes for these questionnaires when used with middle-school mathematics students in California. The effectiveness of the innovative instructional strategy was evaluated in terms of classroom environment and attitudes to mathematics for the whole sample, as well as for mathematics achievement for a subgroup of 101 students. A comparison of an experimental group which experienced the innovative strategy with a control group supported the efficacy of the innovative teaching methods in terms of learning environment, attitudes and mathematics concept development. Also associations were found between perceptions of classroom learning environment and students’ attitudes to mathematics and conceptual development.     

The effect of a school-wide inclusion training programme upon teachers' attitudes about inclusion

This study compared survey responses of teachers from a reform‐based programme focused on promoting inclusion‐based classrooms, namely Project WINS (Winning Ideas Network for Schools) schools, with teachers from non‐Project WINS schools with regard to their attitude about inclusion in the classroom. Surprisingly, the results of this study revealed no differences between the two groups of teachers on most facets of inclusion. The one significant difference found a greater preference for inclusion by non‐Project WINS teachers with regard to classroom climate. The study also revealed a higher preference for inclusion for teachers with higher self‐reported expertise in special education regardless of what group the teacher was surveyed from. Findings from this study indicate the need for further research and improvements in training methods for Project WINS and similar programmes that attempt to change teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion as an important first step in improving practice in inclusion‐based classrooms. As the movement for more inclusion in schools increases, administrators, special educators and teachers are caught in the midst of the tide. Proponents of inclusion believe change is needed now, but those not in favour of such changes recommend not implementing inclusion without further research ( Snyder, 1999 ). In addition, schools need assistance in developing and implementing policies and practices that will lead to an effective inclusion experience for all parties involved ( Johnson, 2000 ). The primary purpose of this study was to further this research by examining attitudes related to inclusion of teachers participating in a programme implemented in middle schools with the explicit goal of fostering effective inclusion‐based classrooms. Second, we tested the relationship between perceived expertise in special education and attitudes towards inclusion. Below we briefly describe some of the factors that research has shown to influence teachers’ level of acceptance of inclusion‐based classrooms.     

Reciprocal teaching of reading comprehension in a New Zealand high school

This paper presents an experimental evaluation of a trial implementation of reciprocal teaching procedures by high school teachers to address reading comprehension deficits in a group of their students. Forty-six students with the lowest scores on a standardized test of reading comprehension in seven eighth-grade classes participated in the study. Following 3 hours of instruction in reciprocal teaching procedures, four classroom teachers and two support teachers ran eight reciprocal teaching groups. Four of these groups, 20 students in all, were exposed to between 12 and 16 reciprocal teaching sessions, while 15 students in the other four groups received between six and eight sessions. The remaining 11 students served as a no-treatment comparison group. Pre- and posttest scores on the standardized test served as the dependent measure. Significant gains were observed with students in the extended program, with no significant differences observed between the short program and comparison groups. Follow-up assessments of extended program students between 3 and 7 months later showed a maintenance of comprehension gains. Implications for high schools are discussed in terms of the absence of student progress with insufficient spaced practice in metacognitive skill training and strategic resourcing for remedial comprehension instruction.     

Effects of the learning cycle upon student and classroom teacher performance

A great deal of research has been done regarding science in-service education and the conclusion can be drawn that positive results were generally achieved in workshop-participant attitude and implementation of instructional approaches into the classroom. One of the most important effects of an in-service workshop is upon the students of the teachers participating in an in-service program, but rarely, if ever, is this parameter assessed in the in-service evaluation design. This study investigated the relationships among (1) teacher's attitudes and implementation of in-service workshop developed science materials (learning cycles) and (2) elementary school student's conservation reasoning and language used to describe properties of objects. Data were gathered from over 100 students from grades K-5 and 16 teachers who had participated in an in-service program. A representative comparison group of students and teachers was selected which generally matched the teachers participating in the in-service workshop except for one variable–-the comparison group taught science traditionally, that is, by exposition. Data from the research indicated that the teachers involved in the science in-service workshop implemented the workshop-developed learning cycles into their science classes. Significantly greater gains in conservation reasoning and language usage occurred with the students of the teachers participating in the science in-service workshop as compared to students in the exposition classrooms.     

Contradictions and compromise: the curriculum-in-use as negotiated ideology in two welfare-to-work classes

The purpose of this study is to explore how ideologies about work and education are enacted and negotiated in educational programmes for welfare recipients. Data for this study were collected over a six-month period in two publicly funded educational programmes for welfare recipients in a southern state of the USA. Data consisted of interviews, classroom observations, official documents and curriculum materials, and informal conversations with teachers and students. It was found that although teachers and students at times problematized official discourses in their interviews, these discourses were usually upheld when ideologies were enacted and negotiated in the classrooms. When students raised questions in class and sought to discuss problematic issues, they were discouraged from doing so by teachers, who quickly led discussions back into ‘safe zones’, thus upholding official discourses of the programme. The findings raise questions concerning the ability of these programmes to solve unemployment problems, and raise issues about whose interests these programmes are serving.