Disrupting hegemonic writing practices in school science: Contesting the right way to write

I challenge the ways a positivist view of science has led to the hegemonic discourse on writing to learn science and highlight contradictions in this discourse. I argue for an enabling pedagogy that draws on critical, feminist, and hegemonic pedagogies, and incorporates the affective, the creative, the critical, the cognitive, and diverse language practices set within sociocultural contexts. I advocate hybrid imaginative genres in secondary school science as one vehicle to disrupt hegemonic pedagogy. I describe the interactions between four teachers' beliefs about science and pedagogy and their use of imaginative writing within an enabling pedagogy. I also challenge the rules of scientific writing by using poetry and the first person, amplifying teachers' voices, and foregrounding my personal history. J Res Sci Teach 35: 345–362, 1998.     

Title I Can Help Give a Voice of Hope to All Children

Speaking about Title I shortly before he died in July 1996, former Secretary of Education Ted Bell said, [It] is the heart and soul of national policy in elementary and secondary education in this nation. Right now, Title I can truly help drive reform .... But always remember, Title I was created because of poverty. It must often speak for those children who—by themselves—have no voices. (personal communication) In a similar vein, Secretary of Education Richard Riley has spoken of the "new" Title I as a vehicle to assist "the children for whom we have cast a tyranny of low expectations" (personal communication). As the "new" Title I enters its 2nd year of operation, the words of both secretaries serve as a reminder to those of us who administer Title I of the need to reach out aggressively to the "children who have no voices" and recognize that the circumstances of these children vary widely.     

透视苦难的冰--对卡夫卡创作主题的思考

卡夫卡封闭内倾的个性，不善与外界交流的性格特征，使其作品充满恐惧和无望；挥之不去的父权的巨大阴影，使其作品充满了荒诞与焦灼；而犹太民族无穷灾难带来的心灵上的永久创痛。使其作品充满了苦难、无助与无法排解的苦痛。面对这种生活的绝对力量，人类存在的孤立、无价值、无路可走，便成了卡夫卡作品的主旋律。     

Academic risk factors and deficits of learned hopelessness: a longitudinal study of Hong Kong secondary school students

The aim of the present study is to explore a causal model of academic achievement and learning‐related personal variables by testing the nature of relationships between learned hopelessness, its risk factors and hopelessness deficits as proposed in major theories in this area. The model investigates affective–motivational characteristics of students such as prior academic failures, academic attributional style, self‐efficacy, thoughts about intelligence, school values, learned hopelessness, self‐esteem, learning strategy effectiveness and academic achievement, and the relationships among them. A sample of 741 Hong Kong secondary students completed a series of scales over a school year. As expected, prior achievement was the best predictor of subsequent achievement. The next best predictors were perceived learning difficulties and learned hopelessness. This in turn leads to disengagement from schooling and students taking on most responsibility for their failing. Recommendations for teachers and schools to ameliorate these beliefs may redress the move towards hopelessness.     

From the voice of a ‘socratic gadfly’: a call for more academic activism in the researching of disability in postsecondary education

Abstract

In this article, I use the lens of voices and silences to frame my review of research in the field of disability and postsecondary education. I argue that we need to view research in this field as a necessarily political act that seeks to turn voices of silence into voices of change. Researchers therefore need to rethink their role in order to understand how they can use and direct their political voices. In order to persuade researchers to heed my call for more academic activism, adopt the role of a ‘socratic gadfly’ to identify six political areas of research where I argue that voices and silences need more critical examination. In discussing these six areas, I hope to illuminate the implications for ‘genuinely investigative’ research in the future.     

Parenting and children’s adjustment problems: the mediating role of self-esteem and peer relations

The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of parental and personal characteristics on children’s internalizing/externalizing problems. Further, this study aimed to examine personal characteristics (self-esteem, peer relations) as mediators in the relation between parenting and internalizing/externalizing problems. In order to address these questions, this study used a cross-sectional design. The sample included 588 pre-adolescents and adolescents (10–14 years old) and their mothers. Children completed the My Memories of Upbringing Questionnaire, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (child report), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, the Friendship Quality Questionnaire, and the Harter’s Self Perception Profile (Social acceptance subscale), while mothers completed The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (parent report). Results support a model for the influence of both direct and indirect effects on children’s internalizing/externalizing problems.     

Fostering motivation, hope, and resilience in children with learning disorders

I have had the opportunity to work with many children and adolescents with learning disorders during the past 30 years. In conducting therapy with these youths, I became increasingly aware that most were burdened by feelings of low self-worth and incompetence and that many believed that their situation would not improve. Not surprisingly, this sense of hopelessness served as a major obstacle to future success. Once children believe that things will not improve, they are likely to engage in self-defeating ways of coping such as quitting or avoiding tasks, blaming others for their difficulties, or becoming class clowns or bullies. Thus, a negative cycle is often set in motion, intensifying feelings of defeat and despair.     

Reflective reproduction: a figurative approach to reflecting in,on, and about action

This article explores the use of active imagination and dialogics as constructs that can be applied reflexively to health care education. Drawing on student data, it discusses some of the primary elements of these ideas, and how they may inform reflection, human inquiry, and pedagogical approaches to personal and professional growth and development. It is essentially a first discussion on the synthesis of these constructs and their transformative potential across the fields described above, concluding that the outcome of engaging in these processes leads to a collective unconscious of multiple possibilities and voices that are not truths in themselves, but conjectures upon which further sharing of knowledge can be built.     

Positioning ourselves in our academic lives: exploring personal/professional identities,voice and agency

ABSTRACT

This paper provides a rationale for understanding personal/professional identities to support personal/professional learning and positioning in academe and higher education. It explains the importance of women writing and speaking out the stories of their lives (everyday and academic), having their voices heard and responded to, and using embodied knowledge to question and challenge workplace systems and structures of power and sexism and invisibility. Importantly, this paper opens the space for women’s visibility, voice and agency in academic and educational life.     

Roles,Tasks and Boundaries:

This commentary on Robert May's paper points to his varying uses of the term "voices." At times, he speaks of the conflict of "voices" within the individual. At other times, he speaks of the conflict of "voices" within the institution. And still further, he seems to be referring to the difference in "voices" connected with different professional identifications. Keeping the focus exclusively on the conflict of "voices" within the individual, this paper will also address issues similar to those raised by May. From this author's perspective, May appears to establish the "psychotherapeutic voice" as the ideal from which we inevitably, and unfortunately, must depart. Preferring the term "roles" to "voices," I attempt to question the psychotherapeutic ideal, and suggest that we in "college mental health" work harder at defining our multiple roles and tasks so that activities outside of the psychotherapeutic are not felt as threats to or betrayals of our basic ideals.     

Black women’s bodies,ideology, and the public curriculum of the pro- and anti-choice movements in the US

This paper explores how opposite sides of the abortion debate employ a discourse of endangerment to mobilise political support for their ideologies about black women’s bodies. I examine the role of black women within that rhetorical strategy through various rhetorical artefacts. To analyse these artefacts, I employ the theoretical framework of ideological or ideographic criticism. This framework helps us see how the artefacts used by both pro and anti-choice movements ‘condition’ the audience not merely to adopt a set of ‘beliefs and behavior, but a vocabulary of concepts that function as guides, warrants, reasons, or excuses for behavior and belief’. Though the two sides of the abortion debate differ in their overt political views, they turn out to share an implicit ideology about black women. This ideology prevents the voices of black women from being heard and valued in a debate that is nonetheless focused on black women’s bodies.     

Personal fables,narcissism, and adolescent adjustment

The relationship among three personal fables (omnipotence, invulnerability, personal uniqueness), narcissism, and mental health variables was assessed in a large, cross‐sectional sample of adolescents drawn from Grades 6 (n = 94), 8 (n = 223), 10 (n = 142), and 12 (n = 102). Participants responded to the New Personal Fable Scale, the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, the Children's Depression Inventory, three indices of suicidal ideation, an inventory of delinquent risk behaviors, the Global Self‐Worth scales from the Self‐Perception Profiles for Children and for Adolescents, and two subscales from the Self‐Image Questionnaire for Young Adolescents. The results showed that omnipotence and narcissism strongly counterindicated internalizing symptomatology, and were robust predictors of positive mental health and adjustment. Invulnerability was strongly associated with risk behaviors. Personal uniqueness was strongly associated with depression and suicidal ideation, a relationship that increased with age. Hence, personal fable ideation is a multidimensional construct with differential implications for adolescent mental health. Adolescent fables of invulnerability and personal uniqueness are risk factors for externalizing and internalizing symptoms, respectively, while “narcissistic omnipotence” is associated with competence. Implications for theory, practice, and future research are discussed. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 43: 481–491, 2006.     

What do teachers believe? Developing a framework for examining beliefs about teachers’ knowledge and ability

Influenced by work on teacher beliefs, personal epistemology, teachers’ knowledge, implicit theories, and motivation, we conducted a two-part investigation exploring preservice and practicing teachers’ beliefs about teaching knowledge and teaching ability. Study I qualitatively examined 53 preservice and 57 practicing teachers’ beliefs about teaching, in order to: (1) ensure that the voices of teachers were made prevalent in the development of a framework aimed at understanding their beliefs and (2) facilitate the development of a quantitative measure to assess these beliefs. Results indicated that participants valued several aspects of teaching knowledge and held complex beliefs related to the implicit theories of teaching ability. Study I concludes with a framework for developing an instrument to assess teachers’ beliefs. Study II describes two instruments developed to assess the beliefs identified in Study 1. Using responses from 351 preservice teachers, exploratory factor analysis procedures identified factors reflective of emergent themes from Study I.     

Experiences in Sense Making: Health Science Students’ I-Positioning in an Online Philosophy of Science Course

This article reports on a qualitative study on the dialogical approach to learning in the context of higher education. The aim was to shed light on the I-Position and multivoicedness in students’ identity building and to provide empirical substantiation for these theoretical constructs, focusing especially on the connection between personal knowledge and theoretical knowledge. The study explored how health science students’ reflections on their work and discipline-related experiences provided resources for making personal sense of and understanding the subject studied. The students took an online course on the philosophy of science. To study students’ internal and external dialogue in terms of multivoicedness in their sense-making processes I combined a discourse analysis with a dialogical approach. The results showed that in reflecting on their experiences in light of different scientific approaches, the students became engaged in dialogues with different voices, thereby experiencing tensions in their professional positioning. The reasoning tasks gave rise to internal dialogue, involving negotiation between different I-Positions of the self or heterodialogue with the texts. These identity negotiations were manifested in refining, strengthening, and reconstructing professional and scientific I-Positions and in sharing and constructing a We-Position.     

西方父母控制研究的新特点

近十年来,研究者们把父母控制划分为心理控制和行为控制两方面,心理控制是强加在儿童心理和情绪发展过程中的控制意图,行为控制是父母为儿童行为制定的规则、限制以及对其活动的觉察。有研究表明,心理控制与青少年的外显和内隐问题有关,行为控制与青少年的外显问题有关;青少年认为,父母对个人领域的控制是心理控制;父母过量使用心理控制会阻碍青少年自主的发展;父母的完美主义能够预测心理控制。进一步的研究将呈现实证研究增多、范围扩大和对父母人格特点研究等新的特点。     

Doing Feminist Educational Theory: A post-modernist perspective

This paper arises from my work as a teacher of courses in feminist educational theory in a New Zealand university. Students usually encounter educational theories as disembodied abstractions scattered in fragments in various, often seemingly unrelated, courses. In a crowded curriculum there is little space for them to create their own educational theories or to reflect on the processes of educational theorising. In this paper I speak with two voices as a means of modelling - for students and teachers of feminist courses - a process of doing educational theory. It is written in two columns. In the left-hand column I speak with an academic voice. I begin by reviewing some theoretical writings of post-modernist theorists who have drawn attention to the ways our educational and social theories are generated by our circumstances - biographical, historical, cultural, generational, and geographical. I then argue that post-modernists have seldom practised what they preach - their abstract, and often inaccessible, writings remain severed from the lived realities at their base. In the right-hand column I speak with a more personal voice. I introduce some everyday experiences which are usually rendered invisible in academic writing in order to demonstrate how a few moments of 'lived reality' can be generative of feminist educational theory. The paper also contains ideas about how its unorthodox form can be used to trigger multiple and idiosyncratic readings and as a trigger for students' writing.     

Los Sentimientos,Luchas, y Esperanzas de Cinco Familias Mexicana: The Sentiments,Struggles, and Hopes of Five Mexican Families

Within the everyday space of their modest trailer homes, I observed compelling environments in the households of 5 Mexican families. In their homes, there existed los padres con sus hijos (parents with their children) who intuitively expressed cariño, or love, for one another, conversed in multiple languages, practiced cultural traditions, and inculcated hope in their children’s minds and hearts. As I listened to their steadfast voices and felt their innermost emotions, a clearer understanding came to mind about ways in which educators and families might construct new alliances for the benefit of children’s future in America.     

Contract Research,Curricular Reform,and Situated Selves: Between Social Justice and Commercialized Knowledge

Using a critical ethnographic perspective, I describe how social scientists actively transition into the evaluation industry in a reform environment that is marked by increased privatization of all aspects of public education. I do this by exploring adaptations that contract evaluators use to enhance a sense of personal connection to their work (i.e., contribution to social change) and the ways in which macropolitical interests intersect with those personal stories. I close with a discussion on possible implications for social scientific knowledge work.     

试论当代中年女性散文

中年女性散文作家是当代女性散文的主力军,她们努力从自恋走向社会,走向人生,将个体的生命体验扩展到对人生、宇宙万物的认识,不拘一格地传达出了来自女性社会生活和内心深处自我的声音。她们的作品无论从主题、意境、视野、题材及写作形式上,都有了积极的拓展与尝试,取得了较为突出的成果,并得以在思想的裂变中走向现代,极大地丰富了当代散文的内容。     

Peer victimization, poor academic achievement, and the link between childhood externalizing and internalizing problems

This study explored whether early elementary school aged children’s externalizing problems impede academic functioning and foster negative social experiences such as peer victimization, thereby making these children vulnerable for developing internalizing problems and possibly increasing their externalizing problems. It also explored whether early internalizing problems contributed to an increase in externalizing problems. The study examined 1,558 Canadian children from ages 6 to 8 years. Externalizing and internalizing problems, peer victimization, and school achievement were assessed annually. Externalizing problems lead to academic underachievement and experiences of peer victimization. Academic underachievement and peer victimization, in turn, predicted increases in internalizing problems and in externalizing problems. These pathways applied equally to boys and girls. No links from internalizing to externalizing problems were found.