Children’s academic achievement and goal orientations: does the ethnic membership matter? / Rendimiento académico y orientación a las metas: el papel de la etnicidad

This study explored how ethnic membership relates to children’s academic achievement and goal orientations and whether there are ethnic differences in how goal orientations are linked to academic achievement. Further, we investigated whether these relations vary based on the geographical region where ethnic groups live. The sample included 361 children (179 girls), age 12–15 years, from two regions in Romania, Banat (n = 237) and Moldavia (n = 124). Ethnic differences in academic achievement were found only between majority and Hungarian minority ethnic groups who live in different areas, whereas ethnic differences in goal orientations were found between minority and both groups of majority children (living in the same and in different geographical regions). The strengths of the associations between goals and academic achievement were not significantly different based on ethnic and regional background. The findings highlight the importance of cultural (i.e., ethnicity) and contextual (i.e., regional area) factors in relation to children’s achievement and motivation (i.e., goal orientations). Additionally, our findings show that the relations between academic achievement and goal orientations are similar across the analysed ethnic and regional groups.     

A ROMANIAN STUDENT ABROAD CONSIDERS FOUR MYTHS OF AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION

One consequence of western aid to Romanian academic life has been the opportunity for young Romanian scholars, schoocco1led in their early university years under the aegis of the communist system, to study with western European and North American visiting scholars in Romania, and/or to attend higher education institutions in both western Europe and North America, and generally to participate in worldwide academic life. Such vital inter‐cultural, inter‐social, and inter‐political life experiences provide the expressed raison d'être of western academic aid.     

A MINORITY CULTURAL EXPERIENCE FOR UNIVERSITY GERONTOLOGY STUDENTS

This article describes a highly successful short‐term experiential project in minority/ethnic communities developed for Oregon State University gerontology students. This project can serve as a model for universities that lack opportunities in the local community for students to interact with elderly of different minority/ethnic backgrounds and where geographic distances make long‐term practicums in minority communities impractical for the majority of students.

This project enhanced academic study and provided students a meaningful introduction to elements important in designing and implementing effective health and social service programs for minority/ethnic elderly. Details of a three‐day intensive experience at the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in central Oregon are discussed.     

Highlights of the montreal convention. (August 27–31, 1973)

This article reviews classroom research on cooperative‐learning techniques. These are instructional methods in which students work in 4–6 member, heterogeneous teams to master prescribed academic material or to carry out a group project or discussion. The review is focused on the four cooperative‐learning techniques in widest use in classrooms, although less widely used methods are also discussed. Only studies which took place over a period of at least two weeks are reviewed. It is concluded that: (a) Cooperative learning methods are generally more effective than control methods in increasing student achievement, but the effects arc not consistent. Some evidence suggests that highly structured cooperative methods are best for basic skills, while more open‐ended methods are best for higher‐order skills. (b) Cooperative learning methods have generally positive effects on student inter‐ethnic relations, mutual concern, self‐esteem, liking of school, and other variables.     

White Children in a Multi‐cultural School Setting: a valid cause for concern?

This research was carried out as the basis for an M.Ed. thesis for the University of Birmingham during the early part of 1983. Its main aim was to compare the social, emotional and scholastic adjustment of a group of indigenous white children attending a multi‐cultural school with a similar group being educated in a mono‐cultural, predominantly white setting. A secondary aim was to investigate inter‐ethnic differences between the three cultural groups represented. The investigation was carried out amongst pupils in the two top year groups (9‐11‐year‐olds) from two city primary schools, one school being mainly multi‐cultural in background and one mainly mono‐cultural. The schools were matched as closely as possible for ethos, pupil social background, environment, and teaching practice. The results of the study indicated that the primary null hypothesis: that no significant differences would appear between the responses of the group of white pupils attending the multi‐cultural school and those of their counterparts in the control group attending the mono‐cultural school, was sustained. However, some inter‐ethnic differences did emerge from the data, but sex rather than cultural background or type of school attended proved to be the major source of difference in response.     

Children,families and inter‐agency work: experiences of partnership work in primary education settings

Despite UK government initiatives intended to address social exclusion, those with poor access to social and economic resources continue to experience unresponsive services. In these circumstances, small inter‐agency projects may offer accessible alternatives. This article explores the implementation of inter‐agency work at a local level, focusing on implications for families involved. It draws on a study of a Health Action Zone (HAZ) initiated project, working in primary schools in a deprived urban area, with children at risk of school exclusion. It examines children's and parents' experiences of the project, locating these within current social policy and social justice debates. While positive outcomes are evident, the article also highlights difficulties in inter‐agency collaboration, which potentially undermine support available to families and maintain pessimism about future improvements. By focusing remedies at the level of individual intervention, such initiatives may also neglect structural and organisational factors contributing to families' difficulties.     

Riding the dragon: developing inter‐agency systems for supporting children

‘Better inter‐agency working’ has been the oft‐quoted remedy to many reviews of services to support vulnerable children and young people, and yet outside the realms of tightly focused specialist teams it seems to be very difficult to achieve. Georgina Glenny here reviews three case studies of interdisciplinary and inter‐agency working to examine some of the reasons for the difficulties and some of the factors that contribute to success. Her findings suggest that, however ‘loose‐knit’ they are, members of children's services can work together effectively if they feel themselves to be part of a common project served by an inclusive communication system. In the successful case studies the ‘common project’ was defined by an agreed central purpose to guide action within a defined geographical locality. Central to achieving this purpose was a carefully managed series of communication feedback loops to ensure good quality information was being shared at all levels. With this communication system in place the complex system of relationships and actions that resulted could be reflected upon and continually tweaked to ensure that ‘project purpose’ was achieved or at least ‘worked towards’ in a managed way.     

民族地区义务教育扶持制度研究

西部大开发是一项系统工程,也是一项长期而艰巨的任务.西部少数民族地区义务教育的发展已成为西部大开发战略的关键.要借鉴国外发展义务教育扶持制度的有益经验,探索符合我国国情的民族地区义务教育扶持制度.     

Summary of an Extended Comparative Analysis on European Private Higher Education1

In November 2005, UNESCO‐CEPES organized a conference on Private Higher Education in Europe and Quality Assurance and Accreditation from the Perspective of the Bologna Process Objectives. Thirteen country reports and a comparative analysis study were commissioned for this specific initiative. The countries included in the project were: Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Turkey and the Ukraine. This article provides a brief summary of several main points of the comparative analysis study. The data referred to in this summary is taken solely from the sources cited in the full text study.     

Education policy and the ‘inter’‐regnum

In the UK, the vocabulary of public services is becoming infused with the prefixes ‘inter’‐, ‘multi‐’ and ‘co‐’. Public‐sector agencies are being encouraged to adopt ‘multi’‐ or ‘inter‐agency’ configurations; ‘workforce reform’ seeks to dissolve once‐impermeable professional boundaries; leadership is to be ‘distributed’. This tendency is referred to as the ‘inter’‐regnum in education policy. (This does not mean that we are dealing with an ‘interregnum’ in the sense that we are somehow between modes of governance.) The term ‘regnum’ is used to emphasise that this propensity for the ‘inter’ is asserting itself as a new ‘reigning philosophy’. Examples of the ‘inter’‐regnum are presented from the UK (mainly England), and these are located conceptually within an analysis of hierarchies, markets and networks. Thereafter the cultural, intellectual and economic contexts which allow for the ‘inter’‐regnum to emerge as policy are explored. The ‘inter’‐regnum draws its legitimacy from a number of sources. First, it resonates with the culture of consumerism, and it takes further that earlier market‐based regime of governance which was associated with the new public management. Second, it is functional for the ‘new capitalism’ as a new work order of affinity‐ and solution‐spaces. Third, it has important intellectual supports: that is, in addition to its association with recent marketing theory, it can appeal to emerging theory and research in organisational learning.     

西部地区构建社会主义和谐民族关系对策研究

西部地区构建社会主义和谐民族关系是一个长期而复杂的系统工程,加快民族地区经济社会发展是根本途径,完善民族区域自治制度是制度保障,培育和谐民族文化是精神支撑,妥善处理宗教问题是关键要素,正确应对国际因素影响是重要条件。     

Anik E2 Over the Prairies: inter‐organizational collaboration in the application of satellite technology

This paper describes the inter‐organizational collaboration which contributed to the development and satellite‐mediated delivery of university courses to a highly dispersed, rural population. This collaboration yielded results beyond what each group of stakeholders could have achieved on its own, but the project confirms the observation of some educators that collaboration, within the context of adopting innovative procedures, is a process fraught with potential pitfalls. There are, however, some practical strategies which can encourage the partners to work together towards a common goal.     

The identity game: constructing and enabling multicultural identities in a Finland–Swedish school setting

This study, building on previous studies stressing the bond between positive sense of ethnic identity and school belonging, puts at its center the very process of ethnic identity construction. Thus, identity is viewed as co‐constructed, within a social–constructionist perspective on learning. The study is two‐folded. It starts out by describing how participants in a Finland–Swedish preschool setting orient to ethnic identity in everyday interactions. Video recordings are analyzed using conversation analysis, a relatively recent approach to the exploration of how ethnicity is accomplished in interaction. It shows that the different ethnic backgrounds of the children were considerably more prominent in the informal self‐initiated interactions between themselves than in situations where adults were present. The children mainly used ethnicity as a resource to investigate themselves in relation to others to negotiate status and construct in‐ and out‐groups. The second part focuses on how to create a more inclusive school‐setting by more actively supporting students' ethnic identity construction. It discusses the experiences from a teacher–researcher collaboration, where the way children constructed ethnic identity in the first part of the study was taken as the starting‐point for the development of new practices. The study suggests the ongoing ethnic identity construction in everyday educational settings to be a fertile area for further research. We need to know more about how these processes can be supported in a manner that is sensitive to the students' needs to decide for themselves whether, and how, they wish to orient to their own ethnic backgrounds.     

社会主义核心价值体系引领下的边疆少数民族文化建设——以德宏州“孔雀文化”建设为例

德宏边疆民族地区文化建设既要立足于尊重差异、包容多样,使民族传统文化得到了继承和弘扬,又要发挥社会主义核心价值体系的引领作用,使民族文化的内含得到提质和升华,体现来自于民族传统文化又要高于民族传统文化,通过民族节日等途径,有效实施"孔雀文化"建设工程,促进边疆稳定、民族团结、社会和谐。     

Against Integration: Distinguishing Art Theory and Aesthetics

As part of a wider project to consider the manner in which philosophical aesthetics can effectively inhabit the world of art practice as a teaching, this essay works both with and against Hegel to identify a fundamental aporia at the heart of the theory/practice matrix. Rooted in the anti‐dialogical thought of thinkers such as Nietzsche, Maurice Blanchot and Emmanuel Levinas, this contribution to the debate around inter/multi‐disciplinarity returns, paradoxically, to the integrative dialectics of Hegel where, it is argued, the most serious challenge to the facile fusion of theory and practice is launched. Rather than undermining the teaching of theory, this challenge is intended to launch a re‐evaluation of the relationship between art theory and aesthetics for the sake of a radical re‐orientation of art teaching.     

Experiencing Multicultural Organization: The Case of Babe#st‐Bolyai University

How does a democratic country in eastern Europe undergoing transition to a market economy and pluralist democracy deal with minority claims for cultural and linguistic autonomy? The author, formerly the Rector of the Babes‐Bolyai University of Cluj‐Napoca, and currently the Minister of Education of Romania, describes the way his university dealt with such claims. The solution, resulting from a university‐wide consultation, led to the creation of Romanian, Hungarian, and German sections throughout the university, not only on its main campus, but on several branch campuses, in such a way that the university as a whole did not break up into several ethnically separate institutions but remained one institution. The result, the author argues, is illustrative of a creative switch from ethnic nationalism to civic nationalism and from historical patriotism to constitutional patriotism.     

Developing a European Dimension of the Teacher Training Curriculum

This contribution explores the relationship between traditional conceptions of pedagogy and an alternative approach grounded in research‐based teaching. The case is put forward for collaborative investigations focusing on improving practice on the European dimension in education. The implications of this case suggests a changed role for training institutions to enable the study of inter‐cultural teaching and learning to be carried out by practitioners. For the teacher, supported opportunities to contribute to a knowledge base of good practice through action inquiry is also implied. The experience of an EEC‐funded project designed with such principles in mind is described and evaluated. Operating since 1982 in six member states, the outcomes suggest some priorities for future activities and outline a theory for developing the European dimension of the teacher training curriculum.     

Ethnic,Familial, and Religious Identity of Roma Adolescents in Bulgaria,Czech Republic,Kosovo, and Romania in Relation to Their Level of Well‐Being

This study examines ethnic, national, familial, and religious identity and well‐being of 632 Roma minority and 589 majority adolescents (age: M = 15.98 years, SD = 1.34) in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Kosovo, and Romania. Results indicated that Roma showed lower endorsement of national identity but stronger religious identity than their majority counterparts. Path models showed positive associations of familial and religious identities with well‐being, whereas Roma identity was negatively associated with well‐being, particularly for Roma in Bulgaria and Kosovo (countries with a less active policy toward improving conditions of Roma). In the latter countries, Roma ethnic identity is less relevant and weakly associated with psychological well‐being of youth.     

The Concept of Pastoral Care: A Genealogical Analysis

This article considers the implications of a small‐scale research project, undertaken by the authors, which used the example of the Massage in Schools Programme (a simple peer massage programme) to ascertain whether the planned use of touch‐based activity can support the growth of social and emotional skills in the primary classroom. Such claims are considered within the context of a modern society that is ill at ease with touch. Data, including observations of children and interviews with children and staff, were collected in two primary school classrooms pre, during and post the introduction of a six‐week massage programme, led by Massage in Schools practitioners. The findings of this project demonstrate that the number of social relationships reported by children did increase post intervention. The article goes on to consider the possible mechanisms by which this was achieved and features of the classroom context that may mediate the impact of the intervention. The authors conclude that a touch‐based intervention such as the Massage in Schools Programme may have a positive and potentially educational value for children and schools and support the growth of social and emotional skills.