Urban high school students’ perspectives about sexual health decision-making: the role of school culture and identity

Studies across fields such as science education, health education, health behavior, and curriculum studies identify a persistent gap between the aims of the school curriculum and its impact on students’ thinking and acting about the real-life decisions that affect their lives. The present study presents a different story from this predominant pattern in the literature. Through a year-long ethnographic investigation of a health-focused New York City public high school’s HIV/AIDS and sex education program, this study illustrates a case in which 20 12th grade students respond positively to their education on these topics and largely assert that school significantly influences their perspectives and actions related to sexual health decision-making. This paper presents the following interpretation of this positive influence: school culture influences these students’ perspectives and decisions around sexual health by contributing to the formation of students’ identities. This paper further shows how science learning in particular becomes important for students in relation to decision-making when it is linked to issues of identity. These findings suggest that, in addition to attending to the design of classroom curriculum, HIV/AIDS and sex education researchers and curriculum developers (as well as those in science education focusing on other controversial science topics) might also explore the kinds of relational and school-wide factors that potentially influence students’ identities, decisions, and responses to school learning.     

Assessing the Implicit Curriculum in Social Work Education: Heterogeneity of Students’ Experiences and Impact on Professional Empowerment

The implicit curriculum, which refers to a student’s learning environment, has been described as an essential feature of an integrated professional social work curriculum. Very little is known, however, about the heterogeneity of students’ experiences with the implicit curriculum, how this heterogeneity may be distributed across groups of students, and how it may impact students’ professional empowerment. This study used latent profile analysis to identify groups of students based on their experiences with the implicit curriculum in school and field contexts, and it examined differences between profile groups on measures of professional empowerment. Study participants (n = 534) were undergraduate and graduate students of a large school of social work in the northeast. Results revealed that four groups of students could be identified based on their experiences with the implicit curriculum: students who experienced (a) positive school and field environments, (b) positive school but negative field environments, (c) negative school but positive field environments, and (d) negative school and field environments. Profile groups differed significantly on measures of professional empowerment. Implications and directions for future work are discussed.     

‘Capitalising’ on community? Understanding and critiquing instrumentalist approaches to Indigenous schooling

This paper provides insights into non-Indigenous teachers’ efforts to engage proactively and productively with students to enhance their learning in a predominantly Indigenous community in northern Queensland, Australia. Drawing upon notions of ‘funds of knowledge’, forms of capital as part of community cultural wealth, Critical Race Theory, and ‘whiteness’ studies, the research explores and challenges how white teachers draw upon community as a form of ‘capital’ to enable them to foster their students’ learning. These efforts to ‘capitalise’ on community reveal the school as a site of struggle for genuinely inclusive educational practices. These struggles were evident in: teachers' and school administrators’ ostensive care about their students but struggles to translate this into robust expectations as part of a genuinely inclusive curriculum; the cultivation of social and cultural capital to learn about the nature of the communities in which teachers worked but a tendency to deploy such knowledges for more instrumentalist reasons as part of their engagement with both the ‘official’ curriculum and Indigenous students; and, a desire and capacity to develop connections between community cultural capital and more dominant forms of capital but in ways which do not adequately foreground Indigenous epistemologies as curriculum. The research reveals teachers’ efforts to develop understandings of community cultural wealth and the funds of knowledge within communities, but also how their understandings were partial and proximal, and how subsequent social and teaching practices tended to instrumentalise Indigenous perspectives and insights.     

How do school learning environments differ across Australia’s rural,regional and metropolitan communities?

This study uses data from the Programme for International Student Assessment, a large and nationally representative dataset, to examine how learning environments vary across metropolitan, rural and regional schools in Australia. Research has shown that school climate and learning environments are related to student academic performance, but little is known about the degree to which they differ across school communities in Australia. We examined principals’ perceptions of teacher and student behaviour related to school climate and students’ perceptions of teacher support, classroom disciplinary climate, and the relevance of education. The findings show that regardless of where they live, most students believe that schooling is worthwhile, and report positive relationships with their teachers. Perceptions of classroom disciplinary climate vary more across school communities, however, with students reporting less positive disciplinary climate in rural communities than in very large cities. Principals’ perceptions of teacher and student behavior related to school climate varied; with urban schools having much more positive results than schools in towns and rural communities. Finally, our findings show that students’ and principals’ perceptions of their school climate and learning environments are more positive in urban communities than in rural communities, but that the least positive environments are generally found in country towns rather than remote communities. Our findings suggest that attention should be paid to improving learning environments not just in the most rural/remote communities, but also in largish regional towns of up to 50,000 residents.     

Science identity trajectories throughout school visits to a science museum

Research has repeatedly demonstrated how informal learning environments afford science-identity development by fostering a broader array of interactions and recognizing more varied participation modes and roles, as compared to the classroom. Thus, science teachers are encouraged to take students to field trips in informal environments, including science museums. However, the question of whether and how informal environments indeed support science identities also in a schooling context (i.e., in field trips) has not yet been explored. This case study addresses this question by analyzing identity trajectories of three students throughout six school visits to an Israeli science museum. We observed and recorded these students in the museum over the course of 3 years (fourth to sixth grade). We also visited their school and interviewed them after each visit. Drawing on a sociocultural interactional approach to identity, we analyzed 18 hr of video and audio recordings, tracking the participation of the three students across time and contexts, comparing between the students, points in time and settings, including structured (museum lab), semi-structured (riddle-solving activities in exhibition halls), and unstructured settings (free exploration). We employed linguistic ethnographic methods and microanalysis to examine the ways in which the students participated and their positioning by self and others. While we found differences between settings within the museum, overall, the findings show that the museum reproduced the school's interaction, positioning, and roles. The “(non)science person” in school was also the “(non)science person” in the museum, and thus, the museum visits did not appear to shift identity trajectories. These findings challenge the premise that informal environments support the development of science identities also in a schooling context and call for a more critical view of such fieldtrips in terms of their pedagogical and physical design, facilitation approach, and consideration of peers' social interaction.     

Short- and long-term outreach at the zoo: cognitive learning about marine ecological and conservational issues

Although zoos envision themselves as environmental education institutions and governmental policies require that students become environmentally responsible citizens, it is surprising, that little research is done with regard to school field trips to the zoo. Many students are not aware that their everyday life affects marine environments that may enhance through spatially disconnection from marine ecosystems. A zoo field trip may overcome this disconnection. Considering knowledge as prerequisite for environmental attitudes and behavior, our study focused on cognitive learning of high school students at an instructional zoo field trip about marine ecology and conservation, by applying two cooperative learning settings. The study followed a quasi-experimental design, applying multiple-choice pre-post-retention tests. The results show satisfying short- and long-term knowledge achievement. Our cooperative learning settings seems to be a suitable approach for zoo field trips to facilitate a satisfying cognitive outcome concerning marine ecology and conservational issues.     

Student Self-Reported Learning Outcomes of Field Trips: The pedagogical impact

In this study, we used the classification and regression trees (CART) method to draw relationships between student self-reported learning outcomes in 26 field trips to natural environments and various characteristics of the field trip that include variables associated with preparation and pedagogy. We wished to examine the extent to which the preparation for the field trip, its connection to the school curriculum, and the pedagogies used, affect students’ self-reported outcomes in three domains: cognitive, affective, and behavioral; and the extent the students' socioeconomic group and the guide's affiliation affect students' reported learning outcomes. Given that most of the field trips were guide-centered, the most important variable that affected the three domains of outcomes was the guide's storytelling. Other variables that showed relationships with self-reported outcomes were physical activity and making connections to everyday life—all of which we defined as pedagogical variables. We found no significant differences in student self-reported outcomes with respect to their socioeconomic group and the guide's organizational affiliation.     

中学地理“1+1”有效课堂教学的探索——以“创新课堂有效模式,提升师生生命质量”为视角

在新课程改革背景下,通过"走别人的路,让自己来说吧"的实践,形成了独具特色的中学地理"1+1"有效课堂教学模式。该模式的基本思想是知学情、重创造、共发展,从而提升师生生命质量。基本特色是:先学后教,以学定教;以案导学,小组合作;课堂前移,作业前置;突出学生的主体地位。采用导学案导学、小组合作助学、展示质疑促学、点拨延伸拓学、检测评价验学等有效措施,把对知识掌握的关注转变为对学生成长发展的关注,把促进学生的发展落到实处,让新课程的理念在课堂教学中落地生根。     

新型城镇化进程中乡村中小学生学习现状调查研究——以C省为例

通过对C省10所乡村学校中小学生学习现状调查研究发现,乡村地区中小学生学习现状总体处于中等水平,其中:学习观和学习态度较好,学习方法有待提升,学习管理需要加强。同时,由于受性别、年级、父母关注情况等因素的影响,学生学习情况表现出不同的差异和特点。因此,需要重新认识乡村教育的价值,重塑积极的学习观;加强学生学习的科学性,优化学习方法;建立学生的自我学习管理机制,提高学习管理水平;强化留守儿童教育,改善留守儿童学习现状。     

高中新课程实验下的英语教学

随着高中新课程实验的不断深入,新式的高中英语教学模式也在不断的探索与改革当中。如何引领学生爱学英语,如何在课堂中培养学生的自主学习能力,如何在语言学习中扩展学生知识领域,陶冶他们的情操,成为了每位高中英语教师及教育研究工作者探究的方向。本文重点强调了教师自身魅力的重要性、教材处理的艺术性、CAI课件运用的灵活性及人文关怀的必要性。     

从知识传递者走向文化建设者:新时代乡村教师的角色审思

知识传递者的角色定位为我国乡村教师专业技能的提升、乡村学生的知识学习及乡村社会的进步与发展提供了保障。但这一角色定位也存有淡化乡村教师“乡土色彩”,对乡村学生既有文化身份及其教学价值体认不足,其作为乡村场域中的知识分子身份地位日渐式微等问题。乡村教师从“知识传递者”走向“文化建设者”,使其增强对乡土文化的感知理解及与学科知识的有机融合,培养乡村学生的文化主体意识和文化认同感,发挥作为乡村知识精英在乡村文化建设中的引领作用,是实现乡村文化振兴的现实需要。     

Sustainability education: researching practice in primary schools

Many teachers are keen to implement sustainability education in primary schools but are lacking the confidence, skills and knowledge to do so. Teachers report that they do not understand the concept and cannot integrate sustainability into an already overcrowded curriculum. Identifying how teachers successfully integrate sustainability education into their teaching practice can offer important insights into how these perceived problems can be overcome. The paper is based on data from the third year of a longitudinal study about teacher education and teacher professional learning for sustainability in primary education. The third year of the study investigated teachers’ understandings of sustainability and how sustainability education is manifested in eight rural and regional primary schools in Victoria, Australia. Data included photographs of school grounds and sustainability projects, audio recordings of focus groups with teachers and principals, and field notes of meetings with school staff. Sustainability education was found to be an emergent practice necessarily constituted in the relation between teachers, students and community members and the materialities of local places. Partnerships were found to be an essential part of integrated sustainability programmes which extended into communities and places beyond the schools. The processes of learning involved pedagogies of creative problem-solving and inquiry learning that enabled children to lead the way.     

High school biology evolution learning experiences in a rural context: a case of and for cultural border crossing

Although the concept of “rural” is difficult to define, rural science education provides the possibility for learning centered upon a strong connection to the local community. Rural American adolescents tend to be more religious than their urban counterparts and less accepting of evolution than their non-rural peers. Because the status and perception of evolutionary theory may be very different within the students’ lifeworlds and the subcultures of the science classroom and science itself, a cultural border crossing metaphor can be applied to evolution teaching and learning. This study examines how a teacher may serve as a cultural border crossing tour guide for students at a rural high school as they explore the concept of biological evolution in their high school biology class. Data collection entailed two formal teacher interviews, field note observations of two biology class periods each day for 16 days during the Evolution unit, individual interviews with 14 students, student evolution acceptance surveys, student evolution content tests, and classroom artifacts. The major findings center upon three themes regarding how this teacher and these students had largely positive evolution learning experiences even as some students continued to reject evolution. First, the teacher strategically positioned himself in two ways: using his unique “local” trusted position in the community and school and taking a position in which he did not personally represent science by instead consistently teaching evolution “according to scientists.” Second, his instruction honored local “rural” funds of knowledge with respect to local knowledge of nature and by treating students’ religious knowledge as a form of local expertise about one set of answers to questions also addressed by evolution. Third, the teacher served as a border crossing “tour guide” by helping students identify how the culture of science and the culture of their lifeworlds may differ with respect to evolutionary theory. Students negotiated the cultural borders for learning evolution in several ways, and different types of border crossings are described. The students respected the teacher’s apparent neutrality, sensitivity toward multiple positions, explicit attention to religion/evolution, and transparency of purposes for teaching evolution. These findings add to the current literature on rural science education by highlighting local funds of knowledge for evolution learning and how rural teachers may help students navigate seemingly hazardous scientific topics. The study’s findings also add to the current evolution education literature by examining how students’ religious perspectives may be respected as a form of expertise about questions of origins by allowing students to examine similarities and differences between scientific and religious approaches to questions of biological origins and change.     

'Neath the Moth‐Eaten Rag: Do Artefacts Play a Special Role for Historical Knowledge?

Normally, school students learn academic subjects in classrooms, but it is best practice to, now‐and‐again, take them on trips. Often, it is then that they come face‐to‐face with ‘the real thing’, an historical artefact. This paper seeks the knowledge acquired in seeing such an artefact. If knowledge means propositional knowledge, we land on the horns of a dilemma, in which the artefact seems to be both crucial and yet incidental. On the one hand, it seems to be the labels, the resources in the exhibition, the guides, not the artefact, that give students knowledge. Yet, the learning experience is valued because of the artefact, not these things. This poses the question: can students gain knowledge from artefacts? I argue, drawing on R.G. Collingwood's characterisation of historical knowledge as mediated, inferential and requiring imagination, and on Heidegger's understanding of ‘things’, that the debate can be moved beyond bald propositional knowledge of the kind that motivates the original dilemma. Students gain historical knowledge from artefacts because students can reflectively think, and work to re‐enact in their minds the world of the artefact. As Aldridge suggests, the student is transformed by this: she does not simply learn the facts, but starts to become an historian.     

Learning at workstations in two different environments: A museum and a classroom

Our study compared the learning and motivational outcome of one educational approach in two different learning environments, a natural science museum and a classroom, drawing on studies about the effects of field trips on students’ learning and motivation. The educational intervention consisted of an introduction phase in the classroom and subsequent learning at workstations, either in the museum or the classroom. 190 secondary school students participated in the quasi-experimental design. We assessed knowledge and understanding by using a pre-, post- and retention-test design, and applied subscales of the ‘Intrinsic Motivation Inventory’ to consider motivational aspects. Students of the museum-group learnt more compared to the classroom-group, whereas motivation differed only in one subscale of the motivation test, with higher scores for the museum-group. Results are discussed in terms of the overall added value of field trips for school curricula.     

Conceptualizing shadow curriculum: definition,features and the changing landscapes of learning cultures

This article presents a new conceptualization of ‘shadow curriculum’, one component of the worldwide phenomenon of shadow education, i.e. learning outside of school. Traditional conceptions of curriculum are not applicable to shadow education, and so this article begins by exploring how shadow education practices qualify as a new focus of curriculum studies. Based on existing scholarship and our own field experience in South Korea, we propose that shadow curriculum can be defined as supplementary curriculum out of schooling provided by educational business industries that are aimed for individual students’ academic success in formal education. The following discussion explores the characteristics of shadow curriculum and shows that incorporating shadow curriculum as a new area of focus in the field of curriculum studies can broaden existing understandings of student learning and the concept of curriculum. Our hope is that this discussion will open a new intellectual space for analysis of the complex phenomenon of shadow education within the field of curriculum studies.     

Differentiated Curriculum Design: Responding to the Individual and Group Needs of Students with Learning Difficulties with Self‐regulated Learning Strategies

The purpose of this study was to explore special educational curriculum design at senior secondary school level and whether this helps to enhance the academic attainment and self‐confidence of students with learning difficulties. An in‐depth discussion focuses on lesson planning for the individual needs and group needs of students by implementation of self‐regulated learning strategies, based on a case study in a special school in Hong Kong. A multiple methods research design was envisaged for the implementation phase of this participatory action research. Lesson observations, video recordings, teachers’ diaries and students’ interviews were collected during one academic year in a form 5 (equal to year 12 in the UK) classroom. It is suggested that curriculum design should include various elements: learning knowledge, values and attitudes, and generic skills. This differentiated curriculum design showed how subject learning targets could be responsive to both the individual and the group needs of students with learning difficulties. Conclusions also indicate that assisting students to become aware of their individual needs is beneficial both for learning and for curriculum design.     

Constituting an apprenticeship curriculum

Apprenticeships are required for many trades and can take different forms. In Sweden, one form can be viewed as a pathway where students complete a three-year-long vocational education in upper secondary school followed by a post-secondary apprenticeship in a particular trade. Another takes the form of vocational training within the framework of upper secondary school through an apprenticeship. This study analyses how a more clearly defined apprenticeship curriculum can provide sufficient knowledge to identify and understand learning outcomes in apprenticeships. A theoretical framework of an apprenticeship curriculum is used in the analytical work. The findings show that educational goals are often overlooked during apprenticeships, and thus a deliberative education is overridden by deliberative learning that stems from and is closely connected to the individual’s own perception of what to learn. By constituting an apprenticeship curriculum, this article contributes to an enhanced understanding of how to analyse vocational learning, and thus adds important elements to the research field.     

高中思想政治课“学会学习”探究

知识经济时代,人类社会日益呈现学习化的特征。在学习型社会中,"学会如何学习"不仅是基础素质之一,同时也是终身学习的基础。社会的变革及要求,无疑影响着教育改革,要求从"学会知识"向"学会学习"转变。文章在新课程改革的背景下探讨了"学会学习"的意义与重要性,并以奥苏贝尔的学习理论为视角,试图在高中思想政治课教学中通过有意义学习、激发情感、明确目标、指导学法、培养能力来引导学生"学会学习"。     

Artemisia and Her Mentors: Partnership and Legacy

Through a comprehensive exhibition and study project, a group of high school students and women artists worked together to document the artists’ work, explore the values and issues of women’s art, envision careers, and create an exhibition and permanent teaching resources. The project’s purpose was to test a model curriculum designed to promote gender equity and positive identification among young women in art, and to make the students’ discoveries available for other students in the community. Research confirmed needs for curriculum reform: the need to present art as an appropriate and desirable career choice, to present curriculum content that relates positively to the experiences of female students, and to raise awareness of values and assumptions about women’s art-making.