‘I wonder if they are going up or down’: children's co-constructive talk across the primary years

This article reports a research project, where two pairs of children were recorded in discussion, first in Year One and then five years later in Year Six. A unique opportunity meant that the children engaged in the same task at the beginning and end of their Primary School education. The research analyses the talk on three levels, considering the language that they use, the way that they manage their talk together, and the broader themes that they bring to their discussion. The findings suggest that their language changes subtly over time, with their earlier discussions more imaginative and fluid.     

The wonderful world of children's books? Negotiating diversity through children's literature

The present paper reports the findings of a study that sought to identify how diversity (in the form of disability, appearance, and race) is presented in children's books written in or translated into the Greek language. The study focused on the plots and the portrayal of key figures. The sample consisted of 50 children's books written after 1990 that focus on diversity and target children aged 6–12 years. Content analysis framed within the interpretative paradigm was undertaken, and this resulted in the formation of categories representative of the range of plots and character portrayals. The analysis revealed the following key themes: the key figure is presented as different from the group; the key figure is often only accepted through the mediation of another character who is not considered different or an incident; different figures belong together and not with the figures that belong in the dominant group; and the key figure is an excellent character who might also be brave and unique for several reasons. Taking these findings as a starting point, the paper seeks to place the discussion about children's books, diversity, and education in the literature, and it discusses teachers’ role in developing students’ critical literacy skills in order to engage in discussions about diversity without reproducing stereotypes or focussing on the Other.     

咨询这行,不up就out?

正Lucy Li,2006年毕业于北京大学生命科学学院,同年进入美国华盛顿大学生物与生物医学学院深造,2012年取得博士学位,进入一家领先的制药和生物技术行业的管理咨询公司工作。全球最著名的咨询公司麦肯锡的一名普通员工笔下的"我的一天"这样写道:6:35,我还在洗澡,两个小女儿已经起床,过来跟我说早安。7:00,穿好衣服,准备出门。趁着穿鞋子的时间我跟孩子们聊会儿天——因为等不到我下班,她们都已经睡觉了,所以早上这几分钟是我一天里唯一可以跟她们面对面的时候。7:25,坐在地铁上,地铁并不挤。往常我趁坐地铁的22分钟再小睡一觉但今天我正好想把手头这本书看完。     

Turning in or tuning out? Listening to silences in education for critical political consciousness

What happens when a team of university education researchers initiates a social justice learning project in a local high school, and – despite the overall project’s considerable successes in cultivating students’ critical political ‘voice’ – is confounded by the periodic, apparent ‘silences’ of some of its young female students? Drawing on eight years of fieldwork in a groundbreaking high school social justice education classroom, this article examines the presumptions inherent in certain forms of social justice pedagogy, and the ways in which ensuing classroom disjunctures may, in fact, lead to deeper insights about education for youth critical social consciousness. The article focuses on two, interrelated issues: the unsettling and sometimes confounding ‘silences’ of female students and the correlation between such silences and social justice educators’ attenuated ability to recognize and support the myriad ways in which minority female students may encounter, negotiate, and articulate their own particular forms of Freirian conscientización.     

What develops in children's development of altruism?

Abstract

Cognitive-developmental theorists have maintained that children's development of altruism does really mean a movement from centration to decentration. In this paper we make a different claim. Borrowing from the two micromodels Piaget used, in succession, to account for the child's transition from preoperational to operational throught (i.e., a cost-gain model guided by game theory, and an affirmation-negation model based on equilibration theory), we suggest that children's development of altruism represents a movement from centration or cost-perception to compensation or gain-construction. Ninety children from three age levels (30 5-year-olds, 30 7-year-olds, and 30 10-year-olds) were presented with four prosocial dilemmas appealing to sharing, donating, helping, and conforming. Children's cost-perception/gain-construction competence was first assessed and then related to their level of altruism in an opportunity-to-donate situation. Consistent with our cost-perception/gain-construction approach, children became more likely with age to think of prosocial acts in terms of gain than in terms of cost. Positive associations between gain-construction competence and observed altruism were also found. These results strengthen our Piagetian approach to children's development of altruism     

Filling up silences—first in family students,capital and university talk in the home

Internationally, research has indicated that returning to education for older learners provides the means for growth and change, for some students this can translate into a sense of ‘empowerment’ and control in their personal lives. However, what is not so well researched is how having a significant ‘other’ present within the university landscape impacts the household and other family members. Exploring how this return to education influences others provides a basis for institutional approaches to engaging with and supporting the lifelong learning of family members, ultimately assisting in the access and participation of current and future generations. This article draws on research conducted with first in family students to explore how their participation in the higher education environment led to conversations in the family around learning. Drawing upon theories of social and cultural capital, this article reflects upon the flow of capitals between home and university.     

Violence as understandable,deserved or unacceptable? Listening for gender in teenagers' talk about violence

Youth violence is a topic of increasing global concern. Research has primarily focused on young people's responses to existing definitions of violence in seeking to understand how best to develop violence prevention. Little work has explored how young people themselves define violence and the factors which influence their acceptance, and use, of violent behaviour. The present study investigated young people's understandings of what constitutes violence, their acceptance of violence and justifications made for doing so. The study was distinct in its focus on young people's characterisations of violence. The findings revealed that gender norms mediate understandings of what constitutes violence and discourses around the perceived acceptability of violence. Particular forms of violence were clearly identified as being more acceptable and ‘deserved’ than others and young people's perceptions were shaped by their understandings of appropriate and normative gender behaviour.     

Sex or gender identity? Understanding children's reading choices and motivation

The extent to which children's reading choices could be predicted by their motivation and gender identity was examined. Two hundred and twenty‐three children (average age 9 years 11 months) completed questionnaires measuring book reading choices, reading motivation, gender identity (identification with masculine and feminine traits) and a standardised reading assessment. Sex differences were found in children's reading motivation and reading choices. In addition, feminine traits were more closely associated with reading motivation and engagement with neutral books compared to masculine traits. Whilst children's sex predicted their choice of reading male‐ or female‐orientated books, the extent to which they identified with feminine traits was a better predictor in choice of neutral books. Results are discussed in relation to previous research examining sex differences in children's reading choices. In addition, implications for reading activities and choice of books available at school are discussed.     

Do social regulation strategies predict learning engagement and learning outcomes? A study of English language learners in wiki-supported literature circles activities

Educational technology research and development - Combining wiki technology with the literature circles could be powerful and beneficial for promoting the learning of English as a foreign language...     

In,out or somewhere in between? Disabled students' and teacher aides' experiences of school

Disabled students' entry to the (compulsory) education system in New Zealand is often conditional upon the presence of untrained teacher aides, who are frequently regarded as the ‘solution to inclusion’. This widespread practice has occurred within a research and policy void, despite the growing body of international research literature that contests its efficacy and equity. Drawing from the findings of a qualitative study, the purpose of this paper is to develop an understanding of the school experiences of disabled students, from their and teacher aides' perspectives. Interpreted within a framework of current disability, social justice and sociology of childhood theorising, the findings are presented as a continuum of educational contexts, in which students (and aides) were (1) fully included in all aspects of school, (2) partly included/assimilated in aspects of school life, and (3) excluded from regular school. The findings are consistent with those of international research in illuminating the pivotal, complex and ambiguous role that aides play in both helping and hindering disabled students' educational presence, participation and achievement. The paper concludes with an outline of changes that may be instrumental in bringing about a more inclusive education system for all students.     

360‐degree feedback: Going around in circles?

Multisource feedback (often called 360‐degree feedback) is, in itself, an excellent idea. In practice, though, multisource feedback is often implemented in a way that can do more harm than good. Many commercially available 360‐degree feedback programs seem to be poorly designed. They may provide reasonably accurate assessments but are inadequate in their delivery of those assessments. The problem lies primarily in the way they deliver the feedback. In this article, we discuss the problems and offer some remedies.     

Education service contracting in the Philippines: human rights as trumps, goals, or policy talk?

In recent years, the goals and purposes of education within the international development discourse have shifted significantly away from education for productivity or human capital development and towards education for the fulfillment of the individual through human rights. The current global education climate provides governments with an environment to support policies of free basic education, driven by a global diffusion of the central principles of education as a human right. This article considers the function of international human rights law and political movements within educational policymaking and practice, specifically regarding policy efforts to increase school access. Using the Philippines as a case study, this article addresses the guarantees for free secondary education in Philippine legal and policy documents, and assesses the current government policy for secondary education expansion??the Education Service Contracting (ESC) Program??to discuss the impact of the country??s human rights commitments on educational policy. Using Kingdon??s multiple streams model of policy analysis, I account for human rights law within ESC policymaking and determine the drivers that have led the country to take up its current model of private expansion. In conclusion, the human right to a free education should be deliberated, not as a trump card to supersede local educational obligations, but as a guiding principle, placed within problem, solution, and political contexts to assess the current state of education and adequately protect those who need publicly funded schooling the most.     

Teaching circles: a way forward for part-time teachers in higher education?

Part-time teachers represent a growing challenge to universities' quality assurance and developmental processes. This paper describes an attempt to meet this challenge through the adoption of 'teaching circles' (TCs) in four contrasting case-study schools. Analysis of outcomes enables identification of the variables affecting the apparent success of TCs as a strategy, some of which are associated with the particularities of context. Underlying these particularities, however, the general question of how participants come to feel 'ownership' of change initiatives emerges as a central issue. Three inter-related processes are shown to be involved: leadership, attribution of causation and social integration. The paper concludes that this analysis has implications beyond the TC project and provides both key practical pointers and, potentially, a useful analytical tool for researchers studying programmes of organizational change.     

Speaking but not listening? Accountable talk in an unaccountable context

Taking the 2009 UKLA conference theme of “making connections and building literate communities” and recalling Hoggart's plea for literacy to be critically and morally engaged rather than merely functional, this paper calls for a reassessment of the pursuit of literacy in schools so as to connect the language of learning with the language of democratic participation. Given what we know about the way classroom talk mediates both learning and culture, the paper takes such talk as its focus, comparing the author's principles of dialogic teaching with Resnick's criteria for accountable talk. The paper then contrasts these idealised versions of the discourse of pedagogy with the public discourses of power, noting the prevalence of four discourse types – derision, dichotomy, myth and meaninglessness – through which, in pursuit of political goals, governments rewrite history, simplify the problematic, dignify the mundane and marginalise unpalatable evidence. This prompts an addition, in the interests of meaningful citizenship as well as effective learning, to Resnick's criteria of accountability to the learning community, standards of reasoning and knowledge: accountability to language itself.     

Something in the air? Air quality and children's educational outcomes

Poor air quality has been shown to harm the health and development of children. Research on these relationships has focused almost exclusively on the effects of human-made pollutants, and has not fully distinguished between contemporaneous and long-run effects. This paper contributes on both of these fronts. Merging data on ambient levels of human-made pollutants and plant pollen with detailed panel data of children beginning kindergarten in 2010, I study the relationship between poor air quality on achievement in early grades. I also provide tentative estimates of the effects of air quality in the first years of life on school-readiness. I find that students score between 1 to 2 percent lower on math and reading scores on days with high levels of pollen or fine airborne particulate matter, and that asthmatic students score about 10 percent lower on days with high levels of ozone. I find suggestive evidence that poor air quality during early childhood negatively affects school readiness.     

“Who's in charge?” Preschool children's concepts of authority

This study examined preschool children's concepts of authority with regard to three factors: adult/peer status, social position, and type of command. Sixty-seven children (ranging in age from 4 years; 0 months-6 years; 2 months) were asked to evaluate the legitimacy of commands of persons with varying age (peer/adult) and social position (with or without a delegated authority position), to give rationales for obedience, and to make choices between different persons giving opposing commands. Subjects accepted both peer and adult authorities and gave priority to peer authority over adult nonauthority, but did not extend the jurisdiction of authority to commands which failed to prevent harm. The findings show that preschoolers have understandings of the social context in which authority relations are embedded, conceptualizing authorities not solely with respect to their adult status, but to their role within the social context of the school.     

Teacher education in Scotland – riding out the recession?

Background: Teacher education in Scotland has developed its own trajectory for many years and this distinctiveness appears to have increased since the creation of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. Teachers' pay and conditions were addressed in 2001 by the agreement A teaching profession for the 21st century. This agreement led to a number of innovations in teacher education and development. More recently, there has been a report of the Review of Teacher Education in Scotland by Graham Donaldson and a committee is currently reviewing teachers' pay and conditions.

Purpose: This article examines the extent to which the development of teacher education in Scotland has been affected by the global financial crisis and its impact on the provision of public services. Three policy contexts are explored in turn, those of politics and economics, education and teacher education, so that the analysis moves from the wider societal perspective towards the specifics of teacher education.

Sources of evidence: The article draws on a close analysis of relevant policy documents, including those produced by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Scottish Government and the General Teaching Council for Scotland. Additionally reference is made where appropriate to a wide range of published research and to reports such as the Review of Teacher Education in Scotland.

Main argument: The ways in which teacher education policy in Scotland is developing is a result of the interaction between history, culture and politics played out at a national level under the wider influence of UK, European and global affairs, both economic and political. There are real tensions in the current conjunction of policies and trends, which create major challenges for all those involved. The promotion of career-long professional learning and enhanced school autonomy proceed alongside the review of teachers' professional conditions (McCormac Review), high levels of intermittent employment among new teachers, fluctuations in student numbers and staffing in university Schools of Education, and contracting resource to support school-level curriculum development and continuing professional development. The social partnership achieved between employers and practitioners is under increasing strain; and relations of partnership between universities and schools are subject to increasing critical scrutiny. Teaching in a time of crisis creates new challenges, and the need for innovative approaches to enduring challenges, in the short and longer term.

Conclusions: The longstanding commitment to explicit values in Scottish culture and education is all the more important in a context where pressures for accountability and efficiency are greater than ever.