Fathers’ roles in the process of talent development

In the process of children’s talent development, fathers have been largely ignored compared to mothers who are mostly identified as the initial and primary influence for their children. Though modern fathers are becoming more engaged in childrearing and interacting more with their children and changes in family systems lead to new challenges and demands for defining parental roles today, fathers are still predominately portrayed as the principal breadwinners of families. Literature including both empirical and anecdotal data has documented positive and promising outcomes of paternal involvement for children’s talent development though fathers’ roles are not always differentiated from mothers’ roles and little research studied fathers and gifted children, exclusively. This paper includes a comprehensive review of fathers’ contributions to children’s talent development and discussion about issues and suggestions for research involving fathers and talent development.     

Exploring the expectation differences of teachers’ roles in English MA class presentation

Students’ presentation is a research-based in-class activity to present views, supporting details or research results on a given topic. Undoubtedly, teachers play important roles in presentations and teachers’ roles are quite different from students’ roles in this activity due to the different role expectations between them. However, in most cases, neither teachers nor students are very clear about the differences between teachers’ role expectations and students’ role expectations, which results in problems such as misunderstandings, low efficiency, information asymmetry, etc. This article intends to explore these differences by conducting a questionnaire survey. The research was carried out among 60 postgraduates who major in English and 10 teachers from a normal university. Research results show great differences between teachers’ and students’ role expectations and suggestions for narrowing the gaps are also addressed in the paper.     

What’s involved in ‘the work’? Understanding administrators’ roles in bringing trans-affirming policies into practice

ABSTRACT

Researchers have concluded that policy implementation is a process of mutual adaptation between policies and implementers. Our study draws attention to that relationship, especially with respect to policies that challenge assumptions about sex, gender, and sexuality. We focus on how six administrators in one United States school district understood ‘the work’ of bringing the district’s Guidelines for Supporting Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Students into practice. Our analysis of interview data focused these questions: How do administrators describe their motivation and commitment to engage in the work? What puzzles of practice do participants name? How do they talk about the work of implementation? What does that work mean/involve in everyday practice? What were their roles? We found that implementation was locally defined and enacted; participants’ sense-making, their roles in enacting the Guidelines, and the puzzles they negotiated were influenced by their unique contexts. We share examples of diverse cases in an effort to create policy knowledge.     

‘Putting on band-aids’: the contradictory roles and ‘small wins’ of tempered campus radicals

Nancy Fraser's propositions regarding the nature of ‘boundary’ work carried out by experts within organizations suggests that individuals who work within bureaucratic structures are so constrained by the institutional context that they become detached, depoliticizing arbitrators of politicized claims. The purpose of the research reported in this article is to examine the assertion that workers in boundary roles necessarily engage only in work that depoliticizes the claims of oppositional social groups. By exploring the work of anti-harassment practitioners at Canadian universities, we uncover moments of both constraint and liberation in the practitioners’ work roles. Attending to the complexities of boundary role work illustrates that struggles over the definition of needs and claims made by marginalized social groups are not closed, nor are boundary workers completely co-opted by bureaucratic institutional prerogatives. Although variously constrained, interviews with practitioners reveal that their work can support counter-hegemonic challenges to the status quo.     

Teaching assistants’ roles in daily mathematics lessons

Background:?The increasing numbers of teaching assistants (TAs) and their widening role in English primary classrooms is part of wider international developments. Several large quantitative studies have been influential in shaping debate, but little qualitative research exists on TAs and the content of their activity in the key area of mathematics.

Purpose:?The article addresses the question: How do TAs in primary schools perceive their role in daily mathematics lessons?

Sample:?Twenty-four TAs employed in English primary schools participated in the study. Their experience ranged from 2 to 20 years. Two were men; the rest were women.

Design and methods:?Interviews were undertaken in the spring and summer of 2011, transcribed and coded using Glaser and Strauss’ recommended method (B. Glaser and A. Strauss, 1967, The discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for qualitative research; Chicago, IL: Aldine Publishing Company). A typology of TA activity was created and used together with other cross-cutting factors to ascertain what TAs did in general and, specifically, in mathematics teaching.

Results:?The results show that previous pictures generated from large-scale quantitative studies of TAs working with children seen as having the greatest difficulty in mathematics are essentially (though not universally) correct. However, they may be internally differentiated to a greater extent than previously envisaged.

Conclusion:?The range of TA activities in mathematics classrooms is considerably wider than previously thought; professional development for TAs and teachers needs to take account of this.     

Parents’ perfectionistic tendencies and children’s early numeracy competence: the mediating roles of children’s executive functions and numeracy interest

European Journal of Psychology of Education - Parents’ high academic expectations have often been found to benefit children’s academic outcomes. Nonetheless, little is known whether...     

Compounding roles: A study of Washington’s principals

A survey of principals and assistant principals in Washington State has revealed mounting changes in the role of these school leaders. In addition to impacts felt from state-wide education reform activities, the school principals of Washington State who participated indicated that their role is becoming more complex and onerous; the image suggested is ‘layer-upon-layer’ of devolved responsibility. Through analysis of the survey data, a picture emerges of a complex role engaged by committed (if overloaded) professionals. Three themes of principal role change are discussed: complexity, capacity, and threats to morale. New means of understanding principal roles, combined with clear understanding by policy-makers is crucial to ensure the on-going effectiveness of school leaders.     

‘I am not the teacher!’: some effects of remodelling the roles of teaching assistants in English primary schools

Remodelling the roles, responsibilities and working practices of all school staff has been central to the government's modernisation agenda for English state schools. This is typified by a determination to review and change the distribution of tasks undertaken by teachers and teaching assistants (TAs). Whilst there has been a substantial increase in the numbers of TAs employed in schools there is still a lack of clarity about their roles and about the impact of remodelling on the working lives of both teachers and assistants. Evidence from the Transforming the School Workforce: Pathfinder Project, conducted immediately prior to the launch of the National Agreement in 2003, indicates that initial concerns about the ways in which TAs were being deployed are still very apparent. Here the authors focus on management and professional development issues arising from TAs adopting more pedagogical roles in schools.     

The roles of epistemology and ideology in teachers’ pedagogy with historical ‘media’

Within the field of social studies education, disciplinary models of teaching, such as approximating a historian in asking students to ‘think historically,’ have been the emphasis of countless professional development and teacher education programs. This movement, however, has focused largely on the use of traditional primary documents and generally does not include training for teachers or students on how other forms of media construct history. This collective case study examines how two US history teachers’ epistemological beliefs about historical media and ideology and overall goals for students as citizens impacts their pedagogy with different historical media, particularly film. Data were collected on a daily basis over the course of six months, and included observations, teacher interviews, and the media used as historical sources. Findings show that teachers’ beliefs about how sources represent history affect their pedagogy with the particular media, and that epistemic development and current notions of historical thinking may be limited when it comes to media that commonly serve as historical sources for the public at large (e.g., film, television, WWW, videogames). This limitation is caused in large part by the teachers’ larger goals for students that are informed by their ideology, and difficulty in identifying bias in media that aligned with their own beliefs. Therefore, a shift in teachers’ epistemic beliefs about how different forms of media serve as sources of history, essentially a form of critical media literacy, and coinciding recognition of ideological goals needs to occur in order to better instill students with skills in historical and media literacy for the twenty‐first century.     

What predicts students’ critical thinking disposition? A comparison of the roles of classroom and family environments

Learning Environments Research - In learning environments research, limited attention has been paid to the effects of the family environment on student thinking. This study constructed a...     

Negotiating identity between career and family roles: A study of international graduate students’ wives in the US

This paper is based on a long-term ethnography of an adult creative writing class situated in a major urban art gallery in the United Kingdom. It takes the claims of one group of older adults—that creative writing made them ‘feel younger’—as the starting point for exploring this connection further. It places these claims broadly within theories of learning in later life that advocate creative expression and reminiscence as important practices for educators of older adults. However, the main analysis employs anthropological theories of creativity and ageing in order to question the cultural assumptions about creativity and the period of older age informing theory and practice. The paper argues that the value of creative writing for the individuals studied lies both in the fact that it is a relational (rather than individual) process and a means of being in the present. These findings contradict traditional conceptions about creativity as future-oriented and older people as retrospective; they also raise questions about narratives of empowerment, individual agency and the importance of ‘reminiscence’ in some of the literature on older adult learning.     

The multiple roles of chosen familia: exploring the interconnections of queer Latino men’s community cultural wealth

This study contributes to the literature on college students with multiple marginalized identities by investigating the experiences of queer Latino men as they created familial relationships during their time in college. Data from The National Study on Latino Male Achievement in Higher Education was used to elucidate how queer Latino men’s chosen family members fostered the community cultural wealth that helps them succeed at selective institutions. In addition to providing emotional and social support, chosen familia bolstered queer Latino college men’s navigational, aspirational, and resistant capital. By centering the stories of these participants using a narrative inquiry approach, this study offers important implications for staff and faculty at selective institutions as they seek to increase queer Latino men’s success in college.     

Exploring kindergarten teachers’ views and roles regarding children’s outdoor play environments in Oman

The purpose of this study was to explore kindergarten teachers’ views and roles regarding outdoor play environments in Omani kindergartens. Thirty kindergarten teachers from 15 private kindergartens were observed and interviewed. The results indicated that teachers recognize the importance of outdoor play in children’s development and learning. Although teachers are satisfied with the safety conditions of the outdoor play environments, they feel they need to know more about how to maintain safety criteria in this environment. Teachers most frequently took on the role of supervising and guiding children’s behaviour or setting up materials for play, whereas providing verbal comments and participating in play were less common. Omani outdoor play environments were found to face specific difficulties, such as the hot climate, a shortage of materials and equipment, a lack of natural surroundings and the short length of time spent outdoors. The article concludes with policy implications and pedagogical recommendations.     

Narrating neoliberalism: alternative education teachers’ conceptions of their changing roles

The signifier ‘alternative’ in education has largely shifted from progressive or humanizing pedagogies to deficit framings requiring alternate graduation criteria. This development is part of broader neoliberal educational reform efforts that disrupt longstanding conceptions of teachers’ roles. This study serves to investigate long-term teachers’ understandings of their shifting roles in one secondary-level alternative education program in New York City. Specifically, this narrative analysis study explores participating teachers’ meanings around agency and their ability to form the relationships that they argue are central to meaningful pedagogies. Findings demonstrate a sense of loss regarding teacher agency and relationships, and a belief that neoliberal reform efforts have limited possibilities for a shared sense of purpose and collaboration.     

Science teacher candidates’ perceptions about roles and nature of scientific models

Background: Scientific models have important roles in science and science education. For scientists, they provide a means for generating new knowledge or function as an accessible summary of scientific studies. In science education, on the other hand, they are accessible representations of abstract concepts, and are also organizational frameworks to teach and learn inaccessible facts. As being indispensable parts of learning and doing science, use of scientific models in science classes should be reinforced. At this point, uncovering pre-service science teachers’ (PSTs) understandings of scientific models are of great importance since they will design and conduct teaching situations for their students. Purpose: The study aimed to provide an answer to the research question: What understandings do PSTs possess about scientific models? Sample: The sample of the study consisted of 14 PSTs enrolled in an Elementary Science Education program in a public university in Ankara, Turkey. Design and methods: Data were collected by using an open-item instrument and semi-structured interviews, and were analyzed by using qualitative data analysis methods. Results: Findings showed that PSTs held fragmented views of models by having informed views in some aspects while having naïve views on others. That is, although they displayed a constructivist orientation by acknowledging the presence of multiple models for the same phenomenon depending on scientists’ perspectives or creativity involved in the production of scientific knowledge, PSTs also expressed logical positivist views by believing that models should be close to the real phenomena that they represent. Findings further revealed that PSTs generally conceptualized models’ materialistic uses, yet they did not think much about their theoretical and conceptual uses. It was observed that roles like reifying and visualizing were overestimated and models were dominantly characterized as three-dimensional representations. Conclusions: It is clear that PSTs, having difficulties in grasping the concept of models, would possibly have problems in planning their lessons effectively and would not develop accurate concepts in their students. These findings apparently support the need for appropriate pedagogic training of PSTs to scientifically reflect on and professionally make use of models in science classes.     

Sources of shifts in pre-service teachers’ patterns of attention: the roles of teaching experience and of observational experience

A key requirement of successful initial teacher education is the development of professional vision, which includes shifting attention to features of the situation relevant to the specialized goals of teaching. Existing research hints at the value of targeted video-based courses in the development of professional vision, but often raises questions about the sources of shifts in the pattern of attention. We argue that existing work makes it difficult to distinguish whether shifts seen across video interventions are the results of the intervention, teaching experience, or methodological issues with the unbalanced use of videos in the data collection in these studies. Our first study suggests pre-service teachers’ teaching practice experience does not notably affect attention, but that choice of video does. Our second study addresses the methodological issues and suggests that we may discount different or unbalanced videos as a source of the shifts in the pattern of attention. Finally, by introducing a new synthesis of the results in the literature, we identify a previously hidden key distinction between studies and suggest reasons why different studies have shown different results in this area.     

Promoting VET teachers’ innovative behaviour: exploring the roles of task interdependence,learning goal orientation and occupational self-efficacy

Changing employer demands, new technological and pedagogical insights are examples of developments which urge Vocational Education and Training (VET) institutes to continually renew and innovate their educational programmes. This, in turn, requires teachers to show innovative behaviour. Our study focuses on the effects of task interdependence on VET teachers’ innovative behaviour. In addition, the mediating roles of learning goal orientation and occupational self-efficacy in this relationship are examined. A two-wave survey study among 342 teachers, from 54 teams of 6 Dutch VET institutes, showed that task interdependence enhanced teachers’ learning goal orientation, which enhanced their engagement in innovative behaviour over time. Task interdependence also increased teachers’ occupational self-efficacy, which in turn increased their engagement in innovative behaviour. This effect, however, appeared short lived. Apparently, once teachers exceed a certain level of occupational self-efficacy, other variables, like learning goal orientation, play a more important role in sustaining innovative behaviour.     

‘I can sort of slot into many different roles’: examining teacher aide roles and their implications for practice

This study utilised role theory to investigate teacher aide roles within regional schools in Queensland, Australia. Twenty primary schoolteacher aides were interviewed; data were triangulated with 27 teacher aides' responses to a follow-up questionnaire and interviews with 6 administrative staff. Data suggest that classroom instructional support roles and small group instruction dominate teacher aide work; they also perform many non-instructional roles and work individually with students with diverse needs. School leaders must reconsider the roles expected of these professionals given their position, professional training and remuneration, better supporting teacher aides through improved communication, collaboration and sustained professional learning opportunities.     

Satisfaction with adult children’s achievements is associated with depression and loneliness in later-life: the mediating roles of children’s support and gratitude

We examined the mediating roles of gratitude and children support in the relationship between satisfaction with adult children’s achievements, and depression/loneliness in a sample of 465 community elders of Ekiti State, Nigeria. The sample includes 294 women and 171 men with mean age 74.18 (SD = 9.42) selected by means of multistage sampling method. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). Results suggested that satisfaction with adult children’s achievements was negatively associated with depression and loneliness. However, these relationships were found to be successively mediated by children’s support and gratitude. Specifically, gratitude fully mediated the relationship between satisfaction with adult children’s achievements and loneliness while children’s support was a partial mediator. Also, gratitude partially mediated the relationship between satisfaction with adult children’s achievements and depression while children’s support did not. The fit indices for the mediation model achieved the acceptable cuff-off for model fitness, CFI = .95, RMSEA = .042, 90% CI = (.033, .05, SRMR = .05, with 46% and 28% variance in depression and loneliness, respectively. In the management of geriatric depression and loneliness, mental health professionals may assess satisfaction with adult children’s achievements and utilize gratitude interventions for a happy and successful aging.