School–University–Community Pathways to Higher Education: Teacher Perceptions,School Culture and Partnership Building

This article provides a snapshot in time of teacher perceptions, school culture, and partnership building. We delineate how teachers perceive our partnership’s purpose and its role in transforming school culture. Second, we describe how teachers express the life expectations they have and the possibilities they hope for their students and the families involved with the partnership. Finally, we outline our thoughts on moving forward with building partnership, continuing to transform school culture, and collaborating with teachers. In conclusion, we discuss the role that partnership building can have on creating pathways to higher education for students in communities of color.     

School–Family–Community Partnership in Hong Kong – Perspectives and Challenges

This paper reviews the school–family partnership in Hong Kong in the past decade. The typology of Epsteins six types of partnership is adopted as the analytical framework. The results show that there has been an increase in shared experience in school education among various stakeholders. Schools have become more convinced that they have a role to play in various types of partnership. Home–school contacts have become more informal and two-way. Teachers have been changing their views of how capable are parents in supporting the school. However, the increase in communication does not seem to focus on childrens learning. The relationship of the school-sponsoring bodies and the Government was hampered in the exercise of widening the governance structure. Hong Kong parents mainly serve as supporters of their children at home in the past. They have now also become customers, and to some extent learners, volunteers and managers in school education.     

Behind the School Walls: The School Community in French and English Boarding Schools for Girls, 1810–1867

This article develops a comparative analysis of lay boarding schools for girls in France and England in the first part of the nineteenth century, demonstrating that the character of school life in the two countries differed markedly. Contemporary observers such as Matthew Arnold, Henry Montucci and Jacques Demogeot visited boys' schools on either side of the Channel and contrasted the “barrack‐life” of lycées in France with the more domestic arrangements of English public schools, but they did not visit the private boarding schools for girls that were multiplying in both England and France in the first half of the nineteenth century. Evidence collected from inspection records, school memoirs and pedagogical treatises, however, reveals differences between female establishments on either side of the Channel that echoed, but were not identical to, the contrasts between English and French boys' schools. Different ideas on the nature and role of women interacted with the separate educational traditions of the two countries to construct two distinct institutional models of female schooling which could be termed “domestic” for England, and “conventual” for France. The article compares female institutions in the two countries to uncover some of the key features of these distinct models of schooling. In highlighting the way ideas about gender shaped school communities, it points to differences in the prevailing conception of femininity on either side of the Channel.

English girls' schools tended to be small in size and self‐consciously familial and homely in atmosphere and organization. Many schoolmistresses deliberately limited the number of pupils they would accept in order to preserve the intimate and domestic character of their establishments. This reflects the influence of a conception of femininity emphasizing women's maternal nature and domestic role, and women teachers' need to conform to this ideal in order to preserve their middle‐class status. French schools, by contrast, were more often large, hierarchically organized establishments. Unlike their English counterparts, they tended to be housed in buildings specially adapted as schools. The institutional character of French schools owed much to the educational patterns of convent schooling and to the powerful position occupied by women in religious orders.

The differences between these two conceptions of the school affected the conditions of school life and relations between pupils and teachers in concrete ways. In England, schoolmistresses tended to cultivate warm relationships with their pupils, and often characterized their role in maternal terms. Naturally, in practice not all relationships between teachers and their charges were as harmonious as the language of motherhood might suggest, yet at a time when spinsters might be labelled “redundant” or “unnatural”, drawing on a maternal metaphor was one of the ways in which schoolmistresses, who were for the most part unmarried and childless, could reconcile their situation with prevailing ideals of femininity. At the same time, motherhood was the only socially legitimate position through which a woman could exercise authority. In keeping with the familial atmosphere, warm relations between pupils were also encouraged in English girls' schools, and girls often enjoyed considerable liberty in the collective “room of one's own” that school could offer. In France, schoolmistresses tended to maintain more distant relations with their pupils, drawing on the precedents established by women in religious orders to develop authoritative public personae. At the same time, pupils were strictly supervised and attempts were made to limit the intimacy of friendships between schoolgirls. Schoolgirl memoirs are peppered with references to “the school walls” that heightened pupils' sense of enclosure and contained them within a rigid system of discipline and order. In practice, girls at school were often able to establish warm friendships with their peers and to circumvent the rules, yet such intimacies and rebellions went against the grain. The school regulations preserved in the archives evoke strictly ordered days and continual supervision of pupils; they reveal a preoccupation with order and discipline and the same suspicion of female autonomy that Bonnie Smith and Gabrielle Houbre have identified in the work of Catholic educators whose central concern was the preservation of a feminine innocence.

The interaction of differing ideas about the nature and role of women with distinct inherited educational traditions and with contrasting ideas about the state's role in education resulted in the construction of two distinct models of female schooling in England and France. The effect was that if, in both countries, the stated aim of the education provided by girls' boarding schools was to educate girls for motherhood, behind the school walls the character of daily life in English and French establishments differed in significant ways. Comparing the structure of schools and experience of schoolmistresses and their pupils in these different institutions highlights the ways in which ideas about gender helped shape the school community and uncovers the roots of the contrasting evolution of female education on either side of the Channel.     

Effective Schools and Home‐School‐Community Partnership Roles: A Framework for Parent Involvement

The increased interest in parent involvement as a strategy for school reform stems from two bodies of parent involvement research. One set of studies examined family learning environments; the other investigated the impact on student learning of school‐initiated parent involvement programs. This article reviews these two bodies of research, which have influenced current discussions about home‐school partnerships, shows the relationship between practices of successful home‐learning environments and effective schools research, and uses this relationship to propose a typology of home‐school‐community partnership roles and activities. When the research on effective family practices is combined with effective schools research and placed within a typology of partnership roles, schools have a framework for examining current parent involvement practices and exploring strategies that will enhance student learning both at home and at school.

     

The ‘New’ Free Senior High School Policy in Ghana: Emergent Issues and Challenges of Implementation in Schools

Interchange - Free secondary education remains limited in the developing world, where some 80% of 264 million children currently unable to access secondary education across 65 countries associated...     

If You Will It?: The Early History of Non-Orthodox Secondary Day Schools in Los Angeles

ABSTRACT

The development of non-Orthodox Jewish day schools in Los Angeles in the 1970s to 1990s can be attributed to a combination of factors, including the city’s geography, the deterioration of public education, court-ordered busing that began in the 1970s, and strong rabbinic personalities. Yet, as elementary day schools proliferated throughout the city, educators struggled to keep secondary day schools afloat. Contributing factors to the challenges secondary schools faced included sprawling city geography, lack of communal support, and parental desire to send children to established high schools with proven track records for college preparation and admission.     

Secondary Education and Emancipation: Secondary Schools for Freed Slaves in the American South, 1862–1875

Slavery in the United States denied education to the enslaved. Yet within fifteen years of the beginning of the American Civil War and the freeing of four million American slaves, the freed people and their supporters elaborated a full system of universal education in the South, including over 120 secondary and higher institutions. Historians have overlooked black secondary education as a distinctive part of early black schooling. This article documents the competing ends of black secondary education during Reconstruction, the forms of secondary education that emerged during that period, and the curriculum and pedagogy of the schools. An appendix lists the schools of secondary and higher grade known to have been in operation by 1876.     

Cultivating an Environment That Contributes to Teaching and Learning in Schools: High School Principals’ Actions

Improving principal leadership is a vital component to the success of educational reform initiatives that seek to improve whole-school performance, as principal leadership often exercises positive but indirect effects on student learning. Because of the importance of principals within the field of school improvement, this article focuses on investigating the actions taken by principals working to cultivate an environment that contributes to effective teaching and learning. Utilizing data from 183 high school principals in Taiwan, this article finds that principals contribute to the healthy environment through personal, organizational, professional, and communal approaches. This article proposes that a respectful and caring learning community is the ideal environment for teaching and learning. This article also provides suggestions for principal leadership development that will help facilitate such an environment.     

A Study on Teachers’ Occupational Belief in Local Universities and Colleges: Based on the Survey of a College in Xiamen

Abstract:

In higher education institutions (HEI), teachers’ occupational belief is an important factor to promote teachers’ development and maintain their occupational stability, so the research of teachers’ occupational belief has become more and more significant. This study took the teachers in a local college as samples. The following four aspects were analyzed: living conditions, occupational reputation, role expectation, and development expectation. According to the results of the survey, there are some new findings. For living conditions, the salary satisfaction of teacher is low and many of them show the tendency to resign. For occupational reputation, the overall evaluation of their reputation is at a general level. For role expectation, these teachers face different difficulties and also suffer the pressure in various aspects, especially in school requirements and their own demands. For development expectation, their satisfaction with promotion opportunities and working environment conditions is also low. Male and female teachers show noticeable discrepancy on public evaluation of teachers’ occupational reputation. Teachers with different discipline background and teaching ages have obviously different attitudes on public evaluation and individual evaluation of teachers’ occupational reputation. Teachers with different education background vary with each other on the issue of working pressure.     

Teachers’ Ratings,Sex, and SCAT as Predictors of Rank in High School Class

Data from 561 high-school seniors were analyzed using multiple linear regression to determine the independent contribution of each variable to the criterion of rank in class (R). Significant F ratioswere obtained for SCAT V and Q, teachers’ ratings of Accuracy (ACCU), Effort and Industry (E-I), and Reliability and Responsibility (R-R). R-R and ACCU, but not E-I, were found to be significant preditors of SCAT V and SCAT Q. Females were significantly higher than males on R, ACCU, E-I, and R-R and lower on SCAT Q. The data were interpreted as supporting the effectiveness of teachers’ ratings in predicting academic performance in high school. Females’ superior performance on teacher ratings was interpreted as evidence that females conformed more than males to teachers’ expectations.     

But,Do I Need a College Degree?: Understanding Perceptions of College and Career Readiness among Students Enrolled in a Career and Technical High School

Innovative Higher Education - Career and technical education (CTE) and college preparation curriculum in high school are often treated as mutually exclusive options rather than integrated,...     

The Flipped Classroom: Primary and Secondary Teachers’ Views on an Educational Movement in Schools in Sweden Today

The aim of this study is to contribute to an increased understanding of the flipped classroom movement. A total of 7 teachers working in school years 4–9 and who both actively flipped their classrooms and had been early adopters in this movement were interviewed. Two research questions were posed: “What characterizes flipped classroom instruction according to the teachers?” and “What objectives do the flipped classroom meet according to the teachers?” Regarding the first research question, a characteristic of a flipped classroom was “the flip,” a task to be accomplished outside the classroom before class. In relation to the second research question we found three objectives: Student activity in class; Educational change; Being part of a digital learning community.     

Language Attitudes and Community Engagement: Diwan–The Breton Immersion High School Through the Eyes of Its Pupils

This article is based on long-term participant observation and interviews with pupils and graduates of the Diwan immersion high school in Brittany, France. With reference to the theory of communities of practice, this article shows how the education in the Breton immersion school can influence a knowledge of the minority language and the young peoples’ engagement with the protection of the Breton language. This article presents the social and cultural capital received through the learning of the Breton language; the distinction between Diwan pupils and people from outside the community; and the gradual formation of a collective new Breton-speakers identity. The sociolinguistic prognostic shows that in a few dozen years the only Breton speakers will be Breton learners. The use of Breton depends thus on having knowledge of it and on finding a community in which this language acts as the benchmark for the creation of a Breton identity.     

Re-imaging Reader-Response in Middle and Secondary Schools: Early Adolescent Girls’ Critical and Communal Reader Responses to the Young Adult Novel Speak

Reader-response has become one of the most influential literary theories to inform the pedagogies of middle and secondary English classrooms. However, many English and literacy educators have begun to advocate for more critical and culturally responsive versions of reader-response pedagogies, arguing that teachers move beyond valuing students’ personal responses to literature. This article, based on a yearlong qualitative study that explored how urban middle school girls participated in an after-school book club, presents a conceptualization of reading as critical and communal practice; and shows how early adolescent girls engaged with the young adult novel Speak and with one another. The adolescent girls, through reading communally, gained deeper understanding of the written text, and also encountered different ways of looking at themselves and others.     

Changing the Landscape of Social Emotional Learning in Urban Schools: What are We Currently Focusing On and Where Do We Go from Here?

The Urban Review - This study provides a systematic review of the use of social emotional learning (SEL) interventions in urban schools over the last 20 years. I summarize the types of...     

High School Students’ Accuracy in Estimating the Cost of College: A Proposed Methodological Approach and Differences Among Racial/Ethnic Groups and College Financial-Related Factors

High school students’ accuracy in estimating the cost of college (AECC) was examined by utilizing a new methodological approach, the absolute-deviation-continuous construct. This study used the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09) data and examined 10,530 11th grade students in order to measure their AECC for 4-year public and private postsecondary institutions. The findings revealed that high school students tended to overestimate the cost of college, especially 4-year public in-state tuition. Second, this investigation explored AECC differences across racial/ethnic groups. Lastly, this research examined how AECC differed based on racial/ethnic and college financial-related factors (importance of cost on college enrollment, knowledge of and intent to complete FAFSA, and eligibility for financial aid). This examination is important because it is the first critical analysis of AECC and is timely given the data were collected immediately after the Great Recession.     

A University–School Partnership to Examine the Adoption and Implementation of the Ohio Community Collaboration Model in One Urban School District: A Mixed-Method Case Study

School improvement models are expanding to incorporate priorities around positive youth development, safe and supportive school climates, school mental health, and school–family community partnerships. A partnership was formed between researchers and district/school leaders to examine the 3-year adoption and implementation of 1 such exemplary model, the Ohio Community Collaboration Model for School Improvement, in a Midwest urban district serving a large number of students at-risk. Researchers and district/school leaders examined what types of system-level capacities developed, and explored student- and school-level outcomes that occurred over the course of implementation. Multiple innovations resulted, such as strengthened policies, improved partnerships and collaborations, and enhanced funding streams. Students' perceptions of academic press, school climate, and academic motivation improved over the 3 years. Academic report cards show progress toward districtwide improvement. Implications are drawn for researchers and school leaders, especially in relation to the design, implementation, and evaluation of collaborative models of school improvement.