How vocational psychologists can make a difference in K–12 education

In general, vocational psychologists have not been engaged in applied research that demonstrates how career interventions can improve educational problems that matter to relevant decision-makers and stakeholders. This article describes how vocational psychology can make a difference in K–12 education by embracing an interdisciplinary community-based approach. To illustrate this approach, a quasi-experimental evaluation of multiple after-school programs provided to a sample of Hispanic Americans is presented. This study offers a realistic example of how researchers in the field can induce change through the development of meaningful partnerships within the community.     

Decisions and attitudes concerning child sexual abuse: does the gender of the perpetrator make a difference to child protection professionals?

Objective: An investigation was conducted into whether child protection investigators, specifically social workers and the police, are as likely to take seriously a case of child sexual abuse if it had been perpetrated by a female rather than a male. Also, to examine whether the decisions relating to female-perpetrated abuse were predicted by participants’ sex role perceptions of women and their attitudes concerning women’s sexualized behavior towards children.Method: Participants advocated decisions in response to four hypothetical case of child sexual abuse in which the perpetrator was either male or female. The female perpetrators were then rated on femininity and masculinity characteristics and attitudes concerning women’s sexualized behavior toward children were assessed.Results: Following male—rather than female—perpetrated sexual abuse, case registration and imprisonment of the perpetrator was considered more appropriate by all participant groups; male social workers also considered social services involvement and investigation as more appropriate. A substantial number of decisions concerning female perpetrated abuse were predicted by participants’ attitudes.Conclusion: While child protection professionals considered child sexual abuse perpetrated by females to be a serious issue warranting intervention, a number of advocated decisions suggested that they did not consider female-perpetrated abuse to be as serious as male-perpetrated abuse. The implication is that victims of sexual abuse perpetrated by a woman may be less likely to receive the protection afforded victims of male-perpetrated abuse. Furthermore, professionals’ practices may be inadvertently perpetuating the view that female child sexual abuse is rare or less harmful than abuse carried out by males.Spanish abstract was not available at time of publication.     

School-to-work transitions in the OECD: do education systems make a difference?

High unemployment among the young is a concern in many OECD countries. A key issue for policy makers is whether the education system has a role to play in assisting the transition from education to work or whether economic issues dominate. This paper uses OECD country-level data to see whether the structure of countries’ education systems, characterised by the level of participation by age at the various ISCED education levels, affects systematically the level of unemployment for the cohorts aged 20–24 and 25–29 years who should have largely completed their transition to work. Various confounding factors, including overall labour market conditions and demographic structures, are accounted for. We find that the structure of education systems does make a difference, although the general state of the labour market is critical.     

Price-induced substitution of faculty in academe: Does mission make a difference?

In an earlier paper Tuckman and Chang demonstrated that college faculty were substitutable and that differences in faculty salaries influenced the distribution of faculty by rank and sex. This paper uses a similar methodology to explore the question of whether institutions of high education with different missions have different substitution patterns and price elasticities. Our main conclusion is that price-related substitution does exist at each of the four types of colleges in our sample. However, the observed price effects are small and there is little evidence that any one college type is consistently more price responsive than any other.     

Incorporating critical thinking in the pedagogical content of a teacher education programme: does it make a difference?

Recent educational policies, national reports, and voluminous literature stress that critical thinking (CT) is an essential skill in any stage of schooling for producing critical thinkers and ensuring better learning. The importance of teaching CT has been raised in teacher education programmes because students are supposed to teach this skill in schools in the future. This study therefore assesses the effects of a CT-based pedagogical course on student teachers’ content knowledge and CT disposition. A pre-test–post-test experimental study was carried out in a vocational pre-service teacher education programme in Turkey. Although the students who were exposed to CT-based instruction showed better progress in both academic achievement and CT disposition than in traditional instruction, this result was not statistically significant according to the Mixed Factorial ANOVA and ANCOVA results.     

Predictors of re-entry into the child protection system in Singapore: A cumulative ecological–transactional risk model

This study examines the risk factors of re-entry for 1,750 child protection cases in Singapore using a cumulative ecological–transactional risk model. Using administrative data, the present study found that the overall percentage of Child Protection Service (CPS) re-entry in Singapore is 10.5% based on 1,750 cases, with a range from 3.9% (within 1 year) to 16.5% (within 8 years after case closure). One quarter of the re-entry cases were observed to occur within 9 months from case closure. Seventeen risk factors, as identified from the extant literature, were tested for their utility to predict CPS re-entry in this study using a series of Cox regression analyses. A final list of seven risk factors (i.e., children's age at entry, case type, case closure result, duration of case, household income, family size, and mother's employment status) was used to create a cumulative risk score. The results supported the cumulative risk model in that higher risk score is related to higher risk of CPS re-entry. Understanding the prevalence of CPS re-entry and the risk factors associated with re-entry is the key to informing practice and policy in a culturally relevant way. The results from this study could then be used to facilitate critical case management decisions in order to enhance positive outcomes of families and children in Singapore's care system.     

Identifying the ‘subnormal’ child in an age of expansion of special education and child science in the Netherlands (c.1945–1965)

Between c.1945 and 1965 across the West special education has grown and differentiated substantially. In the Netherlands this expansion ran parallel to the academic recognition and rapid development of the study of learning disabilities. How are these two processes related? This article argues that in this country child science and special education have mutually stimulated each other’s growth and development. The creation of new categories of special-needs children brought about a climate in which the study of learning disabilities and their treatment could flourish. This, in turn, produced further differentiation between children with learning difficulties. Soon problems of identification and categorisation of mentally ‘subnormal’ children proved too complicated to rely on intelligence testing and medical-psychological diagnosis alone. Educational prognosis, based on long-term observation and all kinds of testing, became the key to a child’s future at school and educationists instead of psychologists became the foremost keyholders.     

Making sense of pre-service teachers’ dispositions towards social justice: can teacher education make a difference?

Given Australia's diverse student population, the need for pre-service teacher education to prepare what is a predominantly Anglo-Australian and middle-class profession to be effective teachers of diverse students is critical. In Lortie's (1975 Lortie, D. 1975. Schoolteacher: A sociological study, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.  [Google Scholar]) classic study, however, he argues that the predispositions of teacher education students are a much more powerful socialising influence than pre-service education. This article explores dispositions towards social justice in pre-service teachers from two teacher education programs within one Australian metropolitan university. Drawing on notions of distributive, retributive and recognitive justice (Gale & Densmore, 2000 Gale, T. and Densmore, K. 2000. Just schooling: Explorations in the cultural politics of teaching, Buckingham: Open University Press.  [Google Scholar]) as a way of making sense of socially just dispositions, interviews with four pre-service teachers – two beginning their Graduate Diploma in Education program (a one year program) and two beginning their final year of the Bachelor of Education program (a four year program) – are analysed. Differences in the dispositions of teachers from the two cohorts are examined and implications for teacher education discussed.     

‘Certified to make a difference’: the motivation and perceptions of newly qualified early years teachers in England

The last 20 years have brought numerous workforce reforms to the early years sector, enacted in the name of professionalisation, including the recent introduction of a new postgraduate qualification, the Early Years Teacher Status. This article features data from interviews with 22 participants who had just completed this award and situates their views in the relevant policy context and alongside a discussion of what it means to professionalise the early years sector and create a graduate led workforce. The data support findings from similar studies of Early Years Professionals, namely that the interviewees are passionate about working with young children. They view the sector as in need of change, and themselves as potential leaders and agents of change. The participants endorse the view that up-skilling the workforce is essential to the professionalisation of the sector and improving the quality of early years education.     

Comparing Chinese undergraduate students’ level of intercultural communication competence: does studying in the USA make a difference?

This article presents the results of a study conducted in order to determine whether Chinese students who study in the USA for a portion of their internationalised undergraduate degree programme report differences in intercultural communication competence (ICC) compared to their classmates who remain in China. The results showed no significant differences in reported intercultural communication competence between students studying in Beijing and those studying in Denver. Frequency of multicultural group work was not associated with higher intercultural communication competence for students in Beijing, but it was positively associated with higher intercultural communication competence for students in Denver. The strongest relationship observed in the data was between intercultural communication competence and reciprocity, that is, the equal exchange of information and ideas among students. These results have implications for alternatives to study abroad, as well as classroom interventions designed to improve students’ intercultural communication competence.     

Student Success in First-Year University Physics and Mathematics Courses: Does the high-school attended make a difference?

This paper considers school factors that contribute to a successful transition from high school to first-year university Physics courses at the University of British Columbia by employing a two-level hierarchical model. It is assumed that there is a relationship between student performance and the high school they graduated from. It is shown that school location and type affect student performance: students from public schools in the Metro Vancouver area perform better in first year compared to students from independent schools and schools in distant communities. The study also considers rankings of schools based on student performance in first-year university Physics and Calculus courses. These university-based rankings differ significantly (essentially in reverse order) from the well-known Fraser Institute rankings based on measures internal to high schools.     

Theorising the take-up of ICT: can Valsiner’s three zones framework make a contribution?

This article explores the contribution of theory to understanding the take-up of information and communications technology (ICT) and, in particular, it describes how Valsiner’s three zones framework came to be used in a study of lecturers in Saudi higher education institutions. The article describes the value of theory and, in the process, illustrates some of the approaches taken in the literature on teachers’ use of ICT. The challenges faced in theorising are also covered. The article then goes on to give the background to a study of ICT use among university lecturers before moving to a discussion of methodology and presentation of key findings. Next, attention shifts to explaining key aspects of Valsiner’s zones framework and showing how this framework was applied to explain the modest but differentiated use of ICT across eight institutions. Finally, the article discusses the strengths and limitations of the zones framework and highlights some of the wider challenges which theorisation poses.     

Comparing overexcitabilities of gifted and non-gifted school children in Hong Kong: does culture make a difference?

Overexcitabilities (OEs) are ways that an individual experiences the world and can be understood as channels of information flow. The current study examined the profile of OEs among a group of Hong Kong children. Participants included 229 non-gifted and 217 gifted children. OEs were measured using the Overexcitability Questionnaire II. Results indicated that there were differences between the gifted and the non-gifted groups in all OE subscales. Gender differences were also identified. Females, in both gifted and non-gifted groups, have a significantly higher score in Emotional OE when compared to males. In addition, gifted females also scored significantly higher than their male counterparts in Sensual OE. Results of this study were compared to a group of American children (based on C.L. Tieso's work on overexcitabilities in 2007). The implications and limitations of this study are presented.     

The role of teacher and faculty trust in forming teachers' job satisfaction: Do years of experience make a difference?

This study relates trust at the level of both the teacher and the faculty to teachers' job satisfaction. Teaching experience is explored as a moderator of the trust–satisfaction relationship. Multilevel analyses on data of 2091 teachers across 80 secondary schools in Flanders (Belgium) revealed positive associations between teacher trust in students, parents, colleagues, and the principal and satisfaction. Although faculty trust did not affect job satisfaction and teaching experience did not moderate the trust–satisfaction relationship, our findings highlight the social dimension of teaching. Improving the quality of teachers' social relationships in the workplace should enhance their job satisfaction.     

Can instructional and emotional support in the first-grade classroom make a difference for children at risk of school failure?

This study examined ways in which children's risk of school failure may be moderated by support from teachers. Participants were 910 children in a national prospective study. Children were identified as at risk at ages 5-6 years on the basis of demographic characteristics and the display of multiple functional (behavioral, attention, academic, social) problems reported by their kindergarten teachers. By the end of first grade, at-risk students placed in first-grade classrooms offering strong instructional and emotional support had achievement scores and student-teacher relationships commensurate with their low-risk peers; at-risk students placed in less supportive classrooms had lower achievement and more conflict with teachers. These findings have implications for understanding the role that classroom experience may play in pathways to positive adaptation.     

Mapping inclusion of a child with autism in a mainstream kindergarten: how can we move towards more inclusive practices?

ABSTRACT

This study identify and reflect on barriers to inclusion that children with autism can meet in kindergarten. We use a single case study with participant- and video observation to map inclusion for a single 5-year-old boy with autism, in a mainstream kindergarten in Norway. Analysis identified three modes of inclusion; distance-keeping, maintaining proximity and interacting. The mapping procedure demonstrated that barriers to inclusion continue to operate. The extent of the child's participation seemed to relate to what he was doing and who he was with; overall, limited social inclusion amongst peers being achieved. Results indicated that predictable frameworks and teacher support increased participation. We discuss how participation for children with autism can be promoted. Our study points toward the need to extend current adaptations and support to children with autism within the educational settings, to enable a more inclusive practice.