Brokering educational opportunity for homeless students and their families

This qualitative study in a Midwestern US city examines how school and community-based organizations support homeless students’ connections to education-related resources and relationships. Drawing from organizational brokerage theory, which delineates how individuals’ chances to thrive are shaped by the organizations in which they participate, the study finds that brokerage practice unfolds and is affected by variables at three specific levels. First, social workers, teachers, and principals at the individual school level arranged for registration, enrollment, and other immediate connections for students. Second, school district-level actors played key roles in orchestrating homeless students’ transportation and educators’ professional development across the city. Third, a range of neighborhood factors – including immigration and housing trends – affected the ways and extents to which organizations identified and supported homeless students. The study concludes by presenting several implications for research and practice.     

Safety,celebration, and risk: educator responses to LGBTQ professional development

Research has explored multicultural teacher education from multiple, sometimes divergent perspectives; yet, these studies agree that what passes for multicultural education fails to address issues of educational inequity. This paper is part of a larger evaluation study of Reduction of Stigma in Schools (RSIS) – a professional development program aiming to empower educators to create affirming environments for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Questioning (LGBTQ) youth. Interview data indicate that though workshops utilized a critical approach, what teachers embraced was a call to understand and “protect” LGBTQ students through the “safety” discourse – a form of understanding and valuing the “cultural other” – and investment in one time “visibility” or “celebration” events as symbols of improved school climate. Further, educators framed LGBTQ issues as “risk” issues rather than as equity issues, which continue to mark LGBTQ students as “victims” or “problems” in need of saving or solving. We posit that responses to RSIS content reflect educators’ understanding of their obligation to “diversity” as presented during their teacher preparation programs and that workshop content which resonated with them was that which they could easily fit into these familiar frameworks.     

Which homes? A response to Scarr and McCartney (1988)

Scarr and McCartney's (1988) Bermudian study shows the futility of using the Verbal Interaction Project's Mother-Child Home Program (MCHP) to prevent later educational disadvantage in preschoolers who are not at risk for such disadvantage. Recently published research is cited to support a conclusion that poverty alone does not predict school disadvantage so much as poor parents frequently having low motivation and less than high school graduation, unlike the Bermudian sample. Significant positive school effects through eighth grade are noted to have occurred when the MCHP was used with Massachusetts preschoolers who were socioeconomically at risk for educational disadvantage and thus were of lower SES than the advantaged Bermudian children. Methodological issues are also discussed.     

Educational Collaboration in the Restructuring of Schools

The need for improved collaboration among educators in the schools has been repeatedly documented in both first wave (legislated learning) and second wave (empowerment/school restructuring) education reform movements. This article describes the role of educational collaboration as one important key to professional sharing of best practices in the restructuring of schools. Critical issues and practical strategies for developing and implementing this shared planning, decision-making, and problem-solving process are discussed. The importance of operationally defining educational collaboration as it is to be implemented in each individual school is emphasized. issues and strategies for developing school norms that support educational collaboration, including redefining and clarifying professional roles, systematic staff training and support, developing organizational structures for collaboration, and providing professionals with adequate time for collaboration, are reviewed and critiqued.     

Professional Development Schools: New Opportunities for Training School Counselors

The authors examine how counselor educators can become involved in professional development schools to create enhanced training opportunities for school counseling internship students. The benefits of collaboration between university and public school faculties are explored, and research opportunities are discussed. Counselor educators' expertise in research and program evaluation, combined with school counselors' pragmatic experience in dealing with real‐life issues, may promote best practices in the schools and improved training for school counselors and can set the stage for collaboration as an educational team at the preservice level.     

Censoring Freedom: Community-Based Professional Development and the Politics of Profanity

The lack of strong literacy skills and practices among students is perhaps the clearest indicator that the education system continues to leave millions of children behind. To advance the reading, writing, and speaking skills of middle and high school students, this study examines a professional development model that brought trained community-based poets into the classroom to conduct weekly writing workshops. Over the course of two years, poet-mentor educators worked alongside 30 English Language Arts and Special Education teachers, reaching over 800 students. When the literacy program entered its second year, issues of propriety and language usages unveiled deep rifts between who students were as individuals and who educators wanted them to be as learners. The literature on multiple literacies and cultural relevancy helped frame the professional development within a larger movement to bring student voices and experiences into the curriculum (e.g., Gay, 2000; Ladson-Billings, 1994, 1995; Mahiri, 1998a, 1998b), but even this scholarship does not address the contentious interplay between student self-expression, conformity, and academic achievement. So what happens when students' poetry embodies inner-city street vernacular and volatile subject matter that offends teachers? To address this concern, my research analyzes how to use spoken word poetry as a form of critical literacy development and empowerment within the confines of school.     

University-School Partnership in China: Teachers’ Personal Factors,Working Conditions,and Principal Leadership That Explain Their Development in Teaching

In China, the university-school partnership (USP) is a community of continuous professional development (PD) for teachers, involving teacher educators who visit schools. This study explores teachers’ personal factors, school working conditions, and principal leadership in order to explain differences in teachers’ learning when they have participated in the training program. Using a one-group pretest-posttest design, 375 teachers from 12 primary schools in Shanghai participated. Their learning performances are measured by changes in their teaching quality as evaluated by their students. Results of regression analyses show that teachers generally receive higher scores on teaching quality after the program than before. Three factors are significantly and negatively related to the changes in quality: teachers’ educational level, the extent to which teachers feel emotional pressure in their profession, and the support from their school principal. Implications for school leaders and policymakers are discussed.     

The student voice in well-being: a case study of participatory action research in positive education

Positive education blends academic learning and student well-being. Although research and application in positive education is growing, most has involved psychologists and educators applying strategies in schools, with little research that involves student voices in the development and implementation of a school’s positive education strategy. Assumptions are frequently made about what is best for student well-being, with little input from the students themselves. This paper describes a case study of participatory action research (PAR) carried out by students (N = 10) at a publically funded Australian school aiming to implement positive education. PAR is a form of collective inquiry undertaken by the people that the issue directly affects. The PAR group researched the school community regarding well-being during the school year. Mixed methods examined PAR student’s well-being, self-efficacy, autonomy, social and emotional assets, and other competencies before and after the process. Student involvement allowed the school to better understand their students’ well-being, and student-led communication about positive education laid the groundwork for its implementation. Results suggested benefits for the PAR students, particularly in engagement and self-efficacy. This realistically scaled study suggests that involving students using a framework of PAR is a promising, accessible, evidence-based, and developmentally beneficial approach to the implementation of positive education.     

Stimulating tensions in special education teachers' figured world: an approach toward inclusive education

I examine special educators’ professional identity emergence and tensions within a researcher-facilitated teacher learning community. I introduced tools to evoke and challenge inequities in educational systems and via which participants examined and planned general education instruction for students with dis/abilities. Initially, professional identity, or figured world, emerged as performance of pathologising and relatedly, remediating students. Over time, participants expressed tensions as they engaged tools to examine structural limitations and design more universally accessible instruction; figured worlds shifted to critical sense-making about their positioning by general education colleagues and school structural barriers, and procedural identity performance tied to investigating student assets. Findings suggest potential for purposefully designed artefacts to mediate special educators’ development as (more) inclusive educators.     

SUBJECT STATUS AND CURRICULUM CHANGE: COMMERCIAL EDUCATION IN LONDON,ONTARIO, 1920‐1940

A case study of commercial studies in London, Ontario, Canada, reveals one aspect of the complex interaction of curriculum change and subject status. During the 1920s, commercial educators at the London Technical and Commercial High School responded to a perceived marginalization of their subject's status by introducing two new courses. Since the decline of commercial studies had followed an influx of female students, and children coming from families headed by manual workers, the subject teachers designed the courses to attract males in one case, and children from higher income groups in the other. Thus, in an attempt to raise their own professional status, commercial educators at the school constructed a curriculum in which class and gender characteristics served to segregate students, structure their schooling experience, and provide differentiated educational outcomes.     

Curriculum and instruction for the gifted: The role of school psychologists

This paper explores the school psychologist's role in the academic and psychosocial development of students identified as gifted and talented via curriculum. Given the school psychologists' assessment expertize, they can inform the identification to service placement process for students, including advocacy for curricular and instructional opportunities that best meet the student's needs. We discuss modern conceptualizations of giftedness and talent development, the function of curriculum and instruction in meeting the needs of students who are gifted and the school psychologist's role in identifying which curricular adaptations are appropriate for students based on learner data. We also discuss how a school psychologist can work with educators to support the needs of twice exceptional learners and gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning students and recommend professional learning opportunities for school psychologists to remain abreast of current issues in gifted education.     

解读教师专业素养——基于专家教师和教研员的视角

在促进以发展学生核心素养为理念的课程改革中,教师专业素养至关重要.本文结合对专业素养、特别是教师的专业素养文献的介绍,描述了一项启发式研究(Elicitation Study).通过对上海地区一线教育研究工作者(主要指教研员和专家型教师)关于教师专业素养的观点的调查,研究刻画出他们对教师专业素养的认识,包括专业素养的主要成分;并且指出不同职称、学段的教育研究工作者对教师专业素养的不同观点.希冀能启发并指向在后续研究中提出更合理、更细目化的教师专业素养模型,促进教师专业的发展,最终达到发展中国学生核心素养的目标.研究结果显示,从一线教育研究工作者(以数学学科为例)的观点中,我们可以得到教师专业素养是一个多维度的概念,它包含教师知识等在内的诸多因素,以及这些因素交互作用所产生的个人特征;具有较高职称的、工作于高中学段的教育研究者对教师专业素养的观点与其他工作者有明显差别.     

Critical moments in the process of educational change: understanding the dynamics of change among teacher educators

This study examines the complex process of change among teacher educators who have chosen to improve their practice in a professional development community. Storyline methodology was used to reveal the dynamic process which teacher educators undergo when they consider adopting innovative pedagogy. Findings reveal critical moments in professional development which are characterised by evaluation of feedback from colleagues and students. Professional growth results not only from interaction and negotiation of meaning within the community but also from the effects of messages received from outside the communal context. A two factor model taking into account implementation and feedback is used to show the dynamic process of evaluation and negotiation in teacher educators’ professional development trajectory. This study deepens understanding of transition towards change within learning communities, while providing insight into the development of teacher educators as a distinct professional group.     

Policy issues for learning disability computer integration

With the current expansion and development of educational computing in public and private schools across the country, policy issues for computer integration can be extremely important for educators. In the present article, research on a 3-year computer integration program at a private school for students with learning disabilities is used to illustrate integration issues. Problems and limitations in the computer program, ranging from lack of direction, support, and leadership from the administration to the lack of funds for maintenance or development, are identified and discussed. Policies and implications for the future of educational computing for students with learning disabilities as well as for private schools are examined.     

The emergence of the marketing professional in schools

Abstract

The marketisation of schools has emerged as a defining feature of the education landscape. While the role of principals and lead teachers in carrying out marketing work was investigated in the late 1990s, there has been scant evidence of how the people and practices of marketing in schools have evolved into the twenty-first century. Expanding on existing literature on educational marketing practices in schools, and through in-depth interviews with a unique sample of school marketers, this study explores the emergence of the school marketing professional. The interviews reveal the diverse backgrounds and experiences of these individuals, the transfer of their business skills into schools and the tensions in professional boundaries with educators who traditionally performed school marketing activities. Ultimately, the study furthers insights into the co-existence of educational and managerial agendas in the schools market.     

‘Boys don’t rule us’: exploring Rwandan girls with disabilities’ resistance to masculine dominance in school

Although a great deal of previous literature has explored the ways in which social class affects parental engagement in educational processes, there has been surprisingly little discussion of the way in which social class shapes the parent–professional interaction that occurs in school exclusion processes specifically. School exclusion processes are complex and those parents who become involved in them have to negotiate not only the formal processes that surround the use of permanent and fixed-term exclusion but also the less well-regulated and increasingly favoured processes that are associated with the use of alternatives to exclusion from school. This paper draws on the perspectives of professionals working in a wide variety of roles and contexts in one local authority in England and on those of a small number of mothers of children with longer and more complex histories of involvement in school exclusion processes. It argues for greater recognition of the impact of social class on parent–professional interaction in school exclusion processes because of the way in which it helps to perpetuate an intergenerational cycle of social and educational disadvantage.     

Do school entry laws affect educational attainment and labor market outcomes?

Age based school entry laws force parents and educators to consider an important tradeoff: though students who are the youngest in their school cohort typically have poorer academic performance, on average, they have slightly higher educational attainment. In this paper we document that for a large cohort of California and Texas natives the school entry laws increased educational attainment of students who enter school early, but also lowered their academic performance while in school. However, we find no evidence that the age at which children enter school effects job market outcomes, such as wages or the probability of employment. This suggests that the net effect on adult labor market outcomes of the increased educational attainment and poorer academic performance is close to zero.     

Measuring school improvement: A few experientially based words of caution

This paper describes the concerns of the authors rearading the use of standardized achievement scores to measure the quality of practice-oriented school improvement activities in school districts. The authors organize their comments into four issues which are related to current educational practice. While the paper focuses on warnings against the misuse of measurement processes, the authors agree with the call for accountability in the education of students. At a time when educators are under pressure to show results, particularly in urban settings, the authors recommend caution in relying exclusively on quantitative measures in judging the complex process of school improvement.     

School district triggers for reconstructing professional knowledge

In a recent publication, Senge (All systems go: the change imperative for whole system reform. Corwin Press, Thousand Oaks, 2010, x) stated ??at no time in history has there been a more powerful need for a new vision of the purpose of education.?? Increasingly citizens, academics and practitioners are calling for radical changes to educational practices to meet the needs of a knowledge-based society in the twenty-first century (Dede in 21st Century skills: rethinking how students learn. Solution Tree Press, Bloomington, 2010; Hargreaves and Shirley in The fourth way: the inspiring future for educational change. Corwin Press, Thousand Oaks, 2009). Accomplishing such substantive educational change requires that individual educators collectively reshape their personal professional knowledge (Connelly and Clandinin in Teachers as curriculum planners: narratives of experiences. OISE Press, Toronto, 1988; Elbaz in Curriculum Inq 11(1):43?C71, 1981) and adapt their personal mental models (Duffy in J Staff Dev 24(1):30?C36, 2003). In 2000, we began a longitudinal study on the role of a school district in facilitating significant educational reform which required adaptations to individual and collective mental models of professional practice. Annually we conducted intensive interviews with a large sample of teachers, school and system administrators in this large Ontario, Canada school district. Recently, we conducted a retrospective analysis of these data collected in order to identify the conditions necessary for a large organization to support knowledge-creation and dissemination. In this paper, we identify three school district actions that triggered individual educators to challenge and reconstruct their professional personal practical mental models of the teaching and learning. First, improved student learning became the central focus of the school district. Second, the school district stressed and created opportunities for educators to collectively engage in professional dialogue about their practice. Third, the school district emphasized the importance of educators individually and collectively using evidence to assess whether their actions improved student learning.     

The multilayered character of newcomers’ academic identities: Somali female high‐school students in a US school

Drawing from the findings of a qualitative study with female refugee high school students from Somalia in the US, this paper attempts to provide a window to understanding the multilayered character of newcomer students’ academic identity construction. The students’ micro‐level processes of creating spaces for belonging at school are linked to their macro‐level extra‐educational connections at the societal and global levels. The framework presented attempts to sensitise educators to increase their attention to the global‐socio‐cultural contexts of education and strive to create spaces within schools for the recognition and facilitation of students’ complex identities.