Alternative education on Prince Edward Island: a hybrid of ‘mainstream’ and special education

Alternative education programmes have acted as a disciplinary practice used by schools in Prince Edward Island (PEI), Canada, as a response to providing students, especially those identified with challenging behaviours, who do not fit into ‘mainstream’ schools.

This article highlights the emergence of alternative education in PEI and brings to light the complexities underpinning how a child with challenging behaviour is viewed. Through the use of Foucauldian genealogical analysis and critical discourse analysis, this research centres on the discourse of ‘alternative education’ and problematises how alternative education programmes have been put in place as a solution to the problem of the child with challenging behaviour in ‘mainstream’ schools as constituted in the 1990s in PEI, Canada.

Using data generated from educational policies, government documents, and interviews with educators who worked in alternative placements and practitioners who worked with students identified as having problematic behaviour, I propose that alternative education programmes are hybrid programmes emerging from an overlapping of understanding from ‘mainstream’ education and ‘special education’.     

Interaction in distance education — a case study: Teaching biology at two rural schools

There are many instances where distance education for children is in a state of upheaval and change. This is particularly true of Australia and, as earlier reports indicate, of Canada. Central planners often have abandoned the old ‘correspondence schools’ and established ‘open access’ centres; central schools have been de‐centralised; correspondence stuthes are offered to children in city schools; isolated children attend ‘classes’ vastly different from their old ‘School of the Air’ classes; etc. Some of these changes are the marks of progress; the quality of other changes is debatable.

This account is that of one country teacher operating in northern South Australia where distance education has now changed to be offered, Statewide, by a series of open access schools and has also been regionalised to be offered at the initiative of Education Department Regional Centres with a broad responsibility for education of children in their region. The article makes no pretence to being considered as ‘international research literature’ — some will question whether or not it is even distance education. It is being published at my request.

The teacher functions in an areaof small country towns 50 km apart and with 500 or so people. Not too much further north, into sparsely‐watered country, the towns are likely to have 50 or so people and are up to 500 km apart!

What the paper does highlight is that there are professional people ‘out there’ who see themselves as having a stake in distance education. Central administrators and those who regard themselves as scholars in distance education are only a part of the personnel in distance education.

Ed.     

Girls in Boys’ Public Schools: a prelude to further research

Traditionally Headmasters’ Conference schools have been concerned with both the reproduction of class relations and gender relations and have served an elite group of males. However, these schools are at present undergoing dramatic changes and by 1981, over half of the HMC schools admitted girls as well as boys.

The paper discusses the pressures and processes which led to the introduction of girls and uses interview data from a detailed case study as illustrative material. It is suggested that economic and social changes were important considerations and that the initial phases of the process can be understood in terms of the exploitation of a ‘dual student market’.     

Implementing the Contract: the technical and vocational education initiative

Participating schools have a contractual responsibility to recruit a ‘balanced intake’ of students to TVEI courses. However, in many schools it is form teachers who have the eventual job of promoting TVEI to both sexes ‘across the ability range’.

What this recruitment structure does not allow for is that form teachers may be affected by a number of ‘sources of influence’, the effects of which do not coincide with this objective.

The aim of this paper is to build up a picture of the school as an ‘open ended’ interrelating totality, within which form teachers confront the demand for a ‘balanced intake’ alongside a number of other, potentially conflicting factors.     

La formation des ingénieurs et les sciences ‘molles’

SUMMARY

Depuis deux siècles, la formation des cadres supérieurs est basée soit sur le ‘paradigme comtien’ (ingéw;nieurs, primat de la mathématique), soit sur le ‘paradigme harvardien’ (managers, primal de I'èconomie). Qu';il s'agisse d'ecoles d'ingénieurs ou de business schools, les sciences ‘molles’ n'y sont que très peu enseignées. De plus en plus, cependant, les dirigeants d'entreprises rencontrent des problémes difficiles de nature psychologique ou sociologique. L'auteur propose de fonder la formation des ingénieurs à partir de l'épistémologie plutôt qu'à partir de la mathématique, l'épistémologie étant la discipline la plus appropriée pour l'initiation à la créativité et la seule réalisant la synthèse entre sciences “dures” et sciences ‘molles’.

For two centuries, the training of senior executives has been based either on the ‘Comtian paradigm’ (engineers at the leading edge of mathematics) or the ‘Harvard paradigm’ (managers at the leading edge of the economy). The ‘soft’ sciences are scarcely taught in engineering colleges or business schools. However, top managers are increasingly confronted with difficult problems of a psychological or sociological nature. The author suggests basing the training of engineers on epistemology rather than on mathematics, since epistemology is the most suitable discipline for stimulating creativity and the only one to achieve a synthesis of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ sciences.     

Staff Relations During the Teachers' Industrial Action: context,conflict and proletarianisation

Despite the considerable media time devoted to the teachers’ industrial dispute in England and Wales during 1985‐86 little or no effort was made to represent the conduct of the dispute in particular schools or through the experiences of individual teachers. The impression conveyed was of a uniform type of ‘action’ and similar effects in different schools, although some were reported as being ‘harder hit’ than others, that is more days on strike. In reality, although related to a set of general conditions affecting teachers’ work, the dispute was enacted and experienced very differently in different schools and localities. The conduct of the dispute in particular schools emerged from and was related to a variety of ‘local’ factors. In this paper some of these institutional variations are examined.

The paper consists of two sections. The first attempts to describe and analyse recent structural changes affecting the conditions of work of teaching and thus provide a context for the 1985‐86 industrial action in schools. The second section explores teachers’ interpretations of and involvements in the industrial action in particular schools. The data on which the paper is based were collected as part of a more general research study on school organisation and micro‐politics.     

Productive Activity in the Curriculum: changing the literate bias of secondary schools in Tanzania

This paper offers an analysis of the attempt in Tanzanian Secondary Schools to alter the conventional academic school curriculum by the inclusion of productive work.

It describes the broad aims of the policy of education for self reliance as a text, focussing in particular on those elements in the policy which imply a redefinition of the relationship between the dominant literate curriculum and the productive, or essentially practical, projects carried out by the schools.

The paper includes some research evidence which suggests that, in practice, teachers have been unable to adopt the ‘unified’ approach advocated by President Nyerere. The paper outlines different practices carried out by teachers in response to the policy imperatives and presents three critical factors affecting teachers’ actions. These are the relationship between schools and the division of labour, the difficulties of specifying what ‘unity’ may mean in terms of pupil action and the problems of school organisation related to the inclusion of productive activity. The paper concludes by arguing that in the context of the ‘unsympathetic’ environment suggested by these factors, the issue of implementation becomes increasingly important.     

‘Just a Minute ...’—managing interruptions in the junior school classroom

This study uses a continuum to exemplify the range of interruptions experienced by teachers in junior schools. Further clarification is supplied by the matrix, showing sources and types of interruptions.

Reasons for the transformation of ‘interruptions’ into ‘disruptions’ are also discussed, substantiated where possible by selection from the available literature. Further illustrative material is taken from interviews with 12 head teachers and 13 class teachers. Non‐participant observations of 16 of these teachers, working in 11 schools, over a period of six months, provide the data about actual interruptions.

Analyses of these data provide information about the types and frequency of interruptions and evidence of how teachers manage them. Teachers’ ‘coping strategies’ are thus identified and ways of minimising interruptions are examined. The differences between ‘proactive’ and ‘reactive’ class management are considered and the effects of both upon teachers’ effectiveness is debated.     

Effectiveness of Coaching Socially Withdrawn/Isolated Children in Specific Social Skills

Ladd demonstrated the effectiveness of the social learning method for increasing social interactive behaviour of ‘mildly’ withdrawn/isolated children with their peers. The present study replicated Ladd's investigation with two important differences:

1. the subjects were ‘severely’ withdrawn/isolated children, and

2. the training sessions, unlike Ladd's fixed time schedule, continued until the subject's level of performance reached the level of ‘average’ peers in each targeted social skill.

The findings indicated that the social learning method increased social interaction of ‘severely’ withdrawn/isolated children with their peers. However increasing their rate of behaviour in targeted social skills to the level of performance of their ‘average’ peers required approximately four times as many sessions of training as Ladd conducted with ‘mildly’ withdrawn/isolated children.     

Spatial concepts and young children

This presentation looks at how young children learn basic geometrical concepts. Piaget's developmental levels will be examined to determine how they fit into the current research project. These will be compared with materials from the Soviet States that have recently become available from the NCTP in the USA.

The research project was constructed in a number of early childhood centres in a variety of socio‐economic areas. All of these centres had an early intervention program in operation so that special needs or ‘exceptional’ children could be observed along with mainstream children.

The researcher is investigating children's learning styles to determine the children's preferred learning styles when exploring spatial concepts. The question of whether exceptional children progress through the same stages and in the same order as the mainstream children is also being considered.

Spatial concepts in early childhood is an area that seems to have been neglected by researchers in favour of the development of number concepts. This research project aims to add to our knowledge of how young children learn spatial concepts.

     

The Accomplishment of Divergence

The situated development of South Asian communities in the UK has led to the growth of a number of schools in which ‘ethnic minority’ pupils form a majority. Such a situation throws into higher relief issues and concerns surrounding cultural transmission and encounter, and communicative competence.

This paper recounts some of the principal findings of research in which the teaching staff of a large 9‐13 middle school were interviewed individually regarding their perceptions of their South Asian pupils. The school has an almost wholly South Asian intake and is situated near the centre of a large northern city.

The teachers’ markedly deficit view of their charges is detailed and this is followed by an explanation of their constructions in microsociological terms. A model is presented which clarifies the processes by which close intercultural interaction seem to accomplish worlds as divergent.

The author teaches children with special educational needs at the school in which the study was undertaken.     

Whatever it takes! Using a component theory approach with public secondary school principals ‘doing schooling differently’

Purpose: The research seeks to capture the ‘special character’ of schools as seen through the eyes of the Principal and to introduce alternative understandings of ideological praxis’ to challenge and unsettle the dominant ideology and logics of secondary schooling with consequent school design implications in South Australia.

Design/methodology/approach: Using an ideological framework based, the research focussed on the common shared understandings across each school pertaining to each ideology. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews and analysed through interpretive and hermeneutic processes.

Findings: The findings show the tensions, subtleties and nuances of two dominant and competing ideologies: a dominant discourse of individual schooling purpose for student mobility and economic productivity and an emerging public purposes ideology of education for good citizenship, sustainable futures and the public good. The dominant neoliberal public policy ideology and the associated historical design logics of conventional schooling is challenged and reconstituted by the experience, expertise, courage, determination and moral purpose of the principals in this research.

Originality/value: This article opens specific ideological understandings held by the Principals that have moved all of the schools towards pedagogical excellence and a repurposing of their organisations for the students’ sake.     

Problems of a Sociological Approach to Pop Music in Schools

In this paper I shall deal with some issues raised by a sociologist interested in music education, Graham Vulliamy. I shall draw on four of his papers.

There will be certain areas of agreement between us: recognition of the importance of Afro‐American music in our century and its dominance in the popular tradition; that forms of analysis through notation are particularly inappropriate to an oral‐aural tradition; that all music is bounded by particular styles and traditions and occurs within a socio‐cultural context.

I shall briefly examine two minor points of difficulty—that Vulliamy overstates the ‘freedom’ of improvised music and the rigidity of notaled music and that he confuses discussion by conflating the views of Meyer and Longer.

There are three major issues to which we need to address ourselves. The first of these is the assumption that pop music can be legitimised in school merely by establishing that different criteria are necessary. The second arises in the attempt to provide appropriate tools of analysis by arguing, with Shepherd, that music has a kind of social referent. This proposition is stated in several ways. In some forms the proposition is acceptable but in others it is problematic.

The third issue involves problems concerning the expressive and formal elements of music and the uses to which music is put, which may range from a signal for action (or reaction) to a meaningful symbol (a much more complex and rich form of response). Using the terms ‘intensional’ and ‘engendered feeling’ as though they were synonymous and the terms ‘extensional’ and ‘embodied meaning’ as though they were the same, some confusion is created, yet there are implications for music education which are not only theoretically important but vital in practical terms of teaching and learning in schools.     

The importance of supporting technological knowledge in post-primary education: a cohort study

Background: Substantial research highlights the differences between scientific and technological knowledge. Considering that learning is heavily focused on the acquisition of knowledge, it is important to examine the individual and systematic implications of these types of knowledge.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the impact on overall educational performance as a result of engaging with technology subjects at post-primary level.

Sample: A five year cohort study was designed to gather longitudinal data from a total sample of 1761 pupils’ grades from the Irish Leaving Certificate examination. The sample was distributed across four schools.

Design and methods: Grades from the Irish Leaving Certificate were selected because the examination is considered high stakes as it serves as the country’s primary mechanism for matriculation into third-level education. Individual examinations are designed externally to schools by a government body ensuring the validity of each examination in capturing the holistic interpretation subject syllabi. Finally, a points system is used to score each examination facilitating comparisons between subjects.

Results: The results show that pupils who study the technology subjects are statistically significantly less likely to perform well overall in comparison to pupils who study science and mathematics subjects. They also show that for pupils who study the technology subjects, those subjects are statistically significantly likely to be their best performing subjects.

Conclusions: Due to the array of variables impacting subject selection, a definitive causal explanation cannot be deduced from the data for these results. However, it is possible to infer that the variance in knowledge types between the science and technology subjects has an impact on the results. A case is made that a compulsory technological component should be incorporated into educational curricula to provide a comprehensive and general education and to facilitate the holistic development of pupils.     

The Gap between Theory and Practice

This contribution outlines the state of the art of the recent developments in teacher education for Secondary education in the Netherlands.

In the first section an overall picture is given from the different types of teacher training, their certification and their developments.

In the second section two key‐issues in teacher training are discussed, particularly the different training concepts and the developments in teaching practice in schools. Specific attention is given to the training of the co‐operating teachers.

In the third section two of the author's research projects are reviewed: the first is a project on problems of beginning teachers, and the second a project on teaching practice in schools.     

The Use of Correspondence Training in Improving the In‐class Behaviour of Very Troublesome Secondary School Children

Seven children were identified by staff consensus as being the most troublesome pupils in a comprehensive secondary school. A study was then conducted to examine the effects of ‘say‐do’ correspondence training in reducing the amount of troublesome behaviour engaged in by these pupils in the classroom. Such behaviour was defined as ‘talking out of turn’ and ‘hindering other children’, behaviours which had already been found to be the most common categories of troublesome behaviour for secondary classroom teachers.

A multiple baseline across subjects design was employed which brought about a reduction in these two behaviours for three girls and three boys. The behaviour of a fourth boy, however, did not improve beyond the first half of the intervention period. This outcome is discussed in terms of a general deterioration in behaviour and competing contingencies in the classroom. There was some evidence of the generalisation of effects across settings and an increase in the amount of homework submitted.

These results build upon existing research which shows that correspondence training is a useful strategy for dealing with some common classroom behaviour problems. This paper reports an extension of the application of the correspondence training procedures to secondary school pupils of both sexes and covers a broad range of academic ability.     

Practical Components in Teacher Training Programmes in Slovenia (Yugoslavia)

For the present development of teacher training system in Slovenia (Yugoslavia) two trends are characteristic: the prolongation of studies for elementary school teachers (grades 1‐8) from two to four years and an institutional shift of responsibility for subject teacher training from ‘mono‐technical’ (pedagogical academies) to ‘polytechnical’ institutions (different faculties or departments of the universities).

These trends are having important implications for the scope of practical training and its relationship to other parts of the studies. Traditional forms of practical training that had developed at pedagogical academies are being discontinued but the new ones are not yet firmly established.

The existing forms of practical training of student teachers are briefly described (exercises in general professional courses, exercises in classroom observation, teaching attempts and block practice). In addition, the role of teachers of special didactics and the role of practice teachers is analysed.

The pragmatic character of practical training has to be overcome on the basis of systematic attempts to confront students’ subjective theories on teaching and learning, based on experience, with scientific theories throughout the process of their training.

An important prerequisite for the necessary integration of different components of study and especially of theory and practice is cooperation between university teachers of academic, general professional subjects and special didactics. How do we achieve such a cooperation and overcome the negative attitude of teachers of academic subjects toward professional and practical training of students? This remains one of the open problems in the reform of teacher training in Slovenia.