Educators' Beliefs About Risk and Prevention: The Context for Changing Practice

This study describes the results of a survey of beliefs about risk, prevention, and early school failure held by a sample of highly experienced educators in the state of Virginia. The results indicate that risk is a widely used concept and have varied meanings, many of which are only marginally related to prevention and early intervention. There appears to be a gap between what educators identify as risk factors for early school failure and what they perceive to be the role of the schools in reducing early school failure. Finally, despite misconceptions regarding the concepts of risk and prevention, educators appear open to service delivery systems based on these concepts. The results are discussed in terms of the possible need to address educators' beliefs about risk and prevention prior to attempting to change practice.     

Perceptions of Preservice Early Educators: How Adults Support Preschoolers' Social Development

Studies show that for preschool-age children, social skills can have a profound effect on, and be a predictor of, future societal success and school achievement. Therefore, it is essential that young children develop appropriate social behaviors. To do this, preschoolers need support and guidance from the adults in their life: parents, family, and early educators. This study looks at the perceptions of preservice early educators in regards to their understanding of preschoolers' social and antisocial behaviors, their assumptions about what appropriate adult interventions might be, and their beliefs about the role they, as early educators, play in supporting young children's social development.     

Conceptualisations of disability and inclusion: perspectives of educators of young children

This grounded theory study explores beliefs about disability and inclusion from the perspectives of educators of young children in their respective roles as elementary school teachers and early childhood educators, in Ontario, Canada. The social relational model described by Reindal is used as a theoretical framework for interviews with four educators. The interview data provide a theory of educators' beliefs and show the relationship of the beliefs to their practice. Implications based on the theory are presented for both policy and professional development.     

The Influence of Teachers’ Efficacy and Beliefs Regarding Mathematics Instruction in the Early Childhood Classroom

This was a correlational study conducted with a population of prekindergarten educators from a large, metropolitan school district. The purpose was to examine if there were relationships between and among early childhood teachers’ sense of self-efficacy, their beliefs about the importance of mathematics, and their mathematics instructional practices. Examining teachers’ efficacy and beliefs can inform educational practice and help to differentiate between more and less successful instructional practices when teaching mathematics in the early childhood classroom. Data were collected on teacher efficacy and teacher beliefs about the importance of mathematics with two self-report questionnaires. The hypothesis that the teachers higher in efficacy will rate the importance of mathematics higher on the teacher-belief scale than the teachers with lower efficacy was found to be true with this sample, but the correlation was weak. The level of efficacy of the early childhood teachers in this sample confirmed that in assessing their capabilities, they rate themselves high in instructional strategies, classroom management, and student engagement. The early childhood teachers did not rate their belief in mathematics as high as their efficacy. Observations of mathematics instructional practices were conducted with twenty teachers. It was hypothesized that the combination of high teacher efficacy and high teacher mathematics beliefs would show alignment with the presence of standards-based mathematics instructional practices. The results were not statistically significant. No correlation signals a need for more research to explore what other personal or external factors relate to mathematics instructional practices in the early childhood classroom. The research may inform pre kindergarten teachers and teacher educators about effective instructional strategies and knowledge needed to launch early childhood students on a developmentally appropriate pathway to mathematical literacy.     

The Application of Theories of Children to Disciplinary Practice

Shortages of middle-level teacher candidates may cause teacher educators to recruit candidates by focusing on what attracts and discourages candidates about teaching at the middle level. The authors used a survey approach (n = 110) to investigate why preservice middle school and high school teachers and in-service middle school teachers chose the middle grades. The results included ten common reasons that the respondents favored the middle grades and ten major concerns about this level. Three attractions to the middle grades—student age, content level, and employment market—and common beliefs about positive teacher-student relationships and students' maturity may guide teacher educators in their efforts to increase middle grades program enrollment.     

More than heroes and villains: pre-service teacher beliefs about principals

New teachers enter schools with already established beliefs about principals.This paper reports on the nature and primary influences on what a group of Hong Kong pre-service teacher participants believe about principals. The nature of beliefs reflect underlying personal constructs that relate to interpersonal communication and management. Influences include past school principals, school leaders and parents. Beliefs were attained using a modified personal construct interview and analyses of participant stories. Findings highlight a close association between the leadership/management style of the principal whom participants would like to be and mothers, and the interpersonal behaviour of fathers and the principal whom participants would not like to be . The authors argue that reforms are needed in the course design of teacher education, teacher induction and programmes of professional development for principals. These reforms must address the influence personal history has on an individual's thinking about teaching, interpersonal communication and leadership - a reform process that begins with teacher educators and principals reframing their beliefs and associated practices.     

New concepts of play and the problem of technology,digital media and popular-culture integration with play-based learning in early childhood education

Technology, digital media and popular culture form an important aspect of young children’s life-worlds in contemporary post-industrial societies. A problem for early childhood educators is how to most effectively integrate these aspects of children’s life-worlds into the provision of play-based learning. Traditionally, research has considered barriers to teacher uptake of technologies in the early years, or teacher beliefs and attitudes about using technologies with young children. An alternative perspective focuses on children’s play as the foundation for early childhood curriculum provision and argues that what is needed instead are ‘new’ concepts of play more appropriate for explaining children’s contemporary play experiences in post-industrial societies. This article examines the influence of a new concept of play called ‘web-mapping’ on teachers’ curriculum practices in early childhood education, and finds that, according to Vygotsky’s ideas about explicit and implicit mediation, new concepts of play are likely to provide a fruitful avenue for addressing the ‘problem’ of technology, digital media and popular-culture integration in early childhood education.     

Teacher self-efficacy in cultivating students to become ‘good citizens’: a Hong Kong case

Civic education is a contested subject in Hong Kong, and there is no agreement in society on what form civic education should take, which leaves each school to choose its own approach. Under these circumstances, each teacher needs greater capability and self-efficacy to develop school-based civic education. This study examined the factors that influenced Hong Kong primary school teacher confidence in teaching citizenship education with the ultimate goal of nurturing students to become ‘good citizens.’ The results of this study indicated that teacher self-efficacy was influenced by beliefs about the subject (Moral, Civic and National Education) and beliefs about teachers’ roles in the curriculum but not beliefs about teaching. Teachers felt more confident teaching social topics than political topics. While this study was conducted in the Hong Kong context, the findings could be valuable for policy makers and educators elsewhere who seek to strengthen teacher self-efficacy.     

What We Learned about Using Metaphors in College Teaching: Methods and Meanings

The field of education is rich with metaphors that reveal one's perspective on the nature of teaching and learning—ideas are “covered,” students “absorb” information, teachers offer writing “clinics.” Each of these metaphors indicate nuanced ideas about what schooling is and is for—to be checked off? Taken in unquestioningly? For those who are sick? Two teacher educators in the field of early childhood education share insights from their own experiences in considering novice teachers' metaphors in their preparatory experiences, particularly wondering what these unveil about heretofore unanalyzed beliefs and what instructors can learn so as to form further instruction. Methods are shared and reflection led educators to find important instructional and relationship-building implications for working with novice teachers.     

Proximity and policy: negotiating safe spaces between immigration policy and school practice

Policy around the legal status and social rights of the nation’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants is unresolved, making it imperative that PK-12 schools and educators prepare for challenges to undocumented students’ educational access. In 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) appeared near an elementary school, which required school personnel to use the space in and around their school to demarcate boundaries to limit the impact of ICE activity on the school community. Critical moral geography is the guiding theoretical construct the authors use to examine the intersection of immigration policy and education in the context of immigration enforcement near a public school. Critical moral theory suggests that “places” are sites where people contest their values and concepts of what is morally correct, engaging in struggles over power. Thinking about space broadly allows for an exploration of how different policies converge and affect the spaces where educators are trying to engage in moral work. The authors conclude that educators can be instrumental in creating safe spaces for undocumented students.     

Getting Ready for School: An Examination of Early Childhood Educators’ Belief Systems

This study examines early childhood educators’ beliefs about what children need prior to before entering kindergarten. Focus group interviews were conducted with early childhood educators from three learning settings: public center-based programs, private center-based programs, and family child care centers. Qualitative methods were used to analyze the data. Across program types, educators said that three levels should be addressed to help prepare a child for school: child, home, and teacher. The child must be physically and emotionally ready to engage with others and participate in learning opportunities, acquire basic skills, such as letter recognition, and have reasoning skills that enable the child to problem-solve. At the home level, emotionally preparing the child for the transition and creating a home environment that promotes learning were reported as key to getting children for school. Teacher relationships with parents also emerged as important school readiness factor. Differences across program types are discussed.     

Perceptions and knowledge of preservice and inservice educators about early reading instruction

A major conclusion from research regarding children with poor reading performance is that early, systematic instruction in phonological awareness and phonics improves early reading and spelling skills and results in a reduction of the number of students who read below grade level. The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions and knowledge of presevice and inservice educators about early reading instruction. The results indicated that these educators expressed positive attitudes toward explicit and implicit code instruction, with inservice educators more positive about explicit code instruction than preservice educators and preservice educators more positive about implicit code instruction. Preservice and inservice educators demonstrated limited knowledge of phonological awareness or terminology related to language structure and phonics. Additionally, they perceived themselves as only somewhat prepared to teach early reading to struggling readers. These findings indicate a continuing mismatch between what educators believe and know and what convergent research supports as effective early reading instruction for children at risk for reading difficulties. Implications support continuing efforts to inform and reform teacher education. Just prior to publication, the editorial office was informed of the untimely death of the first author, Candace Bos, who died on August 13, 2001.     

Living the stories we tell: The sociopolitical context of enacting teaching stories

This article draws from two separate classroom-based studies of early career teachers that yielded overlapping findings about the diminished opportunities teachers and teacher educators have to construct sophisticated stories about the complexities of classroom life and the ongoing process of learning to teach. The teachers' stories represent the intersection of research, policy, and practice, illuminating contradictions between teachers' beliefs about teaching and what they were able to enact in their classrooms. These findings may be leveraged to support teacher educators to support teachers to create coherent narrative identities that help them creatively respond to problems of practice and contextual constraints.     

The Social Construction of the ‘At‐risk’ Child

The ‘at‐risk’ child has become a topic of increasing concern to American educators. It has been estimated that fully one‐third of all school‐age children are currently at risk for academic failure, and a recent report on pre‐school‐age children suggests that all are at risk to some degree. This article explores contemporary constructions and constructions over time in an effort to deconstruct the notion of the ‘at‐risk’ child and to examine how meaning is produced and to what end. The theoretical and historical material provide a framework in which data from a statewide survey of school administrators, regarding their preferences for pre‐kindergarten programs, are interpreted.     

Serving two masters: how vocational educators experience marketisation reforms

Contemporary education reforms that draw ideas from the political and economic fields are said to be altering the nature of vocational education. While there are substantial policy studies on the effects of marketisation reforms, fewer analyse the perspectives of vocational educators on such reforms. How vocational educators negotiate the potential clash of values when marketisation reforms are enacted within the sector remains relatively unexplored. This paper aims to incorporate these perspectives in order to explore and help explain the responses of vocational educators to such changes. To do so the paper draws on concepts from Legitimation Code Theory, a sociological framework for analysing practices and beliefs. Specifically, it enacts ‘autonomy codes’, which reveal how external forces impact upon the internal practices of a social field. These concepts are used to analyse the beliefs and perceptions of a group of vocational educators in Australia who are undergoing marketisation reforms. The analysis suggests that many educators are experiencing a growing ‘code clash’ between the goals they attribute to reforms and their own beliefs about public education and the expectations of their students, one which problematises their capacity to reconcile these sets of values and colours their views of changes in the sector.     

Developing and assessing educator beliefs about the common core

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) potentially shifts the way US schools approach teaching and learning. Research suggests that it is important to understand how educators view the CCSS and how they believe the CCSS may impact their practice. We developed and tested an instrument to investigate educator beliefs about the implementation of CCSS. We collected data from two samples of educators regarding their beliefs about the CCSS in mid-size school districts in California that had begun to introduce the CCSS. Our results indicate that the instrument consistently measured three interrelated, yet distinct, sub-constructs of educator beliefs about the CCSS implementation and that the sub-constructs are statistically significantly associated with trust, professional knowledge, and the pattern of CCSS-related professional interaction.     

Teacher Receptivity to Collaboration: Levels of Interest,Types of Concern,and School Characteristics as Variables Contributing to Successful Implementation

Mandates at the federal, state, and local level are calling for collaboration of classroom teachers and specialists to deliver services to students at risk and with special needs in mainstream settings. To facilitate implementation of collaboration successfully, it is necessary to identify and address variables associated with teacher receptivity toward collaboration, such as level of interest and concerns. Other variables, such as school and teacher characteristics, may also impact the implementation process. The purposes of this study were threefold. We wished to determine (a) whether regular educators and specialists are interested in collaborating with one another to achieve the inclusion of students who are low achieving or have cognitive disabilities into regular classes, instead of their placement in separate pull-out classes; (b) what kinds of concerns, needs, beliefs, and attitudes about participating in a collaborative project may be characteristic of teachers at various levels of interest; and (c) if level of interest and attitudes/concerns are related to teacher and school characteristics.     

An investigation of experienced secondary science teachers' beliefs about inquiry: An examination of competing belief sets

The purpose of this study was to investigate the beliefs of six experienced high school science teachers about (1) what is successful science learning; (2) what are the purposes of laboratory in science teaching; and (3) how inquiry is implemented in the classroom. An interpretive multiple case study with an ethnographic orientation was used. The teachers' beliefs about successful science learning were substantively linked to their beliefs about laboratory and inquiry implementation. For example, two teachers who believed that successful science learning was deep conceptual understanding, used verification labs primarily to illustrate these concepts and used inquiry as a type of isolated problem‐solving experience. Another teacher who believed that successful science learning was enculturation into scientific practices used inquiry‐based labs extensively to teach the practices of science. Tension in competing beliefs sets and implications for reform are discussed. ? 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 936‐960, 2004.     

Playing with maths: implications for early childhood mathematics teaching from an implementation study in Melbourne,Australia

The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia governs early childhood education in the years before school in Australia. Since this framework is not a curriculum, early childhood educators report uncertainty regarding what mathematical concepts to teach and how to teach them. This implementation study, positioned within the broader E4Kids study, explored the enactment of a suite of play-based mathematics activities by five early childhood educators in different settings over a seven-month period. The educators' approaches to incorporating the activities are discussed in light of the reported implementation frequency and the duration of activities. A regression analysis predicted significant changes in children's Fluid Intelligence/Reasoning associated with attending high-implementation programmes. Recommendations are made for further investigation of the enactment of mathematics activities in early childhood settings and for the provision of professional learning opportunities that focus on supporting children's concept development as well as their mathematical skills.