The construct of teachers’ pay satisfaction: a case study of primary and secondary schools in China

The construct of teachers’ pay satisfaction is important to the systemic appraisal of teachers’ compensation. The study aims to probe the components of teachers’ pay satisfaction and verify this construct in primary and secondary schools in China. In-depth interviews with 24 teachers were conducted to propose a construct model for teachers’ pay satisfaction. A survey of 1,218 teachers was conducted to verify the teachers’ pay satisfaction construct, including its reliability and validity, with subjects recruited from 45 primary and secondary schools in 6 cities and counties. Another survey of 364 teachers sampled from 6 provinces was used to compare the proposed two-order model with Heneman’s four-dimensional model. Teachers’ pay satisfaction comprises pay results satisfaction and pay management process satisfaction. The former includes pay level and increase, promotion and training. The latter includes teachers’ engagement, openness and transparency of pay distribution, as well as the reasonableness of distribution rules. Teachers assign greater importance to relative pay than do workers in other occupations. Chinese teachers attach great importance to pay management process satisfaction.     

The impact of instruction in enhancing teachers’ knowledge of teaching mathematics in some Lesotho primary schools

The quality of mathematics teaching in Lesotho primary education remains one of the vexing problems in the education system. The study investigated how teachers viewed the impact of instruction on enhancing their knowledge of teaching. Data for the study were elicited from the second-year students enrolled for a Bachelor of Education in the 2009/10 academic year at the National University of Lesotho. Questionnaires and interviews were used for data collection. The findings show that before instruction, the teachers operated with limited knowledge of teaching. At the end of the course the teachers’ knowledge of teaching was enhanced. Significant change was apportioned to engaging in reflection and teaching for relational understanding. Implications of the findings for the course, teacher education and professional development are also discussed.     

The device in the room: Technology’s role in third grade literacy instruction

Abstract

This yearlong study explores how digital technologies are used during literacy instruction in the critical year of third grade. We analyzed technology use in 16 classrooms across six geographically and socioeconomically diverse schools. We examined the multiple layers of technology’s influences on teachers’ instructional decision-making and on students’ engagement. Applying Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy alongside the SAMR model, expectations for student technology use varied across settings and resulted in mixed levels of student engagement. Although technology has the potential to transform teaching and learning, it is most often used as a substitution for traditional instructional tools and to support students’ remembering and understanding rather than more complex tasks. Analysis suggests technology tools are not being strategically employed to support the development of 21st century learning skills.     

Pre-service teacher’s self-perception of digital literacy: The case of Israel

Education and Information Technologies - Teachers provide society with literacy needs. They instruct students to acquire the essential skills and competencies required for a successful social...     

The purpose of education: pedagogues’ and teachers’ negotiations in Danish primary schools*

In 2014, the Danish primary school system went through a major reform. One main change is the greater participation of pedagogues in school. This is a dramatic change both for teachers and for pedagogues, a distinct profession, traditionally working outside school and representing a creative and social approach to learning and wellbeing. This article examines how teachers and pedagogues in an action research project negotiate their new common work and which understandings of good pedagogical practice these negotiations express. The article shows that international educational rationales about learnification and attainment that are found in the Danish reform, affect the professionals’ understandings of professionalism and educational practices, and that this marginalises some traditional pedagogical practices. However, the article also shows that both pedagogues and teachers critique dominant educational policy rationales and explore what space for action exists in the reform.     

Managing the paradox of control: the case of ground-up implementation of active learning in Singapore’s primary schools

The Singaporean education system has recently shifted emphasis from being highly centralised and standardised towards one that aims to promote innovation and autonomy at the school level. Yet, the concomitant move towards a more decentralised and flexible curriculum enacted and controlled at the local level has not been straightforward. Consequently, Hargreaves, Shirley, and Ng have described five paradoxes of educational and social change that characterise Singapore’s continued performance in academic achievement. One of these paradoxes is the paradox of control: How could the Ministry of Education (MOE) release classroom decision making and curriculum development to teachers and schools, while maintaining overall control across the system? They respond that the MOE maintains a fine balance characterised as bottom-up innovation with top-down support that requires further investigation. In this paper, we illustrate the implementation of an active learning curriculum in four primary schools to illustrate this approach of ‘top-down support for bottom-up’ curricular innovation in schools. In Singapore, the ‘Teach Less, Learn More’ movement has ignited school-based development of innovative curricula to bring about active learning, with the intention of developing pupil attributes such as creativity, collaboration, and self-confidence. Our case study explores how practitioners implement a curriculum that is meant to nurture a more emancipatory spirit in students that builds up their confidence and collaboration through active learning. A key premise is that such a curriculum requires practitioners’ autonomy to interpret the goals and desired outcomes and to plan their pupils’ learning experiences.     

Teachers’ stages of concern for media literacy education and the integration of MLE in Chinese primary schools

Media literacy is an essential skill for living in the twenty-first century. School-based instruction is a critical part of media literacy education (MLE), while research on teachers’ concerns and integration of MLE is not sufficient. The objective of this study is to investigate teachers’ stages of concern (SoC), perceived need, school context, and teacher practices of the integration of MLE in primary schools. For this purpose, a survey was setup and 392 primary school teachers participated in this study. The results show that teachers’ concerns of integration of MLE were generally oriented at the level of self-concerns. In the meanwhile, the integration of MLE was significantly related to teachers’ concerns and perceived need for MLE. Based on the results of regression analysis, teachers’ integration of MLE was significantly influenced by their SoC for MLE, school professional development support, and leadership support.     

Children’s friendships in diverse primary schools: teachers and the processes of policy enactment

Abstract

Drawing on data from a project exploring children's and adults’ friendships across social class and ethnic difference, this paper focuses on the enactment of national and institutional policy around children’s friendships as realized in three primary schools in diverse urban areas in London. Through a focus on the way in which social and emotional learning (SEL) and teachers’ understandings of children’s friendships seek to govern children’s friendship behaviours, we turn to Foucault’s work to explore how power shapes relations between policy frameworks and teachers’ practices, and between those who teach and those who are taught. We discuss the disciplinary potential of SEL and teachers’ ‘common sense’ understandings of children’s friendships, but conclude by noting possibilities for teachers to create spaces in which all children can safely explore the nature of friendships.     

Promising effects of an intervention: Young children’s literacy gains and changes in their home literacy activities from a bilingual family literacy program in Canada

The goal of this paper was to examine promising effects of a bilingual family literacy program: to track the changes of families’ literacy activities through a bilingual family literacy intervention, and to examine the children literacy gains in both Chinese and English across socioeconomic sub-groups. The intervention was an eight-week, two hours per week, literacy program in three Chinese communities in Toronto. Parents, with their children, participated in the program. The extremely high attendance rate provided evidence that families enjoyed the family literacy intervention and felt that the sessions were worthwhile. For their families’ literacy activities, the three sites followed the same trend: reaching the peak of activity at week four, slightly dropping down at weeks five and six, and then increasing to a second peak at week seven or week eight. Results also showed that across the three groups, children of mothers with lower education levels made fewer gains in their English expressive vocabularies and their Chinese expressive vocabularies, than children whose mothers had a higher level of education.     

Enhancing students’s social and ethical development in schools: An intervention program and its effects

This chapter describes effects on students social and ethical attitudes and behaviors of a comprehensive elementary school program that was implemented in 12 elementary schools in six school districts in the United States over a four-year period, with an additional 12 schools serving as a comparison group. The program as a whole is designed to promote a sense of the school as a community. Data, collected in a baseline year and each of three program years, included classroom observations and student and teacher questionnaires. Data analyses showed variability both within and between schools in teacher changes from baseline to classroom program implementation. Positive effects on students’s sense of community and on several social/ethical variables were found for the five program schools that showed adequate changes in implementation. Structural equations modeling analyses of classroom-level data showed clear support for a model in which program effects on social-ethical outcomes for students were mediated through intervening linkages with program implementation and with the sense of community.     

The complexity of literacy in Kenya: narrative analysis of Maasai women’s experiences

This paper aims to challenge limited notions of literacy and argues for the recognition of Maasai women’s self-determined learning in order to bring about human development in Kenya. It also seeks to construct a complex picture of literacy, drawing on postcolonial feminist theory as a framework to ensure that the woman’s voice is heard. Through the analysis of narratives from three Maasai women, the author discovered that: (1) these ‘illiterate’ women have their own literacy through which they read the world (their community); (2) these women use this self-determined literacy to raise critical awareness on community issues; and (3) these women have become ‘organic intellectuals’ in that they have the capacity to synthesise information and skills in order to solve community issues by themselves. This paper concludes that a literacy programme should be more centred on the women from the village and must acknowledge their traditions and culture.     

The relationship between the level of bullying in primary schools and children’s views of their teachers’ attitudes to pupil behaviour

It is known that the incidence of bullying reported by primary school children varies greatly between schools. It has also been shown that schools in which staff express a greater level of concern with managing the problem generally experience lower levels of bullying. This study examines the children’s, rather than the teachers’, views about the level of care and attention which the teachers pay to issues relating to behaviour and the social organisation of their school. It is shown that the children’s views are a good indicator of the frequency of bullying that will be found in that school.     

From 5 million to 20 million a year: The challenge of scale,quality and relevance in India’s TVET

In the first decade of this century, India became one of the world’s fastest growing large economies, and began to face serious skill-related shortages of workers. Its TVET system has not responded adequately to the growth in demand for semi-skilled and skilled workers. This article describes six sets of reforms that India’s educational planners and policy-makers must put into place if these shortages are not to constrain India’s ability to benefit from the demographic dividend.     

Integrated language and content instruction in Qatar Independent schools: teachers’ perspectives

The aim of this study is to explore teachers’ attitudes towards the shift to English as a medium of instruction in Qatari Independent schools. It focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of this approach for teachers and students, and the challenges they face in the process of its implementation. Data for the study were collected by means of a questionnaire and follow-up interviews. Findings point to teachers’ beliefs that while the approach has benefited them and their students, it is a challenging process. The challenges teachers face are organizational in nature relating to ineffective planning for the introduction of the change, lack of teacher preparedness for its implementation, and parents’ resistance to this change. These results have implications for teacher training in the Qatari context and for planning of the introduction of change in English as a Second Language or English as a Foreign Language contexts.     

CCTV surveillance in primary schools: normalisation,resistance, and children’s privacy consciousness

This study explored how primary school children perceive school surveillance by Closed Circuit TV systems (CCTVs) and how their perceptions relate to their privacy consciousness. It drew on interviews with 57 children, aged 9–12, who were enrolled in three Israeli public schools that had installed CCTVs, and on information gathered from members of the management team of each school. The findings indicated that in all three schools, educators did not discuss the CCTVs with the children. Consequently, most children had various erroneous assumptions regarding the CCTVs, leading some children to wrongly believe that they were seen and heard in almost every corner of the school, including toilets and classrooms. The findings also revealed a tension between normalisation of school surveillance on the one hand, and resistance to excessive surveillance on the other. In addition, the findings demonstrated that even young children, having been born and raised in a digital world with its ubiquitous surveillance, value their privacy and are willing to relinquish it only when they perceive it as justified. The moral balance voiced by the children regarding the circumstances that justify trading privacy for security resembles constitutional analysis.     

Exploring inclusive practices in primary schools: focusing on children’s voices

This paper reports a small-scale research project which took place in one primary school in the north-east of England. The study aimed to listen to children’s views about how the practices of teachers helped and/or hindered their sense of inclusion in classrooms. Inclusion was understood here in a broad sense rather than specifically relating to children with special educational needs. Participatory research tools were used as part of group interviews with children from three different year groups. Even though the children were mostly happy with their school experience, it was noticeable that there were some areas for concern for some children that related to four interconnecting themes: unfairness, shouting, loneliness and seating plans. All of these themes seemed to be connected with children’s interpersonal relationships – with teachers and with each other – and can be seen as crucial in terms of understanding inclusion in schools and further developing existing practices.     

Whole language versus code-based skills and interactional patterns in Singapore’s early literacy program

This paper analyzes whole language and code-based skills approaches in early literacy and the specific patterns of interaction present in both approaches. Nineteen hours of video data were coded to analyze the nature of whole language versus code-based skills instruction and document the allocation of time spent on each approach in a reading program. Data come from a cross-sectional study in Singapore where the Learning Support Program (LSP), a reading program for low-track students, was studied in five schools. Overall, 73% of class time in the dataset showed code-based skills instruction. However, the approach to instruction changed within the LSP in a linear fashion. Though in the early years of the LSP there was an over-emphasis on code-based skills and lack of variety in patterns of interaction, in later years there was a balance between whole language and code-based skills and a wider variety of interactional patterns.