Untangling the Grip of White Privilege in Education through Consultation and Systems Change: Introduction to the Special Issue

ABSTRACT

This article introduces the articles in the special issue, School consultation grounded in social justice: Dismantling white privilege in education. The authors first highlight salient aspects of each of the five articles. The article ends with a call to action for educators to use consultation to effect systems change that will interrupt white privilege and racist practices in education.     

Developing knowledge intensive ideas in engineering education: the application of camp methodology

Background: Globalization, technological advancement, environmental problems, etc. challenge organizations not just to consider cost-effectiveness, but also to develop new ideas in order to build competitive advantages. Hence, methods to deliberately enhance creativity and facilitate its processes of development must also play a central role in engineering education. However, so far the engineering education literature provides little attention to the important discussion of how to develop knowledge intensive ideas based on creativity methods and concepts.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to investigate how to design creative camps from which knowledge intensive ideas can unfold.

Design/method/sample: A framework on integration of creativity and knowledge intensity is first developed, and then tested through the planning, execution and evaluation of a specialized creativity camp with focus on supply chain management. Detailed documentation of the learning processes of the participating 49 engineering and business students is developed through repeated interviews during the process as well as a survey.

Results: The research illustrates the process of development of ideas, and how the participants through interdisciplinary collaboration, cognitive flexibility and joint ownership develop highly innovative and knowledge-intensive ideas, with direct relevance for the four companies whose problems they address.

Conclusions: The article demonstrates how the creativity camp methodology holds the potential of combining advanced academic knowledge and creativity, to produce knowledge intensive ideas, when the design is based on ideas of experiential learning as well as creativity principles. This makes the method a highly relevant learning approach for engineering students in the search for skills to both develop and implement innovative ideas.     

Review and Update

Book reviewed in this article:

Marianne Coleman, Women as Headteachers: Striking the Balance     

Reordering and Reflecting Factors for Simulation Studies With Exploratory Factor Analysis

This article describes the REREFACT R package, which provides a postrotation algorithm that reorders or reflects factors for each replication of a simulation study with exploratory factor analysis (EFA). The purpose of REREFACT is to provide a general algorithm written in freely available software, R, dedicated to addressing the possibility that a nonuniform order or sign pattern of the factors could be observed across replications. The algorithm implemented in REREFACT proceeds in 4 steps. Step 1 determines the total number of equivalent forms, I, of the vector of factors, η. Step 2 indexes, i = 1, 2 … I, each equivalent form of η (i.e., ηⁱ) via a unique permutation matrix, P (i.e., Pⁱ). Step 3 determines which ηⁱ each replication follows. Step 4 uses the appropriate Pⁱ to reorder or re-sign parameter estimates within each replication so that all replications uniformly follow the order and sign pattern defined by the population values. Results from two simulation studies provided evidence for the efficacy of the REREFACT to identify and remediate equivalent forms of η in models with EFA only (i.e., Example 1) and in fuller parameterizations of exploratory structural equation modeling (i.e., Example 2). How to use REREFACT is briefly demonstrated prior to the Discussion section by providing annotations for key commands and condensed output using a subset of simulated data from Example 1.     

Factors that influence women's technical skill development in outdoor adventure

Abstract

This article provides a theoretical foundation for understanding women's technical skill development (TSD) in outdoor adventure. An examination of societal and biological factors influencing women's TSD focuses on gender role socialization, sense of competence, technical conditioning, sexism, spatial ability, and risk-taking. The article suggests leadership and instructional strategies for facilitating technical skill competency for women in outdoor education.     

Staff support through supervision

Abstract

The article is based on a paper delivered to the AWCEBD KEYWORDS Conference at Cirencester in 1999, where the focus was upon staff emotional support. The article proposes that some of the causes of teacher and intelligence; worker stress are organizational factors and perceptual bias, and that staff support; stress is an inevitable consequence of working in an environment supervision where human relationships are critical for the successful management of young people with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.The author suggests that one way of alleviating this stress is through the introduction of supervision to the educational field. Supervision in other helping professions has been successful in providing support, changing perceptions, managing emotions and coping with stressful situations, and in so doing has improved relationships with others and work performance.     

Activity theory and knowledge production

Abstract

The article is based on a paper delivered to the AWCEBD KEYWORDS Conference at Cirencester in 1999, where the focus was upon staff emotional support. The article proposes that some of the causes of teacher and intelligence; worker stress are organizational factors and perceptual bias, and that staff support; stress is an inevitable consequence of working in an environment supervision where human relationships are critical for the successful management of young people with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.The author suggests that one way of alleviating this stress is through the introduction of supervision to the educational field. Supervision in other helping professions has been successful in providing support, changing perceptions, managing emotions and coping with stressful situations, and in so doing has improved relationships with others and work performance.     

Pupil stress and standard assessment tasks

Abstract

The article is based on a paper delivered to the AWCEBD KEYWORDS Conference at Cirencester in 1999, where the focus was upon staff emotional support. The article proposes that some of the causes of teacher and intelligence; worker stress are organizational factors and perceptual bias, and that staff support; stress is an inevitable consequence of working in an environment supervision where human relationships are critical for the successful management of young people with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.The author suggests that one way of alleviating this stress is through the introduction of supervision to the educational field. Supervision in other helping professions has been successful in providing support, changing perceptions, managing emotions and coping with stressful situations, and in so doing has improved relationships with others and work performance.     

Necessary,But Not Sufficient: Critiquing the Role of Information and Communication Technology in Putting Knowledge into Use

Abstract

Purpose: This article reviews the experience of ICT applications as a tool for putting research derived knowledge into use for innovation in South Asia.

Design/methodology/approach: The article uses the contemporary understanding of communication and innovation in reviewing the experience of ICTs in putting new knowledge into use in South Asia.

Findings: The findings from this study suggest that ICTs in general have not contributed effectively to the challenge of putting new knowledge into use as they are mostly used to support traditional communication tasks — such as information dissemination and training. The article argues that this under-utilisation of the potential of ICTs could be due to: a lack of appreciation of the new communication-intermediation tasks required for innovation, underestimation of the roles of intermediaries and their capacities for innovation and lack of networks needed for communities to make use of the information provided through ICTs.

Practical implications: Although the understanding of communication, innovation and extension has changed substantially in the past two decades, there is still a big gap between theory and practice. This article contends that this gap needs to be bridged if ICTs are to effectively contribute to putting new knowledge into use.

Originality/value: The article manifests the necessity for ICT based initiatives to be embedded into the renewed understanding of communication and innovation and it moves ICT related debates from merely a success story to a pragmatic world of communication and innovation process.     

Maternal Responses to Infant Distress: Linkages Between Specific Emotions and Neurophysiological Processes

Objective. The goals of the current article were to test the presence of an association between mothers’ neural activity (measured by frontal cortical alpha asymmetry) and their specific emotions (measured by observed facial expressions) in response to infant distress and the moderation of this relation by mothers’ appraisal processes (measured by sense of parenting efficacy). Design. Mothers of 5- to 8-month-olds (n = 26) watched videos of their own infants expressing distress while their brain activity was recorded via electroencephalogram and their facial expressions were videotaped for later microcoding. Mothers also completed a questionnaire measure of parenting efficacy. Results. Greater neurophysiological withdrawal in response to infant distress videos, indexed by frontal alpha asymmetry, was associated with longer sad and tense expressions in mothers with average or below average parenting efficacy, but not in those with above average efficacy. Conclusions. Previous research showing that patterns of parents’ brain activity in response to child stimuli are associated with parenting behavior often interpret results in relation to parental emotion, but rarely measure specific concurrent emotions. The current study helps fill this gap in the literature by showing that maternal neurophysiological withdrawal (together with parenting efficacy) was associated with simultaneously measured facial expressions of negative emotion in response to infant distress stimuli.     

Students’ conceptions and the learning of science

This introductory article to the Special Issue of the International Journal of Science Education attempts to review the theoretical contexts for research into children's conceptions in science and to identify future directions for research programmes in this field.     

Longitudinal Relations among Maternal Self-Efficacy,Maternal Warmth,and Early Adolescents’ Prosocial Behavior

SYNOPSIS

Objective. This article examined two-wave longitudinal paths among maternal self-efficacy, maternal warmth, and early adolescents’ prosocial behavior. Design . Participants were 194 Italian mother/child dyads from 9–13 years at the first assessment and 12–15 years at the second assessment. Using a two-wave longitudinal design, the present study tested cross-lagged paths among maternal self-efficacy, warmth, and early adolescents’ prosocial behavior controlling for the stability of these variables and their concurrent associations. Results . Maternal warmth mediated the link between maternal self-efficacy and adolescents’ prosocial behavior, and bi-directional effects between maternal self-efficacy and maternal warmth were found. Conclusions . These findings support a parent-driven model in the promotion of prosocial behaviors across early adolescence and a general need to consider simultaneously parental cognitions (maternal self-efficacy) and actions (maternal warmth) in explaining adolescents’ prosocial behaviors. Implications for parenting program interventions are discussed.     

Short animation movies as advance organizers in physics teaching: a preliminary study

Background : Advance organizers are instructional materials that help students use previous knowledge to make links with new information. Short animation movies are a possible format and are well suited for physics, as they can portray dynamic phenomena and represent abstract concepts.

Purpose : The study aimed to determine guidelines for the construction of an instructional short animation movie, with the role of an advance organizer. A film was created in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the approach, making part of a physics lesson and concerning the subject ‘moment of a force’.

Sample : The study took place in a Brazilian school in the city of Arapoti, in the south region of the country. Thirty-eight students participated, having an average age of 16 and following the third year of high school.

Design and methods : Criteria drawn from a literature review directed the construction of the movie and the lesson. Data were collected using pre- and post-tests; registers of oral comments were also done during the class. The post-test included open-ended questions, allowing students to write remarks concerning the lesson and the animation.

Conclusions : The article describes steps and guidelines to orient the process of designing an animation movie with the role of advance organizer. Data indicated that the movie facilitated the construction of links between pre-existent knowledge and the new information presented in the lesson. The proposed methodology can be considered a valid framework to derive similar approaches.     

Strangers and Orphans: Knowledge and mutuality in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Abstract

Paulo Freire consistently upheld humanization and mutuality as educational ideals. This article argues that conceptualizations of knowledge and how knowledge is sought and produced play a role in fostering humanization and mutuality in educational contexts. Drawing on Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, this article focuses on the two central characters who ‘ardently’ pursue knowledge at all costs. It will be argued that the text suggests two possible outcomes from the pursuit of knowledge. One is mutuality; the other is social disconnectedness.     

Role of transnational and national education policies in realisation of critical thinking: the cases of Sweden and Kosovo

Abstract

Against the backdrop of the push from the European Commission and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development for competence-based curricula, this article problematises the complexity of developing twenty-first century skills, such as critical thinking, by addressing the role transnational and national policy contexts play in realising critical thinking in the national contexts of Sweden and Kosovo. The article distinguishes between policy-critical thinking and civic-critical thinking. Relying on analyses of curriculum and policy documents, it is concluded that while in the Swedish context critical thinking competence (or ability) seems to be much more implicit than explicit, in Kosovo, the national curriculum makes explicit references to thinking competences as a form of policy-critical thinking and civic competencies as a form of civic-critical thinking. Thus, students in both contexts have opportunities to develop critical thinking skills. Furthermore, Sweden emerges as a divergent case and Kosovo as a convergent case with regard to transnational policy flow research paradigms.     

The Adult Parental Acceptance–Rejection Questionnaire: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Italian and American Short Forms

Objective. The aims of this article were to test the measurement invariance of the Italian and American versions of the Adult Parental Acceptance–Rejection Questionnaire and to compare adults’ remembrances of parental acceptance–rejection across the two nations. Design. The Adult Parental Acceptance–Rejection Questionnaire was administered to 564 Italian adults (M = 23.04 years) and 509 U.S. American adults (M = 22.09 years), matched by gender and age. The measurement invariance of the Parental Acceptance–Rejection Questionnaire was first established by means of multi-group confirmatory factor analyses. Results. The Parental Acceptance–Rejection Questionnaire is fully invariant across the two cultures, and adults organize their remembrances of mothers’ and fathers’ parenting around the same four classes of behavior in both nations. Italian and American adults tend to remember their parents as having been quite loving, with Italian parents being remembered as slightly less warm and more hostile than American parents. Conclusions. The full invariance of the Parental Acceptance–Rejection Questionnaire across the two populations represents additional strong evidence for the universality of interpersonal acceptance–rejection theory. Measurement invariance also confirmed that the Adult Parental Acceptance–Rejection Questionnaire (short form) can be used to measure adult remembrances of parental acceptance–rejection across these two populations.     

The significance in using role models to influence primary school children’s moral development: Pilot study

ABSTRACT

This article reports on a pilot study aiming to examine a role-modelling character education project through an Aristotelian framework, by adopting a virtue-led approach. Aristotle famously believed virtues should be taught to children at a young age through habituation, which gradually develops into phronesis-guided virtuosity, and he considered what nowadays is referred to as ‘role modelling’ as having a large influence on children through the emotion of emulation (zēlos). Therefore, the pilot study aims to answer the question to what extent a virtue-led role modelling intervention in character education can influence students’ moral development. The intervention teaches school-appropriate virtues to students in a primary school in Saudi Arabia. While the study is just starting, this article focuses on some pertinent and problematic preliminary questions about conceptual assumptions and research design.     

Teleconsultation as the New Frontier of Educational and Psychological Consultation: Introduction to the Special Issue

ABSTRACT

In this lead-in article, we define teleconsultation as the delivery of consultative services through videoconferencing and other technologies. We then describe the emergence and potential positive impact of teleconsultation in schools. Finally, we introduce the articles that make up this special issue of the Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation.     

Friendly enemies: Student Tolerance in a Liberal University

Abstract

This article considers whether the methodology used for research determines the viewpoint of the researcher, or whether the researcher's view of the world determines the methodology. The purpose of the article is to consider some of the questions arising from the author's endeavour to conceptualise a methodological framework for a doctoral analysis of the Australian Commonwealth Literacy Policy Literacy for All: The Challenge for Australian Schools (DEETYA 1998).