Thank you,my parents!

?１爸爸苦恼的脸、妈妈伤心的抽泣声使我陷入了深深的痛苦中。我们就这样沉默了一段时间。终于，我打破了沉默：“爸、妈，放弃吧。我的病是不可能治好的，你们为我操了这么多心，够了。不要再为我的病苦恼了，顺其自然吧。”“不，不可能。只要我还活着，我就得想法给你治。无论怎么说，我也不会放弃。你要记住。”爸爸跳起来，激动地叫起来。“但我们要面对现实呀。这种病治好的可能性不大，除非换血，但换血要十几万元，我们家能拿出十几万元来吗？”“难道没有别的办法吗？我不相信世界这么大，就治不好你的病。”“爸，有些事情就是这…     

‘It’s the parents’: re-presenting parents in school bullying research

Public discourse about school bullying is frequently underscored by debates about the relative roles and responsibilities of parents and schools in preventing bullying. Such debates are often characterised by a sense of recrimination, with blame apportioned according to perceived negligence. In this article, I provide a critique of ways in which parents have been represented in school bullying research, and consider how these representations inform public discourse about parents in relation to bullying. I argue that prevailing representations of parents in terms of responsibility and risk are a product of the dominance of psychological conceptualisations of bullying as individual pathological behaviour which stems from child development problems associated with poor parenting. As I show, this is but one of a number of ways in which bullying has been conceptualised in the research literature and provides a limited view of parents in relation to a complex social and cultural problem. I suggest that post-structural approaches to bullying research provide an important opportunity to broaden our understanding of how parents are positioned in the social and institutional systems of power in which bullying, and responses to it, takes place; and to move beyond current counter-productive discourses of responsibility and blame.     

与parents相处五步曲

你是否感到不能和parents的意见(opinion)完全一致?试试下面与parents相处的五步曲吧。共度时光(Spend time with them)不要总是play computer games或是看电视(or watch TV),和父母一起外出走走,或是一起read a book。     

Associations among attitudes,perceived difficulty of learning science,gender, parents’ occupation and students’ scientific competencies

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the associations among students’ attitudes towards science, students’ perceived difficulty of learning science, gender, parents’ occupations and their scientific competencies. A sample of 1591 (720 males and 871 females) ninth-grade students from 29 junior high schools in Shanghai completed a scientific competency test and a Likert scale questionnaire. Multiple regression analysis revealed that students’ general interest of science, their parents’ occupations and perceived difficulty of science significantly associated with their scientific competencies. However, there was no gender gap in terms of scientific competencies.     

Children’s transitions to school: ‘so what about the parents’? or ‘so,what about the parents’?

Children progress through a number of life transitions and each is a pivotal point of development and growth for them, their parents and family members. Through a review of the literature, the Bioecological Model will be used to frame childhood transitions as highly social, contextualised and political. This paper will assert that governments, schools and educators have an increased role in supporting parents with their changing roles, responsibilities and relationships as their child transitions to school and that schools need to provide space for parents to share their own transition to school narratives in order to better understand the effect these stories may have on the transition process for them and their children. Finally, schools and systems will be challenged to engage in a strengths-based approach to support parents at this pivotal time in their own and their child’s growth and development and call for increased research to identify ways in which this can occur within respectful, collaborative and agentic relationships.     

How did autistic children,and their parents,experience school transition during the Covid-19 pandemic?

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the start of the academic year in September 2020 was a unique time for those transitioning to a new school. This study aimed to explore the experiences of parents who supported autistic children making a range of different school transitions in 2020. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 13 parents of autistic children in the UK, and data were analyzed with reflexive thematic analysis. For some parents, the Covid-19 pandemic negatively impacted on aspects of school transitions. However, other parents expressed the view that these same circumstances created opportunities to approach the school transition in a unique, improved manner. This article sheds light on the heterogeneity of experiences and perceptions of parents of autistic children, and highlights the need to examine the impact of Covid-19 on school transitions, including practices that it may be advantageous to retain.     

Does engagement in Forest School influence perceptions of risk,held by children,their parents,and their school staff?

In a climate where, it is claimed, children now spend very little time out of doors because adults fear for their safety and impose a ‘zero risk childhood’ on them, Forest School aims to offer learners the opportunity to take ‘supported risks’. This study investigated perceptions of risk associated with the outdoors, held by children, their parents and practitioners, and whether accessing Forest School impacts on these perceptions of risk. Practitioners were generally either strongly risk-averse or strongly permissive; Forest School influenced them to be less risk-averse in some respects. Parents held ambiguous perceptions, wanting to keep their children very safe but also to help them develop strong and confident attitudes to risk. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

White middle‐class parents,identities, educational choice and the urban comprehensive school: dilemmas,ambivalence and moral ambiguity

At a time when the public sector and state education (in the United Kingdom) is under threat from the encroaching marketisation policy and private finance initiatives, our research reveals white middle‐class parents who in spite of having the financial opportunity to turn their backs on the state system are choosing to assert their commitment to the urban state‐run comprehensive school. Our analysis examines the processes of ‘thinking and acting otherwise’, and demonstrates the nature of the commitment the parents make to the local comprehensive school. However, it also shows the parents’ perceptions of the risk involved and their anxieties that these give rise to. The middle‐class parents are thus caught in a web of moral ambiguity, dilemmas and ambivalence, trying to perform ‘the good/ethical self’ while ensuring the ‘best’ for their children.     

Schools, ‘ferals’, stigma and boundary work: parents managing education and uncertainty in regional Australia

This paper examines forms of boundary work undertaken by parents in a regional Australian city to negotiate social processes around the school market amidst rising economic insecurity. It outlines structural changes, which have increased economic inequality in Australia and impacted on educational reform, and the specific challenges faced by public schools in regional settings. Drawing on 18 months’ qualitative research in one regional location, it identifies and analyses forms of boundary work undertaken by middle-class families to manage these uncertainties in a field of scarce economic and cultural resources. Theories of class culture, stigma and whiteness are used to show how local social labels such as ‘ferals’ and ‘shiny people’ acted as classed and racialised ways of negotiating this social and economic landscape through the school field. Such practices engendered feelings of security and control and shed light on feelings of class-based resentment and anxiety in regional Australia, specifically a middle-class ‘fear of falling’.     

Responsibilities,tensions and ways forward: parents’ perspectives on children’s sexuality education

Abstract

Children’s sexuality education continues to be plagued with tensions and controversies. In consequence, children’s access to sexuality education is severely compromised, especially in terms of the time dedicated to this topic, the content addressed, how it is taught and by whom. Based on a study of 342 Australian parents of primary school aged children we explore: (i) parents’ perceptions of the relevance and importance of sexuality education to their primary school aged children and the discourses that inform their perspectives; (ii) parents’ views on who should be responsible for the sexuality education of young children; (iii) whether there are certain aspects of sexuality education considered more appropriate for the family to address with children; and (iv) what the implications of these findings are for sexuality education policy and practice in Australian primary schooling. Despite the controversial nature of the topic, the majority of parents in this study believed sexuality education was relevant and important to primary school children and that it should be a collaborative approach between families and schools. However, some parents/carers acknowledged that while that they believed that some topics should only be addressed at home they also indicated that this often does not happen.     

Why do Muslim parents want Muslim schools?

Islam is a way of life, we try to do what the Prophet did. (Muslim teacher)

The small‐scale study focuses on a number of Muslim parents and practitioners who have rejected local primary community schools in favour of Muslim faith schooling. The rejection of the type of schools that we support and that we train our student teachers to prepare for prompts considerable concern. This concern has led us to question in what ways Muslim schools represent a challenge to our own educational beliefs and values. This study is an attempt to identify the source of that challenge and what it means to our understanding of ourselves as white educators and researchers and the work we do with trainee teachers. It leads us to question our perspective on a range of issues including diversity, inclusion, parental rights and ultimately the aims of education.     

Partnerships and parents – relationships in tutorial programmes

The tutorial system is considered to be a useful pedagogical intervention to improve student retention, particularly in the context of a first-year student’s experience of entering university. For these novice students to achieve academic success, it is important that they are given access to the subject-specific knowledge and practices in their different disciplines, that is, that they acquire ‘epistemological access’. A recent study of the tutorial system in a South African university (Layton, D.M. [2013]. A social realist account of the tutorial system at the University of Johannesburg (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Rhodes University, Grahamstown), sought to discover to what extent tutorials were discursively constructed as being about the enablement of epistemological access. This paper focuses on two discourses that emerged from the study – the parent discourse and the partnership discourse. Both discourses were concerned with relationships between key stakeholders in the tutorial programme. Given that tutorials are considered to be spaces in which more intimate learning can take place than in the anonymous environment of the large lecture hall, an interrogation of the relationships fostered in tutorials is important. The parent discourse, in which students were positioned as ‘kids’ needing care, was supportive of new students but ran the risk of being patronising and reductionist. The partnerships discourse, in which tutors and academics were seen to be working together towards the common goal of student success, was seen to be enabling of epistemological access. But it required a commitment to teaching endeavours that was in tension with the institutional focus on research. Through a social realist analysis of the two discourses constructing relationships in the tutorial system, we conclude that these discourses have the power to both constrain and enable the extent to which the tutorial system can be a site of epistemological access.     

Psychological assessment and dyslexia: parents’ perspectives

The purpose of this paper is to explore parents’ perceptions of the process of having their child assessed for dyslexia by an independent Educational Psychologist and the affective impact on the child or young person. The research was carried out as part of an evaluation of the services offered by the Northern Ireland Dyslexia Centre (NIDC). The methodology involved the use of a postal survey questionnaire with both qualitative and quantitative outcomes. Findings are discussed in the context of strategies for promoting partnerships with parents and affective-academic pathways for learners with dyslexia.     

Parents’ support during different writing tasks: a comparison between parents of precocious readers,preschoolers, and school-age children

The study aimed to deepen the understanding of parental sensitivity to their children’s abilities and the nature of their scaffolding during writing tasks. We compared the parent–child writing interactions of three groups: precocious readers (PRs), same age preschoolers (SA), and older children with the same reading level (SRL) as the PRs. Each of 60 parent child-dyads was videotaped during three writing activities that varied in their structure level: word writing, writing a birthday invitation, and free writing within a wordless children’s book. Interactions were analyzed for parental literacy-specific, social-emotional, and general cognitive support. Results demonstrated parents’ sensitivity to their children’s developmental level and skills. Parents of PRs showed levels of literacy-specific support similar to parents of older children with the SRL, and higher than parents of SA non-reading children. Parents of PRs resembled parents of SA preschoolers and provided their children with more social-emotional support than parents of the older SRL children. The general cognitive support of parents of PRs was higher than that of the two other groups. Moreover, parents of PRs referred to writing conventions and showed more responsiveness than parents in the other two groups. Parents in all three groups emphasized literacy-specific support during the more structured writing tasks (words and invitation), and placed greater emphasis on the social-emotional and general cognitive support during the least structured task (free writing within the wordless book). Beyond these differences, parents demonstrated a consistent support style. We discuss parent–child writing interactions as a context for early literacy development.     

“The ‘Effects’ of infant day care reconsidered” reconsidered: Risks for parents,children, and researchers

In his article “The ‘Effects’ of Infant Day Care Reconsidered”, Belsky (1988) concludes that maternal employment puts infants at risk for developing emotional insecurity and social maladjustment. After a review of Belsky's and other research, this article offers a different conclusion. It is agreed that infants whose mothers work full-time during their first year are consistently and statistically significantly more likely than infants of mothers who work part-time or not at all to be classifed as insecurely attached when such infants are observed with their mothers in the Strange Situation. However, the difference is not large (8% greater probability), and it does not necessarily reflect emotional maladjustment. It is based on a single assessment procedure with a single partner, a procedure in which day-care infants may feel more comfortable than do other infants. Observations of heightened aggression in children who have been in day care as infants offer limited evidence of maladjustment as a consequence of maternal employment. But, there is no clear evidence that day care places infants at risk. Belsky suggests that observed day-care effects on attachment and aggression may be moderated by day-care quality; children's age, sex, and temperament; hours of separation from mother; overstimulation by mother; and congruence between the mother's attitude and work status. However, there is no convincing evidence that these factors are involved. The most promising factors to be used in accounting for individual differences in daycare infants' emotional development are the mother's attitude toward the infant, her emotional accessibility and behavioral sensitivity, and her desire for independence (her own and the infant's). What is needed now is research to assess and investigate such mediating factors, rather than blanket generalizations about day-care effects and implicit or explicit condemnations of maternal employment.     

Juggling the roles of parents,therapists, friends and teachers – a working model for an integrative conception of mentoring

Mentoring programs for youth have become increasingly popular interventions and are generally effective in promoting protégés’ wellbeing and functioning. Building on recent efforts to understand the interpersonal mechanisms underlying mentoring relationships, the authors apply central concepts from attachment, social support and social learning theories and systematically compare the mentor’s role with the roles of other caregivers (parent, therapist, friend, teacher). The authors highlight similarities and differences between mentoring and these roles, and discuss interpersonal dynamics specific to each relationship that can be enacted in mentoring. It is argued that the uniqueness of mentoring rests on mentors’ ability flexibly to transverse these different roles to some degree, without embodying any. Consequently, the authors underscore the existence of different profiles of mentoring relationships and suggest that these might address diverse protégés’ needs. This view serves to articulate specific recommendations for research and practice in light of protégé heterogeneity.     

Do not despise failures: students’ failure mindset,perception of parents’ failure mindset,and implicit theory of intelligence

This study was the first to investigate the prospective effects of failure mindsets on implicit theories of intelligence (ITI), whose profound effects on learning, motivation, and academic achievement have found increasing support. Participants were 240 Chinese university students (180 females, M_age = 19.13) who completed a baseline and a 1-year follow-up survey. The cross-lagged panel model supported the study’s hypothesis that students’ perception of their parents’ view of failure as debilitating at baseline predicted their own failure-is-debilitating mindset and entity theory of intelligence at follow-up. However, students’ failure-is-debilitating mindset at baseline did not predict their entity theory of intelligence at follow-up. A reciprocal relationship was found between students’ perception of their parents’ failure-is-debilitating mindset and their entity theory of intelligence. We recommend programs be implemented to educate parents of the value of failure and how their conveying positive views of failure can be constructive to students’ trajectory of learning and intellectual growth.

     

Greek parents’ perceptions of male early childhood educators

The study reported here examined Greek parents’ perceptions of barriers to men entering the early childhood education and care profession and their recommendations for recruiting more males into the field. Parents were asked to respond on a Likert scale to statements regarding males’ decision to enter the profession, possible benefits for male early childhood educators, and perceived societal attitudes towards male early childhood educators. The findings indicate that the participating parents were in favour of recruiting more males into the early childhood education and care profession but at the same time they recognize the difficulties men encounter when choosing to become early childhood educators. Recommendations for future research designs are formulated.     

Do parents,teachers, and psychoeducational evaluators agree in their perceptions of the problems of black and white emotionally disturbed children?

The aim was to examine the agreement among parents, teachers, psychologists, and educational diagnosticians in their perceptions of the problem behaviors of emotionally disturbed children. The sample of 194 emotionally disturbed boys and girls included 129 whites and 65 blacks. The use of measures of relationship showed that there was significantly greater consensus among the raters in perceptions of white than of black children; agreement was particularly poor between parents and teachers of black youngsters. The implications of these findings are discussed.