Beyond the Black–White Test Score Gap: Latinos’ Early School Experiences and Literacy Outcomes

Data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey–Birth Cohort are used to analyze the factors that lead to the reading readiness of children who participate in nonparental care the year prior to kindergarten (N = 4,550), with a specific focus on Latino children (N = 800). Stepwise multiple linear regression analysis demonstrates that reading scores are significantly influenced by the type of care provided the year prior to kindergarten, the caregiver’s education and beliefs about kindergarten readiness, as well as access to books and a computer in the home. Furthermore, mother’s level of education and marital status are important predictors of reading aptitude.     

Student Achievement for Whom? High-performing and Still ‘Playing the Game,’ the Meaning of School Achievement Among High Achieving African American Students

The preponderance of the research on African American students has generally focused on issues of school failure and underperformance. While the literature on high achieving Black students is sparse, very little is known about these students’ school experiences and the meanings that they assign to achievement. Using student-based inquiry research, this study investigates the meaning of school achievement among high-performing African Americans. The findings reveal that the students were not convinced that standardized examinations, and to a lesser extent course grades, were accurate or valid measures of achievement. Thus, they challenged the dominant achievement paradigm and created their own sense of school success, which included social dimensions such as community involvement and personal growth and development. Although collectively the students concluded that standardized exams and grades were not achievement or accurate measures of achievement, yet they clearly knew how to ‘play the game.’ While students must meet the norms of standardized measures and end-of-course testing related to the Common Core, schools can respond to their diverse assessment needs by incorporating broader measures that include, but are not limited to standardized tests. The findings of this study and student recommendations have great implications for teacher education and student assessment.     

‘Fratricidal warfare’: English-Canadian textbook publishers take on the Americans, 1970–1980

Educational publishing sits at the intersection of industry, culture and education. Pedagogical aims must be balanced with the need for publishers to make a profit, while also acknowledging Canadian national identity and culture. The events of central interest are related to the tensions between two publishers’ associations in the wake of the sales, in 1970, of Canadian publishers Gage and Ryerson Press to American interests. The Canadian Book Publishers’ Council was comprised mainly of American branch plants and the Independent Publishers Association membership was Canadian-owned publishing companies. The two associations became bitter rivals, engaging in ‘fratricidal warfare’, as they lobbied the provincial and federal governments and fought to maintain their places in the textbook market. About 65% of total sales revenues from publishing in Canada came from textbook sales in this period. Both governments and commercial interests had to balance Canadian sovereignty with commercial gain and educational goals.     

Mexican Americans and the push for culturally relevant education: the bilingual education movement in Tucson, 1958–1969

This essay traces the bilingual education movement that began in Tucson through the efforts of local teachers, university faculty and educational leaders. It is argued that Mexican Americans and their allies played a crucial role in promoting the merits of bilingual education at the local, state and national levels. Their advocacy of Spanish-for-Spanish-speakers programmes as a culturally relevant means of improving educational outcomes for Mexican American students led to a push for bilingual education with the support of the National Education Association. The work that educators from Tucson accomplished focused national attention on the education of Mexican Americans and ultimately contributed to the passage of the Bilingual Education Act of 1968. This legislation sparked a national movement to expand bilingual education programmes throughout the Southwest and other parts of the nation.     

Bad Language in the Raj: The ‘Frightful Encumbrance’ of Gottlieb Leitner, 1865–1888

This article traces the exceptional career of Gottlieb Leitner, one of the most significant European educators in north India in the second half of the nineteenth century. Leitner’s career is important because he was responsible for changing government attitudes about teaching in the local languages and he was pivotal in the foundation of the Punjab University. The article is also part of a move since the mid 1990s to rediscover the European educator in India. This has been necessary because postcolonial research has neglected such men and women and subalternist approaches have concentrated, instead, on using European‐constructed text to decipher the histories of mostly marginalised and oppressed indigenous groupings on the subcontinent. Leitner’s appointment as Principal of Lahore Government College in 1865 was a deliberate step on the part of authorities in Calcutta and London to see a language expert and educator take up the position. The Punjab, the province where the college was located, was of importance to the British. It had been annexed just fourteen years earlier and it contained the strategic North West Frontier, adjacent to Afghanistan. Its languages were especially difficult for the British to understand and Leitner’s expertise offered a chance to facilitate translations of Western knowledge into the local languages, and especially the medium of instruction which was Persian Urdu. However, his brash approach to raj governance soon provoked hostility from his superiors that was to endure until his departure from the province 33 years later in 1888. This article demonstrates that Leitner’s long career in the Punjab was part of a generally fruitless debate about education in the province. It also shows how other political agendas easily intervened in educational matters in British India in a way not found elsewhere in the empire. However, Leitner’s thinking, the strategic alliances he was able to form with indigenous groupings, and his ability to understand the politics of the raj, resulted in an important change in government attitudes, especially concerning university education taught in the local languages. The structure of the Punjab University and the local language degrees it could confer were unique in the raj at the time of its foundation in 1881. Much of this was the result of Leitner’s clever lobbying that Calcutta, despite its distaste for the troublesome Lahore College principal, ultimately could not afford to ignore. Most significantly, Leitner’s career is illustrative of how the British lost the initiative on the question of ‘language and education’ in little over one generation despite a deeper understanding of the subject in the early half of the nineteenth century. At the time of Leitner’s departure from India in 1888 this increasingly polemical issue was being incorporated, instead, into nationalist narratives that were to grow more stridently anti‐British in the early twentieth century.     

Making diversity safe for democracy: American pluralism and the presidential local address, 1885–1992

Research suggests that modern U.S. presidents increasingly use the local address to speak to voters where they live, both literally and figuratively. Yet most explanations of these speeches suggest that their political efficacy is limited to winning votes. Here I call for a reconsideration of the local address as part of rhetorical presidents’ responses to U.S. citizens’ diversity. Specifically, I provide a historical‐critical account of why presidents may have been able to use the local address to manage American pluralism and then offer a reading of how they might have done so, using examples from 1885–1992.     

Secondary Education and Emancipation: Secondary Schools for Freed Slaves in the American South, 1862–1875

Slavery in the United States denied education to the enslaved. Yet within fifteen years of the beginning of the American Civil War and the freeing of four million American slaves, the freed people and their supporters elaborated a full system of universal education in the South, including over 120 secondary and higher institutions. Historians have overlooked black secondary education as a distinctive part of early black schooling. This article documents the competing ends of black secondary education during Reconstruction, the forms of secondary education that emerged during that period, and the curriculum and pedagogy of the schools. An appendix lists the schools of secondary and higher grade known to have been in operation by 1876.     

‘Oh no,nothing, we didn’t learn anything’: sex education and the preparation of girls for motherhood,c.1930–1970

This article investigates how girls were educated about sex, pregnancy and childbirth during the years 1930 to 1970. Based on the results of 92 oral‐history interviews with Oxfordshire women, it explores how national debates surrounding sex education influenced what girls in Oxfordshire were taught. In addition, it examines how successful the women themselves thought this education had been in equipping them for maternity and whether they believed women could indeed be educated for motherhood.     

Greek American Ethnic Identity,Cultural Experience and the ‘Embodied Language’ of Dance: Implications for Counseling

This ethnographic study aims to contribute to better counseling services for the Greek American population in the U.S. by providing cultural knowledge and insight into one of the smaller ethnic groups that has been overlooked in the literature. More specifically, it explores the role of the ‘embodied language’ of dance in the formation of Greek American ethnic identity and the transmission of sociocultural knowledge and practices. The findings suggest that ethnic dances constitute a significant medium of transmission of cultural knowledge, and socialization into the life of the Greek American community through role modeling and intergenerational contact, as well as opportunity for fellowship and interaction with people who share common practices and traditions. All of the above contribute to a strong identification with the particular community and the development of ethnic identity. Implications for research and theory development in counseling, taking into account the embodied construction of ethnic identity, are also discussed.     

Pick ’n’ mix,select and project; policy borrowing and the quest for ‘world class’ schooling: an analysis of the 2010 schools White Paper

Education reform is increasingly portrayed as a quest to achieve a ‘world class’ education system through a process of identifying and adopting the practices of those systems whose pupils perform best in league tables of achievement. This is the rationale for the range of new policies proposed by the coalition government in the schools White Paper published in November 2010, which promotes whole-system reform in England. This article examines the White Paper and analyses the sources and nature of the evidence for reform and the congruence between the policy intentions and their associated policy actions. The analysis suggests that the evidence for the proposed reforms and policy actions is at best tenuous. Both the White Paper and its key sources of evidence are characterised by: a selective use of data: a propensity to mix and match the sources of comparison; and an overall tendency to employ comparisons with high-performing systems elsewhere as a façade to legitimate preferred policy options.     

Creating an educational home: mothering for schooling in the Australian Women’s Weekly, 1943–1960

Abstract

This article examines cultural representations of the mid-twentieth century mother of schoolchildren in a mass-circulation Australian women’s magazine, arguing that schools and schooling have been under-acknowledged in the historiography of mothering, despite their importance in shaping modern childhood and family life. Framing the Australian Women’s Weekly as a medium of public instruction, we identify and analyse its advice about schooling, both direct and implied, across a variety of the magazine’s sections: in illustrations, news, feature articles, advertising, letters and advice columns. This advice was informed by the popular dissemination of medical, psychological and educational expertise, by managed exchanges amongst the magazine’s readers and by the availability of a variety of consumer products. Much of the guidance offered to mothers was aspirational, aimed at educating and thereby modernising the readership. The interconnectedness of advertising and editorial produced visual and textual images of an “educational home” in which children had their learning supported or enriched, just as their bodies were capably fed and clothed. By the 1950s there was an increasing emphasis on interpersonal relations and therapeutic psychology and the Weekly had embarked on a project of encouraging mothers to learn more about schooling, to do more to support their children’s learning and to take an interest in education as a social project. Despite her strong and growing connection to the school through her children, however, the school mother was almost always represented as working outside its physical boundaries during this period.     

Mandatory accreditation for Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators: biopolitics,neoliberal managerialism and the Deleuzo–Guattarian ‘war machine’

Recent changes to policy directives now require newly appointed Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCOs) in UK mainstream schools to be qualified teachers. Training and accreditation through a nationally approved postgraduate award is now mandatory. Concepts drawn from poststructuralist biopolitics and critiques of neoliberal educational managerialism are mobilized in an analysis of recent inclusion policy and award requirements. Resistance to the positioning of SENCOs and pupils within a political narrative of economic priority and productivity is conceptualized as a Deleuzo–Guattarian ‘war machine’. The implications of biopolitical orientations for practitioner research are explored with reference to teacher action research.     

John Macmurray’s Learning to Live and the new media, 1931–1949: learning for labour or leisure?

John Macmurray was a public intellectual and an early proponent of popular education through the new medium of radio. National broadcasting of the time was finding its role in the competing cultures of education and entertainment, and significantly one of Macmurray’s first radio projects in 1931–1932 concerned the issue of ‘Learning to Live’. Here he explored the tension between learning for labour and learning for leisure. Public understanding of education over the following two decades was fostered through the media of print and cinema. Three examples are identified here to explore how this ‘conceptual couple’ of ‘learning’ and ‘life’ were treated: a propaganda film (1941) that adopted Macmurray’s title, Learning to live; School and life, an official report published in 1947; and a commercial documentary production in 1949 entitled Education for living. Macmurray conveyed his ‘applied philosophy’ through public broadcasting even before his major academic publications and his use of radio itself demonstrated its potential for learning as leisure activity for a mass audience. As in radio, so in documentary film, and even in official reports new understandings of education had to be accessible and attractive. Appraisal of Macmurray’s work must include an historical examination of new media in the development of educational discourse.     

‘A Taste for Country Life’: the policy and practice of bias in English rural education, 1918–1939

Abstract

This paper examines the common assumptions that a Local Education Authority's failure to reorganise rural schools in the 1920s and 1930s necessarily meant it was negligent, parsimonious and without conviction or direction, and that schools themselves ridiculously outmoded in buildings, curriculum and teaching methods. It uses Hertfordshire as a case study and in challenging the assumptions identifies this LEA's not‐so‐hidden agenda – the more than tacit alliance of education and agriculture to ensure the former supported the latter at a time of falling prices and rural depopulation. It argues that, as a result, largely traditional attitudes and highly vocational policies were paramount after 1918, but camouflaged by the promotion of modern teaching methods and by the fashionable aesthetic movement dedicated to the study, enjoyment and regeneration of the countryside. Absolute economy in public expenditure was not the LEA's main priority, but rather the preservation of village schools, the promotion of an intensive rural bias in their curriculum, the isolation of their pupils from urban influences and the creation of a group of teachers specially trained to work in these schools. This policy withstood many vicissitudes, and incurred praise and obloquy in equal degree, and yet overall it became stronger rather than weaker with the passage of time. The paper argues that a major reason for its strength and success was its basic kinship with government policy, which itself owed much to the enduring links between the Board of Education and Ministry of Agriculture.     

“We Have to Educate Every Single Student,Not Just the Ones That Look Like Us”: Support Service Providers’ Beliefs About the Root Causes of the School-to-Prison Pipeline for Youth of Color

Abstract

This study adds to the extant research on the school-to-prison pipeline by investigating how school-based service providers and administrators conceptualize the causal mechanisms constraining and enabling the school-to-prison pipeline in a large urban district. Thirty-three schools were selected for the study based on their suspension rates. Support staff and district partners (n?=?36) participated in focus groups guided by semi-structured protocols. Most participants emphasized structural and systemic causes of the school-to-prison pipeline, such as institutional racism and poverty. To minimize the school-to-prison pipeline, participants highlighted the importance of relationship building and non-punitive practices in response to misbehavior, although solutions offered limited evidence of promising interventions. Given strong research indicating that racial disparities cannot be explained by differential behavior, scholarship in this area emphasizes the need to increase school-level practices that promote positive school climate. The persistence of exclusionary and punitive attitudes among a subset of the sample suggests a need for differentiated professional development to address competing frameworks for understanding the root causes of, and solutions to, the school-to-prison pipeline.     

Children’s Teleological Intuitions: What Kind of Explanations Do 7–8 Year Olds Give for the Features of Organisms, Artifacts and Natural Objects?

Research has shown that children usually provide teleological explanations for the features of organisms from a very early age (3?C4?years old). However, it is not clear if teleology is applied selectively for organisms, or if it is generally applied to other objects as well (artifacts and non-living natural objects). The present study examined whether 7?C8?year old students provided teleological explanations for particular organisms, artifacts and natural objects. We investigated whether children's familiarity with these objects influenced the types of explanations they gave. Finally, we also investigated correlations between 'teleology' and 'usefulness' in children's explanations. The results indicate that 7?C8?year olds are able to distinguish between living and non-living entities, as well as that they provide teleological explanations mostly for organisms and artifacts. This may have important implications for biological education, since teleological explanations in classrooms are likely to pose important conceptual obstacles to the development of a scientific understanding of evolution.