Making it work for their children: white middle-class parents and working-class schools

The white middle-class parents who chose to send their children to urban comprehensives largely rejected engaging in the usual competitiveness for educational success. Nevertheless the parents in our study still found themselves wittingly or otherwise captured by that same discourse. Their children are high achievers and are regarded as a valuable resource for their comprehensive schools generating high volume capital. However, in spite of this, the parents do not leave such success to chance. Drawing on an ESRC-funded research project (Educational Choices and the White Urban Middle-Classes RES-148-25-0023) we analyse how middle-class parental involvement is part of the age old process of social reproduction and the transmission of parents’ middle-class privilege to their children, almost regardless of their intentions. Not only are the parents interventionist in their children’s schooling, they draw on and dispose their own privileged capitals to prepare and position their children for educational success.     

Helping parents to read with their children: evaluation of an individual and group reading motivation programme

Twenty‐two primary school children, aged 6–12 years, who were experiencing significant reading difficulties, were allocated to one of two parent‐instruction treatment conditions according to the parent’s preference. The treatments were based upon learning‐theory principles, and were aimed at teaching the parents optimal ways of helping their child learn to read. One condition involved the parent and child being seen individually by the therapist twice a week over five weeks. The other condition involved the parents meeting as a group for three weekly sessions, and then as a group with their children for the final two sessions. The same learning‐theory principles were taught in both treatment conditions. Seven children who were awaiting treatment provided waiting‐list control data over a five‐week period. Outcome measures of the children’s reading level and reading self‐concept, and the parents’ stress levels during reading‐time showed significant improvements for those in the individual treatment condition, and this improvement was maintained at a follow‐up after two months. While there were some gains for those in the group treatment condition, these were not maintained by the two‐month follow‐up.     

Helping children build self-esteem

Children in day care and early childhood programs are becoming more at-risk in the development of appropriate self-esteem. This is evidenced by a number of inappropriate practices in some programs. These practices include a heavy emphasis on testing, homogeneous grouping, the use of a large number of worksheets, heavy drill, and long periods of sitting and listening (Manning & Manning, 1981). Teachers and day care providers can have a great impact on a child's self-esteem. This article is concerned with helping teachers by answering the following questions: What is self-esteem? What are the requirements for high self-esteem? What can a teacher do to encourage appropriate self-esteem?     

Helping children value and appreciate nature

Summary Integrating nature education into the curriculum teaches children many important concepts, such as aesthetics, respect, caring for the earth, and the interrelationships among humans and the habitat. As the world becomes more populated and polluted, and as some animal and plant life becomes endangered and extinct, the role that we all play in protecting or destroying the earth can be reinforced. Through nature study, children can learn how they affect the environment as well as how the environment affects them. By having rich and varied opportunities to experience and explore nature, children can begin to value and appreciate their immediate world and will hopefully generalize this knowledge to other situations and places.     

Comparing motor development of deaf children of deaf parents and deaf children of hearing parents

Deaf children of Deaf parents perform better academically (Ritter-Brinton & Stewart, 1992), linguistically (Courtin, 2000; M. Harris, 2001; Vaccari & Marschark, 1997), and socially (Hadadian & Rose, 1991; M. Harris, 2001) than Deaf children of hearing parents. Twenty-nine Deaf children in residential schools were assessed to determine if a significant difference also exists in motor development between Deaf children with Deaf parents and Deaf children with hearing parents. In the locomotor area, 78.6% of Deaf children of Deaf parents and 73.3% of Deaf children of hearing parents reached or surpassed average performance levels. In regard to object control, 92.9% of Deaf children of Deaf parents and 93.3% of Deaf children of hearing parents reached or surpassed average performance levels. The study results show no significant difference between the motor development of Deaf children of Deaf parents and Deaf children of hearing parents.     

对中职学生实施创业教育实践

创业教育以创业能力培养为核心,以全面提高素质为基础的系统工程.对中职学生实施创业教育是一个新的课题,要达到预期的效果,必须围绕培养目标整体设计教育内容和方法,建立有效的教育体制和运行模式.我们在这方面进行了初步实践,取得了一定的成效.     

Helping parents to become partners in the education of their handicapped child

Conclusions Educators are beginning to seek methods of improving parent-child relationships and school and parent relationships, as the evidence accrues and is assimilated, which shows how much more important is the child's family experience. The handicapped child brings the desirability of successful home and school links into clear focus, as the six-hour school day is clearly inadequate for the needs of many severely handicapped children, who require a consistent programme of developmental experiences from waking to sleeping. The only way in which the trust and confidence imposed by close relationships in the home may be continued in the school is by a mutual effort directed at common goals: the development of the child's capacity to learn and care for himself. Perhaps it is the similarity of the tasks undertaken in home and in school, with the severely and profoundly handicapped child, the severely and profoundly handicapped child, which has shown just how powerful the home-and-school combination can be when working in harmony. There are clearly lessons here for the education system at large. Perhaps the longstanding schism between parents and schools can be bridged in the next decades.The importance of social abilities, self-help skills and the confidence which all emanate from a successful family life, are emphasized by Smith and Sykes (1981) and others, who show that social competency is perhaps the key factor in determining vocational and post-school success for handicapped students. These competencies and confidence cannot come from school alone. The initiatives alluded to in this article, and described in full in the literature cited, show that schools have come a long way from believing that they alone can cope.Has written a number of studies on the development of education for the visually handicapped.     

Empowering parents of pre-school children

This paper describes a project undertaken with parents from an inner city primary school in Hartlepool, England. The main objectives of the project were to increase the self esteem of the parents, to give them an understanding of the pre-school curriculum and to enable them to develop their skills, knowledge and confidence to become involved in school life and to take ownership of their own children's education. The project focused around the production of a video to show nursery life in the school and this production was used as a vehicle to encourage the fulfilment of the objectives described above. The paper concludes by describing the successful outcomes of the project. Some of the outcomes were planned for, but we were equally delighted with the unexpected ones.     

Helping children learn about disabilities: Part II

Cary A. Buzzelli is an assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Nancy File is a doctoral student in the Department of Child Development and Family Studies at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.     

Helping young children appreciate beauty in natural areas

Nature's creations are eternal, and vulnerable. Mountains disintegrate, eroded by the elements of wind, cold, rain, and heat. At the same time, land masses are built up by other processes involving the folding and faulting of earth materials. Vegetation and animal life persist while constantly being modified by people's technological advances. Some of these occurrences are examples of nature itself engaging in various cycles of growth and life, decay and death. While technology is coupled with nature's own forces, its resulting effects on the design and balance in nature can be unpredictable and harmful to human well-being.Dennis W. Sunal and Cynthia Szymanski Sunal are Associate Professors at the University of Alabama in the area of Curriculum and Instruction.