Media’s moral messages: assessing perceptions of moral content in television programming

This study extends the examination of moral content in the media by exploring moral messages in television programming and viewer characteristics predictive of the ability to perceive such messages. Generalisability analyses confirmed the reliability of the Media’s Moral Messages (MMM) rating form for analysing programme content and the existence of 10 moral themes prevalent in television media. Standard regression analyses yielded evidence indicating viewers’ moral expertise, as measured by the Defining Issues Test (DIT), familiarity with the programme and level of education predicted their ability to perceive moral messages in a television drama popular in the USA at the time of data collection. Identification of patterns in moral content represented in television programming, as well as knowledge of how viewer characteristics relate to their ability to perceive such content, can provide parents and educators with a means for better comprehending messages regarding human interaction to which they or their children are exposed.     

Design,implementation and evaluation of school-based sexual health education in sub-Saharan Africa: a qualitative study of researchers’ perspectives

This study investigated facilitators and challenges to designing, implementing and evaluating school-based sexual health education in sub-Saharan Africa, using interviews with intervention designers and researchers. At the pre-planning and planning stages, participants reported that facilitating factors included addressing the reproductive health needs of participants, contextual (culture, religion, economic and social) considerations and the adoption of holistic approach to sexuality education. Lack of open communication about sexual health matters between young people and adults; concerns that sexual health education could encourage sexual activity; and inadequate funding, were key barriers. Implementation was facilitated by the involvement of relevant stakeholders, the training of facilitators and adopting strategies to overcome resistance to sexual health education. The provision of structured, detailed lessons plans and monitoring with supportive supervision optimised fidelity of delivery. Barriers to implementation included facilitators’ resistance to teaching safe sex promotion and logistical challenges in school environments. Participants also reported that the validity of self-reported adolescent sexual behaviour (as part of evaluation) may be improved by complementing well-designed self-report surveys with computerised audio devices for data collection, qualitative interviews and participant observation. Study findings generate recommendations to improve future forms of school-based sexual health education in sub-Saharan Africa.     

“Get lucky!” Sexual content in music lyrics,videos and social media and sexual cognitions and risk among emerging adults in the USA and Australia

This study examined the relationship between sexual content in music and sexual cognitions and risk among emerging adults in the USA and Australia. Music content was examined via lyrics, videos and social media. It was hypothesised that there would be a positive association between sexual content in music and sexual cognitions and risk. Sexual content in music lyrics, videos, and social media was assessed using content analysis of the top artists rated by participants in the USA and Australia. Findings indicated variations in sexual content based on music genre and location, and that music lyrics, videos and social media all contain sexual content. Results from hierarchical regression analyses indicated that sexual lyrical content, sexual content in music videos, and sexual references in the social media posts of artists were related to negative sexual cognitions for both samples. This trend was also found for the degree of sexual risk for both samples. While findings point to the direction of a universal impact of the association between sexual content in music and sexual cognitions and degree of sexual risk, they also highlight trends in these relationships across countries.     

Exploring early adolescents’ evaluation of academic and commercial online resources related to health

This study assessed the ability of 426 students (ages 12–13) to critically evaluate two types of online locations on health issues: an academic resource and a commercial resource. The results indicated limited evaluation abilities, especially for the commercial resource, and only a small, partial association with prior stance and offline reading ability. Only about half (51.4%) of the students questioned the credibility of the commercial online resource and only about 19% of the students showed an ability to fully recognize commercial bias. Wide variation existed in students’ ability to evaluate online information, as approximately one-fourth of the students performed poorly when evaluating the overall credibility of both online resources and one-fourth performed well. Logistic regression models showed that offline reading skills accounted for only 8.8% of the variance for the academic online resource and 15.1% of that for the commercial resource. No association appeared between evaluation and background knowledge, although an association with prior stance was observed for each online resource. The results are discussed in light of previous research and the need to pay greater attention to the critical evaluation of online resources during classroom instruction.     

Deaf and hard-of-hearing adolescents’ experiences of inclusion and exclusion in mainstream and special schools in Sweden

This study examines the question of which school environment – special or mainstream school – is more favourable for deaf and hard-of-hearing students in Sweden, when it comes to their well-being, and their social and academic inclusion. The aim is threefold: first to compare the well-being of adolescents who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, who are deaf or hard-of-hearing and have additional disabilities, and who have no disabilities; second to compare the adolescents from the two deaf and hard-of-hearing groups and their experiences of inclusion and exclusion in school; and third to ascertain if any gender differences exist between the two groups of deaf and hard-of-hearing students concerning their experiences of inclusion and exclusion. A total of 7865 adolescents (13–18 years of age) answered a total survey about the life and health of young people in a county in Sweden. The results show that both boys and girls in the hard-of-hearing groups rated their well-being lower and were less satisfied with their lives than pupils without disabilities. They also show that the hard-of-hearing boys and girls attending special school were more satisfied with their lives and to a greater extent felt included both socially and academically than students in mainstream school.     

Educators’ perceptions of learners with intellectual disabilities’ sexual knowledge and behaviour in KwaZulu-Natal,South Africa

Over the past two decades, comprehensive sexuality education has increasingly been recognised as a measure that positively impacts on the sexual behaviour of young people in Africa. Despite this, and a political call to scale-up the use of comprehensive sexuality education in schools in South Africa, learners with disabilities continue to be left behind. Besides contending with negative hegemonic constructs of disabled sexualities, educators of learners with disabilities lack skills and resources to teach sexuality in accessible formats. Based on this premise, a comprehensive sexuality education approach – Breaking the Silence – was developed and piloted to assist educators of learners with disabilities to provide access to comprehensive sexuality education in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. This article presents results from the formative evaluation of this pilot work and discusses educators’ perceptions of their learners with intellectual disabilities’ sexual knowledge, agency and behaviour after implementing the approach. Although educators appeared to situate learners with intellectual disabilities as sexual agents, their implementation of the approach was dependent on the cognitive ability of learners, and discourses of culture, gender and protection from violence.     

Gender differences in adolescents’ choice of heroes and admired adults in five countries

Seven hundred and sixty-eight adolescents from five countries and regions (USA, Spain, Hong Kong, Qatar, and Malaysia), aged 13–19 (M?=?15.78; SD?=?1.28) years, responded to a questionnaire designed to determine who was their most admired famous adult or hero. Male heroes clearly outnumbered admired females (73.3% vs. 26.7%). There was a pattern of same-sex choices, but it was more likely for girls to choose male heroes than for boys to choose females. Over half of the admired adults were athletes, and movie, television, and music stars. Regarding the personally known adults, there was a more balanced choice of males and females, with parents as the most frequent choice. Results suggest that society continues to fail in providing an adequate supply of female role models.     

The roles of epistemology and ideology in teachers’ pedagogy with historical ‘media’

Within the field of social studies education, disciplinary models of teaching, such as approximating a historian in asking students to ‘think historically,’ have been the emphasis of countless professional development and teacher education programs. This movement, however, has focused largely on the use of traditional primary documents and generally does not include training for teachers or students on how other forms of media construct history. This collective case study examines how two US history teachers’ epistemological beliefs about historical media and ideology and overall goals for students as citizens impacts their pedagogy with different historical media, particularly film. Data were collected on a daily basis over the course of six months, and included observations, teacher interviews, and the media used as historical sources. Findings show that teachers’ beliefs about how sources represent history affect their pedagogy with the particular media, and that epistemic development and current notions of historical thinking may be limited when it comes to media that commonly serve as historical sources for the public at large (e.g., film, television, WWW, videogames). This limitation is caused in large part by the teachers’ larger goals for students that are informed by their ideology, and difficulty in identifying bias in media that aligned with their own beliefs. Therefore, a shift in teachers’ epistemic beliefs about how different forms of media serve as sources of history, essentially a form of critical media literacy, and coinciding recognition of ideological goals needs to occur in order to better instill students with skills in historical and media literacy for the twenty‐first century.     

Bureaucratic constructions of sexual diversity: ‘sensitive’, ‘controversial’ and silencing

National research illustrates the high degree of discrimination that prevails against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) students resulting in diminished educational outcomes, both academic and social. This phenomenon is influenced by the prevalence of whole-school silences around LGBTQ topics in many Australian schools. This paper presents an analysis of the New South Wales (NSW) homophobia in schools policy, as well as both NSW state and Australian federal curriculum and syllabus documents in the health and physical education key learning area. This analysis illustrates how contradictory framing and messages; silences and omission; and various discursive constructions of the LGBTQ subject together produce silencing technologies that have critical implications for the implementation of education, both in this key learning area and across the schooling sector.     

Development and validation of the sources of parental anxiety in children’s education scale

Parental anxiety in children’s education is closely related to children’s developmental and educational outcomes. The current study reported the development and validation of a self-report instrument to evaluate the Sources of Parental Anxiety in Children’s Education (SPACEs). Qualitative analyses suggested that the construct of parental anxiety in children’s education was multidimensional, representing learning performance anxiety, educational environment anxiety, educational input anxiety, and educational outcome anxiety as four primary sources. The results from exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported this four-factor structure comprising 17 items to capture this multidimensional construct. The scale also demonstrated adequate internal consistencies, convergent validity, discriminant validity, criterion-related validity, and test-retest reliability. A series of multi-group tests across age, locality, and children’s grades provided evidence of measurement invariance. Overall, the SPACE scale appear to be a reliable and valid tool to measure educational anxiety in parents in the Chinese context.     

Reciprocal relations between adolescents’ self-concepts of ability and achievement emotions in mathematics and literacy

This longitudinal study examined cross-lagged relations of self-concepts of ability and achievement emotions (i.e., enjoyment, boredom, anxiety) in two central school subjects (i.e., mathematics and literacy). Adolescents (N = 848) reported their achievement emotions and self-concepts of ability four times during Grades 6 and 7. The pattern of results was different for mathematics and literacy subjects. For mathematics the results of random intercept cross-lagged panel models showed a positive reciprocal relationship between self-concepts of ability and enjoyment and a negative reciprocal relationship between self-concept and anxiety. Lower self-concepts of ability in mathematics also predicted higher boredom in mathematics but not vice versa. For literacy, in turn, self-concept of ability did not predict any of the achievement emotions and emotions did not predict literacy self-concept of ability. The results suggest that achievement emotions act as sources as well as consequences of adolescents’ self-concepts of ability, particularly in mathematics.     

‘Power on’: Googlecracy,privatisation and the standardisation of sources

The paper aims to contribute to the sociological analysis of power through the study of the structuration and retrieval of information on the internet. The main argument of the paper is that, paradoxically, in an age when the availability of information has increased exponentially, there is a risk that diversity in the use of sources for the construction of knowledge becomes more restricted than in the past and that information search moves towards greater objectification and centralisation. Knowledge management systems increasingly shape the ways in which we think about the questions we ask and how we try to answer them, which raises fundamental and largely neglected questions for education policy. The paper illustrates these trends with particular reference to the use of Google and Google Scholar.     

Popular histories: ‘education’ and ‘entertainment’ in information books for children

UK government policy has increasingly emphasized the importance of learning in the home; and commercial publishers have not been slow to respond. There is now a growing market in popular information books targeted at parents and children. This article provides an analytical case-study of four such books on a common historical theme: ancient Rome. It addresses three main issues. First, it considers the epistemology or historiography of these texts, particularly in relation to their use of sources and their implicit view of what history (as a subject) is. Second, it discusses the pedagogic style of the texts, as reflected in their mode of address to the reader and their use of narrative and expository language. Finally, it considers the balance between ‘education’ and ‘entertainment’ and the implications of using popular cultural genres as a means of representing the past.     

Education with production in Zimbabwe: an evaluation of teachers’ and pupils’ attitudes and perceptions

The terms community development and lifelong learning have been in use for several decades and refer to different areas within the field of adult education. This paper sets out to explore the relationship between these two concepts. It examines the ways in which community development work contributes to the development of an overall system of lifelong education. Recent writing on the idea of the learning society points towards a more holistic view of education, which acknowledges learning in all its forms and venues and which values the many and varied ways in which people learn. The nature of this rapidly changing society demands that individuals and communities take up this challenge, so that they can play their part in shaping the future. This paper is based on research which was carried out in the early 1990s, under the auspices of the Community Research and Development Centre, by one of the authors (RM) as part of a DPhil study. It was constructed with a view to exploring the need for a more holistic, integrated approach to meeting the educational needs of those involved in adult education, community development and community regeneration in Belfast. The research set out to investigate the relationship between the various forms of learning, through an examination of organizations engaged in providing formal, non‐formal and informal adult learning opportunities in Belfast. The results confirm that traditional providers of adult education no longer hold a monopoly over learning and that there is an emerging sector of community and voluntary organizations engaged in providing learning opportunities for adults in their communities. There is some indication that whilst the relationship between traditional and non‐traditional providers is complex, the opportunities for learning which they offer are complementary. The voluntary and community sector emphasizes issue‐based and action‐oriented learning within a democratic, participative culture. Non‐formal providers often seek to support such groups, by providing more structured learning situations. Their programmes frequently offer an alternative adult education to that of the formal providers, who are more concerned with traditional ‘liberal adult education’. Whilst formal providers may try to be more community‐based, they are severely confined by their bureaucratic, hierarchic structure. Informal providers, however, also offer opportunities for more formal adult learning opportunities, through links with formal providers. The existence of this network suggests the basis for a system of lifelong education, which incorporates the range of adult learning opportunities.     

Tracing teachers’ transformation of knowledge in social media

Social media represent an increasingly important vehicle for informal professional development amongst teachers, and provide an illuminating means of tracing their collective knowledge building. The study reported here examines six large Facebook groups, created by and for teachers in Sweden, to exchange information about the teaching of mathematics and Swedish. Analysis establishes that professional knowledge was made available in 86% of discussion threads, most commonly relating to Shulman’s categories of Knowledge of Learners, Curricular Knowledge, and Pedagogical Content Knowledge. Participants acknowledged opportunities for professional learning in 88% of such threads, and showed new understanding in 11%, particularly in longer threads.     

A qualitative investigation of prospective teachers’ hopes,their sources,and motivational forces

This grounded theory study examined prospective teachers’ (PTs) dispositional hopes, teaching-specific hopes, their sources, and motivational force of teaching-specific hopes. A total of 41 PTs enrolled on different teacher education programmes voluntarily participated in the semi-structured interviews. Findings showed that PTs’ dispositional hopes revolved around an active/passive axis, and originated from internal, external, and combined sources. Teaching-specific hopes were explained through five categories: relationships with others, teaching, student achievement, student motivation, and student development. Regardless of axis or source, teaching-specific hopes had a substantial motivational force on PTs’ preparation toward their future careers. The current study urges teacher educators and policy-makers to consider PTs’ teaching-specific hopes together with their motivational roles in preparing them for their future careers.     

Measuring teachers’ content knowledge of language and reading

In the context of a longitudinal, four-year study of reading instruction in low-performing, high-poverty urban schools, we surveyed teacher knowledge of reading-related concepts, and established a modest predictive relationship between teachers’ knowledge, classroom reading achievement levels, and teachers’ observed teaching competence. There were significant associations among these variables at the third and fourth grade levels. To obtain this result, measures of teacher content knowledge in language and reading were refined in a three-stage process. Our purpose was to explore the type and level of questions that would begin to discriminate more capable from less capable teachers, and that would have a predictive relationship with student reading achievement outcomes. After experimenting with measurement of K-2 teachers’ content knowledge (Form #1), we piloted a Teacher Knowledge Survey with 41 second and third grade teachers in one study site (Form #2). We then refined and expanded the Survey (Form #3) and administered it to 103 third and fourth grade teachers in both project sites. Teachers’ misconceptions about sounds, words, sentences, and principles of instruction were pinpointed so that professional development could address teachers’ needs for insight and information about language structure and student learning.     

Comparing school accountability in England and its East Asian sources of ‘borrowing’

Education reforms in England are increasingly justified by borrowing ‘best practices’ of high-performing East Asian societies, including Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai. However, taking the reforms of school accountability as an illustrative example, this article argues that there are serious variations between England and its East Asian sources of ‘borrowing’ with regard to the ways in which schools are held to be accountable. How school accountability is organised and operationalised in practice deeply depends on socio-political priorities of each society. Therefore, education policy borrowing from East Asia to England is potentially extremely difficult. Furthermore, this article remains alert to the possibility that the claim (about improving the education system in England through imitating East Asian models) is symbolic rather than practical – symbolic in the sense of producing legitimacy for pre-existing policy agendas.     

Pair programming and secondary school girls’ enjoyment of programming and the subject Information Technology (IT)

This paper reports on a qualitative study that examined how pair programming shapes the experience of secondary school girls taking IT as a subject, with respect to their enjoyment of programming and the subject itself. The study involved six Grade 11 girls who were doing solo programming in Grade 10 and pair programming in their following Grade. The results showed that the girls enjoyed the subject more when programming in pairs due to improved comprehension of the task. They especially enjoyed the socialization and communication brought about by pair programming. The assistance, support, motivation, focus and encouragement they received from partners when stuck or while fixing errors made the programming experience more enjoyable for them. The increased enjoyment brought about by pair programming resulted in the perception of greater learning in the subject IT and also to greater interest in it. It also led to greater persistence in dealing with problems. Pair programming should be implemented right from the start of Grade 10 since it may lead to greater enjoyment of programming and the subject IT in general. The approach may also lead to more girls being attracted to the subject.     

Educators’ understanding of young children’s typical and problematic sexual behaviour and their training in this area

As part of a wider study, this paper reports on Australian educators’ understanding of children’s typical and problematic sexual behaviour and their source of training in this area. A sample of 107 educators from government, independent and Catholic primary schools, preschools and care organisations across Australia answered an online questionnaire regarding their understanding of and experiences with children’s problematic sexual behaviours and their management strategies. The majority of educators were able to identify children’s age-appropriate typical sexual behaviour and some elements of problematic sexual behaviour; however, individual knowledge was not extensive. Approximately 35% (n = 35) of educators said they had not been trained in identifying and responding to children’s problematic sexual behaviour. Of those who said they had received training, the majority (82%, n = 53) described having participated in a compulsory course on reporting suspected abuse to government (a mandated reporting course). Ninety per cent (n = 89) of educators reported that courses specific to children’s problematic sexual behaviours should be offered. This suggests that mandated reporting courses do not offer in-depth training specific to problematic sexual behaviour. Implications for professional development are discussed.