The school-to-work transition for high school dropouts

This paper presents a conceptual framework for understanding the problems encountered by high school dropouts in their school-to-work transition. The underlying assumption is that dropouts are likely to face strains in their homes, jobs, and other community settings that are similar to those which led them to leave school. Exemplary school and work programs for dropouts are discussed and implications drawn for their design. A youth advocacy system is recommended that could stimulate adaptation by the educational and employment sectors to the needs and personal styles of dropouts as well as help dropouts to make informed choices about their educational and career potentials. Such a system would also help the dropout to identify the most appropriate settings for realizing those potentials.     

The Boston compact: A community response to school dropouts

The transition from school to work is difficult for many American inner city youth. In 1982, Boston's leaders signed an agreement known as the Boston Compact to tackle the student dropout and employment problems. This paper reviews the process of the Compact from 1982 to 1986, traces the steps being taken to create a communitywide plan that responds to Boston's school dropout problem, and summarizes Boston's Draft Dropout Prevention and Reentry Plan.This paper was presented at the symposium, Dropping Out in America: A New Way of Looking at The High School Dropout Problem, American Educational Research Association Meeting, San Francisco, April 20, 1986.     

现代教育技术在初中物理教学中的应用

随着信息技术的高速发展和广泛应用,信息技术在教育领域得到越来越广泛的应用,现代教育技术引起了教育深刻变革,给教育观念、教学方法和教学组织形式等方面带来了深远影响.对教育活动本身产生了多方面的影响:不仅改变了原有的教学手段,而且推动了教学方法与课堂教学结构的变革,在深化教学改革方面起着极其重要的作用.如何运用现代教育技术建构新型物理教学模式,推进素质教育,成为我们面临的重大课题,笔者介绍自己在初中物理教学中的应用现代教育技术的经验.     

Social experiences of hearing-impaired high school youth

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the reasons why hearing-impaired students describe their high school experiences as positive or negative and to identify the specific classroom dynamics that contribute to or detract from social development. Data were collected from 49 hearing-impaired undergraduate students who were asked to describe their high school experiences on an open-ended questionnaire with a follow-up interview. The results indicated that graduates of residential programs described their social experiences significantly more positively than graduates of mainstream programs. Reasons included their teachers' ability to sign, socializing with friends and participation in after-school activities. Positive feelings in mainstream programs were associated with such factors as availability of supportive services, ability to voice and lipread, parent involvement, encouragement of interaction and deaf awareness by the teachers. Mainstream students who had the benefit of supportive services reported different perceptions of supportiveness of the academic environment and of teachers' expectations than did those who had no such services in high schools. Implications are drawn for the improved academic and social development of hearing-impaired high school students.     

Temperamental task orientation: Relation to high school and college educational accomplishments

To evaluate the role of temperamental task orientation in adolescents' academic success, we examined its relation to educational accomplishments in high school and college using longitudinal data. Participants (N = 110) were assessed at 15, 16, and 17 years of age with a follow-up at 24 years. Adolescent self-report and parent reports of task orientation at 16 were used to predict high school and college GPA, SAT scores, perseverance in college, and degree attainment. Task orientation related to high school GPA and accounted for variance above and beyond SES and IQ in predicting high school and college GPA. An interaction emerged between IQ and task orientation: increasing levels of task orientation were associated with higher GPA for students with higher intelligence, but not for those with relatively lower intelligence. These findings highlight the contribution of non-intellective factors to academic achievement in secondary and post-secondary education.     

Latino adolescents' experiences of discrimination across the first 2 years of high school: correlates and influences on educational outcomes

Changes in perceptions of discrimination were examined with 668 Latino students (62% Mexican American; 56% female; M(age) = 14.6 years). Adolescents' reports of discrimination increased across the first 2 years of high school. Perceptions of discrimination were higher for boys and for primary language brokers, as well as for adolescents in schools with more ethnically diverse student bodies but a less diverse teaching staff. Path analysis revealed that higher levels of discrimination and increases in discrimination across time influenced Latino adolescents' academic outcomes (i.e., grades, absences) indirectly via their influences on perceptions of school climate. Findings highlight previously understudied individual and school contextual factors that shape experiences of discrimination and the mechanisms by which discrimination indirectly influences Latino adolescents' outcomes.     

回归生活世界的学校道德教育

远离学生现实生活的传统德育已暴露出较大的局限性，不能很好适应社会及人的发展需要。德育本应源于社会生活，丰富的现实生活世界应是建构德育大厦的基石。道德教育只有与生活完全融为一体，才具有无限生命力。要提高德育的实效性，让道德教育回归生活是顺应历史潮流的举措。     

Earnings and the decision to return to school

This paper finds that a significant predictor of returning to school is earnings below expected earnings in the National Longitudinal Survey (NLS) Young Men sample. These 'unlucky' workers find that the foregone cost of schooling was lower than they thought. At the same time, the low relative earnings of these ‘unlucky’ workers may cause them also to revise their expected value of further schooling. But because they do actually decide to return to school, two interpretations of this revision in the value in further schooling are possible. Either the revision is upward, indicating that they believe that additional schooling will bring earnings up to that expected for persons with further education; or the revision is downward, but that revision must be dominated by a greater reduction in the expected cost of schooling for an economically sensible decision to return to school.     

From school leader to educational leader

ABSTRACT

This study builds on research which contends that just as effective principals must lead across a broad purview of responsibilities in order to build successful schools, so too must middle leaders. Decentralisation of school management has resulted in an expansion of school principals’ responsibilities, contributing to a further distribution of leadership responsibility to middle leaders. This conception of middle leadership requires a shift in understanding of the nature of middle leaders’ work. There is vast potential for middle leaders to contribute to their schools beyond subject administration, yet the research base yields limited insight on such work and on how middle leaders can be supported to accomplish it. This research finds that middle leaders who expand their leadership responsibilities do so in contexts that utilise school mission, policy enactment and organisational design as platforms for enhanced middle leadership.     

Space allocation to academic departments in a high rise building of an Australian educational institution

This study examines an important aspect of the college space planning problem for an institution which has a high density development on the campus site. A model is developed which minimizes the vertical student pedestrian movements within the building. The optimal solution obtained from the model was adjusted marginally to alleviate space dispersal problems which tend to militate against departmental coordination and interaction. The resulting assignment of space was found to be better than the existing deployment of teaching department accommodation from the perspective of minimization of student pedestrian traffic and intradepartmental interaction and administration. The study is concluded by suggesting that future investigators should consider a multiobjective approach to the resolution of space allocation problems. It indicates that academic interaction should be maximized whilst costs of relocation of occupants from existing building floors should be minimized. The consideration of these goals, together with the objectives examined in this study, appear to be central to the solution of the college space allocation problem.     

Introducing Torres Strait Island dance to the Australian high school physical education curriculum

This study was carried out within the context of a requirement for every Australian Capital Territory Education and Training Directorate (ACT ETD) high school to include Indigenous perspectives across all areas of the curriculum. For the first time ever in the case study school reported in this article, two Torres Strait Island dances were taught to students from Year 7 to Year 9. Traditionally dance within Physical Education (PE) in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) has been informed by British and American influences. This paper seeks to problematize the inclusion of Indigenous dance into a Westernized PE curriculum and considers the challenges faced by non-Indigenous Health and Physical Education (HPE) teachers in relation to this, as well as what support is available. It is argued from the findings of this study that it is possible for schools to move beyond traditional PE content and include Indigenous perspectives in a non-tokenistic way. However, it is also argued that such an approach requires Indigenous people to have a central role, and for non-Indigenous teachers to challenge taken for granted mainstream Westernized and racialized teaching practices and discourses.     

学校体育的育人功能

体育教育是当前素质教育的重要组成部分,是实施素质教育目标的重要内容和途径之一,体育教育对素质教育具有其不可替代的推动作用和促进作用。     

Career and workplace experiences of Australian university graduates who are deaf or hard of hearing

This article reports on the experiences of a group of deaf and hard-of-hearing alumni of Griffith University in south-east Queensland, Australia. Participants completed a survey answering questions about their communication patterns and preferences, working lives, career barriers or difficulties anticipated and encountered, and workplace accommodations used or sought. Results revealed a range of career barriers and workplace difficulties encountered by these participants, as well as solutions found and strategies used by them. Differences in employment sector, job-search activities, difficult workplace situations, and use of accommodations were noted between 2 groups: those who communicated primarily in Australian Sign Language and considered themselves to have a Deaf or bicultural identity and those who communicated primarily in spoken English and considered themselves to have a hearing identity. Implications for university services supporting deaf and hard-of-hearing students are outlined, and suggestions for further research are made.     

Stress manifestation in high school students: An Australian sample

Stress symptoms associated with main daily hassles were assessed among grades 7, 9 and 11 students in all‐female, all‐male, and coeducational Catholic high schools in Western Sydney, Australia. Factor analysis identified the stress manifestation domains of anxiety, anger, and physiological arousal. Differences in these are examined and a conceptual model of stress manifestation is proposed. Implications of the findings for school‐based stress management programs are addressed. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 40: 391–402, 2003.