Inclusive practice within the lived cultures of school communities: research case studies in teaching,learning and inclusion

This paper provides an account of a teacher's use of theory as a tool to develop inclusive practice through a social studies programme in a new entrant class. The account illustrates the ways in which the teacher drew on research to assist in the facilitation of an inclusive educational environment. Presented are research case studies the teacher encountered in an in-service teacher education programme, and the ‘social constructionist’ and ‘personal tragedy’ models that were used as theoretical tools to assist the teacher's planning and teaching practice. Mounted cameras, broadcast microphones and pre- and post-unit interviews with the teacher and students were used to explore the lived culture of the classroom, and the nature and effectiveness of the strategies the teacher used. An ‘interrupted narrative’ methodology engages the reader in the interplay between research and theory in the research case studies. Four major strategies used by the teacher have been identified and these are presented as theoretical tools for other teachers and teacher educators to use, critique and develop to support inclusive practice in their own contexts.     

Girls Helping Girls: Assessing the Influence of College Student Mentors in an Afterschool Engineering Program

Current data suggest fewer females than males continue to be interested in engineering and that this gender gap is first evidenced during middle school years. One might expect that female engineering role models would encourage adolescent girls to pursue future careers in engineering and thereby increase the girls’ interests in and attitudes towards science and mathematics. This study sought to correlate middle school girls’ overall confidence in science and mathematics with a year-long, afterschool mentoring program led by female engineering students from a local university. The results demonstrated that there was a significant correlation between the quality of the mentoring relationship and the girls’ confidence in mathematics. The relationship between female role models and young girls’ attitudes toward science and mathematics is discussed.     

BioMEMS and Electrophoresis in 2006: Review of the 23rd Annual Meeting of the American Electrophoresis Society

The 23rd Annual Meeting of the American Electrophoresis Society (AES) was held at the San Francisco Hilton in San Francisco, California on 12–17 November 2006. This year’s meeting featured a look toward the future, with an emphasis on theoretical and experimental advances in miniaturization of BioMEMS, electrokinetics, and proteomics technologies. A total of 13 sessions accommodating 71 presentations and 18 posters were held in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). This review and corresponding special issue of Biomicrofluidics provide a sampling of some of the exciting research presented at the conference.     

College Student Perceptions of The (In)Appropriateness and Functions of Teacher Disclosure

This study investigated college student perceptions of the (in)appropriateness of instructor disclosures and perceived functions of instructor disclosures. An interpretive analysis of 35 college students identified that family relationships, life experiences and background, and everyday talk and activities were forms of appropriate disclosures; whereas, intimate relationship details, personal problems, personal opinions, and drinking behavior were considered inappropriate topics for instructors to disclose. In terms of the function of instructor disclosures, students perceived that these disclosures worked to humanize instructors, make instructors approachable, and create affect for instructors and courses. Implications and future research are also discussed.     

Policy discourses and changing practice: Diversity and the university-college

This study reports the results of research with respect to policy and diversity, as part of a larger case study of a Canadian university-college. The study details an examination of policy discourses as a vehicle for institutional change and provides insights into the everyday experiences of educators, their perspectives on policy and change, and the contested territory of diversity (i.e.,race, gender, class, disability,and sexual orientation) in an institution. The paper begins by considering the university-college and the context of the college and institute system in Canada. The paper briefly reviews state policy and the context that state public policy provides in principles of valuing diversity. Policy discourses were generated from the narratives of educators, from an institutional committee and from ‘outsiders’ to committee processes and to the institutional culture. Drawing from narrative auto/biographies (Gluck, S.B. and Patai, D., Women’s Words: the Feminist Practice of Oral History. London: Routledge, 1991; Stanley, L., The Auto/biographical I. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992; West, L., Beyond Fragments. London: Taylor and Francis, 1996), policy stories are presented which illuminate the contention surrounding policy, practice and institutional change. A discourse of fairness is discussed in relation to hiring practices and how the perception of fairness actually contributes to the practice of discrimination. Discursive power relations (Foucault, M., Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977. London: Harvester Press, 1980; Smith, D., The Conceptual Practices of Power. Toronto: University of Toronto, 1990) are considered in interpreting these stories and reveal the complex, competing forces affecting individuals engaged in the change process. The paper concludes by identifying a number of factors that contribute to the hindrance and advancement of the goals of diversity within an educational institution.     

Dialect variation,dialect-shifting,and reading comprehension in second grade

The purpose of this study was to examine second graders’ (n = 680) changing spoken nonmainstream American English (NMAE) use in relation to their oral language and reading comprehension achievement. Fall NMAE production was negatively associated with fall achievement scores. NMAE production generally decreased from fall to spring. Students who qualified for the US Free and Reduced Lunch program (FARL) and who had stronger language skills were more likely to decrease their NMAE use (i.e., dialect shifting) than their peers who did not qualify for FARL or their peers with weaker language skills. Dialect shifting for a sub-sample of 102 students who used substantial amounts of NMAE at the beginning of the school year was predicted by school context, controlling for reading and language skills—in general, students who attended more affluent schools dialect shifted to a greater extent than did their peers who attended higher poverty schools. Greater dialect shifting in this group predicted gains in reading comprehension from fall to spring.     

Young Children Are Wishful Thinkers: The Development of Wishful Thinking in 3- to 10-Year-Old Children

Previously, research on wishful thinking has found that desires bias older children’s and adults’ predictions during probabilistic reasoning tasks. In this article, we explore wishful thinking in children aged 3- to 10-years-old. Do young children learn to be wishful thinkers? Or do they begin with a wishful thinking bias that is gradually overturned during development? Across five experiments, we compare low- and middle-income United States and Peruvian 3- to 10-year-old children (N = 682). Children were asked to make predictions during games of chance. Across experiments, preschool-aged children from all backgrounds consistently displayed a strong wishful thinking bias. However, the bias declined with age.     

The social field(s) of arts education today: living vulnerability in neo-liberal times

The arts are often seen as peripheral to the ‘real business’ of school and schooling. While this has been the case for some time now, the increasing pressures of high-stakes testing and ever-more draconian public funding schemes (particularly in the wake of 9/11) have created something of a ‘perfect storm’ for those working in the arts. Arts proponents today live and operate within a culture of scarcity, having to justify their increasingly marginalized vocations while competing for continually shrinking resources. The result is an often deep-bodied sense of vulnerability, one which saturates the social field (both micro and macro) of arts education in ways not often publicly acknowledged. In this article, I explore this notion of ‘vulnerability’ as a framework for understanding qualitative data which emerged from a three-year arts and education project I conducted in a large, northeast city in the USA beginning in 2003. In so doing, I look to open up a broader discussion about the oft-ignored intersection(s) between the material and aesthetic in arts and education – a discussion which is sober about the future of such work in times of economic scarcity and conservative retrenchment.