Multiple perspectives for the study of teaching: Knowledge,reason, understanding,and being

This study analyzes the participation of secondary school teachers in a U.S. science education curriculum reform effort. All participating teachers agreed to implement the curriculum in their classrooms; however, the level at which it was implemented varied significantly among teachers. This article reviews the available perspectives used to account for the behavior of these teachers—reliance on a knowledge base, practical reasoning and reflective practice, and sociocultural views—and argues they are incomplete. A fourth perspective is developed in which teaching is viewed as a way of being and teachers as meaning makers immersed in educational situations. The remainder of the article is a cross‐case analysis of two teachers' use of the curriculum as seen from each of these perspectives on teaching. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 39: 1032–1055, 2002     

Development of anxiety disorders in a traumatized pediatric population: a preliminary longitudinal evaluation

OBJECTIVE: The current study was conducted to determine if post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology predicted later development of non-PTSD anxiety disorders in children and adolescents victimized by interpersonal trauma. METHODS: Thirty-four children with a history of interpersonal trauma and no initial diagnosis of anxiety disorder participated in the study. Children were assessed at time one (T1) and then 12-18 months later at time two (T2). At T1, the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale for Children and Adolescents (CAPS-CA) and the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children-Present and Lifetime Version (K-SADS-PL) were used to evaluate children's PTSD symptoms and comorbid non-PTSD anxiety disorder diagnosis. At T2, the CAPS-CA and the K-SADS-PL were repeated. RESULTS: The diagnosis of PTSD and PTSD symptoms in children exposed to interpersonal trauma at T1, particularly the symptoms associated with avoidance and constricted emotional expression (criteria C) as well as physiological hyperarousal (criteria D), predicted the development of other anxiety disorders at T2. CONCLUSION: Traumatized children with initial PTSD symptomatology may be at risk of later development of other anxiety disorders.     

Exploring School Improvement in Hong Kong Secondary Schools

Scholars have increasingly sought to understand how the process of school improvement differs among schools operating in different school levels, conditions, and contexts. Using Rosenholtz's (1985 Rosenholtz, S. 1985. Effective schools: Interpreting the evidence. American Journal of Education, 93: 352–388. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) conception of “moving” and “stuck” schools as a framework for thinking about school improvement, this study examines the learning outcomes of 39 Hong Kong secondary schools over a 3-year period. We examine whether features of leadership and school capacity differed with respect to these learning outcomes within the sample of moving and stuck schools. This research in Hong Kong has identified several factors that appear to synergistically contribute to differences in patterns of improvement in learning across different subjects in both moving and stuck schools. These factors include resource management of principals and school capacity in terms of professional learning community; workload of teachers; alignment, coherence, and structure; and resource capacity. This study extends the research on leadership and capacity building as a means of school improvement, in the process elaborating on their impact within a non-Western society.