Adult Role Models: Feasibility,Acceptability, and Initial Outcomes for Sex Education

The authors present the feasibility and acceptability of a parent sexuality education program led by peer educators in community settings. They also report the results of an outcome evaluation with 71 parents who were randomized to the intervention or a control group and surveyed one month prior to and six months after the four-week intervention. The program was highly feasible and acceptable to participants, and the curriculum was implemented with a high level of fidelity and facilitator quality. Pilot data show promising outcomes for increasing parental knowledge, communication, and monitoring of their adolescent children.     

Fostering Student Engagement and Collaboration with the Library: Student Creation of LibGuides as a Research Assignment

This article describes a project using a student-created LibGuide in conjunction with a literature review assignment for a research course. This collaborative project between a librarian and a professor of International Education was designed and implemented as an avenue for teaching information literacy and to encourage use of library resources. The methodology for the assignment is presented, and the results of the project are discussed in terms of the final products and student reviews. Implications for the use of student-created LibGuides in academic institutions and future directions for this project are presented.     

Developing Scientific Literacy in a Primary School

The science education literature demonstrates that scientific literacy is generally valued and acknowledged among educators as a desirable student learning outcome. However, what scientific literacy really means in terms of classroom practice and student learning is debatable due to the inherent complexity of the term and varying expectations of what it means for learning outcomes. To date the teacher voice has been noticeably absent from this debate even though the very nature of teacher expertise lies at the heart of the processes which shape students' scientific literacy. The research reported in this paper taps into the expertise of (participating) primary teachers by analyzing the insights and thinking that emerged as they attempted to unravel some of the pedagogical complexities associated with constructing an understanding of scientific literacy in their own classrooms. The research examines the processes and structures within one primary school that were created to provide conditions to allow teachers to explore and build on the range of ideas that presently inform the scientific literacy debate. The research reports these teachers' views and practices that shaped their actions in teaching for scientific literacy.     

National Context,Educational Goals and Pupil Experience of Schooling and Learning in Three European Countries

The paper reports on the findings of a major research project which examines the relationship between the national context and national educational values as these are translated into the school context, teacher beliefs, classroom processes and pupil perspectives on learning and schooling. The theoretical rationale for such research is examined and evidence is drawn from questionnaires administered to approximately 1,800 pupils in secondary schools in England, France and Denmark, individual and group interviews with pupils, discussions with teachers and headteachers, and classroom observation. The paper explores the significance of the cultural context in which learning occurs by examining pupil perspectives on the purposes of schooling and on the teaching they receive. Our findings suggest that although pupils in different European countries share many common concerns, they also come to school with significantly different attitudes towards themselves as learners, towards school and towards achievement. As a result their expectations of themselves and of their teachers are also different.     

Using Activity Theory to inform sessional teacher development: what lessons can be learned from tutor training models?

Abstract

Sessional teachers in universities are often marginalised by their part-time status, availability for training, and invisibility within the institution’s infrastructure. Nevertheless, tutors as a subset of this group, regularly have access to some training and development. This paper presents a methodological approach for implementing the BLASST framework for sessional staff at a New Zealand university, based on a project to benchmark support for tutors. Using Activity Theory, I discuss tensions associated with developing a training programme for tutors and how such an approach can aid the development of similar models for all sessional teachers.     

“There’s nothing I hate more than a racist:” (Re)centering whiteness in American Horror Story: Coven

This article examines race and racism in the popular cable horror-drama American Horror Story: Coven. Centered around a feud between a white witch coven and a black, voodoo group of witches, Coven overtly deals with the issue of racism, but presents racism as a phenomenon contained in the past; something that does not happen anymore. Using critical post-race theory and scholarship on colorblind racism, whiteness, as well as black feminist theory, I show that although the narrative of Coven explicitly decries racism, it simultaneously invests in colorblind racist narratives and dialogue. Whiteness is central in Coven, operating through discourse that ignores racial difference and contemporary forms of oppression and erasure. Coven uses graphic depictions of violence against black bodies, makes explicit connections between black sexuality and animals, and uses exotic and aggressive stereotypes of black women to tell its story. Thus, Coven’s narrative both condemns racism and relies on it. This article shows that the contemporaneous presentations of explicit anti-racist dialogue and racist imagery work to (re)place whiteness at the center of Coven, a TV show that purports to forward a message of equality and justice for those who are different.     

A framework for gender justice: Evaluating the transformative capacities of three key Australian schooling initiatives

Through a feminist agenda that seeks to redress gender inequities through remedies of redistribution and recognition, this paper draws on Fraser’s work (1997) to articulate a framework of transformative justice. In moving beyond the competing logics underpinning such remedies, this framework adopts a transformative theory and politics in problematising and seeking to restructure the inequitable gender differentiation of political-economic structures and social patterns of representation, interpretation and communication. This framework of gender justice is presented as useful in evaluating the ideologies and practices of particular schooling initiatives and thus is drawn on to critically assess three initiatives that currently seek to address issues of social/gender equity in education within Australia: The New Basics Project, The Productive Pedagogies Framework and the Success for Boys initiative. In particular, the paper critically explores these initiatives in terms of their capacities for enabling or constraining a transformative redistributive and cultural gender justice.