Microaggressions in graduate students’ lives: How they are encountered and their consequences

This article explores the experiences of teaching assistants from nonmainstream backgrounds in a predominantly white institution (PWI) of U.S. education. We focus on how such teaching assistants experience and respond to “microaggressions” or subtle challenges to their teaching based on race and ethnicity. We also explore the consequences of microaggressions for teaching assistants’ future career plans. Analyses of life history interviews show how processes of microaggressions permeated teaching assistants’ relationships with white prospective and cooperating teachers. The authors suggest ways to interrupt these in teacher education programs.     

The Influence of Informal Science Education Experiences on the Development of Two Beginning Teachers’ Science Classroom Teaching Identity

In case studies of two first-year elementary classroom teachers, we explored the influence of informal science education (ISE) they experienced in their teacher education program. Our theoretical lens was identity development, delimited to classroom science teaching. We used complementary data collection methods and analysis, including interviews, electronic communications, and drawing prompts. We found that our two participants referenced as important the ISE experiences in their development of classroom science identities that included resilience, excitement and engagement in science teaching and learning–qualities that are emphasized in ISE contexts. The data support our conclusion that the ISE experiences proved especially memorable to teacher education interns during the implementation of the No Child Left Behind policy which concentrated on school-tested subjects other than science.     

The Need for Critical Media Literacy In Teacher Education Core Curricula

The "information era" has brought up new literacies, although most of them are still not part of the K–12 curriculum or the teacher education curriculum. One of these new literacies is critical media literacy. The purpose of this article is to document the urgency for including this new literacy in school and teacher education curricula given the crucial role of media as they touch every issue impacting human life in society. Critical media literacy as understood here includes three dimensions: (1) develop a critical understanding of how corporate for-profit media work, driven by their political and economic vested interests; (2) search for and support alternative, nonprofit media; and (3) characterize the role of teachers in helping students and their parents to become media-literate users and supporters of alternative media. Critical media literacy is founded on the legitimate role of media to serve the public's right to be truly informed, and thereby serve democracy. However, currently we are witnessing an unprecedented concentration of for-profit media into conglomerates, in alliance with the government and especially with the federal regulating agency—Federal Communications Commission—and other powerful institutions and corporations. Starting with this big picture, we examine and document specific cases that illustrate how these conglomerates and their allies work to keep and to expand their power, by means of filtering information, manufacturing consent, and controlling what the public watch, listen to, read, think, believe, taste, dress, look like, speak, and how they perceive themselves. The propaganda behind the banning of bilingual education in California is a clear example in the educational arena of the role of media in helping powerful people to manufacture voters' consent through fabricated stories, misleading ballot question, biased polls, etc. The second dimension of critical media literacy refers to the active involvement of every person, including school children, to support and advocate for alternative, nonprofit, public service-driven media. Given the reasons and the evidence presented, the authors consider that there is an urgency for including critical media literacy in the K–12 school curricula, and therefore in the teacher education core curriculum.     

Looking Back on Lessons Learned: Gifted Adults Reflect on Their Experiences in Advanced Classes

The purpose of this study was to learn about gifted adults' experiences in advanced classes and attitudes about advanced classes or gifted programs for their children. Participants were 88 adults (33 men and 55 women) who have been participating in a longitudinal study of academically talented individuals since their high-school graduation in 1988. Participants responded to open-ended questions via mailed surveys. Eighty-five percent of participants described their academic experiences in advanced classes as positive, whereas slightly fewer participants (59%) described their interpersonal experiences in advanced classes as positive. Seventy-five percent of participants with children described signs of giftedness in their children, and 88% of participants indicated that they would support advanced placement for their children if it were recommended by the school. Implications of the findings were discussed and directions for future research were provided.     

“I Bought My Degree,Now I Want My Job!” Is Academic Entitlement Related to Prospective Workplace Entitlement?

Academic entitlement, a term that defines students’ expectations of academic success independent of performance, has been linked with a number of maladaptive behaviors. This study examined the potential relationship between academic entitlement and prospective workplace entitlement in a sample of Canadian students (N=1024) using an online survey. Multivariate analyses produced a significant (p<0.05) positive relationship between academic entitlement and prospective workplace entitlement. Graduate students had higher levels of prospective workplace entitlement than did undergraduates, and those pursuing degrees in Education and Law had significantly lower levels of prospective workplace entitlement than students in other areas of study. Results support a need to develop strategies to minimize entitlement beliefs prior to an individual’s entry into the workforce.     

Gauging primary school teachers’ environmental literacy: An issue of ‘priority’

Over the past thirty years, it has often been stated that primary school education should endeavour to improve and protect the environment through producing an ‘environmentally informed, committed and active citizenry’. Even so, existing research shows that the implementation of environmental education in primary schools is problematic and has had limited success. However, the reasons for these shortcomings are far from clear, with present research merely speculating about barriers to effective implementation. This paper presents a detailed discussion and analysis of primary school teachers knowledge and beliefs about environmental concepts and environmental education. In so doing, the paper identifies a perceived gap within the field of environmental education research and literature. This field has neglected studies of Australian primary school teacher’s knowledge and beliefs about environmental education as a factor affecting the capacity of schooling to achieve environmental education goals. To these ends, we utilise the concept of ‘environmental literacy’ to assess primary school teacher’s knowledge and beliefs about environmental education. Based upon preliminary data analysis, we tentatively claim that current Queensland primary school teachers are variably committed to and demonstrably lack content knowledge of environmental concepts and environmental education. More significantly, these primary school teachers tend to dismiss the importance of content knowledge, preferring to focus upon attitudes towards environmental education and environmental concepts. Clearly these levels of environmental literacy are inadequate if environmentally literate students and thus an environmentally literate citizenry are to be achieved within schools. We conclude that the introduction of environmental literacy in educational policy would advance the goals of environmental education, namely the production of an informed, committed and active citizenry.     

A Mixed Methods Investigation of Maternal Perspectives on Transition Experiences in Early Care and Education

ABSTRACT

Research Findings: Strong relationships among children, families, and early care and education (ECE) providers are key to quality infant–toddler care. These relationships are shaped during the initial transition period to group care. We used a mixed methods approach to (a) assess maternal perspectives on the transition to group care, (b) explore mothers’ perceptions of factors that made for easy or difficult transitions, and (c) examine associations between maternal and child characteristics and the ease of the transition. Through qualitative interviews, mothers identified factors that played a role in their child’s transition, including the child’s age, the ECE provider’s support, and the number of transitions the child experienced. For mothers, an easy transition was characterized by ease of child adjustment to group care, comfort with nonparental care and returning to work, and being able to exercise some control over the transition. Quantitative analyses revealed that an easy child transition was associated with younger child age, low maternal distress reactions to child distress, and low child social fearfulness. Higher maternal depressive symptoms and maternal distress reactions to child distress were associated with mothers having a difficult transition. Practice or Policy: Implications of the findings for ECE provider training and ECE policy development related to transitions are discussed.