‘And When did You Last See Your Father?’ Exploring the Views of Children with Learning Difficulties/Disabilities

The Gulliford Lecture 2003 was given by Professor Ann Lewis of the School of Education at the University of Birmingham. Professor Lewis's lecture, on which this article is based, focused on the process of listening to the views of children and, in particular, children with learning difficulties. Following the near-universal ratification of the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child, a plethora of recent initiatives, both in the UK and internationally, has encouraged professionals to access children's views about provision (educational, health-related, social and legal). A range of materials has been developed to support this process, often by, or in liaison with, children's charities. At the same time, research provides valuable insights into effective practice in exploring the views of children with learning difficulties. In this article, Ann Lewis reviews ten strategies for gathering the views of children and raises four challenges for the further development of policy and practice. She closes her argument with a call for greater rigour and critical evaluation in this crucial and demanding area.     

Who's afraid of the big,bad wolf?

Ann Trousdale is an assistant professor at Northern Illinois University, where she teaches courses in children's literature, language arts, language acquisition and development, and storytelling.     

Changes that Occur in Families as Children with Intellectual Disability Grow Up

The effect on families and the changes that occur in relation to a child with disability or independently are considered through the life span. The recent advances in prenatal screening, special care baby units and genetic counselling may increase fear of disability and have not decreased the incidence. As the rest of the family grow older, the disabled child goes through school years, faces adult life, often with disappointments, and remains having special needs and specific vulnerability until old age.     

Not Proved: Reply to Wynn

Findings on whether young infants look longer at incorrect addition and subtraction have been inconsistent or, as in our study, negative. We hypothesize that imprecise ordinal calculating with very small numbers of objects develops in late infancy and precise calculating in early childhood.     

PLURALISTIC IGNORANCE AND THE CLIMATE OF OPINION IN A REAL-TIME DISASTER PREDICTION

This study employed a four-fold typology of opinion groups depictingthe relationships between minority–majority status andaccurate–inaccurate perception of the climate of opinionabout the 1990 prediction of a destructive earthquake for themid-United States New Madrid Seismic Zone. Data were collectedfrom 629 residents of the area where the earthquake was predictedto occur. Two frameworks were employed to define the climateof opinion to take into account two key variables that influencepublic response to earthquake predictions: the predication'sbelievability and its importance. Accurate perceptions of theclimate of opinion were differntiated from inaccurate perceptionsbased on more frequent media use and the confidence respondentsfelt about protecting themselves from potential earthquake damages.Inaccurate perceptions of the climate of opinion are differentiatednot by more extensive media use and discussions, but by thecrediability placed on the information from the news media anddiscussions, as well as the perceived influence of these informationsources.     

Are You My Grandmother?: Constructing and Maintaining Stepgrandparent Identity and Roles

The disruption of the biological family unit due to divorce or separation followed by remarriage or re-partnering has a profound impact on every family member, including extended family members. An individual becomes a stepgrandparent through later life re-partnering, when an adult child becomes a stepparent, or when a stepchild becomes a parent. In order to gain a greater understanding of the communication influencing the development and maintenance of stepgrandparent roles and identity, a qualitative interpretive analysis method was employed as a guide for interviews with 41 adult stepfamily members across two generations of stepfamily membership: stepparents and stepgrandparents.     

‘But that wasn't enough’: exploring affective assemblages within a professional relationship

This paper engages with the early childhood–school relationship. The relationship has a long-standing history of being defined by a series of divisions and separations. Research has identified the divisions and separations to be largely determined by differences around concepts of learning and pedagogy. Discursive analyses of these differences often result in a series of impasses. The aim of this paper is to move beyond these discursively determined impasses. I draw on data from a small pilot study where a group of early childhood teachers come together to talk about their use of Transition Statements. I bring to the analysis of the data the concept of affective assemblages. This allows me to look beyond that which has been discursively produced in order to ask new questions, and to offer new ways of being in relationship.     

Government research evaluations and academic freedom: a UK and Australian comparison

Performance management systems have been an inevitable consequence of the development of government research evaluations (GREs) of university research, and have also inevitably affected the working life of academics. The aim of this paper is to track the development of GREs over the past 25 years, by critically evaluating their adoption in the UK and Australian higher education sector and their contribution to the commodification of academic labour, and to highlight the resultant tensions between GREs and academic freedom. The paper employs a literature-based analysis, relying on publicly available policy documents and academic studies over the period 1985–2010. GREs are a global phenomenon emanating from new public management reforms and while assessments of university research have been welcomed, they have attracted critique based on their design, the manner in which they have been applied, and the unintended consequences of their implementation on academic freedom in particular. Consistent with international research on the impact of GREs, Australian research assessments appear to be undoing the academic freedom that is central to successful research. Further empirical research on the impact of GREs on academics is urgently needed.     

Problems in Classroom Engagement: Validation of an Assessment for District-Wide Use in the Early Primary Grades

Research Findings: The aim of this study was to provide an initial investigation into the psychometric properties of the Problems in Classroom Engagement Scale (PCES). The PCES was designed and tested for district-wide use as part of the report card system for a large urban school district. The PCES was administered to all 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-grade students in the district. Factor analytic examination revealed a bifactor structure as the best fit to the data. The bifactor structure reflected a general factor of Problems in Behavioral Engagement and two group factors: Problems in Social Engagement and Problems in Academic Engagement. These factors were found to be reliable within and across grades and demonstrated convergent and divergent relations with academic and behavioral outcomes. Practice or Policy: Findings provide initial evidence to support the routine use of the PCES in a large urban setting. The use of the PCES can help in fostering district-wide attention to students’ early difficulties with behavioral, social, and academic engagement.     

Shaping global teacher identity in a short-term mobility programme

This article explores the shaping of Australian and Malaysian pre-service teachers’ possible selves in a short-term mobility programme. With the theory of possible selves, individuals imagine who they will become based on their past and current selves. The focus of the research was on pre-service teachers’ possible selves as global and culturally responsive teachers. The experiential learning through participation in the programme allowed participants to consider their future possible selves as teachers with a deeper understanding of diverse learners’ needs and how they might strive to address these needs in their own classrooms. The scaffolding of reflections in the programme encouraged the pre-service teachers to take on multiple perspectives, to step outside their comfort zones and in many ways to see the world from different eyes. The research found that through experiential learning in the short-term mobility programme both the Australian and Malaysian pre-service teachers gained in positioning their cultural selves currently and as future teachers, suggesting that there is merit in utilising the theory of possible selves in future research in the area of shaping teacher identity.