Developing a pedagogy for teaching self-study research: Lessons learned across the Atlantic

This article reports on a collective self-study from our multiple and unique experiences of teaching self-study research in the Netherlands and the United States. Through the methodology of dialog, we merged what we learned from our individual studies which resulted in six guidelines for a pedagogy for teaching self-study research. Without claiming that the six guidelines have full applicability to all teaching contexts, we offer instead a discussion of the complexities and value of framing a pedagogy of self-study research. This study provides a conceptual, theoretical, and practical base for further studies to build a knowledge base on this topic.     

Sundials: Ancestors of our clocks

This article deals with the timekeepers of the past, the sundials. Apart from discussing the structure of a few common sundials, we point out the reasons for the variation between sundial time and the time shown by mechanical timekeepers.     

Effect of foster care on young children's language learning

This report examines 174 young children's language outcomes in the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, the first randomized trial of foster placement after institutional care. Age of foster placement was highly correlated with language outcomes. Placement by 15 months led to similar expressive and receptive language test scores as typical age peers at 30 and 42 months. Placement from 15 to 24 months also led to dramatic language improvement. In contrast, children placed after 24 months had the same severe language delays as children in institutional care. Language samples at 42 months confirmed that placement after 24 months led to lower expressive skill.     

CHANGING VISIONS OF EXCELLENCE IN ONTARIO SCHOOL POLICY: THE CASES OF LIVING AND LEARNING AND FOR THE LOVE OF LEARNING

In this essay, Rosa Bruno‐Jofré and George Hills examine two major Ontario policy documents: 1968's Living and Learning and 1994's For the Love of Learning. The purpose is, first, to gain insight into the uses of the term “excellence” in the context of discourse about educational aims and evaluation, and, second, to explore how these uses may have changed over time. Bruno‐Jofré and Hills employ the conceptual framework developed by Madhu Prakash and Leonard Waks to elucidate the varied notions of excellence contained in the two reports. Bruno‐Jofré and Hills argue that Living and Learning is an eclectic report that creates continuity by aligning itself with the pedagogically progressive tradition in Ontario; that propounds a holistic conception of excellence centered on the all‐around development of the self; and that seeks simultaneously to secure a sense of being Canadian while dealing with rapidly emerging social fragmentation. For the Love of Learning, in contrast, attempts to combine a technical view of excellence in education (stressing various literacies and skills as measurable indicators) with the principles of caring and the goals of social responsibility. Each report can be seen as an attempt to respond to the expectations of a population that had become increasingly diverse in the interval between the two reports. What is cause for concern in terms of policymaking, Bruno‐Jofré and Hills conclude, is the turn away from broader, more comprehensive and coherent views of excellence in education toward narrower and more fragmented accounts that are preoccupied with various types of literacy or loosely related vocational and other skills. The effect of this shift is to leave educational policy and practice in the schools essentially rudderless.     

The impact of a peer-tutoring program on quality standards in higher education

The purposes of this study were, on one had, to determine the impact of a peer tutoring program on preventing academic failure and dropouts among first-year students (N = 100), from Civil Engineering, Economics, Pharmacy, and Chemical Engineering careers; while, on the other hand, to identify the potential benefits of such tutoring program on the cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies and social skills of student mentors in their last year of studies or already in a postgraduate program (N = 41) at the University of Granada (Spain). After building and selecting the measurement instruments necessary to gather demographic and academic relevant information on both samples, and assigning first-year students to either an experimental or control group, the intervention consisted of ten 90-min tutoring sessions during the first semester lead by student tutors who, in turn, had undergone four 3-h training sessions on tutoring contents like planning and time management, cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies, motivational strategies and the use of materials designed ad hoc for this program. The results show differences in favour of the treatment group on grade point average, performance rate, success rate and learning strategies and, also, statistically significant pre-post differences for the tutors on learning strategies and social skills.     

The moral dimension of class and gender identity-making: poverty and aggression in a secondary school in the city of Buenos Aires

This paper presents some results of a qualitative study carried out in a secondary school in the city of Buenos Aires (Argentina). It examines how two students from poor families responded to, and viewed, aggression by peers at their school. This paper argues that the examination of students’ narratives about aggression (based on classism and sexism) illustrates the analytical usefulness of the moral dimension of social life to unpack crucial aspects of the micro politics of class and gender and processes of identity-making. Following Sayer, this article maps students’ responses to immoral sentiments and misrecognition: the search for respect and respectability, and moral boundary drawing. It demonstrates that these reactions are entangled in students’ class and gender identity-making. It also shows how ‘victims’ are able to regain respect. However, the individualized nature of these processes and the spirals of aggression they instigate demonstrate the fragile and temporary nature of this achievement.     

Zafar,so good: middle‐class students,school habitus and secondary schooling in the city of Buenos Aires (Argentina)

This article examines how students from the ‘loser’ sections of the middle class dealt with the game of secondary schooling in a ‘good’ state school in the city of Buenos Aires (Argentina). It engages with Bourdieu’s theory of social practice and, in particular, with its concepts of game, habitus and cultural capital. It argues that middle‐class students embody a school habitus, which I call zafar. Zafar (a Spanish slang word) refers to students’ dispositions, practices and strategies towards social and educational demands of teachers and their school. Zafar propels middle‐class students to be just ‘good enough’ students, and promote an instrumental approach to schooling and learning. Although this paper offers an account within which the reproduction of relative educational advantage of a group of middle‐class students takes place, it also poses questions about their future educational and occupational opportunities.     

Three‐year results of the Friendly Schools whole‐of‐school intervention on children's bullying behaviour

A group randomized controlled trial tested the efficacy of the Friendly Schools program to reduce student bullying behaviour. This socio‐ecological intervention targeted the whole school, classroom, family, and individual students to reduce bullying behaviour. Self‐report data were collected in 29 schools over three years from a cohort of 1968 eight to nine‐year‐olds. Surveys measured frequency of being bullied, bullying others, telling if bullied and observing bullying. Results indicate that intervention students were significantly less likely to observe bullying at 12, 24 and 36 months and be bullied after 12 and 36 months, and significantly more likely to tell if bullied after 12 months than comparison students. No differences were found for self‐reported perpetration of bullying. The findings suggest whole‐of‐school programs that engage students in their different social contexts appear to reduce their experiences of being bullied and increase their likelihood of telling someone if they are bullied.