Mediated Effects of Preschool Intervention

Consistent evidence that the effect of preschool intervention on cognitive achievement fades with the passage of time has resulted in a search for mediators of preschool. This study investigated factors that play a role in mediating the effects of a government funded Child-Parent Center preschool program. The school adjustment of 266 low-income, mostly Black preschool children and of 125 comparison group children were matched on neighborhood characteristics and were traced from kindergarten through the third year of school (1986-1989). Data were collected from children, parents, and teachers on entering kindergarten cognitive readiness, teacher ratings of socioemotional maturity, parental involvement at home and in school, grade retention, assignment to special education, school mobility and cognitive achievement in reading and mathematics. Results of a latent-factor structural model indicated that preschool influenced later achievement and retention indirectly rather than directly. Four major pathways through which preschool exerted its effect included (1) cognitive readiness, (2) cognitive readiness and teacher ratings of socioemotional maturity, (3) teacher ratings of socioemotional maturity, and (4) parent involvement and school mobility. Cognitive readiness, teacher ratings, and parent involvement also transmitted effects to grade retention. That preschool's influence on later outcomes is largely indirect indicates its dependency on intervening factors in exerting effects. These intervening factors appear to be critical in promoting school success of children at risk.     

LEARNING TO BE IN PUBLIC SPACES: IN FROM THE MARGINS WITH DANCERS, SCULPTORS, PAINTERS AND MUSICIANS

ABSTRACT:  This article reports research in three Nottingham schools, concerned with (1) 'The school as fertile ground: how the ethos of a school enables everyone in it to benefit from the presence of artists in class'; (2) 'Children on the edge: how the arts reach those children who otherwise exclude themselves from class activities, for any reason' and (3) 'Children's voices and choices: how even very young children can learn to express their wishes, and then have them realised through arts projects'. The research methodology was rooted in two modes of inquiry, philosophical investigation and action research. The article draws on this research to argue that arts-based work in school has helped disadvantaged and/or disaffected children to engage in activities (both arts-based and others), and to be able to lay the groundwork for exercising voice and agency as they did so. If social justice is to flourish there is a need for particular kinds of public spaces and a need to create conditions such that children can learn to participate in those spaces, whether or not they are comfortable with the usual settings for 'rational argument' or 'deliberative democracy'. It is suggested that arts-based education, in some forms, is one good way of creating these conditions.     

Conflicting Interpretations of Scientific Pedagogy

Not surprisingly historical studies have suggested that there is a distance between concepts of teaching methods, their interpretations and their actual use in the classroom. This issue, however, is not always pitched to the personal level in historical studies, which may provide an alternative insight on how teachers conceptualise and engage with concepts of teaching methods. This article provides a case study on this level of conceptualisation by telling the story of Rómulo de Carvalho, an educator from mid-twentieth century Portugal, who for over 40 years engaged with the heuristic and Socratic methods. The overall argument is that concepts of teaching methods are open to different interpretations and are conceptualised within the melting pot of external social pressures and personal teaching preferences. The practice and thoughts of Carvalho about teaching methods are scrutinised to unveil his conflicting stances: Carvalho was a man able to question the tenets of heurism, but who publicly praised the heurism-like “discovery learning” method years later. The first part of the article contextualises the arrival of heurism in Portugal and how Carvalho attacked its philosophical tenets. In the second part, it dwells on his conflicting positions in relation to pupil-centred approaches. The article concludes with an appreciation of the embedded conflicting nature of the appropriation of concepts of teaching methods, and of Carvalho’s contribution to the development of the philosophy of practical work in school science.     

Slater,A. and Muir,D. (eds.), The Blackwell Reader in Developmental Psychology. Oxford: Blackwell.

International Review of Education -