Understanding change through a high school mathematics teacher’s journey to inquiry-based teaching

This article focuses on an experienced high school mathematics teacher who changed her practice without participating in planned interventions aimed at producing this change. It reports on the nature of the teacher’s change from her perspective and an interpretation and understanding of the change from the researcher’s perspective. It illustrates how meaningful change can occur when the process is initiated and rooted in the teacher’s experience based on a tension in self and/or practice that is personal and real to him or her. It discusses three types of change that are possible depending on the level of engagement of the teacher in professional development opportunities: instrumental change, conceptual change, and foundational change.     

Penguin Promises: encouraging aquarium visitors to take conservation action

This study investigates the impact of an innovative conservation action campaign called Penguin Promises implemented at uShaka Sea World in Durban, South Africa. Communication tools included interpretive signage, exhibits with and without animals, presentations, and personal interactions, along with a specially designed postcard, on which visitors could write a promise (pledge) to make a change in their daily lives to become more environmentally responsible. Visitors who completed a card were contacted a year or more after their visit and asked about the outcomes of their promise. The results (N = 316) showed that 49.4% of respondents could give an example of something positive they had done for the environment, that they attributed to the campaign. Based on the study, recommendations are provided for the design of effective visitor conservation action campaigns.     

Towards decolonial praxis: reconfiguring the human and the curriculum

ABSTRACT

This theoretical inquiry applies threads of Sylvia Wynter’s intellectual project to scholarship in curriculum studies to consider how Wynter’s insights might urge new potential in educational theorising and practice. The central concern driving Wynter’s intellectual project is that our present understanding about what it means to be human is entrenched in epistemological legacies of colonialism that preserve a Western bourgeois genre of Man. This essay begins by detailing Sylvia Wynter’s rigorous and innovative intellectual project that reworks the category of the human. We argue that contemporary curriculum is based upon this Western genre of the human and explore the limits of multicultural curricula. Synthesising Wynter’s interrelated lines of thought – how the notion of being hybridly human calls forth a conceptualisation of humanness as a collective act – we argue that her revised category of the human is a necessary means to radically reimagine and decolonise curriculum.     

Do individual differences in children’s curiosity relate to their inquiry-based learning?

This study investigates how individual differences in 7- to 9-year-olds' curiosity relate to the inquiry-learning process and outcomes in environments differing in structure. The focus on curiosity as individual differences variable was motivated by the importance of curiosity in science education, and uncertainty being central to both the definition of curiosity and the inquiry-learning environment. Curiosity was assessed with the Underwater Exploration game (Jirout, J., & Klahr, D. (2012). Children's scientific curiosity: In search of an operational definition of an elusive concept. Developmental Review, 32, 125–160. doi:10.1016/j.dr.2012.04.002), and inquiry-based learning with the newly developed Scientific Discovery task, which focuses on the principle of designing informative experiments. Structure of the inquiry-learning environment was manipulated by explaining this principle or not. As intelligence relates to learning and possibly curiosity, it was taken into account. Results showed that children's curiosity was positively related to their knowledge acquisition, but not to their quality of exploration. For low intelligent children, environment structure positively affected their quality of exploration, but not their knowledge acquisition. There was no interaction between curiosity and environment structure. These results support the existence of two distinct inquiry-based learning processes – the designing of experiments, on the one hand, and the reflection on performed experiments, on the other – and link children's curiosity to the latter process.     

Comorbidity of PTSD in anxiety and depressive disorders: Prevalence and shared risk factors

The present study aims to assess comorbidity of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in anxiety and depressive disorders and to determine whether childhood trauma types and other putative independent risk factors for comorbid PTSD are unique to PTSD or shared with anxiety and depressive disorders. The sample of 2402 adults aged 18–65 included healthy controls, persons with a prior history of affective disorders, and persons with a current affective disorder. These individuals were assessed at baseline (T0) and 2 (T2) and 4 years (T4) later. At each wave, DSM-IV-TR based anxiety and depressive disorder, neuroticism, extraversion, and symptom severity were assessed. Childhood trauma was measured at T0 with an interview and at T4 with a questionnaire, and PTSD was measured with a standardized interview at T4. Prevalence of 5-year recency PTSD among anxiety and depressive disorders was 9.2%, and comorbidity, in particular with major depression, was high (84.4%). Comorbidity was associated with female gender, all types of childhood trauma, neuroticism, (low) extraversion, and symptom severity. Multivariable significant risk factors (i.e., female gender and child sexual and physical abuse) were shared among anxiety and depressive disorders. Our results support a shared vulnerability model for comorbidity of anxiety and depressive disorders with PTSD. Routine assessment of PTSD in patients with anxiety and depressive disorders seems warranted.     

Caregiver instability and early life changes among infants reported to the child welfare system

This study describes the extent of caregiver instability (defined as a new placement for 1 week or longer in a different household and/or with a new caregiver) in a nationally representative sample of infants, followed for 5–7 years. Data were drawn from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW), a longitudinal study of 5,501 children investigated for child maltreatment. The analysis sample was restricted to 1,196 infants. Overall, 85.6% of children who were infants at the time of the index maltreatment experienced at least one caregiver instability event during their first 2 years of life. Caregiver instability was associated with the child having a chronic health condition and the caregiver being older than 40 years of age at baseline. The levels of instability reported in this study from infancy to school entry are extremely high. Children with more risk factors were significantly more likely to experience caregiver instability than children with fewer risk factors. The repeated loss of a young child's primary caregiver or unavailable, neglectful care can be experienced as traumatic. Some evidence-based programs that are designed to work with young maltreated children can make a substantial positive difference in the lives of vulnerable infants.     

Storytime Using iPods: Using Technology to Reach all Learners

Many educators would agree that one way to enhance reading fluency is by being read to by fluent readers. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of providing students with audio books via an iPod Shuffle during silent reading time at school. For six weeks, Kindergarten participants spent time either silent reading or listening to a recorded story on an iPod Shuffle during daily dedicated silent reading time. Results show that there was no impact of using the iPod Shuffle on reading fluency; however, students exhibited greater motivation to read, greater engagement in the process, and sustained interest in stories “read.” The benefits to student self-esteem and study skills warrant the use of this strategy for students who may not have opportunities to be read to by a fluent reader on a consistent basis.     

Film Biography

Kenneth L. Geist's Pictures will Talk: The Life and Films of Joseph L. Mankiewicz (New York: Scribner's, 1978---$12.95)

Two new books, one a revision, deal with another important director, Alfred Hitchcock

Donald Spoto's Stanley Kramer: Filmmaker (New York: Putnam, 1978---$12.95)

James Robert Parish, et al., Hollywood Character Actors (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1978--- $30.00)

Jesse L. Lasky Jr. with Pat Silver, Love Scene: The Story of Lawrence Olivier and Vivien Leigh (New York: Crowell, 1978---$10.95)

Hollywood actress and actor biographies, a round up of recent titles

Danny Peary, ed. Close-Ups: The Movie Star Book--Intimate Profiles of Movie Stars by their Co-Stars, Directors, Screenwriters and Friends (New York: Workman Press, 1978---$8.95 in paper with a hardback also available)     

Boys Don't Cry and female masculinity: reclaiming a life & dismantling the politics of normative heterosexuality

–This analysis argues that Kimberly Peirce's film Boys Don't Cry can be read as a liberatory narrative that queers the centers of heteronormativity and hegemonic masculinity by privileging female masculinity and celebrating its differences from heterosexual norms. My critique emphasizes how the narrative strategically challenges heteronormativity and, in turn, “narrative's heteroideology” (Roof, 1996), in four ways: 1) by dismantling the myth of “America's heartland”; 2) by problematizing heteromasculinity; 3) by centering female masculinity; and 4) by blurring the boundaries of female masculinity. I argue that the articulation of each subversive strategy within the narratives of Boys Don't Cry can serve a liberatory function, whereby the privileged subjectivities of heterosexuality and hegemonic masculinity are dismantled and, simultaneously, female masculinity and gender fluidity are privileged and normalized. I conclude that the narrative structure of Boys Don't Cry not only privileges gender diversity, but also exposes the inherent sexual bigotry of heteroideology and the brutal and deadly consequences of society's failure to eradicate such prejudice. I just keep on laughing Hiding the tears in my eyes Because boys don't cry. Boys don't cry. (Smith, Tolhurst, & Dempsey, 1988)