Implementation Issues: a ‘FRIENDS for life’ course in a mainstream secondary school

“FRIENDS for life” is a manualised, 10 week, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) based programme designed to be run in school and community settings. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of “FRIENDS for life” when implemented in a mainstream secondary school by school staff. Data regarding implementation of the programme were collected and analysed using activity theory. A Single Case Experimental Design was used to monitor the impact of the intervention on the emotional distress and coping strategies of five secondary school participants. The findings suggest that participation in FRIENDS did not result in the hypothesised reductions in emotional distress, or improvement in coping skills. However programme implementation was incomplete. Analysis using activity theory suggested that factors such as lack of time, space for delivery, and experience and training impacted upon implementation and could be further supported by educational psychologists when developing these interventions.     

Reputation Enhancement and Involvement in Delinquency Among High School Students

The present research explored the relationship between high school students' self-reported delinquency and the importance of their social reputations. The prevalence of self-reported delinquency was investigated in a sample of 965 (467 males, 498 females) Years 8 to 12 students attending high schools in Brisbane and Perth, Australia. The results revealed that males are significantly more prone to all forms of delinquent behaviour than their female peers. Most forms of delinquency appeared to peak at Year 9, with the exception of drug use which increased with age. A cluster analysis was performed on the prevalence data and students were separated into two groups: students with high and low involvement in delinquency. The reputations of students with high and low delinquency involvement were investigated. Students identified as having low involvement in delinquency desired a more conforming reputation than those with high involvement. Females also desired a more conforming reputation than their male counterparts. In relation to year level, junior high school students were less conforming than senior high school students. Ways to address the powerful nature of adolescent reputations and the link between reputational status and involvement in delinquent activities are highlighted.     

Recontextualizing psychosocial development in young children: a model of environmental identity development

This article presents an Environmental Identity Development model, which considers the progression of young children’s self-cognitions in relation to the natural world. We recontextualize four of Erikson’s psychosocial stages, in order to consider children’s identity development in learning in, about, and for the environment. Beginning with Trust in Nature vs. Mistrust in Nature, we argue that cognitions of comfort in the natural world vs. discomfort, provide the foundation for healthy environmental identity development. This trusting bond/relationship with nature allows children to gain Spatial Autonomy through collectively or independently creating their own sense of place in nature vs. feelings of doubt or Environmental Shame. As children progress, they gain Environmental Competencies, creative innovations to use the environment for both personal and social purposes vs. separation from nature or Environmental Disdain. Such competencies promote children’s agency in exercising Environmental Action, applied care/ethics aimed at building a sustainable future, as opposed to behaviors that cause Environmental Harm. Young children’s environmental identity develops in diverse ways and in distinct sociocultural and geographical contexts. Caregivers/educators play a unique role in recognizing and supporting the needs of individual children as they progress towards healthy environmental identity development.     

The effects of upper‐secondary education and training systems on skills inequality. A quasi‐cohort analysis using PISA 2000 and the OECD survey of adult skills

Research tells us much about the effects of primary and lower‐secondary schooling on skills inequality, but we know less about the impact of the next stage of education. This article uses a differences‐in‐differences analysis of data on literacy and numeracy skills in PISA 2000 and SAS 2011/12 to assess the contribution of upper‐secondary education and training to inequalities in skills opportunities and outcomes. It finds that greater parity of esteem between academic and vocational tracks, as found in German‐speaking and Scandinavian countries, has some positive effects in mitigating skills inequality. However, the most important factors seem to be high completion rates from long‐cycle upper‐secondary education and training and mandatory provision of Maths and the national language in the curriculum.     

Industry into teaching: an alternative model

Teacher shortages have encouraged initiatives to tailor training programs to meet the demand in both past, current and future contexts. Such programs have been streamlined to ensure a rapid response to shortages, in addition to also drawing participants from non‐traditional groups as a source of potential educators. More broadly in teacher education, recent developments have explored online and other forms of distance education, problem‐solving methodologies and increased site‐based workplace learning opportunities. The Accelerated Teacher Training Program (ATTP) currently offered at Charles Sturt University is based on an innovative model which combines together aspects of best practices to deliver an effective and quality course. This program was developed in response to the NSW Department of Education and Training’s (DET) need to meet the demand for more Technology and Applied Studies (TAS) teachers. This paper will look at the issue of teacher supply and demand and discuss the design, context and implementation of the ATTP, with a special focus on the professional practice and problem‐solving elements of the course.     

Cultural diversity and the imagined community of the global academy

Transnational academic mobility and the ongoing push towards “internationalization” together raise challenges for the cultural climate of today's universities. This paper explores these issues from the perspective of supervisors of research degrees in an Australian university in which “internationalization” and “academic mobility” apply to supervisors as much as to students. The concepts of the imagined community and cosmopolitanism are employed to interpret a series of one-on-one and group interviews conducted with international academic staff, conversations which reported surprisingly untroubled negotiation of cultural difference. Using the insights provided by the concepts of “imagined community” and “cosmopolitanism”, we investigate the mechanisms mobilized by these supervisors in apparently backgrounding cultural diversity in the workplace, and consider the implications of the academic subjectivities they perform.     

Social education for teachers in Ceylon

Conclusion The problems of teacher education have not only been subjects of study for a long period, but have been so in the recent past, in reviews sponsored by Unesco, the International Bureau of Education and other bodies, official or voluntary and national or international. There has been, in these reports and reviews, an increasing attention to the social aspects of education, but there have also been two other features. Firstly, most of the studies have related to the non-graduate teacher, and secondly they have been discussions of principles, with suggestions for content, but with little if any attention to procedures.In this article the concern has been with graduate teachers, whose training is of such importance, not merely because they are responsible for secondary education, but because they are the cadre from which principals, inspectors and adminstrators come. Moreover, in addition to discussing some of the theoretical aspects of the situation, the practical procedures involved have been described and there has been some attempt to evaluate the work done.It is not claimed that this programme of social education for teachers is free from shortcomings, nor that it cannot be improved, nor that it is relevant, without modification, to places other than Ceylon. Nor is it suggested that the many and desirable changes, which are so marked a feature of educational progress in Ceylon, result only from this single factor.It can however be presented as an attempt to develop a rationale and apply a procedure in the social education of graduate teachers which has aroused the interests of its students and has flowed over into action and study which have contributed to educational improvement. It certainly has acted as an integrating factor in the work of the Department and has stimulated no little activity. Such success as it has achieved is due to the co-operative efforts of all engaged in it, both as students and staff — and their contributions are very gratefully acknowledged by the writer.

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Soziologie im Rahmen der Lehrerausbildung auf Ceylon

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Formation sociale des maitres à Ceylan

     

Education in and for the Belt and Road Initiative:

Abstract

This paper is an experiment in collective writing conducted in Autumn 2019 at the Faculty of Education at Beijing Normal University. The experiment involves 12 international masters' students reading the course based on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), their professor Michael Peters, visiting professor Petar Jandri?, and a mix of senior Chinese and Western scholars. To successfully complete the course, the students were required to produce a 3000-word paper of publishable quality. As part of this writing process we decided to engage in the experiment of collective writing where we aimed to produce a single paper consisting of the abstracts. This collective paper was developed in 7 steps. (1) Students submitted their 250-word abstracts. (2) Students were introduced into the methodology of collective writing, and 2 student-editors – Ogunniran Moses Oladele and Benjamin Green – volunteered to work on the paper. (3) Michael Peters wrote the introduction. (4) Abstracts were expanded to 500 words and integrated into a single document. (5) Petar Jandri? began to edit the paper and write a conclusion. (6) Students presented their abstracts in the class, where Michael Peters and Petar Jandri? provided direct feedback. (6) Revised abstracts were again integrated into a single document by student editors, and proofread / copy-edited in several exchanges with the instructors (7) The paper was subject to the process of open review, and the reviewer's comments were included in the paper. Resulting from months of collective work, the final paper provides a wide range of views ad perspectives to the question of education as a part of the BRI initiative.