Leadership identity in a small island developing state: the Jamaican context

While the role of leadership in improving schools is attracting more worldwide attention, there is a need for more research investigating leaders’ experiences in different national contexts. Using focus-group and semi-structured interview data, this paper explores the background, identities and experiences of a small group of Jamaican school leaders who were involved in a leadership development programme. By drawing on the concepts of culture, socialisation and identity, the paper examines how the participants’ journeys of becoming and being school leaders are influenced by national-level societal and cultural issues, experienced at a local level. The findings suggest that in becoming school leaders, the participants perceived that they had a strong sense of agency in attempting to change the social structures within the institutions they lead and in the surrounding local communities, which in turn, they hope, will have a lasting effect on the nation as a whole.     

What Is Wrong with Practicum?: some reflections

The purpose of this study was to examine students’ perceptions of previously identified negative aspects of practicum during preparation courses for careers in the field of early childhood education. Students at each of three year levels of the course earlier had been surveyed using a Likert‐type instrument following recent practicum experiences. Item frequency analysis was conducted for each separate year group's responses and for the combined group. Analysis of data from the combined responses included item properties, item‐scale relationships, scale properties and instrument factor analysis. Results of factor analysis revealed seven interpretable stressors, the most serious being the cluster labelled ‘physical demands’. The 10 most negative aspects for each year level (i.e. items with the lowest means) were compiled in a subsequent instrument similar to the original but also including a request for explanatory comments following each item. These three instruments were administered at the end of the same year. Student comments on the latter instruments clarified the statistical results and are presented here in the categories of ‘demands on students’, Hime and energy’, ‘coping with written requirements’, and ‘conforming with mistrusted practices’. Reflections on the implications of this illumination of statistical analysis are then presented.     

Relations of Children's Effortful Control and Teacher-Child Relationship Quality to School Attitudes in a Low-Income Sample

RESEARCH FINDINGS: The purpose of this study was to examine the relations of children's effortful control and quality of relationships with teachers to school attitudes longitudinally in an ethnically diverse and economically disadvantaged sample. Data were collected as part of a larger intervention project during mid-fall, winter, and late spring (ns = 823, 722, and 758, respectively) for 2 cohorts of 3- to 5-year-olds (collected during 2 different school years). Children's effortful control was assessed in the fall with parents' and teachers' reports and 2 behavioral measures. Teacher-child relationship quality was assessed mid-year with teachers' reports of closeness and conflict. Attitudes toward school were assessed in late spring using teachers' and students' reports of school avoidance and liking. Effortful control, in general, was positively correlated with teacher-child closeness and school liking and negatively correlated with conflict and school avoidance. Using structural equation modeling and controlling for sex and ethnicity, we found that effortful control was positively related to teacher-child relationship quality, which in turn was positively related to school attitudes. Furthermore, the relation of effortful control to school attitudes was mediated by teacher-child relationship quality. PRACTICE OR POLICY: Results provide evidence for the importance of relational processes that take place within the classroom context and have implications for teachers and clinicians working to increase school success in ethnic minority and low-income children.     

Mode of communication, perceived level of understanding, and perceived quality of life in youth who are deaf or hard of hearing

Given the important role of parent-youth communication in adolescent well-being and quality of life, we sought to examine the relationship between specific communication variables and youth perceived quality of life in general and as a deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) individual. A convenience sample of 230 youth (mean age = 14.1, standard deviation = 2.2; 24% used sign only, 40% speech only, and 36% sign + speech) was surveyed on communication-related issues, generic and DHH-specific quality of life, and depression symptoms. Higher youth perception of their ability to understand parents' communication was significantly correlated with perceived quality of life as well as lower reported depressive symptoms and lower perceived stigma. Youth who use speech as their single mode of communication were more likely to report greater stigma associated with being DHH than youth who used both speech and sign. These findings demonstrate the importance of youths' perceptions of communication with their parents on generic and DHH-specific youth quality of life.     

Deepening the connections: Liberal education and global learning in college

Kevin Hovland and Carol Geary Schneider champion the importance of a twenty‐first‐century liberal education and provide examples of essential learning outcomes that make global and civic learning central and pervasive.     

How can an understanding of cognitive style enable trainee teachers to have a better understanding of differentiation in the classroom?

The relationship between cognitive style and trainee teacher conceptions of differentiation was studied to develop appropriate scaffolding of their learning. 149 trainee teachers enrolled on 1 year postgraduate initial teacher education (ITE) programmes at two UK universities completed the Cognitive Style Index (Allinson and Hayes, Journal of Management Studies, 33(1):119–135, 1996; Hodgkinson and Sadler-Smith, Journal of Occupational and Organisational Psychology, 76(2):243–268, 2003) and a questionnaire exploring their understanding of differentiation, conceptions of learning and learning preferences. A stratified sample of these trainees was also interviewed to assess their understanding and prior knowledge of differentiation and learning styles and how they would plan for these in the classroom. Responses were coded using content analysis procedures. Cognitive style was found to impact on trainees’ conceptions of differentiation; for example, trainees demonstrating higher levels of analysis and intuition had a more developed understanding of differentiation than other cognitive styles. In relation to the findings, the use of a constructivist pedagogical tool: a Personal Learning Styles Pedagogy (Evans and Waring, Zhang & Sternberg (Eds.), Perspectives on the nature of intellectual styles, 2009) is presented to inform the reconceptualisation of ITE programmes. In so doing, the use of this tool addresses key issues raised in recent international policy debates concerning the necessary development of ITE for twenty-first century learner needs.     

A Dual Identity Approach for Conceptualizing and Measuring Children's Gender Identity

The goal was to test a new dual identity perspective on gender identity by asking children (n = 467) in three grades (M_age = 5.7, 7.6, 9.5) to consider the relation of the self to both boys and girls. This change shifted the conceptualization of gender identity from one to two dimensions, provided insights into the meaning and measurement of gender identity, and allowed for revisiting ideas about the roles of gender identity in adjustment. Using a graphical measure to allow assessment of identity in young children and cluster analyses to determine types of identity, it was found that individual and developmental differences in how similar children feel to both genders, and these variations matter for many important personal and social outcomes.