Scale dimensionality and population heterogeneity: Potential problems in the interpretation of attitude data

This paper examines problems in the interpretation of attitude data which may arise when the dimensionality of the instrument and sources of heterogeneity in the population are ignored. As a specific example, the paper describes the development and analysis of an instrument designed to measure primary school children's liking of science-related activities. Careful analysis of the patterns of response to the questionnaire created some disquiet about the conventional methods used to collapse data from attitude scales. The results demonstrate that conclusions drawn from attitude measurement can be misleading when proper attention is not given to the structure of the instrument nor to the structure of the population from which the measurements are made.     

Developing culturally responsive mathematics teachers: secondary teachers’ evolving conceptions of knowing students

Research advances in teaching, learning, curriculum, and assessment have not changed the continued underperformance of marginalized students in mathematics education. Culturally responsive teaching is a means of addressing the needs of these students. It is sometimes challenging, however, to convince secondary mathematics teachers about the importance of culture in mathematics education. To contribute to what is known about supporting secondary mathematics teachers in developing a culturally responsive teaching practice, we studied the impacts of a graduate course called Culture in the Mathematics Classroom on 13 teachers enrolled in the course. The course was designed to guide secondary mathematics teachers in understanding and growing their capacity to enact culturally responsive teaching in their classrooms. The purpose of our research was to explore how teachers’ perceptions changed as a result of their engagement in the class with respect to understanding the role of culture in knowing and being responsive to their students. Specifically, we examined how each of the four course projects seemed to individually and collectively influence teachers’ thinking. Overall, teachers appeared to expand their cultural awareness and dispositions for cultural responsiveness that would support them in knowing and supporting their students in the manner of a culturally responsive teacher. Teachers did not, however, develop some more “advanced” understandings related to power and privilege in society. This study provides researchers and mathematics teacher educators with a potential analytic framework for understanding teacher change with respect to culturally responsive teaching.     

Behavioral CRs elicited by a lithium- or an amphetamine-paired contextual test chamber

The behavioral CRs elicited by a drug-paired contextual cue in rats were measured in a series of experiments. The first three experiments measured the pattern of CRs elicited by a lithiumand an amphetamine-paired CS chamber. The final experiment measured the pattern of URs elicited by lithium or amphetamine when administered in the same chamber. The suppression of grooming-related activities (body washing, face washing, and/or scratching) appeared as a nonspecific effect of both drug USs that was capable of becoming conditioned to the contextual chamber cue. A number of other behaviors differed among conditions, which provides evidence that contextual cue-drug associations are drug-specific. Of the behaviors that differed between the two US drug conditions, lithium CRs showed evidence of behavioral activation (enhanced rearing and limb flicking), but amphetamine CRs showed evidence of behavioral suppression (line crossing, rearing, and shaking). The UR patterns shared some similar and some dissimilar elements of the CR patterns elicited by the CS chamber for both lithium and amphetamine; in fact, by the activity and rearing measures, the URs and CRs were opposite in direction. The results exclusively supported neither stimulus substitution nor conditioned compensatory response accounts of Pavlovian conditioning; instead, each process appears to have accounted for different components of the overall CR pattern.     

Activist dispositions for social justice in advantaged and disadvantaged contexts of schooling

This article advances current conceptions of teacher activism through an exploration of the social justice dispositions of teachers in advantaged and disadvantaged contexts of schooling. We interrogate the practices of teachers in a government school, with a high proportion of refugee students and students from low socio-economic backgrounds, in a high-fees, multi-campus independent school, and in a disadvantaged Systemic Catholic school to illustrate how Bourdieu’s notion of dispositions (which are constitutive of the habitus) and Fraser’s distinction between affirmative and transformative justice are together productive of four types of teacher activism. Specifically, we show that activist dispositions can be characterised as either affirmative or transformative in stance and as either internally or externally focused in relation to the education field. We argue that the social, cultural and material conditions of schools are linked to teachers’ activist dispositions and conclude with the challenge for redressing educational inequalities by fostering a transformative activism in teachers’ practices.