Resilience and loss in work identities: A narrative analysis of some retired teachers’ work‐life histories

The article examines the importance of ‘emotional labour’ in the constitution of the ‘teacherly‐self’. Deriving from a research project on work and social identity, the article explores the ways teachers have negotiated the radical changes in the profession in recent years, and uses the notion of ‘teacher resilience’ to explore the ways teachers have reacted to the effects of neo‐liberal reforms to education; reforms that have powerfully impacted on the more child‐centred ways of working in the classroom and school environment. Using narrative analysis of the work‐life histories of these retired teachers, recorded using oral history methodology, the authors examine structures of feeling that turn on notions of emotional labour and commitment, resilience and loss in relation to the occupational identity of teachers.     

Understanding students' interactions: why varied social tasks matter

Many social interactions between school‐age children contain both competitive and cooperative elements. In order to gain a better understanding of how students at risk for emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD) negotiate social exchanges in cooperative and competitive‐related tasks in comparison with non‐EBD students: (a) prosocial; (b) negative; and (c) conflict behaviours were assessed. Fifty‐seven children at risk for EBD and 57 comparison children participated in three different social tasks with non‐target partners. Both students and teachers completed a standardised behaviour checklist. Social ability and sex differences were considered. Results are discussed from a social‐cognitive framework, and practical implications will be highlighted.     

Career choices and characteristics of criminal justice undergraduates

Four hundred undergraduate criminal justice students from twelve colleges and universities in seven states participated in an anonymous, written survey designed to determine career choices and expectations as well as other demographic information. Approximately half of the students surveyed indicated that they were pursuing a career in law enforcement. Almost one-third indicated that they had no career plans. We found that reasons for studying criminal justice vary by race and gender, as do career goals.     

Teaching Television in the Classroom: results of a preliminary study

Against a background of concern at the effects of heavy TV viewing on young people, a number of studies have indicated the value of television studies courses. However, little systematic research has been carried out in Britain on the best ways to teach with or about television. This paper describes a course for 14‐15 year‐old children, aimed at explaining TV production techniques and approaches, and to evaluate critically TV news broadcasts and drama. The course involved analysis of specific broadcasts and the planning, preparation and production of video programmes by the pupils themselves. Detailed course evaluation, by careful pre‐ and post‐testing of experimental and control groups, has demonstrated clear improvements of the children's understanding of television.     

Counseling via Avatar: Professional Practice in Virtual Worlds

Professional counselors (n = 5) from the United States (2), Australia, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands were interviewed about the provision of counseling services in the multi-user virtual environment (MUVE) Second Life (SL). Using Strauss and Corbin’s (1998) method, qualitative data analysis yielded four themes: (i) encapsulating the immersive experience inherent in virtual worlds, (ii) contributions to successful avatar-based counseling, (iii) the practice of MUVE counseling, and (iv) practitioners’ pioneering spirit. This study contributes to distance counseling knowledge and lays the foundation for future avatar-based counseling research and practice.     

Modelling Opportunity Recognition Competence as a Foundation for Teaching and Learning in Vocational Education

Due to tremendous worldwide changes, the entrepreneurial imperative demands innovation. Therefore, companies as well as employees require innovative thinking and acting skills to cope with modern challenges. Opportunity Recognition represents the starting point for such entrepreneurial endeavours. Hence, this paper focuses on modelling Opportunity Recognition as well as the development of an Opportunity Recognition competence model as the foundation for teaching and learning in vocational education. Building on vocational situations that trigger innovations (opportunities) and the necessary competence facets that are needed to apply competent vocational behaviour in such situations (Opportunity Recognition), we conduct a systematic literature review and develop a comprehensive Opportunity Recognition competence model. We thereby link the found vocational situations (opportunities) with the found more abstract and latent competence facets of Opportunity Recognition and operationalise them by more observable indicators, which can be construed as evidence for the latent construct and related to successful performance in associated vocational situations. This modelling procedure of “evidence-based reasoning” allows inferences from the observed behaviour to the underlying, although not directly observable, Opportunity Recognition competence. The resulting Opportunity Recognition competence model may serve as a foundation for developing evidence-based curricular goals for vocational education through both instruction and assessment.     

Administrative perceptions of existing evaluation systems

Summary This research study focused on a number of issues related to the status and effectiveness of post-tenure evaluation practices within the two-year college sector.The results indicate that post-tenure evaluation exists in about 70 percent of the responding institutions who belong to the North Central Association. The stated purpose for the evaluation is formative and specifies that the evaluation is used as a basis for individual faculty development and for improvement purposes. There was, however, a sense that more emphasis should be given to reward systems in terms of merit compensation and/or merit recognition.Administrators generally indicate that a plan for improvement and professional growth is established and supported by institutional resources in their evaluation systems. Yet, there was ambivalence relative to the overall effectiveness of the post-evaluation process. The reasons for such a response centered on the perception that evaluation paid only lip service to faculty development and was not effective in measuring either competence or incompetence. It appears that much work needs to be accomplished in this area in order to improve the outcomes of evaluation systems. There was also significant concern expressed by administrators regarding the inadequacy of the system to identify and weed out poor or incompetent faculty members. Such action appeared to be lacking in those institutions participating in this study.Some well-defined recommendations were put forth by these administrators to improve the evaluation systems. The most prevalent recommendations centered on tying the system to faculty development and to a formative purpose, providing incentives (merit) for excellent performers, and lessening the importance of student evaluations.This study points out some of the gaps as perceived by administrators that exist in post-tenure evaluation systems today. It also provides some recommendations for improvement of evaluation systems for those individuals who are in positions to impact such change positively within institutions.In general, these data underscore the importance for individual institutions to assess the effectiveness of their evaluation systems from both a faculty and administrative perspective. The time and effort expended on an ineffective evaluation system might better be channeled into improving the system or into developing other quality college initiatives. Evaluation of tenured faculty should only be undertaken if it can improve the quality of life within the institution.     

Association of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus and Perinatal Maternal Depression with Early Childhood Behavioral Problems: An Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Study

This study examined the association of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), prenatal, and postnatal maternal depressive symptoms with externalizing, internalizing, and autism spectrum problems on the Preschool Child Behavior Checklist in 2379 children aged 4.12 ± 0.60 (48% female; 47% White, 32% Black, 15% Mixed Race, 4% Asian, <2% American Indian/Alaskan Native, <2% Native Hawaiian; 23% Hispanic). Data were collected from the NIH Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program from 2009-2021. GDM, prenatal, and postnatal maternal depressive symptoms were each associated with increased child externalizing and internalizing problems. GDM was associated with increased autism behaviors only among children exposed to perinatal maternal depressive symptoms above the median level. Stratified analyses revealed a relation between GDM and child outcomes in males only.     

Foop is still floop: A six year follow-up of phonological dyslexia and dysgraphia

A six year follow-up of a previously documented case of developmental phonological dyslexia, is reported. Overal reading and spelling levels have risen significantly, but the qualitative nature of the performance has remained unchanged: impaired non-word reading; morphological and visuo-semantic paralexias; and function word substitutions in text. Rhyming skills also remain impaired. A higher proportion of errors are paralexias and within these a higher proportion are visuo-semantic or morphological. The error pattern of phonological dylexia is thus more pronounced than before. In spelling, only a minority of errors are phonologically plausible. There is no evidence of the mastery of the alphabetic stage of reading or the alphabetic stage of spelling. It is argued that A.H. is reading orthographically not logographically and that current reading models, which require passage through an alphabetic stage before attaining an orthographic stage, do not adequately account for individual variation in the acquisition of literacy skills.This work was supported by a research award from the Wolfson Foundation. Requests for reprints should be addressed to Dr. Christine Temple, The Neuropsychology Unit, Radcliffe Infirmary, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6HE, United Kingdom.