The lay sister in educational history and memory

A tiered and hierarchical system of membership has in the past characterized many Catholic religious teaching orders.¹ In women's orders, those who undertook domestic duties were usually referred to as lay sisters. Those who undertook teaching and administrative duties were called choir nuns. Histories of Catholic education have tended to include scant references to the system and virtually no systematic exploration of its meaning in the culture of Catholic schools. The aim of this paper is to provide an exploration of the construction of lay sisters in a particular religious order and school setting. The exploration is informed by poststructuralist theory; in particular, notions of ‘discourse as practice’, the symbiotic and hierarchical relationship between the binary oppositions, individual consciousness as the site of the discursive struggle, and investment in discourse. These notions are drawn upon to explore the construction of the category of lay sister within educational histories, texts that pertain to the order in question and interviews undertaken with choir nuns, one lay sister, ex-students and ancillary staff. The narrative of one lay sister is explored in order to locate her understanding of the construction.     

Changes in children’s cognitive development at the start of school in England 2001–2008

Since 1997, England has seen massive changes in the Early Years including the introduction of an early childhood curriculum, free pre‐school education for three‐year‐olds and local programmes for disadvantaged communities. Many of these initiatives took time to introduce and become established. Beginning in 2001, and each year thereafter until 2008, the authors collected consistent data from thousands of children when they started school at the age of four on a range of variables, chosen because they are good predictors of later success. These included vocabulary, early reading and early mathematics. Children from the same set of 472 state primary schools in England were assessed each year. This paper contributes to the existing studies of educational trends over time by examining the extent to which children’s scores on these measures changed over that period; in general, they were found to have remained stable.     

The Development of Language Constancy: Attention to Native Versus Nonnative Accents

The time frame for infants' acquisition of language constancy was probed, using the phonetic variation in a rarely heard accent (South African English) or a frequently heard accent (American English). A total of 156 Australian infants were tested. Six‐month‐olds looked longer to Australian English than less commonly heard South African accent, but at 9 months, showed similar looking times. With the more frequently heard American accent, 3‐month‐olds looked longer to Australian and American English, whereas 6‐month‐olds looked equally. Together these results imply that in the 1st year, differential attention to native versus nonnative accents decreases as infants develop a sense of language constancy for the common native language. However, experience with the nonnative accent can expedite this process.     

The Pathway Program: How a Collaborative,Distributed Learning Program Showed Us the Future of Social Work Education

This paper describes a three-campus collaborative, distributed learning program that delivers social work education to remote rural and desert communities in California via distance learning modalities. This “Pathway Program” provides accredited social work education for a career ladder beginning with advising and developing an academic plan and leading to BSW and MSW degrees. The paper offers assessment data on the Pathway Program and also suggests the potential for major changes in social work education. Questions about the nature of the university, the role of the faculty member, and the future of social work students in the twenty-first century are discussed.     

Defining family engagement among Latino Head Start parents: A mixed-methods measurement development study

Given the increasing numbers of Latino children and, specifically, of dual-language learning Latino children, entering the U.S. educational system, culturally contextualized models are needed to understand how parents construct their involvement roles and support their children's educational experiences. Current measures of parenting and family engagement have been developed primarily with European American families and, thus, might not capture engagement behaviors unique to other ethnic groups. Lacking culture-appropriate measurement limits our ability to construct programs that adequately incorporate protective factors to promote children's successful development. The present mixed-methods investigation employed an emic approach to understand family engagement conceptualizations for a pan-Latino population. One hundred thirteen parents from 14 Head Start programs in a large, northeastern city participated in the first study, in which domains of family engagement were identified and specific items were co-constructed to capture family engagement behaviors. Then, 650 caregivers participated in a second study examining the construct validity of the resulting 65-item measure across two language versions: Parental Engagement of Families from Latino Backgrounds(PEFL-English) and Participación Educativa de Familias Latinas (PEFL-Spanish). Four theoretically meaningful dimensions of family engagement among Latino Head Start families were identified empirically. The measure was then validated with teacher report of family involvement and parent report of satisfaction with their experiences in Head Start.     

Rethinking School Leadership Programs: The USC Ed.D. Program in Perspective

The Ed.D. program at the University of Southern California focuses on leadership in urban education. The article describes the rationale and guiding principles for the program and its design in terms of core knowledge, inquiry, signature pedagogy, concentrations, and capstone experiences. The article concludes with an assessment of our contributions to date and a set of challenges that will direct our efforts in the near future.     

The Impact of Teacher Professional Development to Reposition Pedagogy for Indigenous Students in Mainstream Schools

There is a dearth of empirical evidence that examines the impact of teacher professional development for culturally responsive pedagogies, particularly on Indigenous student achievement and teacher practices. Te Kotahitanga was a large-scale professional development initiative for culturally responsive practices for secondary teachers in New Zealand. To study its impact, we used a mixed-methods research approach to gather and analyze data on student achievement outcomes, classroom practices, and perceptions of teachers and students. While results suggested positive changes associated with the program, findings also highlighted ongoing challenges associated with transforming practice for Indigenous Māori students. Specific challenges of analysis are highlighted, along with recommendations for further research and development work in secondary schools.     

Designing Instructional Text in a Conversational Style: A Meta-analysis

This article reviews research on the effects of conversational style on learning. Studies of conversational style have variously investigated “personalization” through changing instances of first-person address to second or third person, including sentences that directly address the learner; including more polite forms of address; and making the views and personality of the author more visible. Meta-analyses provided mixed support for a model of learning processes; statistically reliable average effects were found on self-reports of friendliness (d?=?0.46) and effective cognitive processing (d?=?0.62), but not learning assistance (d?=?0.16) and interest (d?=?0.15). Statistically reliable average effects on retention (d?=?0.30) and transfer (d?=?0.54) learning outcomes supported conversational-style redesigns across a range of potential moderators; the clearest apparent boundary condition for learning outcomes across the moderators under analysis was instructional time, with small, non-significant effects being found in studies longer than 35 min. Recommendations for future investigations are discussed.     

What drives students to complete online courses? What drives faculty to teach online? Validating a measure of motivation orientation in university students and faculty

Although online student enrollment has shown double digit growth for almost a decade and academic leaders recognize that online education is necessary for enrollment growth, little is known about what motivates students to enroll in or faculty to teach face-to-face (F2F) versus online courses. The psychometric properties of a motivation scale were examined with students (n = 235) and faculty (n = 104) at a large, public, urban university in the southeastern USA. Analyses revealed that the scale was reliable as intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for online and F2F courses were similarly constructed for students and faculty; additionally, results revealed that motivations for online and F2F education are distinct concepts. Findings also demonstrated that online extrinsic motivation predicted the number of online courses students completed, while F2F intrinsic motivation negatively predicted the number of online courses a faculty member had taught. These results address several limitations with existing motivation measures and enhance the ability to predict student and faculty outcomes in online education.