Do levels of pre-school alphabetic tuition affect the development of phonological awareness and early literacy?

It has been suggested that children need exposure to alphabetic tuition before they can develop phonological awareness, especially phonemic awareness. This paper re-examines an existing data set to see whether two groups of pre-school, pre-literate children who differ in their knowledge of letter names (used here as a measure of alphabetic tuition) will also differ in their levels of phonological awareness. Their later performance on measures of school age reading and spelling attainment is also compared. The results show that the two groups of children did not differ significantly in either their phonological awareness or their literacy attainment.     

Interactive learning and technology in the US science and mathematics reform movement

This article presents an overview of the science/mathematics reform movement in the secondary/elementary schools and higher education institutions of the United States. It describes the research and views of educational practitioners regarding the need for change, as well as the particular changes which appear to be required. Emphasis is placed on the roles of interactive learning and technology in meeting reform goals.
Details of a recently completed curricular innovation project in science and mathematics are provided. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the project brought five faculty in the natural sciences together with a learning theorist at Florida Community College at Jacksonville, a large, multi-campus, public institution. The group developed and taught two basic integrated science/mathematics courses in which cooperative and discovery learning, supported by multimedia technology and distance learning, were major components. Details of results are provided as they relate to meeting the goals of the reform movement.     

The role and effects of teaching assistants in English primary schools (Years 4 to 6) 2000–2003. Results from the Class Size and Pupil—Adult Ratios (CSPAR) KS2 Project

It is widely assumed that increasing the number of teaching assistants (TAs) in the classroom will be beneficial to children, and this is one important aim of the recently implemented Workforce Agreement. But there are still significant gaps in knowledge about many aspects of their deployment and impact. The Class Size and Pupil—Adult Ratios (CSPAR) KS2 study built on earlier findings when the pupils were in reception and Key Stage (KS) 1, and investigated: (1) the deployment of TAs in classrooms and how key parties involved perceived this; and (2) the effect of TAs on interactions involving pupils and teachers in the same classrooms, and on pupil attainments. The study had a longitudinal, mixed method and multi‐informant design. Methods of data collection included: (for the whole sample) questionnaires completed by TAs, teachers and head teachers, assessments of pupil attainments in mathematics, English and science, data on pupil background, and (for a sub‐sample) case studies and a systematic observation study. This study found that the TA's role in KS2 is predominantly a direct one, in the sense of face‐to‐face interactions supporting certain pupils. There was no evidence that the presence of TAs, or any characteristic of TAs, had a measurable effect on pupil attainment. However, results were clear in showing that TAs had an indirect effect on teaching, e.g. pupils had a more active form of interaction with the teacher and there was more individualised teacher attention. This supported teachers' views that TAs are effective in supporting them in this way. The authors conclude that more attention needs to be paid to what they call the pedagogical role of TAs so that they can be used effectively to help teachers and pupils, particularly in the context of the enhanced roles for TAs being introduced as part of the Government's remodelling agenda.     

Transgender young people’s narratives of intimacy and sexual health: implications for sexuality education

Abstract

Sexuality education as pedagogy is often fraught by the perceived requirement to balance the informational needs of young people with an investment in notions of childhood ‘innocence’. Nowhere is this perhaps more evident than in sexuality education that seeks to be inclusive of transgender young people, often resulting in the failure of such education to address the needs of such students. In an attempt at addressing the relative dearth of information about what transgender young people would like to see covered in sexuality education, in this paper we explore transgender young people’s accounts of intimacy and sexual health and consider what this means for school-based sexuality education. To do this, we analyse discussions of intimacy from the perspectives of transgender young people as narrated in a sample of YouTube videos. We conclude by advocating for an approach to sexuality education that largely eschews the gendering of body parts and gametes, and which instead focuses on function, so as to not only address the needs of transgender young people (who may find normative discussions of genitals distressing), but to also provide cisgender young people with a more inclusive understanding of their own and other people’s bodies and desires.     

Emotional Over- and Undereating in Children: A Longitudinal Analysis of Child and Contextual Predictors

Eating more or eating less in response to negative emotions, called emotional over- and undereating, is common in children, but research on the etiology of these behaviors is in its infancy. Drawing on a large, representative community sample of Norwegian children followed up on a biennial basis from 6 to 10 years of age (analysis sample: n = 802), child and contextual predictors (i.e., child temperament, depression symptoms, serious life events, family functioning, parental sensitivity and structuring) of change in emotional over- and undereating were examined. Results revealed that low (temperamental) soothability and less parental structuring at age 6 predicted increased emotional overeating at age 10 and that lower family functioning at age 6 predicted more emotional undereating during the same period.     

‘History taught in the pageant way’: education and historical performance in twentieth-century Britain

ABSTRACT

Historical pageants were important sites of popular engagement with the past in twentieth-century Britain. They took place in many places and sometimes on a large scale, in settings ranging from small villages to industrial cities. They were staged by schools, churches, professional organisations, women’s groups and political parties, among others. This article draws on contemporary studies of heritage and performance to explore the blend of history, myth and fiction that characterised pageants, and the ways in which they both shaped and reflected the self-image of local communities. Pageants were important channels of popular education as well as entertainment and, although they are sometimes seen as backward-looking and conservative spectacles, this article argues that pageants could be an effective means of enlisting the past in the service of the present and future.     

The Representation of Altruistic and Egoistic Motivations in Popular Music over 60 Years

Content analyses examining the values expressed in popular music have been predominantly ad hoc, limited to antisocial themes, and lacking a comprehensive theoretical coding scheme. We applied a content analytic scheme based in the model of intuitive morality and exemplars (MIME) to examine altruistic and egoistic values in popular music over 60 years. Findings show (a) more frequent representation of egoistic than altruistic motivations, and (b) the profusion of egoistic motivations focused mostly on romantic (in adult-targeted music) but also platonic (in child-targeted music) relationships.     

Exploring learning goals and assessment approaches for Indigenous health education: a qualitative study in Australia and New Zealand

In higher education, assessment is key to student learning. Assessments which promote critical thinking necessary for sustained learning beyond university are highly valued. However, the design of assessment tasks to achieve these types of thinking skills and dispositions to act in professional practice has received little attention. This research examines how academics design assessment to achieve these learning goals in Indigenous health education. Indigenous health education is an important area of learning for health practitioners to help address worldwide patterns of health inequities that exist for Indigenous people. We used a constructivist qualitative methodology to (i) explore learning goals and assessment strategies used in Indigenous health tertiary education and (ii) examine how they relate to higher education assessment ideals. Forty-one academics (from nine health disciplines) involved in teaching Indigenous health content participated in a semi-structured interview. Thematic analysis revealed learning goals to transform students’ perspectives and capacities to think critically and creatively about their role in Indigenous health. In contrast, assessment tasks encouraged more narrowly bounded thinking to analyse information about historical and socio-cultural factors contributing to Indigenous health. To transform students to be critical health practitioners capable of working and collaborating with Indigenous people to advance their health and well-being, the findings suggest that assessment may need to be nested across many aspects of the curriculum using a programmatic approach, and with a focus on learning to think and act for future practice. These findings accord with more recent calls for transformation of learning and assessment in health education.     

Non-organic failure to thrive: Decision for and videotaped evaluations

Infants hospitalized for non-organic failure to thrive in the first six months of life are in a life-threatening situation and are already at risk for poor bonding with mother. In light of this, the meaning and use of foster care and how this separation affects the developing mother-child relationship are the issues addressed through examination of 16 cases in which 8 of the infants were placed in foster care and 8 discharged home after the failure to thrive hospitalization. This paper examines (1) maternal histories of pregnancy, labor and delivery and the neonatal status of placed and non-placed infants; (2) the developmental and weight status of placed children; (3) the nature of the decision criteria for after-hospital care; and (4) the mother-infant relationship at initial intake in terms of mother's report of events and observations of feeding and play interactions during a videotaped assessment process. The study found that the interactions between mother and infant in those situations which required foster care were clearly more dysfunctional when compared to those in which the baby was discharged home to mother. Babies in the two groups were comparable in weight status at the time of hospitalization although babies in foster placement had slightly lower scores on the Bayley Scales. Maternal histories of pregnancy, labor, and delivery were similar for the two groups as were the birth and neonatal histories of the infants.