‘Sent out’ and Stepping Back In: stories from young people ‘placed at risk’

This paper invokes the voices of young people who had been separated from mainstream schooling because they were positioned as ‘disengaged’ and ‘at risk of failing’. The authors argue that streaming students out of schooling needs serious questioning as an escalating number of young people are framed as non-performers within a globally competitive educational market. Throughout the paper we use critical ethnographic slices to expose the experiences of the 24 young people interviewed who together with mentors shared personal insights whilst attending a re-engagement programme in Australia in the year 2010. Their responses unearth a ‘wickedness’ and a preoccupation during their schooling with performance and school improvement. In response, we privilege student interpretations of their own marginalisation as an activist form of ‘speaking back’ to the social and economic conditions and limitations dominating their lives.     

远程开放教育:蒙古游牧生活妇女的非正规教育

B·罗宾逊女士,一位关心社会弱势群体教育问题的教育专家,联合国教科文组织的项目执行官,在远程教育和学习支持服务方面享有很高的威望,她时常关心着中国的远程教育事业。今天我们总在讨论远程教育的学习支持服务,不少同志有幸到国外考查或接受培训,B·罗宾逊女士作为中国赴英培训项目的学术负责人之一接见过我们的学员。她的想法、做法代表着国外和国际专门机构(如联合国教科文组织)的基本观点。这里介绍的是她刚刚完成的一个针对经济迅速发展环境下开展开放式远程教育的项目。尽管中国与文中的蒙古在经济和政治结构上有着根本差异,但其根据实际情况开展远程教育和学习支持服务的经验是发展有中国特色的远程教育的一个绝好的借鉴。受版面的限制,本文仅对报告中涉及学习支持服务的理念和方法问题进行了摘译。     

Training needs of rural school council members

School councils have operated successfully in non-government schools for many years. By contrast, the establishment of school councils in the government school sector has had a much shorter history. In New South Wales, school council members are elected representatives of the broader school community. This study focused on government schools in rural areas of southern New South Wales and specifically examined the professional development and training needs of these school council members. The findings indicated that school council members expressed concern about their inexperience as council members. Further, they identified the following areas within which they should specifically seek professional development and training: i) identifying and analysing the educational needs of the school and its community; ii) enhancing and facilitating better communication between the school and its community; iii) assisting the principal to understand local community politics; and iv) promoting public education within the local community. These priority training needs have relevance for policy makers and professional development leaders at the systemic or departmental level.     

Operation Bootstrap — Reflections of a Staff Developer

This article considers, from the point of view of an experienced staff developer, several aspects of tertiary education. It touches on the question of whether teachers are born and not made; some reasons for refusing to learn about learning; the continuing grip of the Middle Ages; the possibility of reorganisation so that students are dealt with as individuals and not in batches; the magic force of numbers; amateurs versus professionals in teaching and research; subject cultures; and the unique and parlous situation of many staff developers.     

Temperament, Emotion, and Cognition at Fourteen Months: The MacArthur Longitudinal Twin Study

200 pairs of twins were assessed at 14 months of age in the laboratory and home. Measures were obtained of temperament, emotion, and cognition/language. Comparisons between identical and fraternal twin correlations suggest that individual differences are due in part to heritable influences. For temperament, genetic influence was significant for behavioral observations of inhibition to the unfamiliar, tester ratings of activity, and parental ratings of temperament. For emotion, significant genetic influence was found for empathy and parental ratings of negative emotion. The estimate of heritability for parental report of expression of negative emotions was relatively high, whereas that for expression of positive emotions was low, a finding consistent with previous research. For cognition and language, genetic influence was significant for behavioral indices of spatial memory, categorization, and word comprehension. Shared rearing environment appears influential for parental reports of language and for positive emotions, but not for other measures of emotion or for temperament.     

Change Readiness among Teaching Staff at Anadolu University,Turkey

Turkey’s Anadolu University is one of the world’s largest mega‐universities. It is engaged in strategic planning in response to changes in the expectations of the Turkish Higher Education Council and the community at large. In re‐examining its vision and strategic directions, Anadolu University needs to be informed on the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of its teaching staff, and the systems and support needed to assure their change readiness. This article examines the literature of organizational and educational change and its implications for the university. It reports on a study based on the relevant constructs from the literature and is designed to gauge the extent and nature of teaching staff knowledge, skills, practice, and research in educational and technological change, motivating and de‐motivating factors, change adopter types, and perceptions of the organizational climate for change. It considers the implications of these findings and draws conclusions about what would be needed to improve staff readiness for change.     

Teaching High School Students with Learning and Emotional Disabilities in Inclusion Science Classrooms: A Case Study of Four Teachers' Beliefs and Practices

Journal of Science Teacher Education -