Training educators to support sexual minority students: views of Chinese teachers

Good quality teacher education and training has been acknowledged as an effective strategy to reduce sexual prejudice against sexual minority (lesbian, gay, bisexual and questioning/queer [LGBQ]) students. However, no mandated programmes have been developed to include LGBQ-related content in teacher training in Hong Kong, a Chinese society in which heterosexism prevails. Based on the concepts of sexual prejudice, minority stress and contact theory, this paper explores the international and regional literature on LGBQ students’ school experiences, highlighting the significant role teachers play in supporting these students to transgress sexual prejudice, and presenting suggested themes and strategies for teacher training programmes, drawn from qualitative interviews with eleven Chinese teacher allies. Data analysis led to the identification of the following themes: 1) starting sexual diversity training officially; 2) reconsidering assumptions; 3) engaging with relevant cultural knowledge and skills; and 4) using dialogue as a training strategy. This paper argues that accurate content about sexual diversity should be incorporated into the professional teacher training curriculum, with updated sexuality concepts and prejudice-free, LGBQ-inclusive language relevant to the Chinese cultural context. Teachers need to become more aware of how sexual prejudice is manifested through cultural forces. Intergroup contact can be included as a useful training strategy.     

Creating the first MedlinePlus "Go Local" service: lessons and recommendations from the evaluation of NC Health Info

NC Health Info is an online collection of North Carolina based health services Web sites that seamlessly links local health resources to topical health information on MedlinePlus, the National Library of Medicine's consumer health information Web site. NC Health Info was the first project to connect local resources with MedlinePlus in the "Go Local" initiative. As such, NC Health Info serves as a model for other states to follow in connecting their own local information with Medline- Plus. This paper describes the processes used and lessons learned during a year-long evaluation of NC Health Info. Evaluation results may be of interest and applicable to any existing or planned "Go Local" project.     

Personal Bias or Government Bias? Testing the Hostile Media Effect in a Regulated Press System

This study examines the hostile media effect in relation topartisans’ perception of the slant of news coverage ina highly regulated press environment—Singapore. We foundthat partisans in Singapore perceived unbiased news to be infavor of the other side, while the nonpartisans perceived thesame news to be neutral. Our findings show that hostile mediaeffects can persist in a restricted press environment wherepeople are aware of the government's control of media coverage.We also found that partisans’ awareness of the government'scontrol of media information contributed to their perceptionof the article slant as well. Received for publication May 9, 2006. Accepted for publication December 5, 2006.     

Pedagogical Content Knowledge of Inquiry： An Instrument to Assess It and Its Application to High School In-Service Science Teachers

It is argued that the lack of consensus on what constitutes an inquiry-based approach makes the generalization about it difficult, because the concept is relatively unspecific and vague. This problem can partially be solved by constructing a set of activities promoted by inquiry, thus defining the inquiry objectives for classroom and laboratory teaching. Five high school and college Mexican teachers＇ PICK （pedagogical inquiry/content knowledge） was documented and assessed by means of Loughran, Mulhall and Berry＇s （2004） l-CoRe （inquiry content representation） developed by the authors through a proposal of a set of seven inquiry activities. They were also interviewed to construct the professional and pedagogical experience repertoires, a second tool by Loughran et al. （2004） to document PICK. It was observed that all teachers interviewed have used inquiry to modify their students＇ way of thinking, mainly through question posing. Some of them employed research as their main tool to promote scientific inquiry but others mentioned the lack of time to do it. It is interesting to notice that in spite of the fact that inquiry is out of the curriculum in M6xico, the teachers make use of it to improve their teaching practice. According to their answers, their actions in the classroom or the lab were classified within the three general approaches expressed by Lederman （2004）： implicit, historical and explicit. It is concluded that a given teacher cannot be classified exclusively in one of them, because in his/her activities one general approach overlaps the others. The authors conclude that Lederman＇s classification has to be taken into account as an orientation to characterize a given activity of one teacher, even though the same teacher may use another activity characterized by other general approach. That is, Lederman＇s classification applies to characterize activities, not persons     

Private higher education in Australia

In the post World War Two era and prior to the mid 1980s Australia has been characterised by exclusive public provision, financing and regulation of higher education. The 1980s, however, have been marked by considerable turmoil which culminated in the 1988 White Paper. Circumstances provided by the reform of the higher education system, the booming overseas student market and unmet domestic demand have provided a window of opportunity for private providers. This paper charts the growth of private provision, federal and state government responses and the pressures for subsidy and regulation. The paper concludes that the policies of both levels of government are hastening the development of what Geiger (1988) defines as a peripheral private sector of higher education in Australia.     

Relating GTE and Knowledge-based Courseware Engineering: Some Epistemological Issues

The GTE approach to create instruction, as described by Van Marcke, is related with courseware authoring. ITS-approaches such as GTE and conventional courseware authoring may seem diametrical approaches to the generation of instruction. Authoring, if carried out in a principled, systematic, and method-supported way has been called Courseware Engineering. In research on Courseware Engineering the two authors have attempted to extend Courseware Engineering into Knowledge-based Courseware Engineering. This approach to authoring has much in common with GTE. They concern the application of knowledge-based methods and techniques for the generation of instruction. There are basic differences in viewpoints though and an epistemological analysis is applied in order to make correspondences and differences with respect to shared problem issues visible. The analysis shows that from a technical point of view a symbiosis of both approaches might be feasible and worthwhile to attempt. Differences in vision on the role of the human in authoring remain though.     

A Structural Model of Educational Aspirations

The purpose of this study was to develop and test a model to predict educational aspirations of Canadian adolescents. Participants were a national sample of 4,034 students from grades 8–13 (2,037 males, 1,973 females). Results of a modified structural model included three sets of influences: a) a background factor comprised of parental occupation and education; b) a family involvement factor consisting of parental personal and school-based involvement with adolescents; and c) a personal factor with school marks, school and course perceptions, extracurricular reading and parental educational expectations as indicator measures. Educational aspirations was the main outcome variable. Results indicated that the personal factor had a strong direct influence on educational aspirations ( = 1.17, p < .001, R² = .76). The effects of the background and family involvement factors on educational aspirations were mediated through the personal factor. Additional analyses performed in order to test the relationships obtained in the model, revealed several significant interactions amongst the three predictor factors and educational aspirations. The findings emphasize the importance of efforts to enhance the educational aspirations of adolescents through targeted change of modifiable environmental and personal factors.     

Cognitive Theory and the Use of Computers in the Primary Classroom

Research investigating the role of computers in the primary classroom is closely linked to the body of knowledge concerned with theories of learning and child development. Research is presented as an attempt to provide scientifically supportable reasons why computers are effective in education. Having established a theoretical base for computer use in primary classrooms, this paper then examines the educational application of cognitive theory to classroom instruction.     

Restructuring Teacher Education in Australia

Debate on teacher quality and quality in teaching and teacher education has been as vigorous in Australia as it has been in the UK and the USA. In Australia, however, reform in teacher education has been subsumed within a national metapolicy of corporate federalism which is an amalgam of beliefs or discourses including neo‐corporatism, economic rationalism, corporate managerialism and human capital. The paper analyses the most recent document on reform of teacher education in Australia (the Ebbeck Report) and shows how its policy formulation is influenced by the discourse of corporate federalism. It also shows how micro‐economic reform in this sector is related to reforms in other sectors of education.     

Coupling Admissions and Curricular Data to Predict Medical Student Outcomes

The relative impact of admissions factors and curricular measures on the first medical licensing exam (United States Medical Licensing Exam [USMLE] Step 1) scores is examined. The inclusion of first-year and second-year curricular measures nearly doubled the variance explained in Step 1 scores from the amount explained by the combination of preadmission demographic characteristics and admissions factors. In addition, the relationship between the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) and Step 1 scores becomes counterintuitive in models that include curricular measures, where students with the lowest combined admissions metrics (MCAT, grade-point average) score higher, on average, than those with some of the highest admissions metrics. Overreliance on traditional metrics in admissions decisions can exclude students from medical school who have the ability to succeed.