Listening ethically to indigenous children: experiences from India

ABSTRACT

An act of respect when researching with indigenous children is recognising the community’s code of ethics, its intellectual and environmental property, and acknowledging its right to self-determination. Within India, the indigenous communities constitute over 84 million people, but their voice has been marginalised particularly in the context of education. This paper foregrounds ethical considerations when researching with indigenous groups, specifically outlining dilemmas that arose from working alongside Sabar children of Jharkhand, India. It identifies how ethnomethodological methods and participatory tools have empowered this marginalised voice, enabling multinodal expressions and access to data that other methods may not have elicited. Findings highlight children as legitimate meaning-makers of their world, as ‘beings’, and not merely ‘becomings’. The paper discusses the ethical strategies adopted in consideration of its indigenous participants that have enabled generation of data beyond barriers of language, power and privilege. It navigates the nature and practice of ethics examined in the context of indigeneity through acknowledgement of ‘paradigmatic’ and ‘situated’ ethics, and an ethic of reciprocity. It concludes the relevance of ethics of difference in postcolonial education and research.     

Equitable Written Assessments for English Language Learners: How Scaffolding Helps

This study investigated the effects of the use of scaffolds in written classroom assessments through the voices of both native English speakers and English language learners from two middle schools. Students responded to assessment tasks in writing, by speaking aloud using think aloud protocols, and by reflecting in a post-assessment interview. The classroom assessment tasks were designed to engage students in scientific sense making and multifaceted language use, as recommended by the Next Generation Science Standards. Data analyses showed that both groups benefitted from the use of scaffolds. The findings revealed specific ways that modifications were supportive in helping students to comprehend, visualize and organize thinking, and elicit responses. This study offers a model for both sensitizing teachers and strengthening their strategies for scaffolding assessments equitably.     

Hyperferritinemia in Pulmonary Tuberculosis

High ferritin levels have been found to be associated with non infectious as well as infectious causes including tuberculosis. This is one case report of 41 year old male who presented with cough with expectoration. The patient had Multi drug resistant tuberculosis (MDRTB) and type 2 diabetes mellitus. The laboratory findings showed Iron 280 μg/dl, Total iron binding capacity (TIBC) 61 μg/dl, and ferritin 92,945 ng/ml which indicates that iron is an essential nutrient for the survival of the pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis.     

A Comparison of Methods for Ranking Educational Program Goals

The researchers examined rankings of goals of education obtained from community representatives using two different methods: use of single goal statements and use of interrelated goal sets. The sets were derived from a posited model of relationships among goals. The results indicate that basic skills were ranked lower when subjects were presented with a goal ranking task that accounted for relationships among goals compared to single goals presented as independent items. Greater consistency of ranking was also obtained using goal sets rather than individual goals.     

Conceptualizing educational leadership: does exploring macro-level facets matters?

The present review attempts to examine the present status of educational leadership highlighting the role of macro-level facets in Asian Pacific context. The conceptualization of educational leadership among researchers so far had been found to vary according to different contexts and situations. Theoretical perspectives associated with educational leadership have either approached the concept from dimensions working outside the school or from dimensions reflecting the personality trait of the principal. There is an urgent need to shift the focus of attention toward understanding educational leadership through an interactive collaboration of these dimensions. Specifically, in school contexts, the phenomenon of educational leadership was explored and theorized from one perspective only, giving less space to have multidisciplinary view, which need to be revived in terms of contexts and associated metaphors of educational leadership. Although the importance of educational leadership has been widely acknowledged, its role still remains unheeded in various sections of education. The purpose of the review, thus, is to gain macro-level insight into this concept which can hopefully answer many aspects of education which are otherwise left unanswered, thereby helping in formulating better educational reforms.     

Systems learning with a conceptual representation: a quasi-experimental study

In this paper, we share results from a classroom intervention that used a conceptual representation to support reasoning about ecosystems. Engaging students in modeling allows them to make their ideas visible while being malleable and available for discussion, which enables students to make meaning out of systems. Further, the Components-Mechanisms-Phenomena (CMP) conceptual representation was designed to enable students to construct coherent mental models. Following our intervention, students deepened their understanding of ecosystem dynamics when compared to students who engaged in traditional instruction without use of the CMP conceptual representation. We discuss our results in terms of data that helped guide the design of the intervention and we describe a theoretical perspective that can be used to guide future instruction.