‘That's how it works here’: The place of religion in publicly managed second-level schools in Ireland

This article problematises the place of religion within publicly managed Education and Training Board (ETB) schools in the Republic of Ireland. The study draws on interview data from 43 school personnel across 18 ETB second-level schools, as well as eight interviews with ETB Education/Chief Executive Officers. Having established the legal and historical contexts, the place of religion is explored from the perspective of school life and prescribed curriculum. Across the 18 schools, the prescribed curriculum for Religious Education did not take the form of ‘faith formation’. Rather, focus was placed on exploring all world religions. However, this compares with the role of religion within the life of the school; 14 of the 18 participating schools had religious dimensions as part of school life. Half of these schools (n = 7) were Designated Community Colleges, while the remainder were Non-Designated (n = 7). The religious dimension was always Catholic in nature. Bar a few exceptions, the role of religion within the life of the school remained largely unquestioned by school personnel. The article explores the findings in light of the legislative and historical contexts.     

Math Fluency: Accuracy Versus Speed in Preoperational and Concrete Operational First and Second Grade Children

Cognitive abilities as well as math fluency play an important role in mathematical skills. Understanding the relationship between cognitive abilities and mathematical skills is imperative to teaching effective arithmetic skills. The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between cognitive ability and math fluency with 38 first and second grade elementary aged children. Results demonstrate that preoperational children lacked the speed of concrete operational children but achieved comparable levels of accuracy when completing arithmetic problems.     

Female science teacher beliefs and attitudes: implications in relation to gender and pedagogical practice

Beliefs and attitudes resulting from the unique life experiences of teachers frame interactions with learners promoting gender equity or inequity and the reproduction of social views about knowledge and power as related to gender. This study examines the enactment of a female science teacher’s pedagogy (Laura), seeking to understand the implications of her beliefs and attitudes, as framed by her interpretations and daily manifestations, as she interacts with students. Distinct influences inform the conceptual framework of this study: (a) the social organization of society at large, governed by understood and unspoken patriarchy, present both academically and socially; (b) the devaluing of women as “knowers” of scientific knowledge as defined by a western and male view of science; (c) the marginalization or “feminization” of education and pedagogical knowledge. The findings reflect tensions between attitudes and beliefs and actual teacher practice suggesting the need for awareness within existing or new teachers about their positions as social agents and the sociological implications related to issues of gender within which we live and work, inclusive of science teaching and learning.     

Story constellations: A narrative approach to contextualizing teachers’ knowledge of school reform

This article traces the roots of narrative research in the social sciences and education, then centers on ‘story constellations,’ a version of narrative inquiry that uncovers teachers’ knowledge of school reform in context. A fluid form of investigation that unfolds in a three-dimensional inquiry space, story constellations consists of a flexible matrix of paired narratives that are broadened, burrowed, and restoried over time. The adaptability of this narrative inquiry approach is then made visible through introducing four story constellations separately, then laying sketches of the individual story constellations side-by-side. When analyzed in a conjoined fashion, these sketches illustrate how the particularities of place and human agency in the living of school reform played out differently in differing school contexts, despite the fact that the four school sites had one story of reform in common. In the end result, the illustrations demonstrate how the use of the malleable approach drew distinctive story constellations to the surface, spotlighting teachers’ knowledge of school reform as it developed in context over time. In this way, ‘story constellations’ as a method and as a form of inquiry is illuminated.     

Orthographic analysis of words during fluency training promotes reading of new similar words

Remediation of a serious lack in reading fluency often takes the form of repeated reading exercises. The present study examines whether transfer of training effects to untrained (neighbour) words can be enhanced by training with an orthographic focus as compared with emphasising semantics. The effect of oral versus silent reading during training is studied as well. Two groups of reading‐disabled children (mean age=7 years, 11 months) were given repeated reading training with limited exposure duration (350 ms) in which 15 target words were repeated 20 times in exercises focused on either orthography (N=26) or semantics (N=25). The children were required to either read the target words aloud or perform the exercises silently, but this requirement appeared to have no effect on the training results. The results show that untrained neighbour words benefited more from training targets with an orthographic focus than from exercises with a semantic emphasis.     

Selecting job elements to rate in performance appraisals: The human factors approach

The human factors approach (HFA) is proposed as a valid, reliable, and cost‐effective method for generating and selecting job performance elements (JPEs) to be rated in employee performance appraisals. One basic set of JPEs can and should be used to appraise all employees' performance. The HFA is based principally on a simple question: What are the most critical or important things humans can produce/do at work that maximize employee and organizational performance?     

Individual, family, and neighborhood factors distinguish resilient from non-resilient maltreated children: a cumulative stressors model

OBJECTIVE: Children who are physically maltreated are at risk of a range of adverse outcomes in childhood and adulthood, but some children who are maltreated manage to function well despite their history of adversity. Which individual, family, and neighborhood characteristics distinguish resilient from non-resilient maltreated children? Do children's individual strengths promote resilience even when children are exposed to multiple family and neighborhood stressors (cumulative stressors model)? METHODS: Data were from the Environmental Risk Longitudinal Study which describes a nationally representative sample of 1,116 twin pairs and their families. Families were home-visited when the twins were 5 and 7 years old, and teachers provided information about children's behavior at school. Interviewers rated the likelihood that children had been maltreated based on mothers' reports of harm to the child and child welfare involvement with the family. RESULTS: Resilient children were those who engaged in normative levels of antisocial behavior despite having been maltreated. Boys (but not girls) who had above-average intelligence and whose parents had relatively few symptoms of antisocial personality were more likely to be resilient versus non-resilient to maltreatment. Children whose parents had substance use problems and who lived in relatively high crime neighborhoods that were low on social cohesion and informal social control were less likely to be resilient versus non-resilient to maltreatment. Consistent with a cumulative stressors model of children's adaptation, individual strengths distinguished resilient from non-resilient children under conditions of low, but not high, family and neighborhood stress. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that for children residing in multi-problem families, personal resources may not be sufficient to promote their adaptive functioning.     

Relation between reading problems and internalizing behavior in school for preadolescent children from economically disadvantaged families

This longitudinal study of 105 economically disadvantaged children examined the relation between reading problems and internalizing behavior in 3rd- and 5th-grade assessments (8- to 12-year olds). The variable-centered results showed that reading problems predicted change in internalizing behavior in the context of child and family predictors. The person-centered results showed that children with reading problems in both grades had higher internalizing scores in 5th grade but not in 3rd grade than children with reading problems in 3rd grade or no problems. Child-reported negative emotion experiences varied similarly across grade. The results tie reading problems to emotional distress in school and support conclusions about the direction of effects and the internalization of academic difficulty for disadvantaged children.     

PPM环境贸易措施与WTO规则的关系问题分析

由于PPM环境贸易措施和WTO规则之间的关系问题存在不确定性,因而各国经常会按照有利于自身的原则对其进行解释,用以保护本国工业或推广本国价值观,PPM环境贸易措施也因此成为绿色贸易壁垒的最新形式。有关PPM环境贸易措施与WTO规则的关系问题,发达国家与发展中国家在理论和实践上存在着根本性的分歧。发展中国家为了保护自身的利益,必须坚持单边PPM环境贸易措施不符合有关的WTO规则的立场,并积极采取措施澄清二者之间的关系。     

幼儿园课程整合的实质及其策略

随着幼儿园课程研究的深入,人们越来越认识到幼儿园课程应当突破学科的界限,走向整合。整合课程的基础是整合的教育观,整合的教育观应该建立在整合的发展观基础之上。幼儿园课程的整合不仅仅体现在课程内容组织形式的整合上,更体现在教育者在设计和组织幼儿活动时要始终树立整合的观念,一方面,用学科之间的交叉和融合的眼光来考察和处理幼儿园课程涉及的学科领域内容;另一方面,关注儿童的整体发展,儿童生活的全过程,其最高境界是实现教育目标、课程内容、教育方式等各要素、各层面、各级水平的优化组合,获得综合性教育效果。