The role of work-related learning in the identity transformation of Canadian workers with low literacy skills

Workplaces are settings where power, knowledge and self are brought together in a complex social environment which includes various forms of struggle related to identity, agency, socio-cultural norms, political structures and functional practices. The purpose of this article is to uncover how formal and informal work-related learning processes influence the identity transformation of workers with low literacy and essential skills. Drawing on two recent Canadian data bases which serve as cases in this study, the position taken by the authors is that the organisational context can both facilitate and impede worker subjectivity. Various conditions, approaches to learning and training pathways are examined as they contribute to social cognitive and transformative learning theories.     

Longitudinal analysis of the environmental attitudes of university students

This article addresses the important questions that higher education institutions ask concerning their impact on their students’ sustainability-related attributes ‘How do our students’ worldviews change as they experience higher education with us?’ The process of monitoring such a dynamic entity is fraught with statistical complexity but may not be impossible for an institution willing to ask whether or not its educational efforts in ‘education for sustainability’, ‘education for sustainable development’ or ‘environmental education’, and campus sustainability developments, are paralleled by changes in the attitudes of its students. We describe here a longitudinal survey process based on the revised New Ecological Paradigm scale, with two cohorts of students, in three programmes of study, operating over four years, with multiple survey inputs by each student. We implemented the longitudinal analysis using a linear mixed-effects model and describe here the development and testing of this model. We conclude that higher education institutions can benchmark the sustainability attributes of their students and monitor changes, if they are minded to. We invite higher education practitioners worldwide to join us in further developing suitable research instruments, processes and statistical models, and in further analysing the assumptions that link higher education to sustainability and to global citizenship.     

Two secondary teachers’ understanding and classroom practice of dialogic teaching: a case study

Dialogic Teaching (DT) is effective in fostering student learning; yet, it is hard to implement. Little research focused on secondary teachers’ learning of DT and on the link between teachers’ understanding and practices, although these two are usually strongly intertwined. Using a wide range of evidence, this case study systematically investigated and compared two secondary teachers’ understanding and practice of DT during their participation in a continuing professional development programme (CPDP). The CPDP appeared effective to some extent. The History teacher’s understanding of DT, i.e. being a co-learner, appeared highly effective in implementing DT, whereas the Mathematics teacher’s understanding of DT, i.e. creating a democratic learning environment, seemed only effective to some extent. Focusing on both teachers’ understanding and practice when developing DT seemed fruitful in explaining differences in practice. Future research could further explore to what extent understanding DT as being a co-learner facilitates professional development.     

From divergent evolution to witting cross-fertilisation: the need for more awareness of potential inter-discursive communication regarding students' extended historical writing

History education stakeholders in England have consistently judged that some students find formal historical writing prohibitively difficult due to the demands of constructing an extended argument. While policy makers have agreed students need support in their historical writing, recurring themes in centralised resourcing have been wastage, incoordination and replication. Furthermore, two concurrent but largely disconnected discourses have developed and promulgated initiatives relevant to students’ extended historical writing: ‘genre theorists’ and the ‘history teachers’ extended writing movement’. Despite certain goals held in common participants in the two discourses have tended to talk past one another with concomitant issues in resourcing. Unsystematic, cross-fertilisation between the discourses has led to cycles of genre theory being collectively discovered, forgotten, and rediscovered by history teachers with knowledge not being built cumulatively. Furthermore both discourses have independently developed similar initiatives in a form of convergent evolution resulting in duplication of labour. Finally, divergent evolution has occurred where genre theorists have advocated approaches that are increasingly redundant for history teachers’ requirements. A more activist stance is therefore required to ensure meaningful inter-discursive communication between genre theorists and the history teachers’ ‘extended writing movement’ to ensure efficacy in developing approaches to improving students’ extended historical writing.     

Intergenerational transmission of adaptive functioning: a test of the interactionist model of SES and human development

The interactionist model (IM) of human development (R. D. Conger & M. B. Donellan, 2007) proposes that the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and human development involves a dynamic interplay that includes both social causation (SES influences human development) and social selection (individual characteristics affect SES). Using a multigenerational data set involving 271 families, the current study finds empirical support for the IM. Adolescent personality characteristics indicative of social competence, goal-setting, hard work, and emotional stability predicted later SES, parenting, and family characteristics that were related to the positive development of a third-generation child. Processes of both social selection and social causation appear to account for the association between SES and dimensions of human development indicative of healthy functioning across multiple generations.     

Examining the accuracy of teachers' judgments of DIBELS performance

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the accuracy of teachers' judgments of students' early literacy skills and to determine if students' achievement levels influenced teachers' judgments. Typical and lower‐achieving kindergarten and first‐grade students' scores on the Nonsense Word Fluency and Phoneme Segmentation Fluency measures of the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) were compared to the predicted performance by their teachers. Results showed a moderately strong correlation between teachers' judgments and students' performance across all of the students, which is consistent with past research. Teachers' judgments, however, consistently and significantly overestimated the actual performance of students, particularly those who were typically performing students. The findings of the investigation suggest that relying on teachers' judgments of students' early literacy skills alone may be insufficient to accurately identify students at risk for reading difficulties. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.