‘They call me headmaster’: Malawian and Australian women leaders

This article explores commonalities in the lives and work of women head teachers in Malawian secondary schools and women principals in Australian Lutheran schools. In both Australia and Malawi women are under-represented in school leadership and often appointed to complex schools and communities. We commence with a brief discussion of Malawi and Australia’s political and educational histories which have much in common, before outlining current selection policies for school leadership. The second part of the article explores women leaders’ initial and ongoing challenges in relation to their school systems, daily work and domestic lives. The final section focuses on their perspectives of current strategies to address women’s under-representation as leaders in their respective school systems. Notwithstanding the stark contrast in socio-economic contexts, we highlight enduring transnational inequalities in women leaders’ lives and work in Malawian secondary and Australian Lutheran schools.     

A Systematic Review of Barriers and Facilitators of Disability Disclosure and Accommodations for Youth in Post-Secondary Education

This review critically appraised the literature on disability disclosure and accommodations for youth with disabilities in post-secondary education (PSE). Systematic searches of 8 databases identified 36 studies meeting our inclusion criteria. These studies were analysed with respect to the characteristics of the participants, methodology, results of the studies and quality of evidence. Five thousand, one hundred and seventy four participants (mean age 26.4) were represented across six countries. Barriers to disability disclosure and requests for accommodations in PSE included stigma, discrimination, lack of knowledge of supports and how to access them, type of course and instructor, coping styles, and nature of the disability. Facilitators included supports and resources, coping and self-advocacy skills, mentorship, and realising the benefits of disclosure. Factors affecting the process and timing of disability disclosure in PSE included the type of disability, and mode of disclosure. There was a lack of consensus on the timing of disclosure.     

Sending Minnie the Minx Home: Comics and reading choices

This paper reports on aspects of two qualitative studies which focused on children's interests in comics. The earlier study (Millard, 1997) was part of a larger survey of 254 boys' and girls' reading interests, sampled at the point of transition between primary and secondary school. The second study, which forms the main body of this paper, explores the reactions to a home-school comic lending library based in three primary classrooms over a period of seven weeks. Results from both studies are discussed in this paper and the implications for the development of the primary school literacy curriculum explored.     

A rescue service for all Dyslexic children

If help is to be available for all dyslexic children, it needs to be on an economical, cost-effective basis. The Dyslexia Unit at University College of North Wales, Bangor, has been running a teaching project in its own area for the past ten years to find out how this can be done. As a result some conclusions have emerged about the necessary conditions for success. Economies can be effected by using part-time teachers, but individual tuition for at least one hour a week from a trained specialist is considered essential. Efficiency can be improved by setting targets to be reached by the time of entry to Secondary School, by referring children as early as 7 years, by using structured phonic teaching methods and multisensory materials, by working closely with other teachers concerned with the pupil, and by involving parents.     

Do teachers’ wages matter for proficiency? Evidence from a funding reform in Brazil

This paper uses the 1998 reform in the funding of fundamental education in Brazil (FUNDEF) to identify the effect of teachers’ wages on the proficiency of public school pupils. Wages are set by legislation at the local level and this reform established a floor on the share of expenditures on teacher wages out of total revenues in each Brazilian State and Municipality. The evidence using micro-data suggests that increases in relative wages within the public system brought about by the reform had a positive impact on the students’ proficiency.     

Planning for Reform-Based Science: Case Studies of Two Urban Elementary Teachers

The intent of national efforts to frame science education standards is to promote students’ development of scientific practices and conceptual understanding for their future role as scientifically literate citizens (NRC 2012). A guiding principle of science education reform is that all students receive equitable opportunities to engage in rigorous science learning. Yet, implementation of science education reform depends on teachers’ instructional decisions. In urban schools serving students primarily from poor, diverse communities, teachers typically face obstacles in providing reform-based science due to limited resources and accountability pressures, as well as a culture of teacher-directed pedagogy, and deficit views of students. The purpose of this qualitative research was to study two white, fourth grade teachers from high-poverty urban schools, who were identified as transforming their science teaching and to investigate how their beliefs, knowledge bases, and resources shaped their planning for reform-based science. Using the Shavelson and Stern’s decision model for teacher planning to analyze evidence gathered from interviews, documents, planning meetings, and lesson observations, the findings indicated their planning for scientific practices was influenced by the type and extent of professional development each received, each teacher’s beliefs about their students and their background, and the mission and learning environment each teacher envisioned for the reform to serve their students. The results provided specific insights into factors that impacted their planning in high-poverty urban schools and indicated considerations for those in similar contexts to promote teachers’ planning for equitable science learning opportunities by all students.     

Exploring Gender and Phenomenography

A critical feature of phenomenographic study is its generation of the “outcome space” which constitutes the results of the study. The central idea underlying this article is that women may be “lost in space" — the phenomenographic outcome space. First, women seem to be literally missing in the majority of phenomenographic studies. These studies have usually been in fields in which women are poorly represented and in research samples in which women have not been present. Second, the traditional disciplines of study, the values of which largely determine the structure of the typically hierarchical outcome space, are patriarchal. Without attention to the hidden as well as the explicit aspects of what learners are coming to know, the understanding that we gain from the outcome space may be distorted. Third, the outcome space tends to be defined in many studies in cognitive terms, excluding or neglecting the affective dimension often associated with women's ways of knowing. This article explores the implications of looking for and elaborating on women's experience in phenomenographic research and suggests several ways in which women's experience might be recognised: by ensuring that women are included in research; by questioning in gender‐sensitive ways; by collecting and analysing the data with attention to the gendered construction of disciplinary knowledge and gendered ways of knowing.