Narrative understandings of a school policy: intersecting student,teacher, parent and administrator perspectives

In this article, we examine one school’s experience with policy, as a means of shedding light on the intersection of factors contributing to challenges of implementing policies to support the academic achievement and social adaptation of immigrant and minority students in their school context. We begin with the presentation of a ‘big fight’ between two students of different ethnic and racial backgrounds, and consider multiple perspectives of how the disagreement was addressed by teachers and administrators, to offer insight into how issues of race and policy might have been understood by members of the school community. We use a narrative inquiry approach to examine ways in which a policy designed to enhance student participation was interpreted by various members of this school community. This study reveals nuances of the intersection between culture and (hidden) curriculum as it relates to the implementation of policies aimed at creating and maintaining safe school communities.     

Graduate Social Work Students' Attitudes Toward Service-Learning

Service-learning attitudes among graduate social work students enrolled in a course on human diversity and oppression are presented. A survey was administered at the beginning and at the end of the semester to students enrolled in the course, which was taught using a service-learning approach. Among the results were believing that service-learning aided in meeting learning goals and higher overall satisfaction with the service-learning experience. This article expands the literature on service-learning in social work education and promotes the use of this experiential method in social work diversity curricula.     

Factors Influencing Completion and Noncompletion of Community College Online Courses

Abstract

This study investigated the differences between demographic, enrollment, academic, and self-directed learning characteristics of completers and noncompleters in online courses at one community college. The study also obtained students' self-reported reasons for not completing their coursework. No significant differences were found in the characteristics of age, gender, ethnicity, financial aid eligibility, grade point average, and total hours enrolled; significant differences were found in gender, academic readiness, and completers enrolled in more online courses than noncompleters.     

Subject Matter Knowledge in a Master of Arts in Teaching Program: Ensuring candidates’ content knowledge through an arts and sciences/education collaboration

All teacher education programs face the challenge of ensuring that their graduates know their subject matter and can teach it effectively. For graduate level teacher education programs, whose candidates may complete their education in the content area at various institutions, this challenge is even greater. The following article describes one institution’s system of assessing candidates’ content knowledge and efforts to incorporate additional content coursework into a Master of Arts in Teaching program. Also provided is information on a set of courses that the arts and sciences and education faculty team teach, with the course for prospective English teachers described in detail.     

Associate Editor's Introduction to the Issue

This research is a cross-site analysis of how white, male, college students see their Asian American peers. Semi-structured interviews with 43 white males were conducted at two universities that differed substantially in their representation of Asian American students. The interviews were theoretically framed by Critical Whiteness Studies and Bobo and Tuan's conception of prejudice as group positioning. At the institution where Asian American population was higher (almost 1/3 of the undergraduate population), the participants described Asian Americans as not true minorities and blamed them for campus segregation, while also subscribing to many racial stereotypes about Asian Americans (e.g., being bad drivers). At both universities, the participants subscribed to the myth of the model minority. The high concentration of Asian Americans at one of the universities corresponded to an increased prevalence of stereotypical/racist beliefs regarding this population, which was predicted by the theoretical framework. The findings also counter the mistaken notion that Asian Americans are “almost white” because these white males framed Asian Americans as a racialized group.     

Developing Critical Hip Hop Feminist Literacies: Centrality and Subversion of Sexuality in the Lives of Black Girls

The present article explores discourses surrounding the bodies of Black ¹ 1. Throughout the article, I capitalize Black as a proper noun (as in Black American or Black language) to reference political and ethnic designation, on par with African American, which is not lower case. women and girls as they engage the meanings of Black womanhood in (American) society in an afterschool setting. Drawing on Black and hip hop feminisms, African American literacies, and critical discourse perspectives, the author analyzes two young girls' narratives, which reveal competing and controlling discourses of Black female sexuality. Bria's ² 2. All student names are pseudoymns. narrative of being sexually harassed by older boys while riding the bus is favorably assessed by the community of Black female interlocutors because she projects herself as asexual. Thus, the community of Black females bestows compassion upon her. Assata's narrative shares her budding womanhood and sexuality and is evaluated negatively by the group of Black females. Although both 11-year-old girls and the community of Black female interlocutors enact critical literacies amidst dominating racist, sexist, classist, and patriarchal discourses, their resistance strategies also perpetuate the very dominance they seek to oppose. Juxtaposition and critical analyses of the differential discourses invoked by the two narratives provide insight into the lived experiences of Black women and girls in relation to dominating discourses. As Black women and girls' sexual agency, desire, and early sexualization figure prominently in larger economies of power, knowledge, and society, their embodied and societal knowledge around these issues must be mined for the purposes of self-validation and the creation of new knowledge for collective empowerment (Hill Collins, 1991). Implications for critical literacy research, pedagogy, and theory are presented.     

Mediating Voices: Community Participation in the Design of E-Enabled Community Care Services

In the United Kingdom, information and communication technologies are being used to e-enable multiagency community services for children. Public policy advocates that practitioners as well as users should be involved in the shaping of services including the information systems used in their delivery. This article discusses how a group of social and computer scientists developed the social formation methodology to facilitate nonexpert community participation in the design of e-enabled community care services. The longitudinal study adapts qualitative methods to understand community welfare and to foster participation in the design of communication systems. By exploring the perspectives of welfare practitioners and families, the importance of situated and mediated conversations in community care is identified. The facilitative conversation approach of the study then brings these community perspectives, as well as ICT perspectives, into design processes of e-enabled services.