Normative achievement assessment of gifted children: Comparing the K-ABC,WRAT, and CAT

The Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC) purports to assess fluid and crystallized intelligence via processing and achievement subtests, respectively. Eight K-ABC Mental Processing and five K-ABC Achievement subtests were administered to 41 gifted students. Scores were subsequently compared to concurrent achievement measures from the California Achievement Test (CAT), as well as previously obtained mental ability measures (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised [WISC-R], Stanford-Binet [SB], and Wide Range Achievement Test [WRAT] achievement scores). In general, K-ABC mental ability scores were lower than WISC-R and SB IQs. K-ABC achievement scores were consistent with K-ABC mental ability scores, but more highly related to SB and WISC-R VIQ (r = .42 and .40, respectively) than to WISC-R FSIQ (r = .16) and PIQ (r = .09), or to the K-ABC Mental Processing (Composite r = .17), Simultaneous Processing (r = .08), and Sequential Processing scores (r = .20). With the exception of WRAT Word Recognition, WRAT, K-ABC, and CAT achievement scores were similar. The patterns of intercorrelations suggest that the K-ABC achievement scores are more verbally loaded than are the CAT and WRAT achievement measures.     

The Culture of Mexican-Americans: Its Importance for Early Childhood Educators

This paper provides an introduction to the Mexican-American culture, describing (1) cultural diversity and linguistic policies in the United States; (2) cultural and linguistic studies that have examined the backgrounds of Mexican-American individuals; (3) the characteristics of this population; (4) issues on discrimination and human relations; (5) the socioeconomic factors that Mexican-American individuals encountered due to their lack of education; and (6) the predominance of poorly paid and undereducated unskilled workers. Although many Mexican Americans have moved up the social ladder to the middle class, others have not. However, they have a richness of language and culture to share with the school.     

Schematic pedagogy: supporting one child's learning at home and in a group

In this paper, we identify ways in which the learning of very young children can be supported by practitioners developing a schematic pedagogy which focuses on structures of children's thinking. First, we provide a critical overview of relevant literature on schemas and schematic approaches to pedagogy. We then outline an original study undertaken to identify and support the learning of seven young children. Taking one child, whom we call Annie, we illustrate how her attention to the fine detail of elements of her home and group environments as she played offered strong clues to her pedagogues about her persistent interests (schemas). We show how careful observation by practitioners can be used to understand and support future learning encounters through a schematic pedagogy, and we consider implications of such an approach for practice in toddlers’ early learning.     

The promise and peril of education: the teaching of in/tolerance in an era of globalisation

This article addresses the pedagogical implications and possibilities that globalisation poses for educational policy and praxis as it relates to teaching about difference in an ever more diverse world. Among the most salient questions in an era of accelerated globalisation is how seemingly different cultures, civilisations, nationalities, ethnicities and races are to coexist peacefully in an increasingly borderless world, or whether they are forever destined to experience conflict based on cultural chasms in the guise of a ‘clash of civilisations’. This article highlights the tension between two perspectives on education: education as a force in cultivating intolerance and education as a panacea for intolerance. While not negating the potential for education to remedy social ills, we consider the extent to which education can produce change in the opposite direction. In the following pages, we present a context for our discussion of in/tolerance by providing an overview of the double‐edged, or Janus‐faced, qualities that both education and globalisation possess. We then draw on social‐psychological, anthropological and sociological literatures in bringing together three theoretical constructs—moral exclusion, the genocidal continuum and symbolic violence—in examining how intolerance is created and reproduced within educational settings. Following this overview, we present three vignettes to exemplify the teaching of intolerance in different historical and geo‐political contexts, namely, Nazi Germany, Rwanda and Israel. Finally, we conclude with recommendations that pay particular attention to the kind of education that that teaching of tolerance necessitates.     

Introduction to the Special Issue: Learning from Moshe, Hu Hu Zhu and Khokha: Insights into the Global Application of the Formative Research Component of the Sesame Workshop Model

For over three decades, Sesame Workshop has produced high quality educational media for young children throughout the world. The success of these productions can be attributed in large measure to the application of a systematic production model that brings together professionals from a range of backgrounds. Using examples from the six studies presented in this special issue, this paper illustrates ways in which one element of the production process - formative research - has been used to create effective educational media in the United States, South Africa, Egypt and China. Beyond the value to the production process, lessons learned from formative studies provide insights into the development of new research methodologies. In addition, such studies, when looked at in a global context, offer perspective on the knowledge and learning of children of different cultures.     

Filmmaking education and enterprise culture: an ethnographic exploration of two filmmaking education contexts and their relation to bedroom culture and the creative workplace

ABSTRACT

Filmmaking education has never been firmly integrated into schooling and in past years has suffered from cuts to funding for formal and non-formal arts education and youth work. It continues to exist only by drawing on creative industry and cultural consumption practices as well as state funding. In this paper, we explore the filmmaking education contexts we encountered while doing our own pieces of year-long ethnographic research. These contexts import ‘enterprising’ ways of thinking, doing and being from the creative workplace and ‘bedroom culture’. Located across life’s domains, they address enterprising subjects who take pleasure in work, make use of leisure and are always learning. We argue that these filmmaking education contexts support young people to develop their private creative practice and introduce them to the possibility of work in the creative industries but, because of the enterprise culture in which they are entangled, uncritically address these young people as enterprising subjects.     

Identity Development in Counselors‐in‐Training

Researchers used 2 rounds of individual interviews and a focus group meeting to explore the identity development experiences of master's‐degree counselor education students. Grounded theory procedures generated a tentative substantive theory that conceptualized these experiences. The theory illustrated how counselors‐in‐training used a recycling identity formation process that involved conceptual and experiential learning experiences to identify, clarify, and reclarify their identities as counselors.     

Employing Wikipedia for good not evil: innovative approaches to collaborative writing assessment

Wikipedia is an open educational resource that connects writers and editors to diverse discourse communities around the world. Unwarranted stigma is attached to the use of Wikipedia in higher education due to fears that students will not pursue rigorous research practices because of the easy access to information that Wikipedia facilitates. In studies referred to in this paper, undergraduate writing students are taught about the need to interrogate any information they find on Wikipedia just as they would other online source material. They are inducted into fact checking, editing and creating Wikipedia articles as a means to analyse source material critically and to advance their research, writing and digital literacy. Meanwhile, in a postgraduate course in magazine studies, instead of writing essays, students are promoting Australian magazines and print culture by writing Wikipedia entries about Antipodean magazines and their editors. These courses experiment with new approaches to formative and summative assessment; promote group research, collaborative and participatory writing, writing across networks and negotiating discourse communities; and challenge students’ perceptions about peer review and the legitimacy of Wikipedia.