Communication Ethics and Ethical Culture: A Study of the Ethics Initiative in Denver City Government

This article examines the work of the ethics initiative in the City of Denver to see how talk about ethics contributes to an ethical culture. By paying particular attention to the communication in the city's Code of Ethics, ethics training discussion, employee interviews, and formal documents relaying the Board of Ethics’ views, we show how ethics emerges within communication. We argue that the emergent quality of ethics is dialogically refined in communication. For practitioners and officials interested in advancing organization-wide ethics training, we urge pursuing dialogical means so that people can negotiate among competing interests to shape future policy and action reflective of their ethical concerns.     

Reference Education: Lessons from Our Students

Students reflecting on their time as students in a school of information provide advice and commentary for their faculty. By revealing their challenges as well as their successes, educators can themselves reflect on the impact of their teaching and the potential it has to assist students on their career paths.     

Primary teachers’ perceptions of multi-grade classroom grouping practices to support inclusive education

ABSTRACT

Previous research has focused on inclusive classroom practices in mainstream primary schools but little is documented regarding practices in multi-grade classrooms. The purpose of this paper was to report mainstream primary teachers’ perceptions of multi-grade classroom grouping practices to support inclusive education specifically for students with special educational needs (SEN). The findings indicated that despite the difficulty of covering the curricula of the various grades, multi-grade teachers reported the implementation of flexible grouping practices (ability, mixed ability, social) for academic or social reasons. However, the tension between meeting the needs of the grade groups and the individual student with SEN were apparent, with some practices documented not necessarily inclusive. The importance of using appropriate grouping practices to enable teachers to include all students, thereby avoiding potentially negative effects of treating some students differently was emphasised.     

Creativity: a reaffirmation of its place in early childhood education

At a time when early years educators feel under increasing pressure from the government to adopt more formal approaches to learning, this article sets out to reaffirm the importance of developing each child's creative capacity to the full. The point is made that through the application of creative capacity a vital dimension of human intelligence is demonstrated. It is argued that creative growth is too often hampered by misunderstandings that continue to distort the relationship between creativity and education. Issues that are vital to the development of understanding about the nature of creativity are made explicit and the conditions most likely to promote creative thought and action are identified. In the interest of clarity the term ‘early years’ will be applied to children between the ages of three and eight in diverse educational settings.     

The golden age of BTEC: the business education curriculum in 1980s further education

This article provides an account of ‘three generations’ of the Business Education Council (BEC)/Business and Technician (later Technology) Education Council (BTEC) curriculum as implemented in further education colleges between 1979 and 1992. There is discussion of aspects of the underlying philosophy of BEC/BTEC, the structure and content of the programmes, skills, assessment, work experience, learning strategies, and aspects of monitoring and quality control. It is argued that BEC/BTEC, through a form of vocational progressivism, successfully transformed pedagogic practices in FE during the 1980s. The advent of the National Council for Vocational Qualifications, however, and the subsequent introduction of General Advanced Vocational Qualifications in 1993 effectively marked the end of the ‘BEC/BTEC’ era and the establishment of a more directly instrumentalist approach to vocational education.     

The Relative Value of Sound Motion Pictures and Study Sheets in Science Teaching

Some relationships and similarities between regression analysis and 2-group discriminant analysis are pointed out. In particular, it is shown that in the special case of just two criterion groups the predictor variables may be equivalently ordered (with respect to contribution to prediction or discrimination) by the univariate F-ratios and by estimates of the predictor versus the linear discriminant function correlations.     

A Helping Relationship Experience in Teacher Education,

The helping relationship experience was explored as a means of insuring greater rapport with children. A sample of 82 junior and senior education students participated for a minimum of two hours/week for approximately eight weeks. Of this group, some were involved with white children; another group with Negro children and a third group served as control. Groups were pre- and post-tested on selected personality variables felt to be necessary for the establishment of good rapport. A complex analysis of variance design was used in analyzing the data. Females and “liberals” scored significantly higher on the MTAI than males or “traditionalists.” Failure to find other evidence of a significant effect on the experimental groups was attributed to insufficient duration and/or intensity of the treatment.     

A Scottish diaspora: influences on educational planning in twentieth-century England

Grant regulations under the Education Minutes of 1846 prohibited ministers of religion teaching in aided schools. This article examines the background to this professional disability, the extent of its application and its survival for 112 years. The impact of changing social conditions and the creation of new justifications as the policy became anachronistic are discussed. The fiftieth anniversary of its abolition in 1959 allows a long view of this regulation, unjust yet remarkably resistant to change. Documentary sources, public and personal, reveal the actions of policy‐makers and concerns of groups and individuals, and expose complex issues forming the historical context of this contested aspect of teacher employment. Attention is given to the effects of central policy on individual schools and teachers at significant stages in the account. Finally, suggestions are made for further research on the employment of ordained teachers since the ban was lifted 50 years ago.