Migrant worker children: Conceptions of homelessness and implications for education

In this paper the authors draw from interviews with young migrant workers to problematize the question "What is a home?" The argument is made that once we acknowledge alternative images of "home" and the values and priorities that follow, policies and services for migrant workers and their children might take different forms than are currently configured. Migrating, or becoming "homeless," is a choice these families make to maintain their family structure. For these people homed-homeless is not a dichotomy. Rather, the operative word is family. The structure of the family is analyzed as a lifeworld (Habermas, 1984, 1987), or system of values and experiences that defines choices and ways of acting. Importantly, migrant workers travel as families and often as extended families. The unit of the family is assumed. Tensions arise when an individual member of the family questions the assumption of everyone working together for the family unit. When the family decides to break the unit, for example by sending a child away so he/she can attend school, the unit suffers as well as the individual. The sense of power that many assume is located in the home - a particular physical space - is also located in the family and the relationships among persons the word family implies. Social policies and institutions often disregard this distinction. 1     

Ideals and Realities: Articulating Feminist Perspectives in Physical Education

Using on information gathered from five female feminist physical education teachers in Brisbane, Australia, this paper examines the relationship between theoretical debates in feminism and feminist practice in secondary schools. Specifically, this paper is concerned with the ongoing debate in feminism over the notion of equality. It is problematic that calls for equality for women are currently understood as calls for sameness to men, leaving men and their life experience as the only standard of analysis. In this paper, how this theoretical struggle between feminists is dealt with in sport and physical education is explored. The teachers articulated various feminist perspectives, but placed their feminism on the physical education agenda piecemeal. Moreover, they failed to challenge the notion of an equality for women based on their sameness to men. Given the duress under which these women articulate their feminism, notions of sameness may be all that is achievable in the current physical education curriculum.     

Exploring pupil participation within a sustainable school

This research aimed to explore the factors having an effect on enhanced active pupil participation in the context of the sustainable school. The research was applied during a school year to a primary school in Lavrion (Greece), with the participation of two teachers and pupils from two classes of the upper two grades. Action Research was the method selected to organise the research conducted in the framework of a school programme focusing on sustainable waste management. It involved activities both at school and within the local community. An analysis of research results showed that specific perceptions of both pupils and teachers, some of the features of the learning processes adopted, and the current school culture were the determining factors, either facilitating, or inhibiting active pupil participation. The action research enabled teachers not only to identify factors inhibiting active pupil participation, but also to intervene to manage them.     

Individual differences in feelings of difficulty: The case of school mathematics

Feelings of difficulty, or subjective estimation of task difficulty, are on-line metacognitive experiences, which arise as response to the difficulty of the tasks processed by the person. They are related to performance, but little is known about their nature and the factors that influence them. This study aimed to delimit the possible individual differences effects on feelings of difficulty experienced in relation to school mathematics. General and domain-specific cognitive ability, affect, gender and expertise were the individual differences factors studied. The subjects were 299 students of 7th, 8th, & 9th grade and they were tested with mathematical tasks of three levels of difficulty. Upon completion of each task subjects rated its difficulty on a 4-point scale, ranging from 1: not difficult at all to 4: very difficult. Testing was repeated one year later. Path analysis showed that feelings of difficulty form a system of their own, which is mainly influenced by performance and cognitive ability rather than affective factors. Only anxiety state had a direct effect on feelings of difficulty. Expertise did not differentiate feelings of difficulty in the 1st testing, but it did so in the second. Gender interacted with both personal and task characteristics, the girls being more atypical in their responses than boys. The educational implications of these results are discussed.     

School bullying,subjective well-being,and resilience

The aim of the current study was to examine the role of resilience in the victimization experiences of students and their subjective well-being as well as to explore gender and age-related effects. Initially, 558 students (52.15% male) from grades 6 to 10 participated in the study completing The Student Aggression and Victimization Questionnaire, The Mental Health Continuum, and the Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale. One-hundred and twenty-seven (22.8%) students were excluded from the final analysis, as they did not report any victimization experience during the past 3 months. Males in all year levels reported higher levels of well-being and resilience compared with females. No gender differences were found in victimization experiences. Languishing students were found to be at higher risk of experiencing serious victimization. Resilience was not found to moderate the effects of victimization on mental health, but a higher level of resilience appeared to be related to more positive well-being for boys and younger students. Limitations of the study and implications for anti-bullying interventions are briefly discussed.     

Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Curriculum‐based Anti‐bullying Intervention Program in Greek Primary Schools

The present study reports the short‐ and long‐term effects of an anti‐bullying intervention program based on a particular set of curricular activities that aimed to create classroom opportunities for awareness raising, self‐reflection, and problem‐solving situations relevant to bullying. The core of the intervention was a four‐week period during which a series of activities were organised in each individual class. An experimental pre‐test/post‐test design with a control group was used. The sample consisted of 454 pupils (206 control: 123 boys and 83 girls; and 248 experimental: 126 boys and 122 girls) drawn from the fourth‐ to sixth‐grade classrooms of 10 primary schools in central Greece (mean age = 10.23, SD = .84). Data were collected using self‐report measures, before the intervention (December 2003), immediately after the intervention, at the end of the same school year (May 2004), and six months afterwards (November 2004). The results indicated that the program contributed to a positive reduction in outsider behaviour (children remaining uninvolved and thus silently allowing bullying to continue) and enhanced students’ self‐efficacy beliefs for both assertion and intervening in bully/victim incidents. However, the long‐term effectiveness of the program was limited. These findings have important implications for interventions to tackle the negative effects associated with bullying in schools.     

Teacher attributions of student failure and teacher behavior toward the failing student

The aim of this study was to examine the relation between teacher attributions of student school failure and teacher behavior toward the failing student. A structural equation model was proposed and its ability to fit the data was tested. It was found that teachers tend to behave in ways that indicate more pity and less anger when they attribute a student's low achievement to her or his low abilities, whereas they express more anger when attributing low achievement to the student's low effort. In contrast to previous research that argues in favor of anger as a high ability cue, this study has found that the presence of anger was associated with a teacher tendency to give‐up efforts to help the student improve. This giving‐up behavior was negatively related to the tendency of the teachers to accept some responsibility for the student failure. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

POSTGRADUATE EDUCATION AT OXFORD POLYTECHNIC AND THE IMPROVEMENT OF LIFE IN THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES: AN URBAN DESIGN PERSPECTIVE

The article addresses the issue of the need for postgraduate training in the fields of architecture, planning, and urban design with a view to enabling third world professionals to improve life in the rural and urban areas of their own countries. It further describes various postgraduate programmes in the field of urban design at Oxford Polytechnic and explains the methods currently applied for the training of relevant professionals. Further analysis of a number of practical and research projects follows.     

Supporting High School Student Accomplishment of Biology Content Using Interactive Computer-Based Curricular Case Studies

Research in Science Education - Research into the efficacy of modules featuring dynamic visualizations, case studies, and interactive learning environments is reported here. This quasi-experimental...