Quality Talk and dialogic teaching—an examination of a professional development programme on secondary teachers’ facilitation of student talk

This study used the Quality Talk and dialogic teaching approach with a group of secondary school teachers (N = 7) to train their facilitation of dialogical discussions by small groups of students. The study used video and audio analysis to assess the teachers’ observable behaviours during these discussions, before and after professional development; for example, types of Quality Talk questions asked. The study also used face‐to‐face interviews, held before and after the professional development, to investigate the teachers’ beliefs about learning through discussion. Results show that although the number of high‐quality questions from the teachers did not increase, the quality of the questions students asked of each other did improve, and resulted in extended periods of dialogic spells. Positive developments were found for teachers’ beliefs about the use of dialogue to foster deeper thinking with their secondary school‐aged students.     

Maternal Unresponsiveness and Child Disruptive Problems: The Interplay of Uninhibited Temperament and Dopamine Transporter Genes

This study examined how and why dopamine transporter (DAT1) susceptibility alleles moderate the relation between maternal unresponsiveness and young children's behavior problems in a disadvantaged, predominantly minority sample of 201 two‐year‐old children and their mothers. Using a multimethod, multisource design, the findings indicated that a genetic composite of DAT1 susceptibility alleles (rs27072, rs40184) potentiated associations between maternal unresponsive caregiving and increases in children's behavior problems 2 years later. Moderator‐mediated‐moderation analyses further revealed that the DAT1 diathesis was more proximally mediated by the potentiating effects of children's uninhibited temperament in the pathway between maternal unresponsiveness and disruptive behavior problems. Results are interpreted in the context of supporting and advancing the biosocial developmental model (Beauchaine & Gatzke‐Kopp, 2012).     

Monitoring Standards in Mathematics in Year 2: an 8 year cross‐sectional study

The National Curriculum was introduced into British primary schools in 1989 to raise standards of attainment, especially in the basic skills of English and mathematics. Other steps taken to raise standards included putting basic skills at the heart of the school curriculum and teacher training and publishing school performance tables to focus attention on standards. What has been the effect of these measures on children's mathematical attainments? This paper analyses the mathematics standards of eight cohorts of Year 2 children from five randomly selected primary schools within one Local Education Authority (LEA) (n = 1502) who had all done Mathematics 7 from 1989–1996. Examination of the means of the standardised mathematics scores for each cohort reveals evidence of stable standards in attainment over the 8 years. There are fewer over‐achievers than one would expect and this indicates that less children in this sample are doing really well than was the case when the test was standardised. Discussion centres on the cost effectiveness and utility of the National Curriculum, assessment procedures and the publishing of school performance tables in raising mathematical standards at Key Stage 1. The need for an effective system for monitoring educational standards throughout the UK is raised.     

Participation,financial support and the marginal student

This paper examines differences between the decision-making of marginal and nonmarginal students about participation in higher education (HE). We distinguish between two kinds of marginality: being ‘borderline’ on account of prior achievements in school and being ‘unsure’ after taking prior achievement into account. We identify a significant minority of students in their final year of schooling who are unsure about participation in higher education even though they have prior school achievements typical of entrants to HE. Being ‘unsure’ is found to be unrelated to socioeconomic background, but it is associated with significantly different attitudes towards the potential benefits and risks of participation, different levels of knowledge about financial support that is available and different approaches to information search about participation in HE.

The Vestiges of Childhood Interparental Conflict: Adolescent Sensitization to Recent Interparental Conflict

This study examined whether childhood interparental conflict moderated the mediational pathway involving adolescent exposure to interparental conflict, their negative emotional reactivity to family conflict, and their psychological problems in a sample of 235 children (M_age = 6 years). Significant moderated-mediation findings indicated that the mediational path among Wave 4 interparental conflict during adolescence, change in youth negative reactivity (Waves 4–5), and their psychological problems (Waves 4–6) was significant for teens who experienced low, rather than high, levels of childhood interparental conflict (Waves 1–3). Supporting the stress sensitization model, analyses showed that adolescents exposed to high interparental conflict during childhood evidenced greater increases in negative reactivity than their peers when recent parental conflicts were mild.     

System leaders using assessment for learning as both the change and the change process: developing theory from practice

Many schools and school systems have been deliberately working towards full implementation of Assessment for Learning for more than a decade, yet success has been elusive. Using a leader's implementation of Assessment for Learning in one school as an illustration, this article examines eight positional leaders’ experiences as they implemented both the ‘spirit and the letter’ of Assessment for Learning at all levels. This longitudinal qualitative research study draws on the experiences of leaders from Alberta, British Columbia, Germany, Georgia, Hawai`i, Manitoba, New Zealand and Ontario. The authors identify five findings that show how positional leaders use Assessment for Learning as the focus for system-wide change, as well as the change process itself.     

Enhancing the role of the arts in primary pre-service teacher education

This research sought to explore the impact upon pre-service teachers' orientations towards the arts of a performing arts week within a one-year postgraduate teacher education programme. There is evidence from a range of data collected before, during and after the week that it had helped to strengthen participants' self-image as artistic individuals who recognise the value of the arts in children's education and have enhanced confidence in working with different professionals to teach the arts in a cross-disciplinary way. Within a climate of compliance, this study suggests that pre-service teachers require such experiences to overcome their fear of curriculum innovation.