How inclusive education is understood by principals of independent schools

Inclusive education has become a practice that has been adopted by many schools across the globe and most usually in first-world countries. As a whole-school system, it occurs less frequently in developing countries including South Africa which unlike many developing countries has a sound infrastructure and many excellent schools in both the state and the independent sectors. Education White Paper 6: Special education: Building an inclusive education and training system was published in 2001 with the express intention of developing an inclusive education system in South Africa. Some South African independent schools have successfully implemented valuable forms of inclusion in their schools and this is the phenomenon that was studied. This study reveals various aspects of the inclusive process including the pivotal role that principals play in the transformation process of which inclusive education is the harbinger. It also analyses why principals choose to embrace a paradigm that on the surface is uncomfortable and not an easy option. We used narrative research as methodology for this qualitative research. The basic tenet was that inclusion leads to belonging and excellence in education. The major findings were that inclusion to most principals was about taking action, humanity and emotion. The principals also described inclusion as personal and pragmatic. The implications for action are of interest not only to principals, but to anyone who is seriously interested in innovative and more humane forms of anti-oppressive education.     

Introduction

No abstract available for this article.     

Five Years after Implementation: The Role of the District in Maintaining an Ongoing School Improvement Process

The longitudinal study reported here provides insight into the role of the school district in implementing and maintaining the essential elements of a nine‐year statewide improvement project called SPUR five years after the termination of state funding and external support. Key to the conceptualization of SPUR were findings from the comprehensive Rand Study (McLaughlin & Marsh, 1978) on successful change efforts emphasizing the importance of implementing an ongoing improvement process. On‐site visits to six districts and a follow‐up survey of all 66 participating school districts were used to determine maintenance of the process, factors facilitating/impeding maintenance, and long‐term benefits. Results suggest that SPUR represents a viable improvement process that can be implemented and maintained in districts and schools with positive outcomes. Individual and organizational efficacy as well as an increased capacity for change and innovation were found to be directly related to the level of district maintenance and support.     

Impact of a play‐based curriculum in the first two years of primary school: literacy and numeracy outcomes over seven years

In 2000–2002 an innovative early years curriculum, the Enriched Curriculum (EC), was introduced into 120 volunteer schools across Northern Ireland, replacing a traditional curriculum similar to others across the UK at that time. It was intended by the designers to be developmentally appropriate and play‐based with the primary goal of preventing the experience of persistent early failure in children. The EC was not intended to be a literacy and numeracy intervention, yet it did considerably alter pedagogy in these domains, particularly the age at which formal reading and mathematics instruction began. As part of a multi‐method evaluation running from 2000–2008, the research team followed the primary school careers of the first two successive cohorts of EC children, comparing them with year‐ahead controls attending the same 24 schools. Compared to the year‐ahead control group, the findings show that the EC children's reading and mathematics scores fell behind in the first two years but the majority of EC children caught up by the end of their fourth year. Thereafter, the performance of the first EC cohort fell away slightly, while that of the second continued to match that of controls. Overall, the play‐based curriculum had no statistically significant positive effects on reading and mathematics in the medium term. At best, the EC children's scores matched those of controls.     

Adaptive leadership in school boards in Australia: an emergent model

When school boards are confronted with the challenge of unfamiliar, changing contexts, opportunities and governance responsibilities, they have to be able to respond appropriately. The research reported in this paper investigated the response of five Western Australian primary school boards to such situations. It analyses interview data from 49 board members on their roles and responsibilities using elements of Heifetz' framework of adaptive leadership, and explores the implications of these findings for the boards and their leaders. The findings reinforce the importance of the leader's role in choreographing the learning of the board members, and raise questions about the effect that the composition of boards may have on their capacities for strategic thinking. The paper concludes with a model of adaptive leadership appropriate for school boards, emphasising key elements that are necessary for sustained change.     

Similarities in siblings' experiences of neglectful parenting behaviors

OBJECTIVE: Researchers and policymakers typically assume that within families, individual children are at an equivalent risk of neglectful behaviors. There is evidence that siblings experience differential parental treatment, and some research suggests that parents may maltreat their children to differing degrees. However, because neglect is typically a family-level construct, there may be a high correlation between siblings for this type of parental behavior. Therefore, our objectives were to investigate the extent to which siblings reported similar parental neglectful behaviors, whether sibling correlations for family-level types of neglectful behaviors were greater than those for child-specific forms of neglectful behaviors, whether high-risk groups differed from lower-risk groups in similarity for sibling reports for neglectful behaviors, and factors predicting differences in sibling reports of parental neglectful behaviors. METHOD: We assessed parental neglectful behaviors using child reports for 59 sibling pairs, representing both clinical and community samples. All children completed the Multidimensional Neglectful Behaviors Scale, which measures both child-specific and family-level neglectful parenting behaviors. RESULTS: Sibling intraclass correlations for neglectful behaviors were high and significant, and there were no differences in sibling correlations between clinical and community samples. Furthermore, there were no differences in correlations for family-level and child-specific items. Opposite sex siblings reported greater differences in parental neglectful behaviors, with boys reporting more neglectful behaviors than girls. CONCLUSIONS: Siblings report similar neglectful parenting behaviors, regardless of whether the family is high-risk or not, and whether neglectful behaviors are measured as a family-level or child-specific phenomenon.     

Serving,learning and mentoring through the Big Brothers Big Sisters Program

This study describes the collaborative partnership between a Big Brothers Big Sisters organization, an elementary school and the College of Education at a public university. The partnership utilized a mentoring system consisting of elementary students, college students, elementary teachers and university faculty. Benefits of the various stakeholders are discussed.     

中美大学生学习观念比较与启示

本文通过中美教师的合作，对两国大学生学习观念进行考察和对比，从中找出我们的差距。