Improving Dean's writing: or,what shall we tell the children?

In this paper Graham Frater finds early signs of a revival of explicit instruction in English grammar to pupils of compulsory school age in England; this is accompanied by an expectation that such teaching might play an important part in closing the ‘writing gap’. He suggests that, strengthened by the National Literacy Strategy, this early re‐awakening invokes again some of the debates that accompanied the construction of the National Curriculum. Rooted in a case study of a text by a low‐achieving Y7 writer, and in two surveys of effective practice with writing (covering Key Stages 2–4), this paper argues that purposeful text‐level teaching, reading in particular, and the creation of real readerships offer more secure ways of promoting progress in writing.     

University–School Partnerships in English Pre-service Teacher Education: A Dialogic Inquiry into a Co-teaching Initiative

Evidence has been accumulating for some time about the impact of standards-based education reforms on schools and schooling, but there has been little research investigating the influence of these reforms on university-based initial teacher education (ITE). This article critically inquiries into the effects of these reforms on an ITE co-teaching project where a secondary English teacher in a school was seconded to work for a year as a teacher educator in an Australian university in a praxis-based partnership. Using Cavarero’s framing of ‘who’ and ‘what’ narratives, and Bakhtinian discourse theory, the authors present three autobiographical narratives exploring different perspectives on their experiences in the co-teaching partnership. The article affirms the value of school–university praxis partnerships for speaking back to standards-based reforms, but acknowledges that this speaking back involves complex relational and dialogic work in grappling with institutional and system-wide policies and practices.     

Contemporary Classics? The Early Onset of Influence of Articles Published in Criminology and Criminal Justice Journals, 2010–2015

Citation analysis is a valuable method for tracking the growth and transmission of scientific knowledge. In criminology and criminal justice, such analyses tend to be focused on “classic” works or on highly cited scholars over many years. As an alternative approach, we focus on work that has been cited rather quickly – what we term the “early onset” of impact. In doing so, we identified 221 of the most highly cited peer-reviewed articles, authored by 480 scholars, which were published in criminology and criminal justice journals between 2010 and 2015. Analyses reveal wide variation in substantive topics and methodological approaches, as well as a substantial gender gap with respect to authorship. Additional analyses provide insight into both journal and institutional/program prestige. We conclude with directions for future research and stress the importance of tracking over time articles that appear to be off to an early start with respect to scholarly impact.     

On pretexts for higher education development activities

This paper raises questions concerning pretexts available to educational developers in justifying their activities. Positivist epistemology is seen as a dominant characteristic of the higher education development discourse, leading to an associated valuing of the practical, empirical and instrumental. An alternative conception of development activities from the stand point of interpretive understanding is then outlined, together with some problems which may be raised with respect to this approach. Finally, critical theory is discussed as providing an epistemological position which avoids some of the problems of the other frameworks, but which carries problems of its own. For each framework, some consequences of the particular approach for higher education developers and their common tasks and activities are outlined. Generally, a shift of emphasis from the practical and instrumental to the reflective and value-orientated is espoused.Based on a paper presented to the joint PRAHE/HERDSA (NZ) conference, CIT Wellington, 1990.     

The bright and dark side of writing motivation: Effects of explicit instruction and peer assistance

The authors investigated the impact of explicit instruction and peer-assisted writing on students' writing motivation and self-efficacy for writing. Eleven teachers and their 206 fifth- and sixth-grade students participated in a 2 (explicit instruction vs. writing opportunities without explicit instruction) × 2 (peer-assisted writing vs. writing individually) experimental intervention study with a pretest-posttest design. The four experimental conditions were compared with a business-as-usual (BAU) condition. The five-week interventions were implemented in authentic classes by regular class teachers, who received a prior professional development training. Multilevel analyses showed that students who wrote with a peer were more autonomously motivated at posttest than BAU students. Additionally, BAU students and students receiving explicit instruction were more controlled motivated than students who were offered ample writing opportunities while practicing individually. Theoretical and educational implications are discussed in view of realizing a bright pathway towards autonomous writing motivation.     

Adolescents’ Perceptions of Young People with Severe Learning Difficulties: the effects of integration schemes and frequency of contact

Educational integration schemes for children with severe learning difficulties are based partially on the assumption that the presence of these children in schools will increase the extent to which they are accepted by their peers. However, psychological theories of intergroup behaviour suggest that physical presence alone is unlikely to have this effect. In the present study, the intergroup and interpersonal attitudes towards young people with learning difficulties of 128 adolescents in integrated and nonintegrated schools were examined. Results showed no clear differences between the attitudes of children in the two types of school. The frequency of participants’ contact, not the type of school attended, led to more positive expectations about meeting a young person with learning difficulties. In addition, females were found to be more positive than males on several measures. The implications of these results for the methods and content of future research that could inform the process of educational integration are discussed.     

Concerns of our Students: A Cross‐institutional Study

This study investigated the concerns experienced by students from two Australian tertiary institutions. Randomly‐selected samples of 342 Ballarat College of Advanced Education students and 208 Gold Coast College of Advanced Education students reported the extent to which each of 42 factors had caused them concern since being at college. Consistent with the research findings of Sarros and Densten (1989) and others, respondents were more concerned over academic and course‐related matters than over a range of personal, interpersonal and practical factors. Levels and‐patterns of concern were found to vary between sub‐groups of the student samples. Follow‐up surveys of the academic staff in each of the two institutions suggested that academics are biased in their perceptions of student concerns. Discussion focuses upon the generalizability and practical significance of the findings.