Clues to Reversing the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Portrait of a Scholar

The Urban Review - The purpose of this article is to make an overlooked source of knowledge accessible to school teachers and administrators in order to challenge the prevalent discourse of...     

Schooling's Relative Nonautonomy: Technocratically Subordinated Schooling and Desublimated Education

Education's autonomy cannot be found in schooling. For a theory of education to also adequately support education's autonomy, it must decouple itself from schooling since schooling is a technology of efficiency and acculturation that serves technocratic interests that strip autonomy from education. Using Christer Fritzell's examination of relative autonomy of schools, Matthew Hayden and William Gregory Harman will show that the ideological domination of schooling by technocratic interests structurally and functionally subordinates schooling. This subordination takes the form of technocratic operationalization of education concepts and schooling practices, resulting in the desublimation of learning. Hayden and Harman conclude that resublimation is required in order to restore the possibility of education's autonomy in schooling.     

From reticence to resistance: understanding educators’ engagement with indigenous environmental issues in Canada

Educators who introduce critical socio-ecological issues into learning contexts often experience formidable internal and external challenges. This is especially true when intersecting Indigenous and environmental issues are involved. Compounding such difficulties in Canada is an inadequate level of pre-service, curricular, resource, and research support in this area. As such, while an increasing number of bold educators are incorporating discussion of Indigenous environmental issues, activism, and related history, law, and policy into their teaching practice, many others are interested, but remain understandably reticent. This study explored the experiences of educators in a variety of contexts across Canada with attempting to incorporate critical consideration of Indigenous environmental issues into their teaching practice. Findings include discussion of challenges encountered, successful strategies employed, the societal significance of these considerations, and future research possibilities.     

The influences of integrating reading,peer evaluation,and discussion on undergraduate students’ scientific writing

Scientific writing is related to the practice of communicating scientific knowledge. This study treats scientific writing as a social practice, taking as its premise the notion that participating in related activities such as reading, peer evaluation, and discussion would positively affect the competence of students’ scientific writing, by developing their epistemic cognition regarding scientific knowledge communication and legitimation. An empirical study was conducted with twenty-two Chinese undergraduate students to test this premise. These students were majoring in chemistry and undertook a researcher-designed intervention course (Advanced Organic Chemistry Experiment), which embodied the integrated strategy of reading, peer evaluation, and discussion on scientific writing. Based on data pertaining to those students’ performance in terms of the normativity, objectivity, and logicality of scientific writing drawn from a previous study by the current author (Deng, Kelly, & Xiao, 2019. The development of Chinese undergraduate students’ competence of scientific writing in the context of advanced organic chemistry experiment course. Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 20, 270–287), alongside data drawn from students’ written texts in reading reflections and on-line discourse related to peer evaluation and discussion, this study claimed that the tasks of reading, peer evaluation, and discussion were seen gradually to lead to the development of Chinese undergraduate students’ greater competence in scientific writing regarding the synthetic experiments of organic chemistry.     

Mutual Mentoring: Co-Narrating an Educative Friendship Between an Education Professor and an Urban Youth

An education professor and a high school student tell the story of their mentoring relationship, focusing on the academic journey of the protégé. The narrative attempts to give voice to both mentor and protégé as it relates an authentic win–win situation for both participants and their families. The narrative is theoretically grounded in the literature describing co-mentoring and network mentoring arrangements that are less unilateral and authoritative, and more bi-directional and relationally-based than traditional mentoring arrangements. The authors contend that since educational achievement and attainment determine to a significant degree ones participation in the American Dream, academic assistance and guidance provide a logical area of emphasis for mentoring our youth. Important recent developments in the youth mentoring movement are also discussed.Gregory J. Fritzberg is an Associate Professor of Education at Seattle Pacific University. Aragaw Alemayehu is a 2003 graduate of Ballard High School in Seattle, Washington. Address correspondence to Dr. Gregory J. Fritzberg, College of Education, Seattle Pacific University, Peterson #408, 3307 3rd Ave, Seattle, WA 98119, USA; gregf@spu.edu.     

Mindfulness as a Prerequisite to Effective Leadership; Exploring the Constructs that Foster Productive Use of Feedback for Professional Learning

This paper proposes a model that integrates mindfulness, ego, and mindset as filters of the information available for professional learning. The paper explores connections between mindset, ego, and mindfulness that promote or inhibit an educator’s ability to use feedback for learning. A leader’s commitment to creating spaces for meaningful use of all types of feedback promotes a school climate that encourages risk taking in learning. Mindfulness, the cultivation of the ability to pay attention to the present moment non-judgmentally, is a prerequisite skill to the effective delivery and use of feedback to promote professional learning. The development of mindfulness requires practice of a method and the continual application of mindfulness to remain open to learning from feedback.     

Changing the Learning Environment to Enhance Students' Metacognition in Hong Kong Primary School Classrooms

This study reports on the impact of a 2-month classroom intervention that sought to alter the learning environment of two Hong Kong Primary Year 3 general studies classrooms. Mixed methodology, employing quantitative and qualitative data-gathering strategies, was used to investigate changes to the learning environments, including changes to the teachers' language and ultimately the students' metacognition. The quantitative facet of the research involved the development of a 15-item learning environments instrument, the General Studies Metacognitive Orientation Scale (GSMOS), that evaluated elements of the metacognitive orientation of the classrooms' learning environments. While the data from the administration of the GSMOS suggested no statistical differences between the pre- and post-intervention environments of the classrooms, student interviews and classroom observations provided supportive data for some changes, which resulted in students developing metacognitive knowledge of teacher-selected thinking and learning strategies, as well as some awareness and limited control of their use of such strategies in their classrooms.     

Relations of middle school students' perceptions of family and school contexts with academic achievement

The purposes of this study were to examine the relations of both family and school contexts on students' academic achievement and to explore the mediating effects of students' perceptions of their motivations and academic self‐competence between the family and school contexts and achievement. Participants were 230 fifth‐ and sixth‐grade students. Students' perceptions of parenting style (demandingness and responsiveness), parental involvement (parental values and involvement in school functions), teaching style (teacher control and responsiveness), and school atmosphere (school responsiveness and supportive social environment) significantly predicted their school achievement; however, students' motivations and self‐competence mediated the relations between students' contexts and their academic achievement. Furthermore, parental values, teacher responsiveness, school responsiveness, and supportive social environment predicted students' motivations and academic competence above and beyond parenting style, parental involvement, and teacher control. The importance of students' supportive relationships and the internalization of the messages conveyed to them underscore the need for a contextual view by school psychologists when consulting with parents and education staff regarding achievement concerns. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Family adversity,positive peer relationships,and children's externalizing behavior: a longitudinal perspective on risk and resilience

Peer acceptance and friendships were examined as moderators in the link between family adversity and child externalizing behavioral problems. Data on family adversity (i.e., ecological disadvantage, violent marital conflict, and harsh discipline) and child temperament and social information processing were collected during home visits from 585 families with 5-year-old children. Children's peer acceptance, friendship, and friends' aggressiveness were assessed with sociometric methods in kindergarten and grade 1. Teachers provided ratings of children's externalizing behavior problems in grade 2. Peer acceptance served as a moderator for all three measures of family adversity, and friendship served as a moderator for harsh discipline. Examination of regression slopes indicated that family adversity was not significantly associated with child externalizing behavior at high levels of positive peer relationships. These moderating effects generally were not qualified by child gender, ethnicity, or friends' aggressiveness, nor were they accounted for by child temperament or social information-processing patterns. The need for process-oriented studies of risk and protective factors is stressed.