Black self-concept: An individual/collective analysis

The study of the self-concept of African-Americans has been approached in two major ways: studies have sought either to measure personal self-concept, excluding attitudes and feelings towards race, or they have sought to measure racial self-concept excluding attitudes toward the personal self. Failure to integrate the two approaches has proven to be a critical hindrance to the development of a theoretical framework for systematic analysis of the self-concept of African-Americans, which can account for attitudes towards the personal self and the racial self. Offered is a framework for the analysis individual/collective self-concept of African-Americans. The individual/collective self concept is comprised of two inseparable but distinguishable components: the experience of the unique individual (the I) and the accumulated experiences of the racial group (the We). It is characterized by the personal affirmation of, and the identification with one's own personal experiences and the collective experiences of one's racial group. Any imposed disassociation of the components by individuals or theoretical approaches is viewed as problematic.     

More like real life-Motivational methods of teaching in upper secondary school

Motivational methods of teaching are topical subjects and much discussed issues regarding schools and education. The first question of our study covers student motivation and students＇ perception of their own schools＇ teaching methods. The second question reflects on how upper secondary school teachers perceive their roles as teachers, their thoughts on acquirement of knowledge and how learning takes place. The third question treats the subject of how school and education is organized. The upper secondary school the authors chose for the case study is a school that recruits students on a national basis and is directed towards the education of fire and rescue service personnel. The programme follows the national science curriculum and gives qualification for further studies at most universities. The school started in the autumn of 1998 and is known for being successful at working with student involvement, responsibility and subject integration. The study which was conducted during the autumn of 2007 included 32 students from two of the learning groups from the same year and started on the day of introduction of a new theme and finished with their presentation of results. The authors made observations, interviewed and through questionnaires studied how students comprehended the schools＇ working methods. We also interviewed their teachers and headmaster. The theoretic standpoint is Activity Theory （Chaiklin, S. ＆ Lave, J. 1996; Knutagard, H., 2002; Vygotsky, L. S., 1986）. The conclusions are that the students are encuitured into a school＇s activities that are similar to what students perceive as that of real life. It gives meaning and motivation to learning and makes it meaningful. They identify their own responsibility and cooperative learning as the most important parts. The teachers＇ own learning process and planning work is parallel to the work forms applicable to the students. They are all interdependent of each other since all the work areas are thematic. The school can be seen as an activity system where members interplay and communication develops a common culture.     

Applying the Mastery Learning Model to Sight Word Instruction for Disabled Readers

The present study evaluated the effect of applying a mastery learning model to sight word instruction for learning disabled (LD), elementary school children. A total of 48 LD children were taught 30 sight words in 9 lessons which incorporated mastery learning strategies, and a comparison group (W = 16) with methods that are typically used in the teaching of sight words. While all children could read less than 10% of the words on the pretest, the experimental group achieved over 90% accuracy on the posttest. This was higher than the average posttest performance of the comparison group (72% accuracy). Results of this investigation suggest that a majority of LD children can reach mastery on sight words within a reasonable time framework if sound remedial principles are applied consistently. The procedures described in this paper can serve both as a model of effective sight word instruction and as a diagnostic, trial-remediation technique for a disabled population.