Analyzing teaching quality in Botswana and South Africa

This study focuses on quantifying the quality of mathematics teaching in 183 randomly selected sixth grade classrooms: 100 from the North West province of South Africa and 83 from South East Botswana. The teaching quality is measured by coding videotaped lessons for three different components: mathematical proficiency, level of cognitive demand, and observed teacher knowledge. Results suggest that the overall teaching quality is about the same in both regions. Some variation was observed at the level of each component. For example, in the South Africa sample the students engage more in tasks that just involve “memorization” and less in tasks that involve “procedures without connections” in comparison with the Botswana students. Teachers in Botswana implement the official curriculum more faithfully than do those in North West. In both countries most of the learners engaged only in low-level tasks (very little activity involved “procedures with connections”) and teachers demonstrated a lack of knowledge about how to integrate mathematical content with effective pedagogical techniques.     

German Language Media Publications

Bibliography of Austrian Mass Communication Literature, 1945-1975 by Benno Signitzer, et al. (bliss. Verlagsbuchhandlung, Wolfgang Neugebauer, Postfach 64, A 5033 Salzburg, Austria—DM 28)

Einfuhrunq in die Publizistikwissenschaft. Fragestellungen, Theoriean- Sitze, Forschungstechniken (Introduction to Mass Communication Research: Issues, Theories, Methodologies), by Heinz Purer (Verlag Olschlager, Amalienstrasse 81, D-8000 Munich 40, Federal Republic of Germany— DM14.80 or about $7.50, 160 pp.)

Journalistenausbildunq. Modelle, Erfahrungen Analysen (Journalism Education: Models, Experiences, Analyses), edited by Walter Homberg (Munich: same publisher and address as book just above, 1978—DM 39.00 or about $20.00, 245 pp.)

Science Writing: Annotated Selected Bibliography by Erich and Ingrid Geretschlaeger (Department of Mass Communication, University of Salzburg, Sigmund-Haffner-Gasse 18/iii, A-5020 Salzburg—$4.00, 104 pp.)

Medieninformation and Medienkritik in Osterreich (Media Information and Media Criticism in Austria), by Margarethe Eichinger et al. (Austrian Society of Communications, Bankgasse 8, A-1010 Vienna—90.00 Austrian Schillings or about $7.00, 100 pp.)

Katholische Publizistik in den Niederlanden (Catholic Media in the Netherlands), edited by Joan Hemels and Michael Schaolke (Verlag Ferdinand SchOningh, Jahenplatz 1, D-4790 Paderborn, FRG—DM 18.00 or about $9.00, 124 pp.)

Einfahrung in die Pressekonzentrationsforschunq (Introduction to Research on Press Concentration) by Manfred Knoche (Volker Spiess Verlag, Box 147, D-1000 Berlin 66—DM60.00 or about $30.00)

Kommunikationspolitische and Kommunikationswissenschaftliche Forschungsprojekte der Bundesregierung (1974-1978) (Research Projects on Communication Policy and Research by the Federal Government of the FRG) compiled by Walter J. Schutz (Press and Information Office of the Federal Government, Welcker Strasse, D-5300 Bonn—-price not given)     

The role of parents in special education: the notion of partnership revised

ABSTRACT

While parents' role in schools has attracted growing attention in educational research, very few researchers have directed any interest to the role of parents in special education. In this paper, we focus upon the concept of partnership, relating our analyses of interviews with classroom teachers and parents to the notion of partnership as described and explored by different researchers. Our main focus is on how teachers describe and perceive their relation to parents, and how parents experience their relation to the school. Our analysis shows that the relationship between teachers and parents seems to contain some other features than those reflected in the existing literature on parents’ role in education. To extract some of these features based on our data, we construct two roles: parents as ‘implementers’ and parents as ‘clients’, which we believe better captures the distinctive feature of the role of parents in special education. ‘Implementer’ implies parents being given responsibility for following up aims and measures set by the school, with very little possibility to influence how things are being done. ‘Clients’ occur when teachers see parents as part of their child's problem. Both roles place parents in a subordinate and powerless relationship with the school, as a result of a strong inequality of power between parents and schools. This inequality is caused, among other factors, by the socially defined power relationship between laypersons and professionals, and the stigma attached to special education which restrains parents from forming any collective resistance.     

The Playing Learning Child: Towards a pedagogy of early childhood

From children's own perspective, play and learning are not always separate in practices during early years. The purpose of this article is, first, to scrutinise the background and character of early years education in terms of play and learning. Second, to elaborate the findings of several years of research about children's learning in preschool related to the curriculum of early years education and, finally, to propose a sustainable pedagogy for the future, which does not separate play from learning but draws upon the similarities in character in order to promote creativity in future generations. Introducing the notions of act and object of learning and play (by act we mean how children play and learn and with the object we mean what children play and learn) we will chisel out an alternative early childhood education approach, here called developmental pedagogy, based on recent research in the field of play and learning, but also related to earlier approaches to early education.     

Directional Factors in Group Work. A Study of Two School Groups 1

Stymne, I. 1982. Directional Factors in Group Work. A Study of Two School Groups. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 26, 77‐94. A conceptual scheme of directional factors was sought in two work groups of teenage school children. The occurrence of exploratory sequences related to the different directional factors was also analysed. The two groups were videotaped, one while making a poster for a youth organization and the other while discussing the outline for a play. The utterances of each group were analysed and categorised into directional factors according to a simple model. Stimuli which initiated exploratory sequences were found for all directional factors when there was a problem to be solved or a decision to be made in relation to that factor. However, a good deal of behaviour could be seen as rule‐governed or routinised in relation to various directional factors rather than to exploratory sequences. The consequences of a lack of exploratory sequences in group work are briefly discussed.

     

“What Say these Young Ones”: Students’ Responses to Shakespeare—An Icon of Englishness

Challenging the taken-for-granted status of canonical authors, especially Shakespeare, is difficult, but not impossible. This research offers a glimpse into the inferential processes of a group of grade ten students from diverse backgrounds who read unfamiliar passages from Shakespeare. The findings reveal a complex picture of meaning-making, involving a variety of factors that play role in the students’ reading comprehension. The most crucial insight is the finding that subjective interpretations seem to hinder independent understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare’s texts beyond the literal level. Our research, conducted in a large, urban, culturally-diverse high school in Western Canada, shows that students tend to rely on uncritically absorbed bits and pieces of background information or popular culture references, as well as overgeneralized understanding of previously read Shakespearean texts, to form opinions about the author, which often carve an interpretive lens, colouring the reconstruction of the characters’ experiences in subsequent encounters with his works. The study juxtaposes actual experiences of students reading Shakespeare to culturally endorsed attitudes informing curriculum decisions and policies, as well as prevalent teaching practices in the high school classroom. Finally, it asks if teachers need to look at personal connections not as a strategy that leads to an analytic engagement, but as a form of analytic engagement, affirming that critical reflection is a competence that requires careful nurturing and guidance.     

‘When words don't come easily’: personal narratives from adolescents experiencing shyness as an emotional and behavioural problem in the school context

The purpose of this article is to present narratives from 15 adolescents experiencing shy behaviour as an emotional and behavioural problem in the school context in light of narrative understanding. The investigation is intended to generate knowledge about this largely under‐researched phenomenon based on the personal accounts of those who are actually experiencing it. Their narratives are the foundation for a discussion regarding implications for future practice in the context of school in relation to this group.     

Goal orientations, coping with school failure and school achievement

The present study examined the relationship between goal orientation, coping with school failure and school achievement. Two questionnaires, Goal Orientation (Niemivirta, 1996a) and The School Failure Coping Scale (Rijavec & Brdar, 1997), were administered to 1057 high school students (aged from 15 to 17 years). The first goal of this study was to explore whether students can be classified in groups according to their goal orientation. The results identified four clusters of students with different achievement profiles: learning oriented, work-avoidance oriented, both performance and learning oriented and both performance and work-avoidance oriented group. Learning oriented group used emotion-focused coping the least frequently while students with combined performance and work avoidanc orientation used this kind of coping the most frequently.     

The Predictive Value of Non-Referential Beat Gestures: Early Use in Parent–Child Interactions Predicts Narrative Abilities at 5 Years of Age

A longitudinal study with 45 children (Hispanic, 13%; non-Hispanic, 87%) investigated whether the early production of non-referential beat and flip gestures, as opposed to referential iconic gestures, in parent–child naturalistic interactions from 14 to 58 months old predicts narrative abilities at age 5. Results revealed that only non-referential beats significantly (p < .01) predicted later narrative productions. The pragmatic functions of the children’s speech that accompany these gestures were also analyzed in a representative sample of 18 parent-child dyads, revealing that beats were typically associated with biased assertions or questions. These findings show that the early use of beats predicts narrative abilities later in development, and suggest that this relation is likely due to the pragmatic–structuring function that beats reflect in early discourse.