Disabilities and inclusive practices within Toronto preschools

A current objective in Canada is a provision of childcare services for all children. This objective has not been achieved as many children, especially those with disabilities, are often denied services from publicly funded daycare centres. The authors argue that policy discussions framed from an inclusive perspective provide a better understanding of how the Ontario child care system should function to ensure daycare services for children of disabilities. They interviewed the directors of 354 licensed preschools in Toronto about the inclusion of children with disabilities into their centres. Analysis revealed that only 2.4% of the students in these centres were identified as having a disability; the two most frequently identified disabilities were Autism Spectrum Disorders and speech and language disorders. The majority of directors stated that they would turn away a child because of a disability. The centres that were most inclusive had service providers come into the centre, but very few (17%) of these centres had resource teachers as support. The analysis further indicates a large number of centres that currently are not identified as capable of providing special need services and are not directly operated by the Ministry of Education. With staff development and funding, these centres have the potential to provide services to children of disabilities.     

Inclusion of students with emotional and behavioural disorders in general education settings: a scoping review of research in the US

ABSTRACT

Inclusion of students with disabilities in general education settings has been an international focus for over two decades. In the US, federal laws [e.g. Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA). 2004. H.R. 1350, 108th Congress] mandate access to the general education curriculum for all students, including those with disabilities. These mandates codify a philosophical orientation of least restrictive environment, within a free appropriate public education, while explicitly requiring evidence-based practices. The policies support and protect inclusive practices for individuals with emotional and behavioural disabilities, yet the state of the empirical literature is unknown. A review is needed to provide an overview of the research and reveal the breadth of the literature. To this end, scoping review methodology was used to map the state of the literature. This particular approach is recommended for topics with myriad and complex definitions and issues, as is the case with inclusive education. Results map six themes (professional and student experience, strategy effectiveness, policy and programmes, perception of influencing factors, teacher training, teacher knowledge) and reveal several gaps in the literature. Recommendations are made for systematic review, meta-analyses, and individual studies to address the gaps in the literature.     

La ética: Polémica en el curriculum escolar

Se analiza a continuación la polémica generada en torno a la educación moral y cívica a lo largo de las últimas décadas y, en especial, la derivada de la LOGSE al dotar a la Etica de un carácter transversal generando nuevos planteamientos y perspectivas que procuran su mayor sistematización en el curriculum escolar.     

Secondary School Students’ Construction and Use of Mathematical Models in Solving Word Problems

This study focussed on how secondary school students construct and use mathematical models as conceptual tools when solving word problems. The participants were 511 secondary-school students who were in the final year of compulsory education (15–16 years old). Four levels of the development of constructing and using mathematical models were identified using a constant-comparative methodology to analyse the student’s problem-solving processes. Identifying the general in the particular and using the particular to endow the general with meaning were the key elements employed by students in the processes of construction and use of models in the different situations. In addition, attention was paid to the difficulties that students had in using their mathematical knowledge to solve these situations. Finally, implications are provided for drawing upon student’s use of mathematical models as conceptual tools to support the development of mathematical competence from socio-cultural perspectives of learning.     

Teacher training for secondary education and graduates’ entrance into the teaching profession

This study focuses on the relationship between teacher education and graduates’ intended and actual entrance into teaching. Moreover, it explores how this relationship differs for two types of initial teacher training for secondary education. A hypothetical model of graduates’ entrance into the teaching profession comprising empirically grounded variables was developed. Besides teacher education related variables, other factors (e.g., motivation and labour market) were included. Data for this study were based on a sample of 370 graduates qualified for teaching in secondary education. Logistic regression analysis indicates that intention to enter teaching, preparedness for teaching, employment opportunities and type of teacher training explain 43% of the variance in actual entrance into teaching. Furthermore, path analysis was applied to test the hypothetical pattern of (inter)relationships between the variables. Results are largely consistent across the two types of teacher training showing a small, although statistically significant, contribution of teacher education above other antecedents of graduates’ intention to enter teaching.     

Factors influencing adaptation from university to employment in Portugal and Brazil

International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance - The career adaptation model helps to explain the process of transitioning from university to employment among college students. This...     

Belief in a just world, justice concerns, and well-being at Portuguese schools

This article investigates the meaning of the belief in a just world (BJW) for justice cognition at school and for subjective well-being. We hypothesized that BJW should serve as a resource helping to maintain positive well-being and to assimilate experienced injustice. The results of two studies with Portuguese school students (7th–12th grade) and one with university students were consistent with our hypotheses. The more the students endorsed the BJW, the more they evaluated their school grades and their teachers’ and their peers’ behavior towards them as just and the more they were satisfied with life in general. Moreover, the more students felt fairly treated by their teachers, the less they felt distressed at school. Life satisfaction varied however independently of school-specific justice cognitions. This pattern of results persisted when controlled for achievement (grades) as well as for personality dispositions such as self-efficacy, self-esteem, and general trust. The implications of these results for further studies on adolescent development are discussed.     

Flounders unlimited

The aim of this paper is to provide an introduction to higher mathematical concepts and techniques as applied to real-world problems. An interesting case study is the 200-mile limit for fisheries presented in Wan (1989, Mathematical Models and their Analysis (New York: Harper and Row)). It is commented upon, re-examined and solved in a different manner inspired by Turing's (1952, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London , B237 , 37-72) paper as a suitable classroom example for undergraduate students taking a first course on mathematical modelling. Emphasis is made not only on the mathematics--always kept as elementary as possible--but also on interpretations, explanations and translation into plain language of the mathematical expressions and results.     

The role of elevation in moral judgment

ABSTRACT

Elevation is the emotion elicited by witnessing acts of moral beauty and may be framed as the opposite of disgust. Two studies investigated the role of elevation in moral judgment and its relation to disgust. In Study 1 it was investigated whether elevation can attenuate the effects of disgust on moral transgression judgments. Participants were either induced to experience disgust (by giving them a bitter beverage), or to experience disgust and elevation simultaneously (by video induction). No effects of either emotion on moral transgression judgments were found. In Study 2 the nature of causal connectedness between elevation and moral virtue judgments was investigated by testing whether elevation amplifies moral virtue judgments. It was found that participants judged morally good acts as being more morally good when being elevated, suggesting that there is a bidirectional causal link between elevation and judgments of moral virtue.