Reflections on Equipping Candidates to Teach Literacy in Culturally Diverse Schools

Abstract

This essay reflects on ways to equip teacher candidates so they are not only prepared to answer tough questions, but are educated for the linguistic and literacy challenges of today’s classrooms. We recognize that with an ever-growing majority minority population, it is time to change the teacher preparation system, and to support current teachers and the preparation of future teachers for the field; these changes need to be soon and are imperative.     

Understanding of Idiomatic Expressions in Context in Skilled and Less Skilled Comprehenders: Online Processing and Interpretation

This article reports a study in which good and poor comprehenders (in 2 age groups: 8- and 10-year-olds) read short passages containing phrases that could be interpreted as idiomatic or not, depending on the context. Familiarity was manipulated by including real (English) idioms and novel (translations of Italian) idioms. Reading times for the target phrases were measured and the children’s understanding of the target expressions was assessed. The older children and better comprehenders were more likely to interpret idiomatic phrases correctly. In particular, there was an interaction between age and meaning condition: The younger children were less able to choose an appropriate interpretation of the figurative expressions. In general, children spent relatively more time reading the idiomatic expressions than the literal ones, with the exception of less skilled comprehenders when presented with novel (Italian) idioms. They seemed not to appreciate that these expressions needed any particular effort for interpretation.     

Patterns of integration,commitment, and student characteristics and retention among younger and older students

The primary purpose of this study was to explore the differential persistence impact of the components of the Tinto model, preentry characteristics, initial goals and commitments, integration, subsequent goals and commitments, and external commitments, to the process of younger and older student persistence. The sample (N=449) included first-time students enrolled full- or part-time at a large, urban community college. The study design was longitudinal with questionnaire data gathered at the beginning and end of the spring 1989 semester. Persistence was measured from the spring to the following fall semester. Discriminant function analysis was used to study multivariate differences between short-term persisters and nonpersisters. Younger (17 to 24 years) and older (25+ years) student data were analyzed separately. Findings indicated (1) integration was more important to the persistence of younger students than it was for the older cohort; (2) self-assessed study skills were the most important discriminator for older students; (3) student perceptions of cognitive and personal development were important to persistence in both groups; and (4) goal commitment was important to the persistence of both age groups.     

The participation of women faculty in Chinese universities: paradoxes of globalization

This paper contributes to a discussion of how globalization is affecting women faculty in different countries around the world. It reports on a collaborative, international research project designed to understand the participation of women faculty members in Chinese universities, sketching the historical context necessary for understanding women's place in universities in China, describing the process of surveying university faculty on gender issues and reporting the findings of the survey for universities that prepare secondary school teachers. The paper concludes that in China, ‘gender consciousness’ is a major barrier preventing women's full participation as faculty. As a result, women are likely to increase their disadvantage in the next few years as Chinese universities expand, diversify, emphasize research and broaden their links with the rest of the world.     

Participatory planning for project sustainability of environmental education projects: a case study of the Secondary Teacher Training Environmental Education Project (St2eep) in Zimbabwe

Within the first year of the Secondary Teacher Training Environmental Education Project (St²eep) in Zimbabwe, project stakeholders, including lecturers, college administrators, local project coordinators, and donor representatives, expressed concern about the non‐sustainability of the project due to its over‐reliance on its international donor. In response to this challenge, a process of critical self‐reflection through self‐assessment workshops was started to give an opportunity for key project stakeholders to explore the challenge of project sustainability. Applying the principles of expansive learning theory to St²eep’s reflection processes, this paper shows how the contradictions that emerge from the interaction between different project stakeholders can be powerful sources for learning. This has resulted in new forms of activity to address the challenge of project sustainability in St²eep. The insights of this paper may be useful for other donor‐funded environmental education projects that are confronted with the challenge of project sustainability.     

Understanding The Impact of an Apprenticeship-Based Scientific Research Program on High School Students’ Understanding of Scientific Inquiry

The purpose of this study was to understand the impact of an apprenticeship program on high school students’ understanding of the nature of scientific inquiry. Data related to seventeen students’ understanding of science and scientific inquiry were collected through open-ended questionnaires. Findings suggest that although engagement in authentic scientific research helped the participants to develop competency in experimentation methods it had limited impact on participants’ learning of the implicit aspects of scientific inquiry and NOS. Discussion focuses on the importance of making the implicit assumptions of science explicit to the students in such authentic scientific inquiry settings through structured curriculum.     

Maria Montessori as domestic goddess: iconic early childhood educator and material girl

The concept of domesticity plays out in early childhood educational settings and has a long tradition. Domesticity in its pre-domestic, domestic and post-domestic phases is used here as a site for reconsidering the role of Maria Montessori. The ideas put forward here are intended as a provocation and methodologically the device of constructing an assemblage of materials from various sources is used to enable different ideas to be brought forward. New possibilities emerged through a diffractive approach to this theoretically driven work. The ambiguities Montessori embodied in her life are revisited and by looking at her focus on the materials of ‘practical life’ a way to be intra-activelyengaged with regenerative forces became possible. Repositioning Maria Montessori as ‘domestic goddess’ tangles with contemporary ideas in order to unsettle her image. This analysis draws on new feminist materialist theoryto question what being domestic/ate/d means in terms of being a woman in a femin/ised/ist educational space.     

Unauthorised e-book downloading of students in higher education

This study reveals students’ unauthorised downloading of e-books in higher education. In-person surveys were administered at four university campuses in Taiwan. The 422 valid samples were made up of both undergraduate and graduate students. Students in the more legitimate segment illegally downloaded 0.26 e-books per month on average. Shockingly, students in the less legitimate segment illegally downloaded 18.50 e-books per month on average. Respondents in the less legitimate segment would definitely search for unauthorised e-books if they could not locate those in digital libraries, and they would use software to download. This study examined unauthorised downloading of e-books by students in higher education in hopes of bringing much needed attention to this area. The contributions from this study are not merely to fill a gap in the literature, but to provide a baseline for further research.     

External peer review of assessment: an effective approach to verifying standards?

There is growing international concern to regulate and assure standards in higher education. External peer review of assessment, often called external examining, is a well-established approach to assuring standards. Australian higher education is one of several systems without a history of external examining for undergraduate programmes that is currently considering the approach. What can entrants to external examining at that level learn from the UK higher education system's long history of external examining? To that end, this paper reports on a mixed methods research project designed to investigate current practices in how academic standards are conceived, constructed and applied by external examiners and debates the implications of the findings for the development of external examining in other countries. The findings suggest that the potential of experienced peers in a subject discipline to provide the assurance of standards is limited. It concludes by presenting various possible enhancements that might be considered.     

Widening participation in higher education: the role of professional and social class identities and commitments

Since the neoliberal reforms to British education in the 1980s, education debates have been saturated with claims to the efficacy of the market as a mechanism for improving the content and delivery of state education. In recent decades with the expansion and ‘massification’ of higher education, widening participation (WP) has acquired an increasingly important role in redressing the under-representation of certain social groups in universities. Taken together, these trends neatly capture the twin goals of New Labour’s programme for education reform: economic competitiveness and social justice. But how do WP professionals negotiate competing demands of social equity and economic incentive? In this paper we explore how the hegemony of neoliberal discourse – of which the student as consumer is possibly the most pervasive – can be usefully disentangled from socially progressive, professional discourses exemplified through the speech and actions of WP practitioners and managers working in British higher education institutions.