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.     

Reading and Reinterpreting Picture Books on Children’s Television: Implications for Young Children’s Narrative Literacy

Bookaboo is a television programme aiming to promote literacy and reading among young children. In each episode, a celebrity reads a book to Bookaboo, a dog who plays the drums in a rock band, in order to help him overcome stage fright. Using the episode featuring the picture book (Cowell and Layton in That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown, 2006) as a case study, this article explores how this type of adaptation of picture books transforms the original narrative, with implications for children’s developing narrative literacy. Taking a multimodal social semiotic perspective, this study investigates the changes in meaning which result from the employment of semiotic resources such as animation, sound, and camera movement in the representation of the book on the television show. We argue that the deployment of such resources can subtly reshape the meanings expressed through the modes of language and images in the original picture book, potentially affecting the child viewer’s engagement with the narrative. Examining the use of these resources in the picture book’s televisual representation is thus an important first step towards developing frameworks for evaluating the ability of television programmes that incorporate picture book reading to support children’s literacy.     

The Teacher as Researcher: Developing the Skills with Pre-Service Art Specialist Students

This paper details a project which involved a group of art specialist Diploma in Education students, two lecturing staff plus a group of primary school children in a series of planned art activities for two terms. The Saturday Morning Art programme (S.M.ART) was developed to enable the students to systematically focus on art learning in these classes by using largely qualitative research processes within a case study framework. By introducing these pre-service trainee art teachers to research techniques which they can then use, we believe we are preparing them to be self-evaluative and reflective practitioners in the classroom.     

Student attitudes toward science and sciencerelated careers: A program designed to promote a stimulating gender-free learning environment

A project designed to foster the full and fair participation of girls in high-school science classes addressed obstacles, both perceived and actual, to equal participation. In order to modify existing classroom techniques and environments, a Teacher Intervention Program was designed. By means of a workshop and periodic personal communications, teachers were sensitized to the importance of a stimulating, gender-free learning environment. In addition, they were presented with a variety of methods and materials which had been shown to encourage girls in science. Twelve teachers, who were selected randomly, taught in diverse communities throughout one Midwestern state. The subjects tested were students in 24 general biology classes taught by the 12 teachers. Although both qualitative and quantitative measures were used during the research, only the quantitative results are discussed in this paper. Using ANOVA's, treatment group by student sex, a comparison of the mean scores was made for all students, as well as for all females and for all males. The results indicated that the experimental group, compared to the control group, had significantly higher mean scores on tests of attitudes toward science, perceptions of science, extracurricular science activities, and interest in a science-related career.     

Using Greek Mythology as a Metaphor to Enhance Supervision

The authors review some uses of myths and stories in counselor education and supervision. They note that collaborative supervision is especially relevant to the exploration of alternative views of supervisee growth that may be mirrored in myths and stories and in their multiple interpretations. The interpretation of the Greek myth of Psyche is examined as a possible vehicle for enhancing counselor growth in supervision.     

The ABC of ELT... TBL ——In this Issue,Jane and Dave Willis look at Task-Based Learning

TBL, also known as TBLT (task-based learning and teaching) and, in the USA, as TBL (task-based instruction) is an approach which uses communication tasks as the central focus for language teaching and learning. Basically the term task in TBL, refers to a meaning -focused activity. There are a number of definitions in the literature, but they can be characterized also follows: the learner s principle focus is on exchanging and understanding meanings, rather than on practice of pre-specified forms or patterns there is some kind of communicative purpose or goal set for the task, so learners know what they are expected to achieve by the end tasks can involve any or all four skills, e. g. a     

Determining young aboriginal children's scientific understandings: A pilot study

Conclusion The pilot study provided a range of useful data for analysis. In all areas except the children's recall of traditional stories, richly contextualized data was collected. It was felt that the children's young age and not the questions themselves about traditional stories was the limiting factor. The age factor variable is yet to be examined closely. Children older than eight will be interviewed using the story book on night and day to determine if it will successfully reveal any traditional stories they know, and this data will be analysed to see if the stories influence their scientific understandings of night and day. Overall the study aimed to develop a research design and instruments that would readily tap into young Aboriginal children's scientific understandings in a relevant and cross-culturally sensitive way. The richness of the data collected would indicate that this aim has been met. The next step will be to determine the significance of the data collected and whether data should be collected from a larger sample of young Aboriginal children in each of the community contexts described by the NAEC (1985): Traditional, Rural, Urban Dispersed and Urban. Specializations: early childhood science education.     

The pleasure of recognition: intertextuality in the talk of preschoolers during shared reading with mothers and teachers

Mature readers draw on a complex web of previous experiences when interpreting written and visual texts. Yet very little is known about how preschool children, who cannot yet read, make connections between texts. This study explores how 13 4‐year‐old children made intertextual connections during shared reading with their mothers (seven children) and their preschool teachers (six children). The findings indicate that very young children actively draw on their knowledge of other texts, and their personal lived experiences, to reflect on the meanings they encounter in unfamiliar picture books. The functions served by the children's intertexts ranged from the simple pleasure of recognition to more sophisticated comparisons between texts in terms of theme and plot. The extent to which the adults were able to integrate the children's intertexts into the discussions varied. An awareness of the important role played by intertextuality in children's interpretations of texts may provide early childhood professionals with a framework within which to plan systematically for the language and literacy development of young children in their care.