Educational Broadcasting: access and equity

The paper reports a qualitative study undertaken for the New South Wales Department of School Education and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). The purpose of the study was to complement existing survey information by (i) closely investigating actual practice in schools in terms of the uses made of educational broadcasts, and (ii) inquiring into the perceptions held by the providers of such broadcasts. To this end teachers and students were interviewed and observations conducted in five case study schools. Policy makers within the Children's and Education Unit of the ABC were interviewed as well. The most significant findings (in educational rather than statistical terms) are to do with variations in access both materially and culturally. Equity considerations were seen to arise from these differences in access.     

Marginalized Youth, Delinquency, and Education: The Need for Critical-Interpretive Research

There is a lack of critical, interpretive research on marginalized youths' schooling experiences. There is a significant need for research that furthers theoretical and empirical understanding of how these youths experience school. I posit that a specific type of critical, interpretive research is required in order to understand and improve the educational experiences of marginalized youths. This paper argues that the vast majority of current delinquency and education research, while providing important and useful information, is limited by its adherence to the positivist paradigm and quantitative methods. I suggest that researchers must critically investigate schooling objectives and processes to explore how the educational system may be implicated in reproducing marginalized youths' academic failure and delinquency. Such critical research would investigate how the substantive content and processes of schools correspond with students' everyday lives and values. Such an approach will enable us to learn how to make better schools that serve marginalized youths and create more effective learning environments.     

What Is Needed,What Is Valued: Trans Students’ Perspectives on Trans-Inclusive Policies and Practices in Higher Education

ABSTRACT

This mixed-methods study of 507 trans and gender-nonconforming students (75% undergraduate, 25% graduate) aimed to understand (a) what institutional factors are associated with the presence of more trans-inclusive policies/supports, (b) what trans-inclusive policies/supports are viewed as important by different groups of trans students, and (c) how the presence of such policies/supports is related to trans students’ sense of belonging on campus and their perception of campus climate. Results indicated that religiously affiliated institutions and two-year institutions tend to lag behind in their inclusivity of trans students. Gender-inclusive restrooms, nondiscrimination policies that are inclusive of gender identity, and the ability to change one’s name on campus records without legal name change were among the supports that students valued most. Students articulated many concrete suggestions for institutions seeking to be more inclusive of their trans students. The known presence of trans-inclusive policies/supports was related to a greater sense of belonging and more positive perceptions of campus climate. These findings provide consultants and practitioners with guidance in identifying and promoting systems-level changes needed to support trans students.     

Relationships among rapid digit naming, phonological processing, motor automaticity, and speech perception in poor, average, and good readers and spellers

In this article, we explore the relationship between rapid automatized naming (RAN) and other cognitive processes among below-average, average, and above-average readers and spellers. Nonsense word reading, phonological awareness, RAN, automaticity of balance, speech perception, and verbal short-term and working memory were measured. Factor analysis revealed a 3-component structure. The first component included phonological processing tasks, RAN, and motor balance. The second component included verbal short-term and working memory tasks. Speech perception loaded strongly as a third component, associated negatively with RAN. The phonological processing tests correlated most strongly with reading ability and uniquely discriminated average from below- and above-average readers in terms of word reading, reading comprehension, and spelling. On word reading, comprehension, and spelling, RAN discriminated only the below-average group from the average performers. Verbal memory, as assessed by word list recall, additionally discriminated the below-average group from the average group on spelling performance. Motor balance and speech perception did not discriminate average from above- or below-average performers. In regression analyses, phonological processing measures predicted word reading and comprehension, and both phonological processing and RAN predicted spelling.     

Tidy minds,untidy solutions: University organization in Ontario

In the years 1957–1966 the universities of Canada, as a result of a vast injection of federal funds directly into higher education, appeared to be at the beginning of a long period of development, largely autonomous, and national in scope and outlook. By the late 1960s the provincial governments, motivated partly by what they perceived as an infringement of their constitutional rights, partly no doubt by a sense that they could make better use of the vast sums involved, persuaded the federal government to direct its grants to them. The more populous provinces then found it desirable to develop advisory bodies to counsel the governments on the broader problems of universities, especially fiscal ones. In Ontario the Ontario Council of University Affairs was created for this purpose. It was conceived of as a buffer body to stand between government and universities, serving both. In fact it had no statutory authority. Its advice to the government on the growing financial needs of universities was persistently rejected, while its advice to the universities themselves to develop methods of genuine cooperation and coordination for the sake of the whole system was largely ignored. The Council began to assume a measure of authority, but the Minister was not satisfied with the state of affairs, and in December 1983 she abruptly announced the appointment of a three-man commission to devise a plan for reshaping the university system, including clarifying the role of the Ontario Council on University Affairs. That role is now almost totally unclear.     

THE CONSULTANT'S CORNER: Terrorism,Terrorism Threat,and the School Consultant

Interventions for responding to terrorism and terrorism threat are described for 2 types of preventive interventions (primary and secondary) and for 3 levels (community, school and classroom). All the interventions aim to prevent mental illness and to promote mental health. This article is based on research and literature focused on: (a) responses to human-made and natural disasters, (b) psychological resilience, and (c) programs for dealing with acute and chronic stress and anxiety. While the focus of this article is on responding to terrorism and terrorism threat, it can be generalized to other human-made or natural disasters that impact a school.     

Encouraging the development of higher-level study skills using an experiential learning framework

Teachers have only recently considered how study skills support in higher education (HE) can be delivered in a way that encourages experiential learning. This paper aims to substantiate, or otherwise, the idea that a carefully developed initiative can encourage the experiential learning of study skills. In addition, it considers whether such an approach might also allow student access to some of the higher-level study skills required for successful university study. Focus group data were used to evaluate a module delivered to sports students at a post-1992 university in the UK. This data suggested that the module facilitated learning in each stage of Kolb's experiential learning cycle. Moreover, there was evidence that the module encouraged students to undertake an ‘epistemological shift’ in which they moved from seeing knowledge as a set of uncontested facts to seeing it as something that they are expected to question and contribute to themselves.     

Supporting students with impairments in higher education: social inclusion or cold comfort?

This paper uses a discursive analysis to examine the experience of ‘inclusion’ from several stakeholder groups in one university. The research team included disability support staff at the institution, external disability consultants and academic researchers. A critical focus group investigation centred on four groups: students who were identified as having an impairment (SWIs), academic staff (teachers), administrators and students who did not identify as having an impairment (non‐SWIs). Interviews had facilitators with both research and disability expertise. Groups recounted different experiences of inclusion. SWIs, drawing on a rights discourse, emphasised a lack of resourcing and barriers created by the teaching staff. In contrast, teachers, administrators and (to a lesser extent) non‐SWIs emphasised the importance of social inclusion, reflecting discourses around needs and humanist notions of care and support, which largely seemed to miss the core of SWI concerns about recognition of their technical competence. For all groups, questions around disclosure of disability were of greater concern than tensions between needs and rights or the recent publication of a Code of Practice for the higher education sector. The findings challenged some of the researchers’ own assumptions, with unexpected implications for practice.