Relationships between families’ use of Sure Start Children’s Centres,changes in home learning environments,and preschool behavioural disorders

UK Sure Start Children’s Centres (SSCCs) aim to lessen behavioural disorders yet we lack evidence concerning how this is achieved. This study evaluates one possible mechanism: improved home learning environments (HLEs). Data come from a longitudinal study of 2568 families and children recruited at a mean age of 14 months from 117 SSCCs in England in 2012. Behavioural disorders were measured at 38 months via the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. HLEs were measured at 14 and 38 months via parental interview. Families’ use of SSCCs was measured via parental interview at 14, 22, and 38 months. This study suggests that the use of SSCCs is associated with fewer preschool behavioural disorders via intermediate changes to the quality of HLE’s. Implications are discussed for social policies and for early years’ professionals.     

Do Runner Beans Really Make You Run Fast? Young Children Learning About Science-Related Food Concepts in Informal Settings

Early years practitioners acknowledge that much learning takes place in a family context. Science educators, in particular, recognise the importance of children's prior knowledge, both as a foundation on which to build and as a possible source of misconceptions. However, little work has been done to discover what young children learn outside school. This study utilised parent diaries and questionnaires to elucidate the experiences of children aged four to seven which might contribute to their knowledge about the origin of food and its destiny after being eaten. The findings indicate that children learn more scientifically correct information with friends and family than teachers might realise. Awareness of children's informal knowledge can assist teachers when planning activities. As well as this, children's prior knowledge can be utilised in classroom discourse to promote understanding.     

Teachers’ use of PowerPoint in kindergarten: An empirical investigation in China

Nowadays, with the rapid progress of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), the integration of ICTs in education has attracted more and more attention of educators and researchers. However, there are different situations between developed and less-developed nations both in ICT application and in ICT research. PowerPoint is a readily available and most popular tool for teaching in some less-developed countries. Under this particular circumstance, it is not an outdated issue to explore teachers’ use of PowerPoint in teaching. Thus, this paper systematically looked at teachers’ PowerPoint use in the setting of Chinese kindergartens. Specifically, four questions were explored: (i) the status of PowerPoint-related infrastructures in the kindergartens; (ii) teachers’ use of PowerPoint in teaching; (iii) teachers’ design, competences and training related to PowerPoint; (iv) teachers’ perceptions and attitudes toward PowerPoint in teaching. A sample of 62 kindergarten teachers was investigated with a self-created questionnaire. Finally, it was found that the kindergartens had been well equipped with PowerPoint-related equipments; teachers frequently implemented teaching activities with PowerPoint and in an intelligent manner; the majority of teachers had positive perceptions and attitudes toward PowerPoint’s general effects, but there was an imbalance of perceptions and attitudes toward children’ emotional-social aspects and children’s cognitive aspects. Besides, the influencing factors of the availability and access to PowerPoint equipments in kindergartens, PowerPoint’s location, teachers’ using years of PowerPoint, teachers’ knowledge and skills, teachers’ training were also emphasized by this study.     

Faculty Entrepreneurialism and the Challenge to Undergraduate Education at Research Universities

This study attempts to unravel the complex relationships between faculty entrepreneurialism and teaching. Specifically, this study (1) compares the extent of entrepreneurial activities (i.e., using funds for research and consulting activity) across disciplinary fields and levels of teaching commitment and (2) examines the relative effects of faculty entrepreneurialism on commitment to teaching. Using a national database of four-year college faculty, research findings demonstrate variations of teaching commitment with respect to disciplinary fields and forms of entrepreneurial activities. More important, this study reveals rather strong negative relationships between using funds for research and teaching commitment. Such findings have important implications for policy makers, administrative leaders, and university faculty as they seek to balance the institution's instructional mission in light of the increasing trend toward entrepreneurialism.     

Lights,Camera, Action: Facilitating the Design and Production of Effective Instructional Videos

This paper outlines a rudimentary process intended to guide faculty in K-12 and higher education through the steps involved to produce video for their classes. The process comprises four steps: planning, development, delivery and reflection. Each step is infused with instructional design information intended to support the collaboration between instructional support staff and faculty to produce video that will be meaningful to students and support their success in a class. In outlining this approach, the paper also explores technological and pedagogical considerations related to each of these steps that can help faculty and staff determine how best to incorporate video into online classes. Finally, supported by research on best video practices and with examples from our own experiences as instructional designers and instructors, the paper outlines how these steps relate to four broad categories of video: introduce, model, explain/inform and feedback.     

Schooling for Faith,Citizenship and Social Mobility: Catholic Secondary Education in New Zealand, 1924–1944

The increased demand for secondary schooling, which took place in New Zealand in the years after 1924, had important consequences for the Catholic educational mission. No longer was it sufficient to provide a comprehensive elementary system of education that transmitted a ‘simple faith to a simple people’, and a secondary schooling for the educational advancement and social mobility of the select few. Justified on the basis of the need to protect the faith of the growing number of pupils going on to secondary school, the expanded educational mission was also grounded in a new Catholic identity as ‘moral’ patriotic citizens committed to Catholic family values and successful participation in New Zealand society. Catholic secondary schools offered a utilitarian secondary education, which focussed on success in state‐mandated examinations, to the children of parents ambitious for their social and economic success in the world. Nevertheless, there were tensions in a Catholic educational mission that worked for the social and educational advancement of Catholic pupils while aiming for their ultimate salvation and the protection Catholic religious and cultural values.     

Schoolwork: interpreting the labour process of teaching

In 1981 we gave a paper at the International Sociology of Education Conference at Westhill, subsequently published as ‘The Educational Worker1? A Reassessment of Teachers’, which was a polemic on the subject of teacher professionalism and proletarianisation. This paper is partly a critique of ‘The Educational Worker’, following from a belated recognition of the importance of gender in analysing teachers’ work, and also makes use of more recent historical and comparative research. This paper puts the emphasis on the social construction of skill and argues for the study of ‘schoolwork’, that is for the study of the labour process of teaching.     

An Analysis of the Presentation of Art in the British Primary School Curriculum and its Implications for Teaching

This article presents an analysis of the way art is conceptualised in the British primary school curriculum and provides an historical framework that maps an evolution of ideas that have shaped the way art is presented in the modern day primary curriculum. In order to achieve this a Foucauldian style genealogical analysis is utilised to trace the discourses (systems of meaning) surrounding the nature of children's artistic development and how these discourses are used in the present day British primary curriculum to construe art in different ways. The analysis in this article is threefold. It explores the presentation of art in the curriculum as (1) an expressive subject, (2) a skills based subject, (3) a subject which focuses on art history and art appreciation. Second, the teaching positions associated with each approach are identified as follows (a) the facilitator, (b) the expert and (c) the philosopher; as well as the issues teachers face when adopting these positions. Third, attention is given to how these theoretical principles might be linked to practice. In so doing this article contributes to the debate surrounding the value of art in the primary curriculum and the way in which the curriculum serves to shape teaching practice.     

Mexican American Mothers’ Conceptualization of Autonomy Support and Psychological Control in the Context of Cultural Values

This qualitative study explored the intertwining relationships among the concepts of parental autonomy support, parental control, and cultural values for Mexican American families. The study was guided by the following questions: (1) What elements of parental autonomy support are identified in Mexican American parents’ involvement in their children’s academic performance? (2) How do Mexican American parents conceptualize “autonomy support” and “parental control”? Sixteen Mexican American mothers expressed their own goals and strategies for home-based parental involvement to support their adolescents’ academic performance, and responded to the prototypes of autonomy support parenting and use of psychological control. Four themes emerged from the data to explain the participants’ practice: (1) Explain the expectations for behavioral and academic pursuit through persistent “telling” and “reminding”; (2) Respond to children’s feelings from parents’ perspectives; (3) Encourage with provisions, praises, and criticisms; and (4) Allow choices upon trust in child’s sense of responsibility. Discussion is focused on how Mexican-American mothers’ conceptualization of “autonomy support” and “parental control” is influenced by the cultural values of educación and respeto. Culturally appropriate autonomy support training is suggested for effective intervention programs for Mexican-American parents.