Effects of different ways of introducing a reading task on intrinsic motivation and comprehension

This study compared the effects of two brief prereading instructional practices – hands‐on activities and prior knowledge activation – on sixth‐graders' intrinsic motivation for reading a text and reading comprehension. Both hands‐on activities and prior knowledge activation substantially improved reading comprehension relative to a control condition where students just read to answer questions and take a test about the text content. These effects did not depend on preexisting individual differences in basic reading skill, reading motivation or topic knowledge. Hands‐on activities and prior knowledge activation did not differentially affect reading comprehension, however, nor did either of them have any effect on intrinsic motivation to read the text. If used regularly in classrooms, brief prereading practices in the form of hands‐on activities or prior knowledge activation may result in knowledge gains that accumulate to build a solid conceptual basis for further, self‐regulated learning from text.     

Constructing a national narrative in civil war: history teaching and national unity in South Sudan

ABSTRACT

This article analyses history teaching in South Sudanese secondary schools and focuses on the interplay of local context, curricular intentions, and teachers’ agency. Drawing on ethnographic data, the article focuses on how the main objectives of national unity and critical thinking are enacted by teachers in the classroom. Through theories of history teaching and learning in divided societies, I explore how teachers teach the recent violent past and how they navigate and mediate ‘invisible’ tensions among opposing truths in the classroom. Foregrounding the context of civil war, the article illustrates how narratives of current and previous civil wars in the country limit teachers’ ability to fulfil the goals of the syllabus. Despite the role of teachers as key mediators for a peaceful classroom, the context of war limits the ideological space for them to promote a culture of peace among students in the classroom.     

Naturalistic Language Recordings Reveal “Hypervocal” Infants at High Familial Risk for Autism

Children's early language environments are related to later development. Little is known about this association in siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), who often experience language delays or have ASD. Fifty‐nine 9‐month‐old infants at high or low familial risk for ASD contributed full‐day in‐home language recordings. High‐risk infants produced more vocalizations than low‐risk peers; conversational turns and adult words did not differ by group. Vocalization differences were driven by a subgroup of “hypervocal” infants. Despite more vocalizations overall, these infants engaged in less social babbling during a standardized clinic assessment, and they experienced fewer conversational turns relative to their rate of vocalizations. Two ways in which these individual and environmental differences may relate to subsequent development are discussed.     

The two faces of political science studies—junior and senior students’ thoughts about their education and their future profession

The article reports on an empirical small scaled interview study among junior and senior students in the political science programme in a Swedish University. The aim is to describe how students at various stages of their studies conceive of their education as well as their future professional life. Questions about their identity as students have also been posed. The results indicate that a programme with a major emphasis on political science appears to have two different faces as experienced by the students. The first half of the programme is experienced as traditional liberal arts studies, i.e., the students enrol in a ‘personal bildung project’ and conceive of political scientists as a kind of watchdog for democracy. Students in the latter part of their studies report an emerging identity as investigators and civil servants and an appreciation of the parts of the studies that enhance their generic skills.     

The Use of Evaluation Criteria to Improve Academic Discussion in Cooperative Groups

Teachers remark that during Cooperative Learning (CL), the academic nature of the group discussions and the resulting group products can be disappointing. Often, this may be due to a lack of understanding on the students’ part on the elements that make up an exemplary product. This study examined whether clearly articulated evaluation criteria (EC's) would alter the nature of the group's discussion and subsequently improve students’ learning. The groups using the EC spent more time evaluating their products, discussing the content of their unit and task than students not using the evaluation criteria. The evaluative and task‐focused talk at the group level were modestly, yet significantly correlated with individual scores on an essay test following the unit. These findings suggest that the presence of clear and accessible criteria for evaluation can improve the academic nature of group discussions and individual learning gains. The findings provide a practical way to apply current assessment practices to classrooms using CL strategies.     

A Preschool Pilot Study of Connecting with Others: Lessons for Teaching Social and Emotional Competence

Social-emotional learning in early childhood sets the stage for students’ future behaviors in schools. The current study examined the effects of a social-emotional skills curriculum on the behavior of students in an early childhood program. The children received instruction in social and emotional skills using the Connecting with Others: Lessons for Teaching Social and Emotional Competence program. Pre-test and post-test scores for the BASC-2 Rating Scale and the Connecting with Others Rating Scale were used to determine if the children demonstrated progress in their behaviors by the end of the intervention. The results indicated that the social skills curriculum Connecting with Others: Lessons for Teaching Social and Emotional Competence was associated with positive changes in the children’s behaviors.     

An ethnographic field study of the influence of social interactions during the school day for children diagnosed with ADHD

The aim of this ethnographic field study was to investigate the influence of school-day social interactions on the well-being and social inclusion of children diagnosed with ADHD. The empirical data consisted of participant observations and informal interviews over a three-month period at a Danish primary school. Two ADHD-diagnosed 11-year-old boys in the fourth and fifth grades were followed on an alternating basis. The field notes were analysed using a qualitative content analysis that incorporated Etienne Wenger’s concepts of social identity and participation. The results revealed that the effects of school-day social interactions are complex and situation dependent. Medication, friendships and relationships with teachers and other adults strongly influence how children diagnosed with ADHD participate in social interactions and, consequently, how they thrive. We argue that it is important to emphasise the mediation of these children’s participation in the classroom community throughout an entire school day to ensure their social inclusion and well-being.     

School climate and exposure to bullying: a multilevel study

This study investigates associations between aspects of school climate, measured by students’ assessments aggregated to the class level, and exposure to bullying, measured at the individual level. The data were derived from the Stockholm School Survey of 2006–2010 with information from 16,418 ninth-grade students (aged 15–16 years) distributed over 871 classes and 259 schools. Three-level binary logistic regression was applied. Two of the studied school climate aspects in particular were linked with the occurrence of bullying: In classes where a high proportion of students claimed to be aware of the school rules and in classes where a high proportion of students stated that adults intervene against bullying, fewer students reported having been bullied. The findings imply that striving toward a school climate characterized by transparent rules and clear disapproval of harassments may help to reduce bullying.     

Sitting Still and Reading: Rethinking the Role of Literary Fiction in Civics Education

In this article Annie Schultz argues that engaging with narratives of resistance and empowerment in literary fiction makes for an important addition to the practice of political education. She is interested, in particular, in what can be gained from the thoughtful contemplation modeled by the inner monologues of literary narrators. Many writers of fiction have turned the inner lives of oppressed characters outward in order for readers to glimpse depictions of moral injustices that mirror those of the real world. Using Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man as an example of a literary representation of an existential journey to political consciousness, Schultz explores the imaginative implementation of literature in politically engaged pedagogy that, she argues, results in the development of conscious, articulate citizens.     

Pedagogization of elite sport in the school system: vested interests and dominant discourses

The Norwegian 2006 national curriculum reform introduced elite sport as an upper secondary school subject. The purpose of this innovation was twofold. Firstly, it was a political move to oppose the national growth of private elite sport schools. Secondly, the new elite sport curriculum formalizes opportunities for students taking academic programs in the school system to combine athletic ambitions and schooling. Acknowledging the multi-layered contexts of neoliberal education policy, the paper illuminates how vested interests in elite sport have strongly affected the elite sport pedagogic discourses in local comprehensive schools. The paper problematizes how the introduction of the elite sport national curriculum might have created some fundamental pedagogical and educational dilemmas rather than merely challenge the growth of private sports schools in the marketplace. The paper presents analyses of data collected from a purposeful sample of 3 local upper secondary schools’ website home pages. These schools are of particular interest as they have established partnerships with the national Olympic Committee’s High Performance Center (Olympiatoppen). By using the principle of decontextualization (Bernstein, 1990), my analyses reveal substantial transformations of the national curriculum texts. In contrast to the national curriculum with its emphasis on promoting knowledge, the schools discursively communicate how they provide elite sport opportunities that follow the national Olympic Committee High Performance Center’s philosophy for the development of young athletes.The paper problematizes how collaborations and partnerships with local schools have positioned the prestigious national Olympic Committee's High Performance Center as a recontextualizer of curricular knowledge (Bernstein, 1990. The structuring of pedagogic discourse. Volume IV. Class, codes and control. London: Routledge; 2000. Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity. Theory, research, critique (Rev. ed.). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield), and thus, affects the schools’ pedagogization (Singh, 2002. Pedagogising knowledge: Bernstein’s theory and pedagogic device. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 23(4), 571–582) of elite sport. Underpinned by the principle of school choice in the neoliberal reform policy, the paper also highlights how vested national elite sport interests and discourses form part of current marketization processes in the school system.