The Tensions Between Shared Governance and Advancing Educational Equity

This article examines the relationship between shared governance and one school district’s (in)ability to advance educational equity. Specifically, we consider the district’s policies, discourse, and practice around equity within the context of site-based management and shared decision making. We suggest that if equity is indeed a major district responsibility, then it seems inconsistent to leave equity at the mercy of shared governance and occasional externally-imposed mandates because most individual school leaders and educators are not currently taking up this agenda or implementing changes that would result in equitable education. Thus, our work suggests that progress toward educational equity may best be achieved through top-down, directive leadership in districts.     

Walanbaa warramildanha: The impact of authentic Aboriginal community and school engagement on teachers’ professional knowledge

The conundrum of Indigenous education in Australia is that there are multiple, highly contested and polarising narratives that vie to inform both public and policy debate about how to construct effective schooling of Aboriginal students. Two of these contested discourses, which are seen to drive much of this debate, highlight the complexity of concerns—one which is essentially aspirational in its intent but unperceptive to the realities of Aboriginal student achievement and a second data focused discourse that is managerial and evaluative in its focus to disclose policy and pedagogic failures on student outcomes. The first has posed the politically more palatable proposition that there has been a slow, sometimes faltering but inexorable improvement in Aboriginal education, while the second highlights a mounting body of qualitative data that document an overall failure by school systems to lift Aboriginal student education achievement. The author recognises the complex and historical nature of the multilayered ‘issues’ that sit at the heart of Aboriginal underachievement. He argues that one of those underpinning issues that has plagued Aboriginal education centres on the depth of the socio-cultural disconnect between Aboriginal students and their communities, and teachers. He also argues that, too often, teachers are appointed to schools with limited social, political and professional knowledge about the particular needs and aspirations of Aboriginal students such that it impacts on their capacity to establish authentic connections to students. The research on which this article is based sets out to provide an understanding of both the nature and dynamics of community and school engagement in sites with high proportions of Aboriginal students. The study aimed to investigate teachers’ capacity to develop authentic pedagogic practices that are responsive to the educational, cultural and aspirational needs of Aboriginal students. In particular, the research highlights how the relational dynamics between schools and Aboriginal people have been deeply affected by colonial histories of exclusion and systemic disadvantage, pervasive school discourses of marginalisation and in particular an ignorance about holistic needs of Aboriginal students at school and the resultant negative relational interactions between schools and Aboriginal families. This multisite ethnographic study was undertaken with Aboriginal community members, teachers and school principals in 2012 as doctoral research. It was conducted within a relational landscape characterised by an enduring socio-cultural dissonance between schools and their Aboriginal communities. The study focused on examples of authentic collaboration and purposeful interactions between Aboriginal communities and schools that were shown to support teachers in building deeper understanding that enhanced their cognisance of the wider needs of Aboriginal students. The findings in this article highlight that when authentic engagement between Aboriginal people and schools occurred, it appeared to positively impact the teachers’ professional knowledge and created a consequent interest within these communities to engage with their schools. The research further identified that in each site the Aboriginal participants articulated an interest in developing authentic school collaborations that would enhance student outcomes. These findings suggested that teachers need to honour, understand and actively reflect on community history, contexts and aspirations to develop the skills and knowledge to address the particular socio-cultural and educational needs of Aboriginal students.     

A Criterion-Referenced Approach to Student Ratings of Instruction

We developed a criterion-referenced student rating of instruction (SRI) to facilitate formative assessment of teaching. It involves four dimensions of teaching quality that are grounded in current instructional design principles: Organization and structure, Assessment and feedback, Personal interactions, and Academic rigor. Using item response theory and Wright mapping methods, we describe teaching characteristics at various points along the latent continuum for each scale. These maps enable criterion-referenced score interpretation by making an explicit connection between test performance and the theoretical framework. We explain the way our Wright maps can be used to enhance an instructor’s ability to interpret scores and identify ways to refine teaching. Although our work is aimed at improving score interpretation, a criterion-referenced test is not immune to factors that may bias test scores. The literature on SRIs is filled with research on factors unrelated to teaching that may bias scores. Therefore, we also used multilevel models to evaluate the extent to which student and course characteristic may affect scores and compromise score interpretation. Results indicated that student anger and the interaction between student gender and instructor gender are significant effects that account for a small amount of variance in SRI scores. All things considered, our criterion-referenced approach to SRIs is a viable way to describe teaching quality and help instructors refine pedagogy and facilitate course development.     

Using Resources of Nature in the Counselling Room: Qualitative Research into Ecotherapy Practice

Ecotherapy uses the resources of the natural environment to assist clients with a variety of symptoms, and has been found to be effective with anxiety, depression, stress and attention difficulties. While ecotherapy is often practiced outside of the consulting room, it can also be incorporated into more traditional indoor counselling settings. This qualitative research explored the practices of counsellors who implement ecotherapy as a treatment modality in their consulting rooms. Thirty participants (22 females and 8 males) from six countries completed an open-ended questionnaire. Of those 30 participants eleven (8 females and 3 males) were also interviewed. Data were analysed using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. Common practices reported by participants included: assigning nature-based homework exercises, facilitating an experiential connection to nature, nature guided mindfulness/meditation, and the sophisticated use of nature metaphors. This research provides insight into how nature-based techniques can be incorporated into conventional indoor counselling settings.     

Narrative Career Counselling for People with Refugee Backgrounds

For people with refugee backgrounds, pursuing a meaningful career in their country of resettlement is important for their successful integration. However, for many, achieving this is a challenging process. Career counsellors may have a role to play in facilitating the transition and integration of people with refugee backgrounds, and narrative career counselling has much to offer. This article discusses the impact of prolonged transition under difficult circumstances on people with refugee backgrounds, and the potential contribution of narrative career counselling in assisting them. In particular, it identifies cultural considerations for narrative career counsellors who work with people with refugee backgrounds.     

Teaching for Scientific Literacy? An Examination of Instructional Practices in Secondary Schools in Barbados

This study examined the extent to which the instructional practices of science teachers in Barbados are congruent with best practices for teaching for scientific literacy. Additionally, through observation of practice, it sought to determine the teachers’ demonstrated role in the classroom, their demonstration of learning through discourse, learning goals and the nature of classroom activities. Five hundred nineteen students from 12 of the 23 secondary schools on the island and 15 teachers across 8 schools participated in the study. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire, an observational schedule and field notes. It was found that while problem-solving and questioning were mainly used in the classroom, the use of experiments was among the least popular teaching strategies. Additionally, results showed that teachers’ display of the knowledge of the characteristics of scientific literacy was unsatisfactory. Generally, the findings indicate a gap between teaching for scientific literacy as expressed in the literature and current instructional practices in secondary science classrooms in Barbados.     

Examining the Value of a Scaffolded Critique Framework to Promote Argumentative and Explanatory Writings Within an Argument-Based Inquiry Approach

This study investigated the value of using a scaffolded critique framework to promote two different types of writing—argumentative writing and explanatory writing—with different purposes within an argument-based inquiry approach known as the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) approach. A quasi-experimental design with sixth and seventh grade students taught by two teachers was used. A total of 170 students participated in the study, with 87 in the control group (four classes) and 83 in the treatment group (four classes). All students used the SWH templates as an argumentative writing to guide their written work and completed these templates during the SWH investigations of each unit. After completing the SWH investigations, both groups of students were asked to complete the summary writing task as an explanatory writing at the end of each unit. All students’ writing samples were scored using analytical frameworks developed for the study. The results indicated that the treatment group performed significantly better on the explanatory writing task than the control group. In addition, the results of the partial correlation suggested that there is a very strong significantly positive relationship between the argumentative writing and the explanatory writing.     

Writing week-journals to improve the writing quality of fourth-graders’ compositions

Students’ writing problems are a global educational concern and is in need of particular attention. This study aims to examine the impact of providing extra writing opportunities (i.e., writing journals) on the quality of writing compositions. A longitudinal cluster-randomized controlled design using a multilevel modeling analysis with 182 fourth grade students was conducted. We examined whether students’ writing quality differed when writing journals on a weekly basis for 12 weeks, compared with a control group. Three covariates were analyzed, namely: (i) the students’ attitudes towards writing; (ii) their self-efficacy in writing; (iii) and their use of self-regulation (SRL) strategies while writing. Findings have shown that students who wrote week-journals significantly improved the writing quality of their compositions and reported a higher use of SRL strategies in writing. Nevertheless, self-efficacy and attitude towards writing were found to not be related to the quality of the compositions. Moreover, data indicated that the writing quality of compositions improved along with the writing quality of the week-journals. Findings suggest the use of week-journals in class to promote writing.     

Relationships between reading comprehension and its components in young Chinese-as-a-second-language learners

Based on the Simple View of Reading model, this study examines the relationships among Chinese reading comprehension and its two componential processes, Chinese character reading and listening comprehension, in young learners of Chinese as a second language (CSL) using a longitudinal design. Using relevant measures, a sample of 142 senior primary ethnic minority students in Hong Kong was assessed twice a year. The results of regression analyses showed that character reading and listening comprehension could together account for a significant portion of the variance in reading comprehension at grades 4 and 5 both concurrently and predictively. Subsequently, a trivariate, cross-lagged path model was specified to evaluate the relationships among these variables after controlling for their autoregressive effects. The study identifies statistically significant and unique contributions of character reading and listening comprehension to reading comprehension; further, it finds reciprocal relationships between reading comprehension and its componential processes. Moreover, the two componential processes themselves are significantly related across grades 4 and 5. Apart from supporting the predictive influence of character reading and listening comprehension on reading comprehension, the findings of this study reveal how Chinese language comprehension and literacy development are interrelated in young CSL learners.