Informing Culturally Competent Practice Through Cross-Racial Friendships

International and interdisciplinary literature on cross-racial friendships is critically reviewed as a source of relevant and provocative data for counselling professionals dedicated to multiculturalism. The authors discuss the dynamics of cross-racial friendships and implications for counsellors. Using practical examples grounded by interdisciplinary literature, the authors expand discussions about racism within the counselling profession.     

Training reading and phoneme awareness skills in children with Down syndrome

The authors report a short-term reading intervention study involving 15 children with Down syndrome (DS) who attended mainstream schools. The intervention programme taught children phoneme segmentation and blending skills in the context of learning letter-sounds and working with words in books. The children were taught by their learning support assistants, who received special training for this purpose. Compared to a waiting group, a group of eight children with DS improved significantly on measures of early literacy skills (letter-sound knowledge, Early Word Recognition) following eight weeks of intervention. The waiting group started to make progress once they received the intervention. Both groups maintained progress on the literacy measures five months after the intervention had finished. The results suggest that children with DS can benefit from structured, phonics-based reading intervention.     

在企业培训中克服E-Learning障碍

E-Learning的时代到来了,教室将要永远消失了！每个人都将热火朝天地使用我们的网站学习门户网站和学习管理系统进行学习。虚拟教室,桌面会议系统,2417(①)等都将纷纷来临……”关于E-Learning的错误看法到处都是！     

Description of Environmental Factors in Schools: Lessons from a Study in North–West Spain

The objective of this study is to offer a view on the different environmental factors that affect health (sound, light, colour, temperature) in the design, planning and organization of school premises. To achieve this, the authors first outline the problems leading to unhealthy situations. They subsequently analyse all the building and planning factors behind those problems based on a study carried out in the Autonomous Community of Galicia, in the north west of Spain. The study took as its subject all secondary-level education centres built in Galicia since the Spanish Basic Act on the Educational System (LOGSE) was passed by the Spanish Parliament in 1990. To conclude, the article offers a number of guidelines to be taken into account when designing a school environment.     

Birth stories: a way of knowing in childbirth education

Birth stories have a lasting impact on expectant mothers. The purpose of this paper is to recognize the influence of birth stories as a key component of informal communication of knowledge about childbirth for expectant mothers. The review of literature and research is related to childbirth education, anthropological thinking, and applied learning theory with foundational concepts from Vygotsky, Bruner, and Bandura. Implications for childbirth educators are included.     

Lesbian,gay, bisexual,and transgender college students with disabilities: A look at multiple cultural minorities

College students with disabilities who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) represent diverse cultural minorities with multiple service needs involving disabilities, identities, and adjustment strategies. These students are usually accommodated in the college environment because of their disability while simultaneously marginalized based on their sexual orientation. This article discusses LGBT college students with disabilities as multiple cultural minorities with a focus on educational environments, institutional issues, and strategies for university personnel. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

How and why the CAUT became involved in collective bargaining

Despite a persistent belief to the contrary, most Canadian universities prior to the 1960s did not operate collegially. They were run autocratically. Collective bargaining arose as a means of ensuring true collegiality through negotiations between equals, legally entrenching due process and academic freedom, and providing a clearer and stronger mechanism for dealing with salaries and benefits. This was a revolution from below in the governance of universities. Although the sixties are widely regarded as the age of student revolt, in Canada it was the faculty, not the students, who secured a dramatic change in the power structure of the university through collective bargaining.     

Exploring the social inclusion of deaf young people in mainstream schools,using their lived experience

Research suggests that children with hearing loss face a number of difficulties in the education system, including socially. Although there has been much research with the severe to profound deaf population there has been little research into the life experiences of children with moderate hearing loss who attend mainstream secondary schools. This research sought to examine the experiences of social inclusion for five young people with moderate hearing loss. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews in the young person’s school setting and were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Although each participant had distinctive experiences, there were a number of common themes that emerged indicating the factors that support social inclusion and those which create barriers for deaf children in schools. Implications for educational psychologists are considered and the limitations of the research are outlined.