Children of same-sex parents: in and out of the closet

An estimated 14 million children are parented by gay or lesbian couples. Research indicates that children of same-sex parents are as well adjusted as their peers of opposite-sex parents. However, previous research has yet to examine how these youth negotiate their own process of coming out about their families to others. We sought to identify the patterns, issues and themes that recur in the coming out process of these youth. Recommendations for school personnel are described.     

Exploring student beliefs and understanding in elementary science and mathematics

This study had the goal of investigating the association among elementary students' (N = 276) science and math beliefs and the relationship between those beliefs and teachers' ratings of mathematical and science understanding. Results of structural path analysis indicate that in science, intellectual risk‐taking (IRT; the willingness to share tentative ideas, ask questions, attempting to do, and learn new things) was positively related to teachers' ratings of science understanding, while creative self‐efficacy (CSE) beliefs (i.e., students' confidence in their ability to generate ideas and solutions in science) were indirectly related (working through IRT). Results also indicate that students' scientific certainty beliefs (i.e., the belief that science knowledge is stable, fixed, and represented by correct answers) were negatively related to teachers' ratings of science understanding. With respect to math, results indicate that students' CSE beliefs were positively related to teachers' ratings of math understanding; whereas students' mathematical source beliefs (i.e., believing that math knowledge originates from external sources) were negatively related. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 942–960, 2012     

Bodies as objects of pedagogic power relations

This paper is based on a study titled ‘Enacting Feminisms in Academia’, which engaged five feminist lecturers teaching English at five different multilingual universities in Southern Africa. The study explored: (1) the complexity of sociolinguistic and feminist identity construction in multilingual seascapes, and by extension (2) how feminist educators' interpretation and enactment of their personal world-view informs their language teaching in terms of what they teach, how they teach, and why they teach what they do. The participants who hail from a diverse range of ideological landscapes were identified either by themselves or others as feminist teachers. Through a suite of data sources which comprised autobiographical essays, interviews and lecture observations, this paper explores how the female teacher's educative and pedagogic expertise and interactions are framed in relation to her race, gender, and age. Accepting the fluidity and complexity of identity positionalities, the paper explores the identity constructions of the feminist teachers in their communities of practice.     

Fostering Data Literacy Through Preservice Teacher Inquiry in English Language Arts

Data literate educators can generate questions about learning in their classes; collect and analyze classroom data to answer them; and develop inferences and explanations. Two elements may promote data literacy: (a) breadth of classroom-based data collection and (b) depth of analysis. We examined these in inquiries conducted by 80 preservice teachers of secondary English in diverse classrooms over a 6-year period. Analyzing products, processes, and self-reports, we found inquiries evidenced a range in breadth of data collection and depth of analysis. Qualitative themes and two cases illustrate data analysis processes and challenges of pattern finding, initially crude analyses in striving for depth, and the need for data literacy mentoring.     

“Talking things through”; and “putting it in writing”;: Two codes of communication in an academic institution

This study is an interpretive ethnography based on participant observation over a two‐year period of time as members of one academic institution responded to a Board of Trustees’ mandate to revise the system of governance. Two communication codes were identified in faculty and administration subcultures of this institution. The code of “collegiality,”; used by members of the faculty subculture, valued “talking things through,”; because this channel of communication best affirmed the individual self and facilitated personal and egalitarian relations among organizational members. The code of “professional management,”; used by members of the administration subculture, privileged “putting it in writing,”; because written codification best insured the rights and responsibilities of organizational members.     

Biological Sensitivity to Context: The Interactive Effects of Stress Reactivity and Family Adversity on Socioemotional Behavior and School Readiness

This study examined the direct and interactive effects of stress reactivity and family adversity on socioemotional and cognitive development in three hundred and thirty-eight 5- to 6-year-old children. Neurobiological stress reactivity was measured as respiratory sinus arrhythmia and salivary cortisol responses to social, cognitive, sensory, and emotional challenges. Adaptation was assessed using child, parent, and teacher reports of externalizing symptoms, prosocial behaviors, school engagement, and academic competence. Results revealed significant interactions between reactivity and adversity. High stress reactivity was associated with more maladaptive outcomes in the context of high adversity but with better adaption in the context of low adversity. The findings corroborate a reconceptualization of stress reactivity as biological sensitivity to context by showing that high reactivity can both hinder and promote adaptive functioning.     

Transitional Spaces: Mapping Physical Change

Museums and buildings are both considered immutable by the majority of people who use them. A small team from Goldsmiths College, the V&A+RIBA Architecture Partnership and Pimlico School set out to challenge this preconception. The Victoria & Albert museum was taken as a case study to investigate how buildings are a physical manifestation of an institute, and how their physical presence records the way the museum has to respond to outside criteria, from government funding strategies to cultural trends. This article puts forward the argument that a museum building as a subject is a constantly changing environment, through which young learners can develop their historical imagination and critical abilities. It describes the process and findings from a project carried out with students from Pimlico School, who were asked to find and respond to evidence in the fabric of the V&A museum buildings of the substantial physical changes that it is currently undergoing. By choosing specific sites, the students put together a series of PDA‐based threads to describe and archive different narratives about the museum at the moment of their mapping. These are made for future visitors to see, hear and compare the museum environment they are experiencing with the one that the students recorded.     

Measuring Progress: an Evaluative Study of Aimhigher South West 2003–2006

The persistence of the social class gap in higher education (HE) participation presents one of the biggest challenges for the English HE sector at the start of the 21st century. This paper considers the evidence collected by the Aimhigher partnerships in the South West of England to assess the progress towards closing the social class gap in HE participation within their region. Since Aimhigher is a complex, long‐term initiative, these partnerships have adopted a multi‐strand approach to evaluation through a combination of secondary data, activity and quality indicators, and a longitudinal tracking study. Encouragingly, the social class gap is beginning to narrow as the number of applicants from upper social groups has fallen slightly while those from other social groups increased by 25 per cent between 2000 and 2004. HE awareness, aspirations, attainment and educational progression are also increasing. The paper raises three policy issues concerning targeting, sustainability and vocational progression. Engaging the ‘right’ beneficiaries remains a key concern. The tracking study indicates that, although over 80 per cent of Aimhigher beneficiaries have the ability to progress to HE and would be first‐generation entrants, only one in three comes from a manual background. The findings, however, indicate that compared with their peers whose parents have HE experience, these first‐generation entrants were less well informed about HE, less likely to aspire to HE by year 11, to progress to level 3 or to study A‐levels. These findings suggest that the focus on first‐generation entrants remains appropriate. Second, although wider participation in HE is beginning to happen, there is still a long way to go. Sustaining the Aimhigher programme into at least the medium term is essential if it is to complete the work it has begun and maintain the trust of the communities within which it works. Finally, the paper finds that the Aimhigher cohort includes learners who want to take a vocational route into and through HE and who are at present less well served by current provision.