Needs or rights? A challenge to the discourse of special education

It is nearly 30 years since Mary Warnock's Report of the Committee of Enquiry into the Education of Handicapped Children and Young People introduced the phrase ‘special educational needs’ into the UK education system. In this article, Katherine Runswick‐Cole, Research Associate at Manchester Metropolitan University, and Nick Hodge, Principal Lecturer in Research Development at Sheffield Hallam University, argue for the abandonment of the ‘special needs’ discourse, claiming that it has, in fact, led to exclusionary practices within education. Building on the work of early years educators in Reggio Emilia schools in Northern Italy, the authors advocate for the adoption of the phrase ‘educational rights’ and suggest that the positive impact of such a linguistic turn would be significant for the lives of young people currently described as having ‘special educational needs’ and for children's rights.     

Mentoring Matters: An Exploratory Survey of Educational Leadership Doctoral Students’ Perspectives

There is limited research on quantitative differences between men and women’s experiences in doctoral programs. We aim to fill that gap by sharing findings from a web-based exploratory survey of perceived gender differences on quality mentoring in educational leadership doctoral programs. According to survey results, there is limited statistical significance in terms of gender differences in programmatic supports and scholarly progress. However, women experience feelings of self-doubt due to negative experiences with advising and mentoring, including difficulties making connections to a quality mentor. Furthermore, both female and male participants shared common definitions of what constitutes quality mentorship and believed mentorship was important, but lacking in varying degrees. Finally, all participants agreed that their educational leadership preparation programs should provide additional support in terms of writing and research development. Participants also shared important recommendations for strengthening mentoring experiences as well as future research methods and foci.     

Synergy Between Teacher Practices and Curricular Scaffolds to Support Students in Using Domain-Specific and Domain-General Knowledge in Writing Arguments to Explain Phenomena

We investigated how 2 different curricular scaffolds (context-specific vs. generic), teacher instructional practices, and the interaction between these 2 types of support influenced students' learning of science content and their ability to write scientific arguments to explain phenomena. The context-specific scaffolds provided students with hints about the task and what content knowledge to use in or incorporate into their writing. The generic scaffolds supported students in understanding a general framework (i.e., claim, evidence, and reasoning) regardless of the content area or task. This study focused on an 8-week middle school chemistry curriculum that was enacted by 6 teachers with 578 students during the 2004–2005 school year. Analyses of identical pre- and posttests as well as videotapes of teacher enactments revealed that the curricular scaffolds and teacher instructional practices were synergistic in that the effect of the written curricular scaffolds depended on the teacher's enactment of the curriculum. The context-specific curricular scaffolds were more successful in supporting students in writing scientific arguments to explain phenomena, but only when teachers' enactments provided explicit domain-general support for the claim, evidence, and reasoning framework, suggesting the importance of both types of support in successful learning environments.     

Reviews

The Development of Scientific Thinking Skills. Deanna Kuhn, Eric Amsel, and Michael O'Loughlin, Academic Press, 1988. 249 pp.

Understanding the Representational Mind, Josef Perner, MIT Press, 1991. 348 pp.

Literacy as Involvement: The Acts of Writers and Readers, and Texts. Deborah Brandt. Carbondaie: Southern Illinois, 1990. 159 pp.

Dialogue, Dialectic, and Conversation: A Social Perspective on the Function of Writing. Gregory Clark. Carbondale: Southern Illinois, 1990. 93 pp.

Hypermedia and Literary Studies. Ed. Paul Delany and George P. Landow. Cambridge: MIT P, 1991. 352 pp.

Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing. Jay David Bolter. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1991. 258 pp. Also from Erlbaum, Writing Space: A Hypertext for Macintosh.

Writing and Speaking in Business. Gretchen N. Vik, Clyde W. Wilkinson, and Dorothy C. Wilkinson. 10th ed. Homewood: Irwin, 1990. 636 pp.

Communication for Management and Business. Norman B. Sigband and Arthur H. Bell. 5th ed. Glenview: Scott, 1989. 783 pp.

Business Communication Today. Courtland L. Bovee and John V. Thill. 2nd ed. New York: Random, 1989. 680 pp.

Guidelines for Preparing Proposals: A Manual on How to Organize Winning Proposals. Roy Meador. Chelsea: Lewis, 1985. 116 pp.     

Fostering Supportive Teacher–Child Relationships: Intervention Implementation in a State-Funded Preschool Program

Research Findings: Banking Time is a set of techniques designed to promote positive, supportive relationships through 1-on-1 interactions between teachers and children. Web-based training resources were made available to 252 preschool teachers who received different levels of support as a component of a professional development intervention, and the purpose of this study was to examine teachers' implementation of Banking Time. Teachers with greater levels of professional development support were more likely to implement Banking Time with children in their classes. Teachers were more likely to choose to implement Banking Time with children who had lower social-emotional skills (e.g., more problem behaviors). Teachers developed greater relational closeness with children who participated in Banking Time than with children who did not participate. Practice or Policy: The implications of these preliminary findings for fostering supportive teacher–child relationships are discussed.     

Independent Study and Project Work: Continuities or discontinuities

This paper raises the issue of whether there are continuities between independent study and project work, or whether there are fundamental differences between these pedagogic strategies. The paper provides a comparative evaluation of a number of published commentaries on the nature of independent study and project work. It identifies different positions in relation to this issue of continuity or difference. The paper also reviews four well established independent study degrees in the UK, in order to identify both common and different features in organisation and practice. These accounts provide the basis for a review of three existing models of independent study and project work. A new, extended and more detailed dimensional model is then developed, proposing that differences are primarily a matter of degree. The value of the new model for curriculum development principally in relation to project work, is then outlined.