Situating teacher inquiry: a micropolitical perspective

Professional learning communities (PLCs) have become a popular strategy in various forms (e.g., data teams, grade-level teams) and with various champions (e.g., district leaders, university researchers, teacher advocates). Although well-implemented PLCs have been shown to distribute leadership, the tension between democratic inquiry processes and the demands of accountability remain understudied. This study asks how teacher inquiry is situated within conflicting school priorities and the impact of competing power structures on PLCs through a case study of a teacher inquiry initiative at 6 urban elementary and middle schools in the US. Data were collected over 3 years of PLC implementation. District officials, principals, reform coaches, and teachers at each setting participated in more than 300 interviews, regular site visits, and annual teacher surveys. The influences of power structures – such as district mandates, accountability pressures, and principal leadership – emerged as strong themes in teacher narratives of what it means to “do” inquiry in their PLCs.     

Facebook,crowdsourcing and the transition to college

The purpose of this study is to enhance our understanding of how college students connect online prior to their first year. Before students ever set foot on a college campus, they are making friends, joining clubs, locating activities, finding roommates and discussing future student activities all through the social network site, Facebook. Anticipatory socialisation theory frames this research to focus on the social, academic and career aspects of the transition. A case study approach and content analysis methodology sought to better understand frequent topics and themes for pre-college students. The primary foci of the pre-college Facebook interactions were connectivity and commonality among new students. An unintended finding was the discovery of crowdsourcing on post-secondary social media sites. Crowdsourcing taps into the collective intelligence of the public to complete tasks that an organisation would normally either perform itself or contract to a third-party provider; hence, outsourcing to a crowd. In this case, the crowd is comprised of pre-college students about to start their first year of post-secondary education.     

Comparative Studies and 'Cross-National Attraction' in Education: A typology for the analysis of English interest in educational policy and provision in Germany

This paper describes a 'structural typology' to assist in the analysis of ways in which policy-makers in one country explore educational provision in another and seek to 'borrow' from it. In this analysis we look specifically at England's 'cross-national attraction' to education in Germany over the past 200 years. The paper aims to provide an analytical programme to use in comparative education and to facilitate exploration of the importance of context in shaping educational phenomena.     

What do you recommend? Implementation and analyses of collaborative information filtering of web resources for education

This article examines results from one pilotstudy and two empirical studies of acollaborative filtering (CF) system applied ineducational settings. CF is a populartechnology in electronic commerce, whichleverages the interests of entire communitiesto provide targeted, personalizedrecommendations of interesting products orresources to individuals. In electroniccommerce, entertainment, and related domains,CF has proven an accurate and reliable tool;yet educational applications remain limited.From analyses of data from these three studies,we believe that CF holds promise in educationnot only for the purposes of helping learnersand educators find useful resources forlearning, but as a means of bringing togetherpeople with similar interests and beliefs, andpossibly as an aid to the learning processitself.     

Vicarious racism: a qualitative analysis of experiences with secondhand racism in graduate education

In this article, the authors examine the role of vicarious racism in the experiences of doctoral students of color. The researchers conducted semi-structured individual interviews with 26 doctoral students who self-reported experiencing racism and racial trauma during their doctoral studies. The analysis generated four themes that detail the different ways in which doctoral students of color in the study experienced vicarious racism and the consequences of this secondhand racism. These themes are (a) observed racism, (b) trickledown racism, (c) normalization of racism, and (d) racial resistance. The article concludes with implications for future research and practice.     

E.T.外星人--鲜为人知的10件事

Remember the first time you saw E. T. The Extra-Terrestrial? Did you cry? Spend the next month telling your nearest and dearest to "phone home" in your best E. T. voice?We've got a slew(许多,大量) of facts and figures to get you up to speed on everything E. T. And don' t worry, we won' t tell anyone we saw you crying in the theater.     

Light and shadows: Appreciative inquiry,communication ethics literacy,and the opioid epidemic

This study explores the interrelationship between Cooperrider’s (Barrett &; Cooperrider, 1990) appreciative inquiry (AI) and Arnett, Fritz, and Bell’s (2009 Arnett, R. C., Fritz, J. M. H., &; Bell, L. M. (2009). Communication ethics literacy: Dialogue and difference. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. [Google Scholar]) communication ethics literacy (CEL) through interviews with professionals struggling with a mid-Atlantic city’s opioid epidemic. Findings suggest that AI can pinpoint the “light” groups protect and promote, while CEL can clarify “shadows” hindering AI implementations and propose communicative practices to strengthen those goods.     

Introduction: From digital dirt road to educational expressway: Innovations in web-based pedagogy

Instructional Science -     

Developmental and individual differences in girls' sex-typed activities in middle childhood and adolescence

Girls' time in sex-typed leisure activities was studied across 2 years in middle childhood ( n =98, M =8.2 years in Year 1), early adolescence ( n =106, M =11.7 years), and middle adolescence ( n =86, M =14.9 years). In annual home interviews, White middle-class girls, mothers, and fathers rated their gendered attitudes, interests, and personality qualities, and saliva samples were used to assess testosterone; activity data were collected in 7 nightly phone interviews. Girls spent more time in feminine than masculine activities except in early adolescence. Girls' and parents' personalities and interests predicted sex-typed activities at each developmental period, but associations between testosterone and activities emerged only in middle childhood.     

The Relationship of Gender and Academic Performance to Motivation: Within-Ethnic-Group Variations

In contemporary psychology more within-group examinations of psychological phenomena are needed, especially in ethnic minority populations. This paper presents the findings of three separate studies of the relationship of GPA and gender to motivation, all of which are within ethnic group comparisons. One study is conducted with African-Americans, the second with Hispanic-Americans, and the third with Euro-Americans. The instruments used are the Assessment of Academic Self-Concept and Motivation and Assessment of Personal Agency Beliefs. Both measures provide a goal-focused, multidimensional, and comprehensive assessment of motivation. MANOVAs and subsequent ANOVAs are presented for each ethnic group. The findings reveal significant within-group differences that also vary from one ethnic group to another.