Creating a Climate of Self-Awareness in Early Childhood Teacher Preparation Programs

This article discusses the importance of helping preservice teachers develop a sense of self-awareness. This involves, in part, helping preservice teachers develop an ability to examine and identify the personal characteristics, beliefs and attitudes that make them who they are and influence the way they think about teaching and learning. The authors offer several suggestions for creating a climate in teacher education programs that will promote a developing sense of self-awareness in preservice teachers.     

Sex and Social Class Inequalities in Education: a re‐examination

Fifteen years ago attention was drawn to the neglect of sex differences in the sociology of education, and to ways in which social class differences in attainment could not ignore these sex differences. The original propositions concerning these differences are re‐examined and expanded in a neo‐Weberian analysis of the work‐marriage, class‐status, education complex, and considered in relation to the available empirical evidence. The alternative feminist‐Marxist approaches are found to be incompatible with the evidence of sex and social class differences in non‐capitalist societies.     

Organisational Change in Secondary Schools: an action approach

A longitudinal study of a sample of secondary schools has shown that over a period of ten years there have been changes in grouping practices, an expansion of examination opportunities, and a tightening of the control of school work. The prefectorial system has a reduced importance and has been deritualised, as has the school assembly. There is less sex differentiation of pupils’ school work and behaviour. These changes are explained using an action approach derived principally from Weber, concerned with the social construction of school organisation, whch is briefly compared to other possible explanations.     

Evolving journal costs: implications for publishers,libraries, and readers

In this article, we summarize the cost implications of print and electronic publishing for scientific scholarly journal publishers, libraries, and scientists. In each case, we developed detailed cost models to demonstrate the importance of factors that affect publishing and decisions made by libraries and scientists to determine whether to subscribe to a journal; if so, in print or electronic medium, and, if not, what alternative information sources to use. In all instances, estimates of unit cost are essential for understanding the dynamics of the economic and systemic interdependencies of publishers, libraries, and readers.     

Young Children, Questions and Nonfiction Books

This article discusses the use of nonfiction as a powerful antecedent for success in the types of reading required later on in the intermediate grades. Recent trends in informational (nonfiction) books, values of bringing together young children, and informational books and criteria for selecting high quality informational books are identified. Several question types are highlighted and incorporated into three strategies for bringing together young children, informational books, and questions. Also, a bibliography of high quality informational books is provided.     

Variations in article seeking and reading patterns of academics: What makes a difference?

Although scholarly articles play an important role in the work life of academics, specific patterns of seeking and reading scholarly articles vary. Subject discipline of the reader influences many patterns, including amount of reading, format of reading, and average time spent per reading. Faculty members in different disciplines exhibit quite distinct patterns of reading. Medical/health faculty read more than others and mainly for current awareness purposes, while engineering faculty spend more time on average per article reading, and they also read more for research. Other factors that influence some reading patterns include work responsibilities (weighted towards more teaching or more research), age (young faculty are more likely to read on-screen from the open Web) and productivity of the reader, and purpose of the reading (readings for research and writing are more likely to be from a library collection). The ability to predict scholarly article seeking and reading patterns will assist journal editors, publishers, and librarians design better, more targeted journal systems and services.     

Changing cognitions in parents of two‐year‐olds attending Scottish Sure Start centres

The study examined how preschool intervention programmes set up by three Scottish local authorities changed parents’ cognitions. Quantitative parent outcomes were measured using Parenting Daily Hassles Scales (N = 88). A matched comparison group of parents (N = 55) recruited from the same areas of disadvantage but whose children did not attend the intervention programmes also completed questionnaires. Qualitative outcomes were evaluated using semi‐structured interviews (N = 30). A significant group × time interaction effect was found for daily hassle cognitions, Parenting Task–Intensity, Challenging Behaviour–Frequency and Challenging Behaviour–Intensity, with comparison group parents showing an increase in their experience of hassles during the ‘terrible twos’ compared with intervention group parents. Complementary qualitative data indicated that intervention group parents had gained valuable new insights into their children’s behaviour, changing how they thought about their role as parents and their behavioural and developmental expectations of their children. Implications for parental engagement in preschool programmes are discussed.     

Disability in higher education: a position paper

Leadership in education, particularly special education, implies both knowledge and application of professional behaviors, decisions, and ethics within the field. University students look for best practices in education to be modeled by faculty; this, in turn, underscores a fundamental belief in inclusionary principles. Such modeling is important on every level in teacher education programs, particularly special education programs. The higher a student's level (i.e., undergraduate vs. doctoral), the more notice that student will take of disparities between rhetoric and actions. While reflective practices are explicitly taught in teacher preparation programs to enable professionals to reflect on their own personal and professional practices, teacher education faculty need to employ the same strategy to ensure that they are indeed modeling the practices they teach. This position paper documents the impressions of a doctoral cohort in special education in terms of inclusionary practices demonstrated in a real-life context.