Issues in secondary teacher preparation

As teacher educators who have had extensive experience working in the field‐based secondary programs of two universities, the authors recognize the benefits, as well as the challenges, of forming partnerships with secondary educators to design and deliver collaboratively the teacher preparation program. In this article, experiences are shared and some of the major issues related to secondary teacher preparation that have been identified and contemplated are discussed.     

Making policy with ‘good ideas’: policy networks and the ‘intellectuals’ of New Labour

The educational reforms being enacted in Singapore can be considered exceptional in that they are being undertaken within a highly effective system. We explore these reforms using Brown and Lauder's ideal-typical analysis of ‘neo-Fordist’ and ‘post-Fordist’ models of national economic development. Singapore's reforms have been extensive, ranging from changes to early childhood education through to tertiary education. We examine the nature of state-market relations in education within the context of Singapore's ‘soft authoritarian’ political culture and assess the chances of success of the reforms.     

Need for Orientation and Third-Person Effects of the Televised Debates in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

The televised debates in the 2016 presidential election took place between two controversial candidates, Hillary Clinton and her opponent, Donald Trump, who faced a deeply divided electorate of highly opinioned voters that had already decided on their supported candidates. How did viewing the debates influence them? Would the debates reinforce their existing opinion, or provide them with useful information about the candidates? Drawing on Davison’s third-person effect hypothesis, this study aims to shed light on the question of how viewing the debates influences voters relative to others in the era of social media. The study focuses on the need for orientation as a predictor of debate exposure and the behavioral consequences of debate exposure for electoral engagement on social media. Findings show that partisans are not impacted by viewing the debates, but respondents perceived Independents to be most vulnerable. Further, need for orientation moderated the relationship between debate exposure and perceived effects of the debates on self, which prompted respondents to mobilize support for the candidate of their choice and to vote for their supported candidates.     

Developmental Differences in Memory During Early Childhood: Insights From Event‐Related Potentials

Age‐related differences in behavioral and electrophysiological indices of memory were examined in 3‐ to 6‐year‐old children (N = 76). Behaviorally, no differences were observed in children's ability to identify old items; however, 3‐year‐old children were less accurate in correctly rejecting new items, and 3‐ and 4‐year‐old children recalled fewer contextual details compared to 5‐ and 6‐year‐old children. Age‐related differences in electrophysiological measures (800–1,000 ms after stimulus onset) were observed both to items recalled with contextual details, which increased between 3 and 4 years, and items recalled without contextual details, which were greatest in 5‐year‐old children, even after adjusting for global age‐related differences. These findings, interpreted within a dual‐process framework, may suggest changes in both recollection and familiarity processes during early childhood.