‘Snapped’: researching the sexual cultures of schools using visual methods

Visual methods are often marginalised in educational research and have not been employed to collect information about sexuality at school. This paper examines the viability and effectiveness of conducting research about the ‘sexual cultures’ of schools in New Zealand using photo‐diaries and photo‐elicitation. ‘Effectiveness’ is judged by what the visual methodologies literature purports are the benefits of these methods. These advantages include providing participants with greater autonomy over what and how data is collected. The paper argues it is feasible to employ visual methods to research sexuality in schools. Such methods offer participants alternative means of recounting their stories, can help illuminate an esoteric object of investigation like ‘sexual cultures’ and engage participants less likely to volunteer for sexuality research. The use of visual methods is not without challenges however. Securing ethics approval and school participation along with problems with camera retrieval and protecting participant agency were some difficulties encountered in the current study. For those wishing to pursue less conventional research methodologies in educational settings, this discussion highlights potential benefits and struggles.     

Girls' portraits of desire: picturing a missing discourse

This paper revisits the missing discourse of female desire [Fine, M. 1988. Sexuality, schooling and adolescent females: The missing discourse of desire. Harvard Educational Review 58, no. 1: 29–53] in secondary schools. Instead of echoing previous studies that have documented how female desire is missing, this research starts from the premise that female desire is an everyday (unofficial) presence at school. Through photo-diaries and photo-elicitation, this paper attempts to materialise [Butler, J. 1993. Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of ‘sex’. New York: Routledge] female desire to literally ‘see it’ through young women's own eyes. In articulation with feminist debates around young women's exercise of agency, it argues that in relation to female sexual desire, this may look different from what we expect. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari [2004. Anti-oedipus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Trans. B. Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press], it explores how ruptures to normative female desire are constantly reterritorialised and subsequently more ‘frustrated’ than claims of easily perceptible change. In this way, it seeks to add to a more nuanced and complex theorisation of female desire at school, rather than only as an absence or a problem.     

First names and popularity in grade school children

The relationship between first name desirability and popularity was studied using 780 boys and 768 girls from six elementary schools. Girls' popularity, as demonstrated by positive sociometric choices, was significantly related to the desirability of their first names. There is also a slight indication that boys' popularity with girls was influenced by the boys' first names. Sociometric rejections were not related to first name desirability for either boys or girls. The findings for girls remained significant when the effects of parental education and ethnicity were partialled out; the single finding for boys did not.     

How Quality of Writing Instruction Impacts High-risk Fourth Graders’ Writing

From a larger longitudinal study of 610 fourth graders in 17 inner city schools, 40 students were randomly selected from 10 classrooms rated high (i.e., top quartile) or low (i.e., bottom quartile) in quality of writing instruction in grades 3 and 4. The written compositions of these students were scored in three ways: (1) according to a rating scale within a reliable scoring rubric, (2) according to countable surface features such as words correctly sequenced, and (3) according to the frequency of specific phonological, morphosyntactic, and orthographic errors in the children’s writing. A multivariate analysis of variance was conducted to examine whether quality of writing instruction in grades 3 and 4 predicted students’ writing performance at the end of grade 4. Students who received high quality instruction in fourth grade wrote longer compositions with more correctly spelled words than those who had poor quality writing instruction. There was a tendency for two years of quality instruction to be better than one, and, among students who had poor quality instruction in grade 3, compositions were longer in grade 4 when they received quality instruction in fourth grade. Foundational problems of language formulation, production and representation, however, were ubiquitous across the sample. Although these students were within the average range on standardized reading tests, spelling and writing were not developing at average levels. The study confirms the urgent need for more and better writing instruction for high risk, minority children.     

The necessity of the alphabetic principle to phonemic awareness instruction

This investigation examined the extent to whichcurricular choice and incorporation of phonemicawareness (PA) into the kindergarten curriculumaffects growth in kindergarten literacy skillsand first-grade reading and spelling outcomesin 114 classrooms in 32 Title 1 schools for4,872 children (85% African American). Literacy curricula were described as havingmore or less teacher choice and more or less PAand were implemented with ongoing professionaldevelopment. Observations of curriculumfidelities and ratings of student behavior werealso obtained. Alphabetic instruction withoutPA was not as effective as alphabeticinstruction with PA. However, effectiveinstruction in PA and alphabetic codingappeared to be as much a consequence of ongoingprofessional development as it was a functionof prescribed PA activities. Results providelarge-scale classroom support for findings onPA reported by the National Reading Panel[(2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-basedassessment of the scientific research literature onreading and its implications for reading instruction.Washington, DC: National Institute of Child Health andHuman Development].     

Poles apart? Gender differences in proposals for sexuality education content

Are young women and men’s preferences for sexuality education content poles apart? This article explores gender differences in senior school students’ suggestions for issues sexuality education should cover. Findings are analysed in relation to debate about mixed and single sex classrooms and boys’ perceived disinterest in lessons. It is argued that young women and men’s content preferences were largely similar on items that a majority selected for inclusion. Topics less than half of participants named revealed a greater number of gender differences. Employing theoretical insights from feminist post‐structuralism, responses are also examined for how they position young people as sexual subjects and whether these conform to or deviate from perceptions of ‘conventional heterosexualities’. This examination enables an understanding of how young people view themselves as sexual and whether this matches their constitution within sexuality programmes. The implications of students’ content preferences and the way these position them as sexual subjects are considered for the possibilities they present for programme design and delivery.     

Children's literature for the gifted elementary school child

Long range planning for the gifted should not be limited to our present education systems. Today's educational structures do not provide the best opportunities for these youngsters.     

‘Say everything’: exploring young people's suggestions for improving sexuality education

This paper examines the recent controversies surrounding the decision to introduce sex education in secondary schools in India to combat the rapid spread of HIV and AIDS in the country. While 11 Indian states have banned it, the Left-ruled state of West Bengal has designed a teachers' manual to impart sex education. However, a close analysis of this material shows that it suffers from the same anxieties about ‘western licentiousness’ that will affect ‘pure’ Indian youth and delivers the same message of sexual abstinence that characterizes the arguments deployed against the teaching of sex education. Both the proponents and opponents of sex education see sex education as a part of a larger programme of globalization that is threatening Indian culture and needs to be resisted either by rejecting the programme or by using it to construct a sexually abstinent nationalist youth force.