Perceived experiences with sexism among adolescent girls

This study investigated predictors of adolescent girls' experiences with sexism and feminism. Girls ( N = 600; M = 15.1 years, range = 12–18), of varied socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, completed surveys of personal experiences with sexual harassment, academic sexism (regarding science, math, and computer technology), and athletics. Most girls reported sexual harassment (90%), academic sexism (52%), and athletic sexism (76%) at least once, with likelihood increasing with age. Socialization influences and individual factors, however, influenced likelihood of all three forms of sexism. Specifically, learning about feminism and gender-conformity pressures were linked to higher perceptions of sexism. Furthermore, girls' social gender identity (i.e., perceived gender typicality and gender-role contentedness) and gender-egalitarian attitudes were related to perceived sexism.     

Food as a contextual cue in counterconditioning experiments: Is there a counterconditioning process?

In three experiments, counterconditioning was found to reduce fear less effectively than extinction. In Experiments 1 and 2, the resistance to extinction of avoidance was greater if food was given during extinction of fear to the CS than if no food was given, even when exposure to the CS and numbers of food and no food confinement trials were equated. It is suggested that these results could be attributed to contextual control of fear extinction by the food cue and/or to frustration produced by removing food for the counterconditioning group. Experiment 3 also found counterconditioning to be less effective than extinction and provided evidence that this difference occurs because of contextual control of fear extinction by the food cue. Measuring conditioned suppression of licking, in a test with no food present, less fear was shown if no food had been present during fear extinction, and greater fear was shown if no food had been present during fear conditioning. These results indicate that food is an important part of the context controlling fear and fear extinction. It is suggested that there may be no unique counterconditioning process. Rather, when counterconditioning procedures are employed, rules governing interference paradigms in general may apply. Thus, in a test for fear following counterconditioning, fear will be shown to the extent the test situation is similar to that in which fear conditioning occurred rather than that in which fear reduction occurred.     

Changing the Learning Environment to Enhance Explaining and Understanding in a Year 12 Chemistry Classroom

Internationally there is concern in relation to the traditional learning environments evident in many science classrooms and the levels of understanding of science developed by students in such environments. Further, students have generally been found to be poor in relation to thinking in terms of models or theories and in terms of evidence to support their theories. The majority of research on classroom environments has focused on characterising the learning environment in classrooms rather than monitoring changes to a class's or an individual's perceptions to their learning environments as a consequence of interventions. This study reports an attempt to change the learning environment in a classroom and documents changes in participants' perceptions of their learning environments and the corresponding changes in a teacher's and her students' perceptions of their reasoning and understanding that such changes facilitated. A community of learners in which students and teachers began to understand the processes and the value of reasoning in terms of theories and evidence was developed as a result of the involvement of the researchers with the teacher and her class of students. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Telecommunications and an Alternative Practicum: collaborative entrepreneurship in teacher education

ABSTRACT

As in many schools of education, the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta has initiated a number of collaborative projects with partnership schools in an attempt to remove the gap between the traditional, university‐based component of practicum courses, and the practice of the school‐based component. One model, described in this paper, uses telecommunications technology to deliver field‐based experiences. Technology‐based, inter‐institutional collaborative projects contain elements of innovation, that are usually managed with reference to change strategy processes described by Fullan (1982), Havelock (1973), Rogers (1983, 1986) ‐and others. However, these processes take time and planning and may actually mitigate against adoption and implementation of rapidly evolving technologies. In this paper, we argue that telecommunications technology‐based, collaboratively developed models of teacher education may be better served by entrepreneurial thinking than by carefully planned change strategies. One such project is described from initiation through implementation, and components of entrepreneurial partnering are suggested.     

Investigating young children’s human figure drawings using Rasch analysis

The Goodenough–Harris Drawing Test (GHDT) is a non-verbal assessment designed to infer young children’s levels of intellectual development and understanding via the collection of three human figure drawings (HFDs) – one each of a man, a woman and a self-portrait. This paper presents findings from a research project that applied the Rasch model for measurement to HFDs collected from 246 children aged between 4 and 10 years to assess the psychometric properties of the GHDT assessment, and young children’s HFDs in general, as the GHDT had not yet been examined from a modern test theory perspective in full. Results indicated that: (1) the GHDT and children’s HFDs were apt for Rasch analysis and deemed to be generally psychometrically sound; and (2) that children performed almost identically (within error) on all three HFDs collected for the assessment, suggesting that the collection of three HFDs – as well as many of the 217 items which comprise the GHDT – was potentially redundant. Consequently, a prototype human figure drawing continuum (HFDC) was constructed from those data and examined. Rasch analysis revealed that the researcher-constructed 45-item HFDC scale – requiring just one self-selected HFD of a man, woman or child – was just as effective as the 217-item GHDT. The HFDC, when normed, should be seen as a parsimonious and child-friendly HDF assessment.     

How are the Perceptions of Learning Networks Shaped Among School Professionals and Headteachers at an Early Stage in their Introduction?

This paper draws on the findings of a research project funded by the Liverpool City of Learning consortium in the UK. The aim is to explore the process of introduction of ten authority wide learning networks, the impact these have on school professionals practice, the opportunities they offer for CPD and the extent to which they may impact on pupil learning. The research presented here draws on findings from a questionnaire distributed to school professionals and key issues emerging from their analysis point to the influence of national government agendas on school professionals’ interpretation of the purpose of the networks. They also point to the views of staff regarding the impact of the attainment agenda as well as the extent to which an increased emphasis on social inclusion and wider understandings of learning and achievement (which are less well represented by results-based performance monitoring) are having on their hopes for what Learning Networks might deliver. The expectations of staff of the opportunities offered by learning networks for long term professional development provide some interesting insights, and perhaps, some useful pointers as to how networks of this kind might develop in the future.