The invisible hand: designing curriculum in the afterward

This paper diffracts a curriculum design workshop via online collaboration of a collective emerging from that event. Through the workshop, involving theory, conceptual art, writing, photography and curriculum planning, and the subsequent sharing of words and images, we move beyond interrogating designs for future subjects to asking how the pedagogical imagination composes both the material and immaterial, the corporeal and incorporeal, within ecologies continually transforming in the process of making. We complicate ‘delivery’ or ‘conduit’ metaphors of education and perceive ‘design’ in co-compositions of human and nonhuman elements, resisting stasis, resisting closure. This workshop paper positions design in the realm of the artist–activist, rather than that of the bureaucrat–technician, and shifts intentionality beyond the invisible and controlling hand of humanism, as curriculum design we might do in the afterwards, rejecting instrumentalism.     

What young people report about the personal characteristics needed for social science research after carrying out their own investigations in an after-school club

Several arguments have been put forward about the benefits of young people carrying out their own social science research in terms of empowering their voices and their participation. Much less attention has been paid to investigating the understandings young people develop about the research process itself. Seven twelve-year olds carried out self-directed social science research into a topic of their choice. Towards the end of their six months experience, we used a questionnaire and follow-up semi-structured interviews to investigate, from a sociocultural perspective, what the young people thought about being a researcher. Thematic analysis of the interviews identified three themes and eight subthemes suggesting that they were aware of: the need to demonstrate researcher/research integrity (be thorough, truthful, orderly, and have a good understanding of research process); the need for good interpersonal skills and standards, and good self-management skills (be resilient, agentic, committed and good at time management). We discuss how first-hand social science research experience might: be relevant to several areas of schooling; give young people experience of the personal characteristics important for success; help young people to realise that they can be social science researchers, and offer advanced and novel learning experiences outside the constraints of the school curriculum.     

Is Response to Intervention Good Policy for Specific Learning Disability?

Abstract The reauthorized Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act ( IDEA ) established new provisions for specific learning disability (SLD) identification, including: (a) no longer requiring consideration of IQ–achievement discrepancy and (b) permitting response to intervention (RTI) as part of SLD evaluation procedures. We discuss several policy implications of these new regulations by considering the original construct of SLD, the still “experimental” status and implementation of RTI, the closer alignment of RTI objectives with No Child Left Behind than former IDEA regulations, and the shift in focus from serving as a special education identification procedure to a general education instructional procedure. We conclude by proposing several recommendations for the appropriate inclusion of both RTI and psychometric evaluation within the continuum of SLD identification procedures.     

Helping preservice teachers realize the transformative potential of read alouds

ABSTRACT

A common instructional practice in early childhood classrooms is the picturebook read aloud. The purpose of this investigation was to help preservice teachers learn to plan picturebook read alouds with the goal of helping children interpret the visual affordances of picturebooks, including visual elements (e.g., cclor, line) and peritextual components (e.g., title page, endpapers) as they engage in collaborative meaning making. In this qualitative study, the participants were 12 preservice teachers enrolled in an undergraduate children’s literature course. The findings presented here are focused on three participants that represented a range of growth and understandings about the picturebook format as well as growth and understandings about designing read aloud lessons. Findings indicate that while participants grew in their understandings of picturebook formats and in their ability to develop read aloud lesson plans with a visual focus, the rates and ways in which this occurred varied. Furthermore, the findings also suggest that crafting read alouds with a focus on visual affordances is a complex process and deserves careful attention in teacher preparation programs.     

Rethinking Home-School Partnerships: Lessons Learned from Latinx Parents of Young Children During the COVID-19 Era

Early Childhood Education Journal - The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted families from low-income backgrounds. The shift to remote learning has required parents with preschool-age children to...     

'I still remain one of the old Settlement boys': Cross-class Friendship in the First World War Letters of Cardiff University Settlement Lads’ Club

This article examines the letters sent from former members of Cardiff University Settlement Lads' Club to two settlement workers, Amy and Edward Lewis, during the First World War. It argues that affective relationships developed within the settlement house prior to the war were subsequently utilised by working-class soldiers in their imaginings of home and community. The letters are used not only to demonstrate the interpersonal relationships that developed between settlement workers and settlement attendees, but also more broadly how the university settlement movement's concept of cross-class friendship worked in practice.     

Cross-lagged relationships among leisure-time exercise and perceived stress in blue-collar workers

Blue-collar workers (N = 203) from a large food-processing plant in the southwestern U.S. completed measures of perceived stress and leisure-time exercise at an initial test session in addition to a 2-month follow-up session. Mean age of the sample participants equaled 43.61 (SD = 9.79), and 69.5% of the sample were male, 71.4% were Caucasian, and 74.9% were married/cohabitating. Structural equation modeling was employed to examine the cross-lagged relationships between perceived stress and leisure-time exercise at these time points, controlling for gender, marital status, age, and yearly household income. Results indicated that a model with a path from perceptions of Time 1 stress to Time 2 exercise frequency was most parsimonious and provided acceptable model fit, suggesting that perceptions of stress are related to reductions in exercise participation in this population. However, there was little support for a relationship between Time 1 exercise participation and Time 2 perceived stress.     

Developmental Delays in Preschool Children: Assessment Over Time

Abstract

A 3‐year study yielded data on the characteristics and progress of preschool children with developmental delays of uncertain aetiology. Children were tested at six‐month intervals in their homes using standard developmental measures (Bayley, McCarthy, Gesell, Sequenced Inventory of Communication Development); additional information about children and families was gathered by personal interview. Findings support the use of standardized assessment techniques for determining developmental level of preschool delayed children. For the group as a whole there was stability of performance over time, but the rates of change varied according to child. Delays in developmental domains were frequently associated with social behavioural and adjustment problems. Some relationship was found between aetiology and rate of development. Analyses across time suggest that three assessments are needed before confident prediction can be made about developmental rate for individual children.     

Cycles of Innovation in Managing Academic Workloads

Complexity and demands within higher education are seen to be rising and one response to this has been a movement towards the adoption of more formal approaches to workload management. The objectives of these systems revolve around improving equity in allocations and achieving a more efficient and transparent use of resources. This article draws from the work of a partnership of 12 diverse universities to illustrate, through case studies, a school‐driven and a centrally led development for managing workloads. This activity is then explored through the concept of convergent and divergent activity occurring progressively at different organisational levels, and around ideas about the dynamic relationship between continuity and change that this will involve. We suggest that although the initial focus of activity may seem important, ultimately viable systems involve a negotiated balance between central and local requirements.