Educating Leaders in Developing Nations

The University of the Incarnate Word of San Antonio, Texas, is making an effort to enroll international students from China, Taiwan, and South America into its "Organizational Leadership Doctoral Programme". In undertaking this task, the University is also assuming some responsibility for the future ethical behaviour of the leaders it trains and launches. But how should teachers go about developing the cultural and linguistic sensitivity that they will need to participate in the training of international students? The University polled its doctoral students to derive some ideas on this subject. The questions and the answers elicited are described.     

Developing a measure to understand young children’s Internet cognition and cyber-safety awareness: a pilot test

Abstract

Advancements in technology have increased preschool children’s access to the Internet. Very little research has been conducted to identify pre-school-aged children’s understandings of the Internet and ramifications of being ‘online’. Without an understanding of children’s thinking about the Internet, it is difficult to provide age- and pedagogically appropriate cyber-safety education. This study developed and pilot-tested an interview schedule that focuses on the Internet thinking and cyber-safety awareness of Australian children aged 4–5 years. The schedule is informed by sociocultural theory, cyber-safety education research and approaches for researching with young children. The schedule shows potential to elicit children’s understandings of the Internet and cyber-safety awareness. Adjustments are required to allow more contextualised responses from children.     

Globalisation and science education: Rethinking science education reforms

Like Lemke (J Res Sci Teach 38:296–316, 2001), I believe that science education has not looked enough at the impact of the changing theoretical and global landscape by which it is produced and shaped. Lemke makes a sound argument for science education to look beyond its own discourses toward those like cultural studies and politics, and to which I would add globalisation theory and relevant educational studies. Hence, in this study I draw together a range of investigations to argue that globalisation is indeed implicated in the discourses of science education, even if it remains underacknowledged and undertheorized. Establishing this relationship is important because it provides different frames of reference from which to investigate many of science education's current concerns, including those new forces that now have a direct impact on science classrooms. For example, one important question to investigate is the degree to which current science education improvement discourses are the consequences of quality research into science teaching and learning, or represent national and local responses to global economic restructuring and the imperatives of the supranational institutions that are largely beyond the control of science education. Developing globalisation as a theoretical construct to help formulate new questions and methods to examine these questions can provide science education with opportunities to expand the conceptual and analytical frameworks of much of its present and future scholarship. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Doctoral Students' Experiences with Pedagogies of the Home,Pedagogies of Love,and Mentoring in the Academy

In this article, a group of nontraditional and/or doctoral students of color and our advisor discuss how the advisor-advisee mentoring relationship has positively affected our experiences within academia. The mentoring relationship, cultivated within a group mentoring model, was integral to our acclimation of the hidden culture of our doctoral programs. We elaborate on the history and mentoring model of the group of which we are a part, and follow with a review of the literature on mentoring practices and a discussion of methodology. Finally, through autoethnographic vignettes, each author discusses his/her experience as a non-traditional and/or student of color and how our relationship with the group has provided us with the logistical, emotional, and psychological support needed to progress in and complete our programs.     

Adult literacy practitioners and employability skills: resisting neo-liberalism?

We draw on theories of policy enactment to explore the ways in which the situated, material and external contexts and professional cultures in adult literacy in the UK have influenced practitioners. Our analysis of the transnational (OECD, EU) and UK external policy contexts found that skills-related education is prioritised, with a focus on economic growth through increased productivity and accountability. This can lead to a narrow conceptualisation of literacy as a set of information processing skills needed for employment that limits the curriculum so that the knowledge of the participants is ignored. However, our findings show that there is not a one-way flow from the transnational to the local. Instead, literacy practitioners translate and enact policy texts based on their situated contexts and professional cultures leading to approaches to teaching and learning that keep learners and their goals at the centre of the curriculum. We conclude that shared understandings of good practice and an underpinning value system, along with creative ways of delivering pre-set outcomes, allow practitioners to resist to some extent the neoliberal discourse whilst meeting the requirements of policy and funding. However, how feasible delivering this alternative curriculum is over the longer term remains to be seen.     

From social interaction to individual reasoning: an empirical investigation of a possible socio-cultural model of cognitive development

This study explores the theory that individual reasoning ability, as measured using standard reasoning tests, has part of its origin in dialogue with others. In the study, 64 eight- and nine-year-old children were taught the use of ‘exploratory talk’, a type of talk in which joint reasoning is made explicit. The relationship between the talk of the children and the solving of Raven's test problems was studied using discourse analysis of groups working together. The findings of the study support four claims: that use of exploratory talk can improve group reasoning, that exploratory talk can be taught, that the teaching of exploratory talk can successfully transfer between educational contexts and that individual results on a standard non-verbal reasoning test significantly improved as a result of the intervention teaching exploratory talk. Our results offer support for the hypothesis that experience of social reasoning can improve scores on measures of individual reasoning. The stronger hypothesis that general cognitive development is a product of induction into social reasoning remains in doubt.     

“Is everybody getting it?”: Sustained support for English as a second language students

The needs of ESL students do not end after the first year. Paulette Henderson describes one community college's approach to supporting ESL students throughout their academic career.