Is contact with people with disabilities a guarantee for positive implicit and explicit attitudes?

In the past 50 years research on attitudes toward people with disabilities has repeatedly revealed negative attitudes by predominantly using self-report measures. The main aim of the present contribution was to develop an Implicit Association Test (IAT) to assess implicit attitudes toward people with disabilities. For this purpose 47 university students majoring in special education (11 male, 36 female) were asked to complete the IAT in addition to self-reported explicit attitudes (affective, cognitive, and behavioural component). Moreover, the students were asked about the amount and perceived quality of their contact experience with people with disabilities. Results showed that participants reported on average most negative explicit attitudes in the affective, followed by the cognitive and the behavioural component. On average, students were more likely to associate the category ‘disabled’ with the attribute ‘unpleasant’ on the IAT. Overall, explicit and implicit attitudes were only weakly correlated. The amount of contact significantly predicted the three components of explicit attitudes, but not implicit attitudes. The results and limitations of this study will be discussed with respect to their implications for the educational context.     

Changes in Science Content Knowledge and Attitudes toward Science Teaching of Educators Attending a Zoo-based Neuroscience Professional Development

Abstract

Informal learning environments often host teachers for learning opportunities, but little is known about the impact of these experiences on teacher professional development (PD). This article describes a unique collaborative PD experience between zoological park personnel and university faculty, examining the impact on teacher content knowledge, attitudes, and classroom lessons. Our findings suggest that the PD improved science content, but made no impact on already high attitudes toward science. In light of the high level of self-reported satisfaction and high frequency of teacher lesson plan use, we propose that the PD had other positive outcomes such as pedagogical knowledge and authentic learning experiences.     

Complex learning difficulties and EBD

Abstract

This is an account of how one residential school for KEYW ORDS children with emotional and behavioural difficulties has attempted to autistic set up a class for those children presenting complex needs within the spectrum school. The special class has been observed over a number of weeks disorders; and the boys in that unit are benefiting tremendously in their complex needs; social/emotional development and learning. The security of this small emotional and class has given them the courage to go out of school in a group, behavioural together with the teacher, on visits where they showed a high degree difficulties; of maturity in their behaviour and their anxiety was lessened to such residential an extent that they came back full of excitement to tell us what they schools had learnt.     

The Teenage Religion and Values Survey in England and Wales: an overview

The Teenage Religion and Values Survey was conducted throughout the 1990s among young people between the ages of 13 and 15 years. A total of 33,982 young people took part in the survey. As the next phase of this research begins for the twenty‐first century, this paper looks back at the survey conducted in the 1990s and considers two aspects of the research. First, this paper considers the methodology behind designing such a survey. Second, this paper considers some of the insights generated by the survey under five headings: personality, spiritual health, religious affiliation, belonging without believing and church‐leaving.     

Personality,conventional Christian belief and unconventional paranormal belief: a study among teenagers

A sample of 10,851 pupils (5493 males and 5358 females) attending Year 9 classes (13‐ to 14‐year‐olds) and a sample of 9494 pupils (4787 males and 4707 females) attending Year 10 classes (14‐ to 15‐year‐olds) in non‐denominational state‐maintained secondary schools in England and Wales completed questions concerned with conventional Christian belief and unconventional paranormal belief, alongside the short‐form Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. The data demonstrated that conventional Christian belief and unconventional paranormal belief occupy different locations in relation to the Eysenckian model of personality in respect of the psychoticism scale and the lie scale. While conventional Christian belief is associated with lower psychoticism scores and higher lie scale scores (greater social conformity), unconventional paranormal belief is associated with higher psychoticism scores and lower lie scale scores (lower social conformity).     

Editorial

As the incoming editorial team we would like to introduce ourselves to our readers. We are looking forward to doing all we can to further the high standard of the journal and its relevance as an international forum for sharing research and scholarship on teaching, learning and curriculum, and the conditions and policy environment of higher education that impinge on academic work. In an effort to ensure that our processes are efficient and transparent, we have revised the Notes to Contributors, which you will find on the back page. Next year the journal goes to four issues which will together form a somewhat larger volume, but will mean that each issue is smaller. The intent is to publish more frequently so that relevance and currency is enhanced. For this reason we will need to put more stress on observing the general rule that papers are to be 5000–7000 words in length. We are also committed to a more rapid turnaround time for submitted papers and have been working to streamline our management systems with the help of our able administrator, Karen Sanecki.     

A care-infused market tale: on (not) maintaining relationships of trust in energy retrofit products

ABSTRACT

Issues of maintenance offer exceptional opportunities for advancing our understanding of how market-driven innovation can meet societal objectives for energy transitions. In this article, I present a case study of ongoing attempts by two spin-outs and one start-up to stabilise innovative socio-technical agencements – ‘customer journeys’ – designed to catalyse economic exchange of certain singular goods – energy retrofit products – in the Netherlands. This market-driven innovation relies on sustaining carefully crafted relationships of trust among supply-chain actants and homeowners. I mobilise the analytical lens of ‘care’ to show how the multiplicity of connections that form through socio-technical agencements – and function as a market – are tentative, contested, and unpredictable. Trust relationships are in a constant process of becoming through contestation and convergence among supply-chain actants. In doing so, I expose the precarious and arduous work involved in maintaining a market for singular public goods. This implies a knowledge politics as well: in a call to sensitise us, market scholars, to processes of maintenance integral to market-driven innovation for energy transitions I propose to advance Callon’s call to civilise markets by sharing troubled, though encouraging, care-infused market tales in an effort to counteract the storification of energy transitions as innovation fairy tales.     

Reconceptualising fair access to highly academically selective universities

Higher Education - The higher education regulator for England has set challenging new widening access targets requiring universities to rethink how merit is judged in admissions. Universities are...     

Becoming Ryan: lines of flight from majoritarian understandings of masculinity through a high school reading and mentoring program. A story of possibility

Within literature relating to the broad field of boys’ education attention is regularly drawn to the significant difference between essentialist and anti-essentialist accounts of “the boy problem” and the limitations of gender-based educational reforms which rely upon deterministic notions of what boys are ‘really’ like and, by extension, what they ‘really’ need. While these deterministic interventions have been widely critiqued in academic literature they nevertheless continue to dominate school and media based discussions about how to best support alienated, disengaged and at risk boys. This raises questions about the extent to which anti-essentialist approaches can be made more accessible and meaningful to teachers in schools. It further suggests the value of developing detailed accounts of real world interventions that have had a demonstrably positive impact upon the boys involved without reinforcing essentialist notions of masculinity. Adopting an attitude of “educated hope” (Giroux, http://www.units.muohio.edu/eduleadership/anthology/OA/OA03001.html, 2003) and drawing upon the resources of (Deleuze and Guattari, A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1987), this paper examines one such case of anti-essentialist reform involving three Australian schools. It explores one particular boy’s experience of an intervention known as Boys with Books and argues that Ryan’s journey can be conceptualised as a line of flight away from traditional forms of masculinity: a journey in progress that has impacted positively upon his relationships with peers and teachers and changed his beliefs about his possible future options. The paper, therefore, illustrates the capacity for teachers and schools to display anti-essentialist understandings about masculinity while responding in practical and ‘do-able’ ways to the needs of at risk, alienated and underperforming boys in schools.     

'Celebrating Families': an Inclusive Model of Family-Centred Training

This article describes an innovative week of training days, entitled 'Celebrating Families', which took place at Sunfield, Worcestershire, in July 2002. The week, for and around families of children with special needs, arose from a shared vision and philosophy held by three host organisations. Representatives of all three organisations have contributed to this article. Barry Carpenter is chief executive of Sunfield, an independent school which provides education and care for children with severe and complex learning needs, and Sally Conway is the school's co-ordinator of family services. Mandy Addenbrooke is currently working as an independent consultant in communication and autistic spectrum disorders, and, at the time of the training week described here, was regional development officer for Contact a Family in the West Midlands. Elizabeth Attfield is children's services training and advisory officer for Autism West Midlands.
The week of events was underpinned by the notion of the self-defined, extended family. T he format and content of the week were designed to highlight and celebrate the vital roles that extended family members play in supporting one another, and in educating professionals. Workshops and a conference were planned to explore common themes and illuminate unique contributions, and family members were actively involved as 'trainers' as well as delegates. Outcomes were highly positive. Evaluations from participants not only validated the inclusive training model, but also inspired a series of further events for families at Sunfield during 2003 and 2004. 'Celebrating Families' week delivered a clear message: families of children with special needs must be recognised, involved and celebrated.