Student teacher professional agency in the practicum

Teachers are encouraged to be active professionals in their work. Consequently, the development of professional agency in student teachers is an important dimension in teacher education. This paper reports on a study where the practice of six early childhood student teachers enrolled in a Bachelor of Education (Teaching) course was analysed, using Giddens' concept of agency, and each was found to have operated with agency. However, when additional criteria pertaining to early childhood professional practice were applied by means of a triadic viewpoint only three of the student teachers were deemed to have operated with ‘professional’ agency. Factors that were perceived to have contributed to or detracted from the student teachers' capacity to operate with professional agency were identified. Arising from these factors, this paper argues for in‐depth student teacher preparation for the practicum in order to develop professional agency.     

Linking Employment to Attachment: The Mediating Effects of Maternal Separation Anxiety and Interactive Behavior

This study examined the effects of maternal employment and separation anxiety on maternal interactive behavior and infant attachment. 73 mother-infant pairs participated in a laboratory free-play session when infants were 5 and 10 months of age and in the Strange Situation when the infants were 18 months of age. Maternal feelings about being separated from her infant were assessed by questionnaire at 5 months. Employed mothers returned to work before the infants' fifth month, and nonemployed mothers did not work outside the home through their infants' tenth month. Employed mothers who reported high levels of separation anxiety were more likely to exhibit intrusive behaviors at 10 months. While employment was not directly related to attachment, we found infants of high-anxiety employed mothers to develop anxious-avoidant attachments. The results suggest that maternal separation anxiety and interactive style may be important mediators between employment and later infant outcome.     

Pirates and poachers: Fan fiction and the conventions of reading and writing

This article explores what teachers and students can learn about contemporary story‐telling from a study of fan fiction – that is, stories created by readers and viewers out of the canonical material of previously published fictions. Drawing on the example of Pirates of the Caribbean, it investigates ways in which fan fiction writers develop codes and conventions to govern themselves. For example, online litmus tests establish when a writer is self‐indulgently writing ‘Mary Sue’ characters into a story; the self‐styled Protectors of the Plot Continuum patrol the fictional limits of an imagined world to make sure that canonical information is not violated by fan fiction writers. This article makes use of such examples to investigate how quality control in fan fiction is codified, and to explore what teachers can learn from such enterprises about contemporary writing, reading and viewing. It compares these possibilities with issues of online literacy outlined by Henry Jenkins under three headings: the participation gap, the transparency problem, and the ethics challenge.     

Restructuring reforms in Turkish teacher education: Modernisation and development in a dynamic environment

The paper examines the effectiveness of recent reforms in teacher education in Turkey, specifically the restructuring of programmes in university faculties of education. It first, briefly, sets the reforms of the 1990s in an historical context, prior to the 1997 Act which increased the length of compulsory schooling from 5 to 8 years, and the 1998 restructuring of faculties of education. It considers the national need for the restructuring of teacher education and the issues involved. The thrust of the paper is a study of how teacher educators across the country perceive both the changes and their effect on the quality of teacher education, methodology as a discipline, school partnerships, and relationships with the Ministry of National Education.     

Young adult outcomes of the Abecedarian and CARE early childhood educational interventions

Adult benefits for participants in Project CARE were compared with those of the Abecedarian Project, a closely related randomized study of early childhood educational intervention for children from low-income families who were at risk of developmental delays and school failure. CARE replicated Abecedarian's young adult treatment-related educational and vocational attainment gains. CARE data also supported the Abecedarian reduction in marijuana use. Treated individuals in both studies reported adopting a more active life style. The average age at birth of a first child, the number of children, and the proportion of teen parents were positively affected in the Abecedarian sample but not in CARE. Finding significant educational and vocational gains lasting into young adulthood in the CARE study reinforces Abecedarian young adult findings and strengthens the case for early childhood intervention for children from low-income families.     

Vulnerability to Bullying: Teacher-reported conduct and emotional problems,hyperactivity, peer relationship difficulties,and prosocial behaviour in primary school children

Twenty five class teachers completed a "Strengths and Difficulties" assessment for 523 children aged from 7 to 11 years of age. Children self-completed a 39-item "My Life in School" questionnaire. One third of the sample were self-reported victims of bullying behaviour. Boys with poor prosocial skills, emotional problems and general difficulties with social interaction, expression of emotion and hyperactivity were at greatest risk of being bullied. There was no significant effect of age. The data support previous research findings that gender influences the prevalence of bullying but not that younger children are more vulnerable. This study provides new evidence that teachers recognise social behaviour and interactions that can significantly affect whether primary school children are bullied.     

Electrophysiological Evidence of Space-Number Associations in 9-Month-Old Infants

Infant research is providing accumulating evidence that number-space mappings appear early in development. Here, a Posner cueing paradigm was used to investigate the neural mechanisms underpinning the attentional bias induced by nonsymbolic numerical cues in 9-month-old infants (N = 32). Event-related potentials and saccadic reaction time were measured to the onset of a peripheral target flashing right after the offset of a centered small or large numerical cue, with the location of the target being either congruent or incongruent with the number’s relative position on a left-to-right oriented representational continuum. Results indicated that the cueing effect induced by numbers on infants’ orienting of eye gaze brings about sensory facilitation in processing visual information at the cued location.     

The Home Literacy Environment Is a Correlate,but Perhaps Not a Cause,of Variations in Children’s Language and Literacy Development

The home literacy environment is a well-established predictor of children’s language and literacy development. We investigated whether formal, informal, and indirect measures of the home literacy environment predict children’s reading and language skills once maternal language abilities are taken into account. Data come from a longitudinal study of children at high risk of dyslexia (N = 251) followed from preschool years. Latent factors describing maternal language were significant predictors of storybook exposure but not of direct literacy instruction. Maternal language and phonological skills respectively predicted children’s language and reading/spelling skills. However, after accounting for variations in maternal language, storybook exposure was not a significant predictor of children’s outcomes. In contrast, direct literacy instruction remained a predictor of children’s reading/spelling skills. We argue that the relationship between early informal home literacy activities and children’s language and reading skills is largely accounted for by maternal skills and may reflect genetic influences.