Traveller culture and lifestyle as factors influencing children's integration into mainstream secondary schools in West Belfast

In 1997, the Department of Education for Northern Ireland made the decision to mainstream Traveller children into secondary schools including those in West Belfast. Before then, Traveller children over 11 years of age remained in a dedicated school for all Traveller children of school age living within the catchment area of West Belfast. This paper presents the findings of a small‐scale research project that examined the experiences of Traveller children attending two West Belfast secondary schools which have integrated Traveller children into mainstream education since 1997. It also discusses ramifications of mainstreaming for Traveller parents in West Belfast. The project focused particularly on the following: the attitudes of Traveller children to mainstreaming and inclusion at secondary level; the possibilities mainstreaming offers for furthering the inclusion of Travellers into the community at large; and the perceptions of Traveller parents in West Belfast to mainstreaming in secondary schools.     

Australian academics’ perspectives on quality and accountability

Abstract

Universities have been challenged as teaching as well as research institutions. On the one hand, universities have been required to teach more students and pay more attention to quality of teaching and educational programmes; on the other hand, there has been increasing focus on faculty research performance. This paper examines whether these are conflicting demands, or whether university faculty are able to fulfil these requirements simultaneously. In Norway, the number of university students almost doubled between 1987 and 1995. Norway is, therefore, a sound case to examine the impact of massification on university research.     

The challenging academic development (CAD) collective

Nurse education is characterised by dissonance, ambiguity and uncertainty. Such a context makes demands on the educator's authenticity or sense of self. This paper reports an attempt to provide a space where dissonance, ambiguity and uncertainty could be held, tolerated and examined and where authenticity could be recovered or developed through the practice of artistry. Three art workshops were offered to eight nurse educators over a period of three months. Each of the participants and the co‐facilitator were subsequently interviewed. All welcomed the opportunity to find meaning in their practice and to be listened to in a climate of empathy, acceptance and congruence. They undertook novel activities that allowed for discovery and surprise. They explored their sense of self and coined fresh metaphors to communicate their experiences. The paper argues that there is room for approaches to academic staff development that go against the mainstream.

La formation des infirmières se caractérise par la dissonance, l'ambiguïté et l'incertitude. Un tel contexte exerce des pressions sur l'authenticité et le sens de soi d'un éducateur. Cet article rend compte d'une tentative de fournir un espace o[ugrave] l'authenticité peut être redécouverte et développée au moyen de la pratique artistique. Trois ateliers artistiques ont été offerts à huit formateurs d'infirmières sur une période de trois mois. Des entretiens ont été effectués auprès de chaque participant et du co‐facilitateur. Les répondants ont tous accueilli l'occasion de trouver un sens à leur pratique et de pouvoir être écouté dans un climat d'empathie, d'acceptation et d'harmonie. Ceux‐ci on entrepris des activités nouvelles faisant place à la découverte et à la surprise. Ils ont exploré leur sens de soi et ont trouvé de nouvelles métaphores pour communiquer leurs expériences. Cet article défend l'idée que des activités de développement pédagogique qui vont à l'encontre de la majorité ont leur place.     

Situated Self-Regulation: Modeling the Interrelationships Among Instruction,Assessment, Learning Strategies and Academic Performance

To succeed academically, college students must actively construct course information, synthesize this information with information from texts and other resources, understand this information so that they can succeed on various forms of assessments and ultimately retain this information for the long term. While the complexity of these demands has been modeled somewhat metaphorically, there has been little ecologically valid research into learning in authentic classroom contexts. The present study examines the interrelationships among student perceptions of the learning context, test complexity, study strategies, and academic performance. Results of a path analysis demonstrated that perceptions of the teaching format and test complexity were positively related to the study strategies reported, and these study strategies were further related to the reported course performance.     

Young offenders in New South Wales,Australia and the need for remedial sexual health education

The 2005–2008 Australian National Sexually Transmissible Infections Strategy identifies young people as a key target group in need of sexual health education, screening and management. For young people who are in contact with the New South Wales (NSW) juvenile justice system, a dire need for remedial sexual health education exists. NSW young offenders indicate initiation of sexual activity at a younger age than their peers, higher numbers of sexual partners, infrequent condom use and higher rates of sexually transmitted infections. They also report family instability, poor accessing of health services, and low school attendance: all factors that result in poor sexual knowledge and health outcomes. An examination into the cognitive profile of these young offenders indicates remedial education for this group may require a dual approach in order to redress their specific circumstances and needs. The first approach should target young offenders who simply missed out on stages of sexual health information in the school curriculum. The second approach requires a tailored teaching methodology more appropriate for a group with atypical cognitive profiles. Both approaches need to engage an educative model that acknowledges that these disadvantaged young people are already sexual active; and that many did not have the benefit of an informed or consensual decision making processes. More importantly, the tailoring of a sexual health education program to these young people needs to resonate with teaching to a cognitively distinctive population who have experienced higher than usual rates of alcohol and other drugs abuse, and higher than usual episodes of physical and emotional abuse and neglect.     

Early identification and interventions for dyslexia: a contemporary view

This paper reviews current proposals concerning the definition of dyslexia and contrasts it with reading comprehension impairment. We then discuss methods for early identification and review evidence that teacher assessments and ratings may be valid screening tools. Finally, we argue that interventions should be theoretically motivated and evidence based. We conclude that early identification of children at risk of dyslexia followed by the implementation of intervention is a realistic aim for practitioners and policy‐makers.     

The role of planning in outdoor adventure decision-making

ABSTRACT

This article explores the influential role of planning on recognition-primed decision-making. Considerable prior thinking occurs and there is a need to trace and account for the cognitive processes that precede and guide decisions in dynamic outdoor environments. Seven expert leaders from four countries were interviewed about memorable decisions made on outdoor journeys with an educational focus on land, sea and ice. Four stages of planning were identified: (1) long-term preparation; (2) formal leadership meetings; (3) day-by-day planning on route and (4) thinking immediately prior to the event. The stages sequentially capture the planning progression, illuminating the cognitive processes at each stage to culminate in option selection. In each decision situation, planned goals and actions were implemented through the creation and re-creation of micro-plans. As windows of opportunity presented themselves, the flexible execution of plans was a key feature. Planning provided the solid bedrock upon which decisions were made.     

Self-Initiated Learning Activities of Experienced Public School Teachers: Methods,sources, and relevant organizational influences

The self-initiated learning activities of experienced public school teachers are examined in this study. Twenty-two experienced teachers were interviewed to develop a greater understanding of the types of self-initiated learning activities in which they engage and the organizational characteristics that influence their participation in those activities. Analysis of the data showed that experienced teachers engaged in three types of self-initiated learning activities: knowledge exchanging, experimenting, and environmental scanning. Participation in these activities was influenced by the availability of resources, physical layout, and level of centralization in their schools. Implications of these findings for theory, practice, and future research in teacher learning and development are discussed.     

College students' views on criminal justice

We surveyed 683 college students to examine their attitudes toward the death penalty, other criminal sanctions, and the war on drugs. College seniors were consistently less likely than freshmen to hold punitive views; this suggests a “liberalizing” effect of the college experience. This liberalizing college effect on attitudes toward criminal justice was not apparent for criminal justice majors, however, particularly when criminal justice seniors' attitudes toward the death penalty were compared with those of freshmen in criminal justice. The views of criminal justice majors overall did not differ appreciably from other students' views. We found no support for the expectation that criminal justice majors with experience in criminal justice would express more conservative, more punitive views than would criminal justice majors in general.     

Teaching about violence prevention: A bridge between public health and criminal justice educators

Public health perspectives on violence-related injuries have become increasingly important over the past two decades, yet they are rarely mentioned in criminal justice educational texts or articles. Here we provide a brief overview of the public health approach to the prevention of violence and related injuries and compare it to an approach to crime prevention commonly associated with the criminal justice approach: deterrence. The prevention of sexual assault on college and university campuses is used as an illustration of the two approaches. Finally, given the similarities between the manner in which these two multi-disciplinary fields approach violence prevention, we explore how and why criminal justice educators might want to teach a bridge between public health and criminal justice.