Mucking in and mucking out: Vocational learning in Animal Care

The paper draws upon empirical material from a two year qualitative research project. The paper briefly outlines the key research questions, research design and data collection strategies. The following sections draw on observational, interview and journal data from the learning sites and the teachers and students who work and learn in them are used to show how college-based learning (CBL) is also work-based learning (WBL). We argue that to differentiate between CBL and WBL in this particular case is unhelpful and three separate contexts are identified to show where learning typically occurs for students of animal care. The discussion draws upon Lave and Wenger's ‘communities of practice’ and Fuller and Unwin's notion of ‘expansive learning environments’ to illustrate the ways in which full time students of animal care undertake valuable real work (albeit mostly unwaged) on farms, in stables and in reptile houses. Characteristics of communities of practice, namely, recognition of distributed expertise, inclusive language and interactions, ways of communicating about animals and nurturing teacher–student and student–student relations are identified.     

Repeated Reading,Turn Taking,and Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)

This single participant multiple baseline research design measured the effects of repeatedly reading narrative books to children who used voice output augmentative communication devices to communicate. The study sought to determine if there was a difference observed in the number of turns taken when reading stories repeatedly. Three girls ranging in age from seven to nine listened to a different illustrated narrative book during each baseline session. During the intervention phase, a single illustrated book was read repeatedly to each child for six sessions followed by an additional intervention of a second illustrated book for six more sessions. Two of the three participants took more turns during the repeated reading when comparing mean scores. Upon visual inspection it appears the increases were generally in the first couple of repeated readings and then a slope return was displayed toward the baseline level over the six repeated readings. Implications for practice are shared.     

Home Literacy Environments and Foundational Literacy Skills for Struggling and Nonstruggling Readers in Rural Early Elementary Schools

Factors such as weak early literacy skills and living in poverty may put young students at risk for reading disabilities. While home literacy activities and access to literacy materials have been associated with positive reading outcomes for urban and suburban students, little is known about home literacy environments of rural early elementary school students living in poverty and their relationship to foundational reading skills for struggling and nonstruggling readers. This study examined how home literacy environments might relate to rural kindergarten and first grade students’ reading performance. Parents of 1,108 kindergarten and first grade students in the rural Southeast completed questionnaires on the frequency of home literacy activities and access to literacy materials. Multilevel model analyses revealed that home literacy activities and access to literacy materials were positively related to basic word reading skills, passage comprehension, and spelling. Implications for families and educators are discussed.     

EFFECTS OF PARENTAL DIVORCE OR A FATHER'S DEATH ON HIGH SCHOOL COMPLETION

Associations between parental loss and high school (HS) completion were examined in data drawn from 1,761 male and 1,689 female offspring born in wedlock to mothers participating in a nationally representative study. Multiple logistic regression models were conducted predicting HS completion by age 19 among offspring whose parents divorced or father died, compared to offspring of continuously married parents. Models were estimated without and with adjustment for correlated sociodemographic characteristics, including maternal education and age at first childbirth and offspring age at last assessment and race/ethnicity. In unadjusted models, parental divorce predicted a 41% decreased odds of HS completion for males, and paternal death predicted a 79% decreased odds of HS completion for females. In models including sociodemographic risk factors, associations between parental divorce and paternal death reduced slightly. Findings highlight the importance of examining unique risks from paternal death versus parental divorce on educational attainment in male and female offspring.