Insights gained from a comparison of South African and Canadian first-generation students: the impact of resilience and resourcefulness on higher education success

ABSTRACT

First-generation students are often described as disadvantaged in university adjustment, self-efficacy and grades. Yet this deficit model of understanding first-generation students ignores their cultural capital, which could increase resilience and resourcefulness. Here, 844 students (31% first-generation) in South Africa and Canada completed measures of resilience, resourcefulness, university adjustment, academic self-efficacy and self-reported grades. Overall, the results reveal that the characterisation of first-generation students is culturally specific and, in some ways, differs between Canada and South Africa. That is, the deficit model may better describe Canadian than South African first-generation students. Yet, in many ways first-generation students are like their peers and their academic outcomes are predicted by their culturally specific levels of resourcefulness and resilience. This study support the notion that the positives students bring to university should be considered and that students would benefit from being taught the requisite skills involved in increasing resourcefulness and resilience.     

Teachers’ experience with inclusive education in Singapore

Teachers’ positive attitude is most critically and consistently associated with successful inclusion. However, little is known about teachers’ first-hand encounters with inclusive education in Singapore. We present findings from a qualitative study on inclusion based on focus group interviews with 202 teachers from 41 resourced primary schools. The data were transcribed and coded using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis and NVIVO software. Two broad clusters identified were teachers’ positive and negative experiences in implementing inclusion. More reference was made to negative than positive experiences. The most dominant negative experience was stress from challenging behaviours and instructional difficulties of catering adequately for diverse needs in the same classroom. The most salient positive experience was satisfaction with pupils’ progress and new learning for teachers. Classroom practices that facilitated inclusion and the value of training in shaping teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion were highlighted.     

Children's Use of Converging Obliques in their Perspective Drawings

This paper investigates children's use of converging obliques in their drawings of objects. Adults and adolescents, as well as 7‐year‐old children, were not very successful in using converging obliques in their drawings of small‐scale objects; they tended to use parallel edges. When confronted with the apparent convergence of a real road receding into the distance adults and adolescents switched to using converging obliques; 7‐year‐olds still drew parallel roadsides. Children were induced to use converging obliques, however, when asked to copy from a line drawing of a road or from a photograph, particularly when the convergence of the road in the photograph was more dramatic.     

Young Children's Ability to Adapt their Drawings of the Human Figure

5‐year‐olds, 7‐year‐olds and 9‐year‐olds were asked to draw three figures, one standing still and facing them, one standing still in profile and one running in profile. Half drew from imagination and half drew from models. The 5‐year‐olds made fewest distinctions in the way they drew the figures, the most notable being the greater spread of the legs of the running figure. With increasing age, more features were used to differentiate the three figures. There was little evidence of 5‐year‐olds adapting their figures in the presence of a model. Only among the older children was there a significant effect of the presence of a model when the 7‐year‐olds and, to a greater extent, the 9‐year‐olds drew their running figure with bent arms and legs and also with more transparencies and partial occlusions.     

Relationally and physically aggressive children's intent attributions and feelings of distress for relational and instrumental peer provocations

Numerous studies have demonstrated that physically aggressive children exhibit hostile attributional biases in response to instrumental peer provocations, a social information-processing pattern that has been recognized as a contributor to peer-directed aggression. The present studies (N = 127 and N = 535) were designed to extend past research by evaluating the intent attributions and feelings of emotional distress of relationally and physically aggressive children in response to instrumental and relational provocation contexts. Results indicated that physically aggressive children exhibited hostile attributional biases and reported relatively greater distress for instrumental provocation situations, whereas relationally aggressive children exhibited hostile attributional biases and reported relatively greater distress for relational provocation contexts. Implications of these findings for the understanding of factors that may contribute to relational as well as physical aggression are discussed.     

Implementing Godly Play in educational settings: a cautionary tale

At the heart of all curriculum decision-making is the learner. Contemporary early childhood education theory and practice emphasises young children’s agency and voice in their learning paying particular attention to valuing each child’s sociocultural contexts. As learners, children are considered capable and active participants rather than as deficit and passive recipients. How does the implementation of godly play in prior-to-school and school early years settings sit within a contemporary view of childhood? To what extent does this programme align with early childhood theory and practice? This paper seeks to evaluate the presence and place of godly play (which is not a curriculum and nor does it claim to be a curriculum) in the religiously affiliated early childhood education context in either prior-to-school or school settings. It is to be emphasised that this paper is not evaluating the presence and place of godly play in the faith community of the local parish where all who participate are believers coming together to share that faith and to have that faith strengthened. However, its presence and place in formal educational settings outside of parish faith communities is questionable and requires closer critique.     

Parental support of numeracy during a cooking activity with four-year-olds

While research demonstrates the importance of numeracy-related activities performed at home for young children's mathematics achievement, few studies involve observational studies of the processes which support children's mathematical learning at home. On this premise, this study reports evidence from numeracy-related interactions between parents and their four-year-old child during cookery sessions at home. Numeracy group parents who received instructions to incorporate additional mathematics into the activity provided significantly more numeracy guidance and also created more opportunities for their children to practice advanced mathematics. Comparison group parents provided enough numeracy guidance to complete the recipe but rarely provided extensive or advanced numeracy guidance. Children in the numeracy group generated significantly more correct math responses during the activity than comparison group children, though there were no significant differences on the post-test. The findings suggest the need to raise parental awareness of opportunities to support and encourage mathematics in activities at home.