An Evaluation of a Children's Safety Training Programme

This paper reports an experimental evaluation of a children's safety training programme,Kidscape, which aims to increase primary school children's ability to deal with four types of potentially unsafe situation: being bullied, being approached by a stranger, being subject to inappropriate intimacy from a known adult and to pressure from such adults to keep such intimacy secret. Assessments of children's safety awareness were carried out in three schools which used the programme, and in three matched control schools which did not, with children at two age levels, 6 years and 10 years. These assessments of children's awareness were made on three occasions: before, immediately after and 2‐3 months after the training programme for the experimental sample (60 children) and on corresponding occasions for the control sample (60 children). The results revealed a significant improvement in the safety awareness of the experimental (trained) group after training and also a significant difference between the groups, in favour of the trained group. However, an improved performance of the control (untrained) group suggests that factors other than the Kidscape programme itself may influence these differences. Age differences in children's wariness of the four safety situations are also discussed.     

Teachers’ Perceptions of the Goals of Education in the USA: responses to the educational reform literature of the 1980s

What do teachers in the USA perceive as the significant goals and purposes of education? To what extent are these perceptions related to those advocated in the reform literature of the 1980s? Responses to a survey administered to 279 teachers in metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia are analyzed in this study. Findings indicate some areas of congruence between teachers and reformers. In areas where the reform literature is divided, especially with regard to educational purpose, teacher opinion is similarly divided. Teacher responses, however, also indicate some attempt to synthesize seemingly disparate views. To provide an expanded frame of reference, the article offers some preliminary findings based on John Goodlad's Teachers for Our Nation's Schools. The article concludes with commentary about the nature and likelihood of educational reform in the USA.     

Deepening our reflectivity

Abstract

During the last 15 years, a body of literature has developed that centers around “teacher reflectivity.” Teachers reflect deeply on the biographical, political, and pedagogical influences that led them to become teachers and that influence their classroom practice. Advocates of teacher reflectivity claim that both preservice and inservice teachers can thereby improve their practice and deepen their understanding of themselves as teachers. Although biographical, political, and pedagogical reflectivity are powerful tools, teacher reflectivity would be even stronger if it included “spiritual reflectivity.” With spiritual reflectivity (with or without a formal religious commitment), teachers see themselves and their work as a teacher in the broader context of their unique commitment(s) to a transcendent power or process that includes biographical, political, and pedagogical influences, but also transcends them.     

The teacher as shaman

This paper examines the image of the teacher as a shaman. The shaman must suffer a wound in order to learn how to guide and heal others. Similarly, the teacher must suffer three types of wounds in order to maximize his or her professional, intellectual, and existential growth. These are the vocative wound, the interpretive wound, and the transferential wound.     

The teacher as an archetype of spirit

Many images of the teacher in the current literature on teaching and teacher reflectivity can be seen as aspects of the Jungian image of the teacher as an archetype of spirit. These images--the teacher as philosopher, prophet, Zen master, and priest--correspond to what I call dialogical, civic, ontological and incarnational spirituality, respectively. I examine the possibilities and perils inherent in each of these visions of teaching. I also show how viewing teaching in archetypal terms provides a way of including the spiritual domain in both the theory and practice of teaching. The pedagogical, biographical and political dimensions of a teacher's calling and practice are important. However, examining the spiritual dimension of teaching can add to and interact with these other dimensions in ways that will enrich an understanding of what it means to be a teacher.     

The (hidden) injuries of NAPLAN: two standardised test events and the making of ‘at risk’ student subjects

Standardised testing regimes, including the National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) in Australia, have impacted on relationships between and within schools, and on teachers’ work and on pedagogies. Previous analyses of the effects of NAPLAN have been generated outside of the test situation: frequently through attitudinal surveys and qualitative interviews. This article takes as its point of departure two intensely affective events associated with the NAPLAN test day itself. These events erupted in two qualitative studies of students’ schooling experiences: a study of students’ experiences of NAPLAN and a study of students’ experiences of student voice at school. We ask, after Deleuze and Guattari, What can a NAPLAN test do? Exploring the entangled corporeal (physical and embodied) and incorporeal (psychic and subjectivating) wounds effected in and through these events, we analyse the dynamic constitution and re-constitutions of ‘at risk’ categorisations. While the NAPLAN test is not claimed to cause physical and psychical injury, we argue that standardised test conditions, in these singular events, are inextricably entwined with the formation of particular students’ schooled subjectivities.     

The concurrent validity of the Cognitive Levels Test with the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised for a sample of referred children and youth

The present investigation compared the Cognitive Levels Test (CLT) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) scores for 55 children who were referred for remedial educational services. A comparison of the correlations for each of the criterion measures from the WISC-R showed a consistent significant positive relationship with the CLT. A repeated measures analysis of variance that compared standard scores for the CLT with those of the WISC-R indicated that significant differences existed between WISC-R IQs and the CLT Cognitive Index. Implications concerning the validity of the Cognitive Levels Test are discussed.     

Current Tobacco-Smoking and Neural Responses to Infant Cues in Mothers

Objective. Smoking has a detrimental impact on maternal physical health and exposes children to secondhand smoke, but the extent to which it affects maternal brain and behavior is not well-known and may have implications for parent and child development. We examined how current smoking status might relate to maternal neural responses to infant cues using event-related potentials. Design. Current smoking (n = 35) and non-smoking (n = 35) mothers viewed photographs of emotional infant faces while electroencephalography was simultaneously recorded. Results. The latency of the face-specific N170 event-related potential component was delayed in smoking mothers compared to non-smoking mothers, and the P300 was differentiated by smoking status. Conclusions. Postpartum smoking is associated with event-related potential measures that may reflect modulation of infant face perception in motherhood.     

Encountering education in the rural: migrant women’s perspectives

ABSTRACT

This paper explores migrant women’s encounters with formal and informal education in what can be termed new immigration rural destinations. We ask to what extent educational opportunities are realized in these new destinations. We show that education aspirations may be jeopardized because of the desire to achieve economic goals and thus require remedial action. Specifically, we refer to qualitative data collected in rural (and remote) Boddington in Western Australia, and rural Armagh in Northern Ireland. The paper engages with two interrelated dimensions of this migrant/migration experience. English is not a first language for our participants and we first examine the provision and consumption of informal English Language classes. In doing so, we demonstrate the complex social and cultural dimensions of community-based English language instruction. Second, we attend to migrant mothers’ perceptions of and responses to children’s formal education. We highlight transnational senses of, and tensions around, ‘local/rural’ pedagogies and resultant migrant strategies.