Enacting anti-racist writing workshop pedagogies in an online,drop-in writing club for youth

This article documents the authors' modification and implementation of anti-racist writing workshop (ARWW) practices in the context of an online, drop-in writing club, Pens Out. We sought to understand how teens perceive writing practices that are not white-normed — specifically, centring relationships instead of prizing individuality, embedding choice instead of replicating one authorial view and observing writerly craft instead of errors. As white-identifying educators and researchers, we engaged in practitioner inquiry to understand how programme participants who live in a predominately white region experience these practices. We asked: How do attendees understand and describe experiences with writing workshop pedagogies that seek to de-centre whiteness? This question has become increasingly important as politicians in the United States restrict anti-racist educational practices and content. We used conventional content analysis to observe themes across five participants' semi-structured interviews. Findings indicated that participants' relationships with each other produced inspiration and reciprocity, writing expectations from inside and outside the club affected choice and risk taking, and observing craft multimodally encouraged sharing and reciprocity. What we discovered can help teachers and leaders of K12 writing workshops implement ARWW practices and increase allyship while discussing and questioning hegemonic ideals in K12 schooling.     

Correction to: Neglected Elements of a High-Quality Early Childhood Workforce: Whole Teacher Well-Being and Working Conditions

Early Childhood Education Journal - The original version of this article unfortunately contains some typo in Table 1.     

Perceptions of Physical Activity in a Group of Adolescents with Cystic Fibrosis

Background: Participation in regular physical activity is routinely recommended for adolescents with cystic fibrosis (CF), however, past research suggests that many patients are not regularly physically active. There may be a variety of reasons for this inconsistent participation. In this study, we used qualitative methods to explore attitudes toward physical activity with a focus on identifying facilitators and barriers in a small group of adolescents with CF.Methods: Ten participants with CF aged 13-17 volunteered for this study. Two, open-ended semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted. Participants were questioned about their current and past physical activity participation, their feelings about physical activity, and factors that made them want to be physically active or not. Participants were also questioned about their perceptions of physical activity for themselves and other adolescents with CF. Initial interviews were recorded, transcribed, and coded into categories. During a follow-up interview, 3 to 4 weeks later, participants were reminded of their initial responses and allowed to elaborate or clarify their initial responses. All responses were categorized and became major themes describing facilitators and barriers to exercise.Results: All participants articulated understanding the importance of participating in physical activity for health benefits. Factors that served as facilitators to participation in physical activity included improving general or lung-specific health, as well as mental health. Barriers included general discomfort, increased lung symptoms, and disinterest.Conclusions: A group of adolescents with CF perceived positive general and lung health effects of physical activity, but also perceived barriers to participating in regular physical activity. Further work is needed to determine ways to accentuate facilitators and decrease barriers to promote regular physical activity in adolescents with CF.     

Flexibly scheduled early childhood education and care: experiences of Finnish parents and educators

Abstract

This study focuses on flexibly scheduled early childhood education and care (ECEC), an institutional childcare service for Finnish families where both parents, or a single parent, work non-standard hours. Although many countries nowadays offer extended hours day care, only Finland has a publicly provided, law-based system guaranteeing ECEC during non-standard as well as standard hours. We explore, drawing on parental survey data, what kinds of families use such services and when. Furthermore, we utilise web-survey data obtained from early educators to find out what they report as the main challenges involved in implementing flexibly scheduled ECEC. The results showed that single-parent families and lower educated parents were over-represented among the families using flexibly scheduled ECEC. The unpredictability of working-life tends to spill over to ECEC. Due to varying parental work schedules, children have unique daily and weekly rhythms, which in turn impact on administration, pedagogical issues and meeting children’s needs.     

Starting small: Building preschool teacher knowledge that supports early literacy development

A growing body of research is emerging that investigates the teacher knowledge base essential for supporting reading and writing development at the elementary school level. However, even though increasing recognition is given to the pivotal role that preschool teachers play in cultivating children’s early literacy development, considerably fewer studies have examined the knowledge base of these early childhood educators. This paper will discuss the existing research literature and then examine a recent study that investigated the knowledge constructs of 20 preschool teachers. Findings indicate that preschool teachers lack the disciplinary knowledge required to promote early literacy and, in fact, tend to overestimate what they know, creating a potential obstacle for seeking additional knowledge. Recommendations for strengthening professional development programs and developing more robust measures of preschool teacher knowledge are proposed.     

Use of a pre-assessment tool to start a meaningful dialogue: new paradigms in library instruction

In 2009, the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library started a library instruction dialogue with the medical students and faculty from the Emory School of Medicine. These discussions exposed a gap among faculty, students, and librarians in their perceptions of information processing. Follow-ups with the Associate Deans for Student Affairs and Medical Education led to the decision to administer an online assessment of the incoming student body and a complete redesign of the library orientation program. The aim of using self-assessment methodology in the framework of an orientation program was to set the students' foundation for self-discovery and introduce them to self-learning.     

Neglected Elements of a High-Quality Early Childhood Workforce: Whole Teacher Well-Being and Working Conditions

Early Childhood Education Journal - The majority of teachers in the early care and education (ECE) workforce face disparities in physical and psychological well-being as well as working conditions....     

The perceptions of prote´ge´s in academic organizations in regard to the functions of monitoring

This study analyzes mentoring relationships in academic organizations on the basis of the perceptions of prote´ge´s. According to a study that included eighty-nine research assistants who are in postgraduate and PhD programmes, perceptions of mentoring functions were generally positive. The function of career advancement is relatively stronger than that of psychosocial support, particularly as the period of the mentoring relationship lengthens. The relationship becomes increasingly a psychosocial relationship whereby the communication between mentor and prote´ge´ strengthens itself and the relationship becomes increasingly satisfying.     

Assessing the Relationship Between Perceived Message Sensation Value and Perceived Message Effectiveness: Analysis of PSAs From an Effective Campaign

The current study is an analysis of public service announcements (PSAs) from an effective safer sex campaign that utilized a sensation-seeking targeting (SENTAR) approach. Two random samples of heterosexually active young adults (sample one N = 1,463, sample two N = 895) viewed different sets of safer sex PSAs on a laptop computer and answered questions about their perceived sensation value and perceived effectiveness. Multiple regression analyses examined the impact of (a) demographic, (b) individual difference, (c) sexual context, and (d) message variables including perceived message sensation value (PMSV) on the perceived message effectiveness (PME) of the PSAs. Results indicated that females, African Americans, condom users, and those with less education viewed the PSAs as slightly more effective than males, Caucasians, non-condom users, and those with more education. PMSV and personal utility emerged as the strongest predictors of PME, even after controlling for all of the aforementioned variables. Implications for further research on PMSV and perceived and actual effectiveness of PSAs are offered.     

Context Effects on Children's Use of Language

The sweeping changes in Swedish society in the 1990s, with extensive decentralisation, privatisation and cutbacks in the public sector, implied quite new conditions for the realisation of the aim of pre-school and school as a meeting place for children from different backgrounds. This article discusses some of these changes and their implications, through a study of parent's choice of pre-school care facility in the city of Uppsala. The main data source is a survey study among 1584 mothers of children born in 1995. The results show that parents' use of the right to choose pre-school facility is economically, socially and culturally segregated; the patterns of choice are construed in relation to residential areas but are not a simple effect of housing segregation. The choice of pre-school facility in Uppsala is thus a practice that creates specific conditions--socially and culturally homogenous private pre-school facilities--that make it virtually impossible for them to achieve the goal of being meeting places.