Teachers’ recognition of children with an illusion of incompetence

This study addresses the issue of illusion of incompetence among elementary school children. The first objective is to examine whether teachers are able to recognize children with an illusion of incompetence, The second objective is to see whether teachers’ appraisal of the behaviours and psychological characteristics of these children differ from their appraisals of other children. Seventy-four teachers and their 684 pupils from the fourth and fifth grades who were participating in a larger project were examined. By and large, only 31.3% of the pupils affected by an illusion of incompetence were identified as such by their teachers. However, teachers evaluated boys with an illusion of incompetence as being less autonomous, having a more negative mood and being more withdrawn than their peers. The teachers did not report these characteristics in girls with an illusion of incompetence. The discussion focuses on various hypotheses likely involved in teachers’ difficulty in identifying children whose self-appraisals of competence are negative.     

Student Identities and/in Schooling: Subjection and adolescent performativity

This article uses a fictionalized scenario to examine how three students at an “ordinary” suburban high school in Canada negotiate the context-specific conditions, discourses, and practices that make schools important sites of identity formation. It argues that drawing from Foucault's ideas on the “subjection” of individuals, as well as from the field of performance studies, provides a fresh perspective to redress the potential mismatches between official multicultural education discourses and the lived schooling realities of students. In the process, it demonstrates how subjection and adolescent performativity can be useful analytics through which to understand student identities and/in schooling. The article concludes with some implications for shifts in policy, pedagogy, and practice to help schools engage with student diversity.     

Victimization during childhood and revictimization in dating relationships in adolescent girls

OBJECTIVE: Various experiences with violence during childhood and adolescence (parental violence, exposure to marital violence, sexual abuse within and outside the family, sexual harassment at school, community violence, involvement with violent or victimized peers, and previous dating violence) are examined as potential risk factors for psychological, physical, and sexual revictimization in adolescent girls' dating relationships. METHOD: A group of 917 teenage girls (mean age = 16.3) were recruited in 5 high schools located in low to middle socioeconomic areas. Participants were in the 10th and 11th grades, and each completed a self-administered questionnaire. Analyses were performed on the 622 participants who reported having at least one dating partner in the last 12 months. RESULTS: Prevalence rates for past victimization experiences varied from 13% to 43%. Regarding last-year dating victimization, prevalence rates varied from 25% to 37%, depending on the type of violence sustained. Results suggest that extrafamilial experiences with violence are stronger risk factors for recent dating victimization than intrafamilial experiences, especially being sexually harassed by male peers at school and being involved with violent or victimized peers during the year preceding the survey. However, it is important to differentiate between girls who are repeatedly victims of violence in a single, long-term relationship (repeat dating victimization), and girls who are revictimized by different partners (dating revictimization), the former sustaining more frequent physical and psychological violence than the latter. CONCLUSIONS: Findings underline the importance of early prevention of adolescent dating violence. Prevention programs should especially address extrafamilial experiences with violence as important risk factors for victimization in dating relationships, and teach girls strategies to break up abusive relationships.     

A developmental approach to the risk of a first recurrence in child protective services

The objective of this study is to estimate the risk of a first recurrence over a five-year period following initial child protective services (CPS) intervention and identify the characteristics associated with the risk of recurrence for three different age groups. Recurrence is defined as the first substantiated report within the observation period after initial services have ended. The study involved a cohort of 25,897 Quebec children who received postinvestigation services for the first time and whose cases were closed between 2005 and 2009. Survival analysis was used to estimate the five-year risk of recurrence and Cox regression to model the risk of recurrence for three age groups. The covariates introduced into the regression analyses were characteristics of the child and initial services. The risk of recurrence in the five years following termination of initial CPS services was 36% for the entire cohort and varied depending on the child's age at the time of case closure. Children aged 6–11 when their cases were closed had the highest risk of recurrence. Although Aboriginal descent and prior CPS investigations have a consistent effect on the risk of recurrence in all three age groups, the effects of other covariates, such as out-of-home placement and court involvement, vary or are even reversed, depending on the child's age. These findings highlight the need to adopt a differential approach that takes into account the child's age, both in the provision of protective services and in research involving the population receiving such services.     

Thinking for speaking: the expression of motion events by Russian and Chinese learners of Catalan as a second language / Pensar para hablar: la expresión de eventos de movimiento en hablantes nativos de ruso y mandarín que aprenden catalán como una segunda lengua

Abstract

In this study we provide evidence for the influence of L1 typological patterns in elicited narratives in Catalan by bilingual speakers of three different typological languages. The expression of the semantic components of Path and Manner of motion of Russian L1 speakers and Mandarin L1 speakers was compared to that of native Catalan speakers. Following the Thinking for Speaking framework, it was hypothesized that if the preferred semantic structure of L1 is transferred to the L2, then productions would be organized and structured differently according to the typological characteristics of L1. Results show different patterns of expression in L2 with regard to lexical choice and syntactic-semantic structure. We argue that the results provide empirical support for the Thinking for Speaking hypothesis.     

Season of birth and school success in the early years of primary education

Several studies have reported significant relationships between children’s season of birth and measures of their academic success (i.e., the ‘season of birth effect’). Whereas most of these studies were cross‐sectional, the current study uses growth curve modelling to analyse longitudinal data on 3,187 children in Flemish primary education. The results indicate season of birth effects on both grade retention and mathematics achievement during the first two years of primary school. Because the Flemish cut‐off date is 31 December, children born in the fourth quarter (October‐November‐December) invariably are among the youngest in their grade age group. Almost 20% of these children were found to have been retained or referred to special education by the end of Grade 2, whereas for children born in the first quarter (January‐February‐March), this was only 6.34%. First quarter‐born children also showed moderately higher mathematics achievement at the start of first grade. During the next two school years, this achievement gap between children born in the first and the fourth quarter narrowed significantly. Finally, differentiated instruction was not found to be related to the decrease of the season of birth effect.     

The School and the Reduction of Inequality∗

ABSTRACT

The need to develop reasoning skills in children through discussion is generally acknowledged by curriculum aims. There is, however, a lack of any definite teaching strategy to fulfil this need. Matthew Lipman's Philosophy for Children programme has had success in this area. As with other ‘collaborative enquiry‐based’ approaches to learning, it depends upon a teaching strategy which enhances children's self‐esteem. This seems a necessary ingredient for the development of rationality, critical awareness and autonomy in children. Inadequate teacher training is suggested as a major reason for the failure of ‘collaborative’ approaches greatly to influence educational practice. With a shift away from the ‘authority/knowledge‐based’ paradigm and the provision of effective teacher training, it is considered that our educational institutions could become more democratically organised, and we would move closer to realising the liberal ideal of developing human potential to the full.     

Rethinking access,success and student retention in Open and Distance Learning

The focus of this paper is access problems distance students encounter when required to use the Internet for their studies, and how such problems influence the students’ ability to gain access to higher education. Empirically, the paper is informed by a qualitative case study of a Master’s programme in public administration offered to a group of students in a relatively remote area of Indonesia. It shows how access problems certainly become a challenge for such students, not only because of the absence of technology but also because of social constraints related to the presence of technology. However, as there are often no proper alternatives, new technology may well be considered a step forwards for such students, even if the new technology to some extent creates serious problems.     

Curricula and curricular analysis: Some pointers for a debate

This introduction to our guest-edited issue provides a framework for reflecting on curricula, based on the four still fundamental questions raised by Tyler (Basic principles of curriculum and instruction. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1949) about effective ways to organize educational experiences that can meet the school’s educational purpose. The authors begin by decoding the Franco-European and Anglo-Saxon/North American approaches to the concept of curriculum, and seek points where the two are complementary. Using Tyler’s four questions, they then clarify the concept in a conceptual outline, organize it into a rational model, and seek a reference framework that can offer pointers for a debate on curriculum. They then show that, because a curriculum necessarily originates in a specific society, some of that society’s irrationality affects the nature of the curriculum. Thus, any curriculum experiences a tension between the rationality of the models that define it in theoretical terms and the irrationality of its surrounding society—which has the power to regulate it. Therefore, tools for curriculum analysis must consider all these dimensions, contradictions, and tensions to achieve a truly systemic perspective. While a system model is important for evaluation, it is also important to understand the less rational aspects and to place them in dialogue with their models. In this respect, providing pointers for the debate on curriculum remains a perilous exercise. Finally, the authors reflect on a systemic and holistic approach to the curriculum, and suggest pointers for contemporary reflection on curriculum.