Learning and schooling of Basarwa (Bushmen) children in Botswana

Conclusion This article highlights the inadequacy of the current model of schooling delivered to Basarwa children in Botswana, and contends that their education should be reevaluated from a cultural viewpoint. Children and teachers are enmeshed in a dynamic, cultural, social and political web, and there are serious language and cultural barriers to learning. These barriers underscore the need for a bilingual, multicultural model of education to affirm and strengthen the culture of the child. The high mobility of the Basarwa demands a flexible, less formal model of schooling and training of teachers from within the Basarwa culture. An innovative curriculum is needed, building on traditional Basarwa pedagogy and world view to develop skills needed to gain greater equity. The approach to health education known as Child-to-Child has considerable potential for curriculum development. Until a more relevant educational model is available Basarwa children will continue to be disadvantaged. A lecturer in education and development at the University of London Institute of Education, where she is responsible for advanced diploma and masters courses in health education and promotion. She is a qualified school-teacher and nutritionist, with more than ten years' experience in higher education and in community development for health in West and East Africa. She is conducting research in health through schooling, and will complete her Ph.D. thesis on ‘Children as health educators’ in 1995. She has a special interest in participatory research methods and gender issues, and is married with four children.     

Analysis of Pre‐test‐Post‐test Control Group Designs in Educational Research

Pre‐test‐post‐test control group designs are well suited to investigating effects of educational innovations and are common in educational research. They are frequently analysed by means of an ANOVA on change scores, or, what amounts to the same thing, a repeated measures ANOVA to test the treatment by occasion interaction. Although the analysis of change scores has intuitive appeal, such analyses are often inappropriate. An ANCOVA on post‐test scores, with pre‐test scores as co‐variate usually provides a more appropriate and informative analysis. Advantages of the ANCOVA approach are explained and illustrated using SPSS‐X analyses of fabricated data sets.     

Executive function: association with multiple reading skills

Reading and Writing - Executive function (EF) is related to reading. However, there is a lack of clarity around (a) the relative contribution of different components of EF to different reading...     

Teaching Your Child to Read: A Critique of Some Recently Published Material

Moves to involve parents more fully in the process of teaching reading to their children have been generally universally welcomed. Publishers have seen this area as one for development and a number of materials aimed at parents are now on the market. As yet, however, there has been little critical appraisal of such material and Pat Pinsent's review here will be widely welcomed by teachers and parents alike. She uncovers some rather worrying features in the material she examines, particularly the implicit assumption in the materials that they will themselves teach children to read. As Pat points out, becoming a reader is a rather more complex business than this.     

Miners,diggers, ferals and show‐men: school–community projects that affirm and unsettle identities and place?

Many contemporary sociologists suggest that a feature of modern life is that the practices and identities associated with ‘place’ are eroded. The local no longer matters in everyday life as it once did. Some national governments are persuaded of the possibility of an urban dystopia of Orwellian dimensions, and have found a response in theories and rhetorics of social capital, citizenship and communitarianism. They have instituted strategies to address an imaginary of harmonious local communities. In this paper I examine one such government intervention and show how four schools in Tasmania, Australia, took up the invitation to strengthen ties with their local communities. The projects reveal that the local still exists and matters, but they also hint at other possibilities. I argue that by working with a ‘place‐based’ curriculum to assist young people in building local networks and engaging productively with their local neighbourhoods, schools might provide important resources for identity‐building and learning.     

Unpacking the issues: Researching the shortage of school principals in two states in Australia

An investigation into the declining supply of principals in two states in Australia revealed that a mosaic of issues surrounds the overall trend towards fewer applications for vacant positions. Looking beyond systemic factors influencing this trend — factors such as the increasing workload of principals — this study discovered why some schools are more affected by a shortage of applicants than others. We found that one of four categories of deterrents was generally involved with declining numbers of applications: location, the size of school, the presence of an incumbent, or difficulties arising from local educational politics. We found, furthermore, that smaller numbers of applicants for vacant positions do not necessarily indicate a decline in interest in school leadership: interest in the principalship remains relatively high but principal aspirants have become increasingly strategic in their applications. Whilst drawing attention, in this paper, to the research finding that numerical interpretations of principal supply have serious limitations, we are keen to acknowledge, briefly, the research data that refers to (a) social and generational changes (b) demographic information, (c) teacher resistance to the modern principalship and how these data explain declining numbers. We also include information about recent changes that go counter to the trend.     

A little more madness in our methods? A snapshot of how the educational leadership,management and administration field conducts research

ABSTRACT

The field of educational leadership, management and administration (ELMA) uses methods drawn primarily from cognate educational disciplines. But does this matter? This paper explores the methods used in recently published papers through a snapshot of six issues of six ELMA journals. The analysis showed a preponderance of survey, interview and case study methods, with one journal, JEAH, also publishing papers using methods drawn from history, philosophy and sociology. The snapshot also revealed the methods that were rarely used – for example, ethnography, visual and on-line methods. Through a Bourdieusian lens, the paper argues that the ELMA field appears to be somewhat removed from methods developments and debates in the wider educational and social science fields. There may thus be mileage in the ELMA field considering the use of additional methods, including the ‘wilder’ ones. The field might also benefit from understanding methods as more than tools and as practices possessed of a social life.