'I'd Like to Read Fluorescently'— Year 7 Pupils' Developing Views of Reading and Their Progress

Previous research has suggested that children making transitions from one setting into another have to adjust to new sets of expectations and different cultural contexts for teaching and learning. In particular, they have to redefine for themselves 'what counts as literacy'. In this article, Sue Pearson, a past President of NASEN, an experienced teacher and currently a lecturer at Leeds University, reports on her investigations into whether similar adjustments may be required of some pupils as they start secondary school.
The recommendations at the end of this article are based on interviews with 24 11 to 12 year-olds and are of direct relevance to practitioners in primary and secondary schools and to parents and family members. Sue Pearson uses pupils' perceptions to raise important issues about the nature of the support that pupils experiencing difficulties in literacy require as they make the transfer from Year 6 to Year 7.     

Is Something Better Than Nothing? An Evaluation of Early Childhood Programs in Cambodia

This study evaluated the relative effectiveness of home-based, community-based, and state-run early childhood programs across Cambodia. A total of 880 five-year-olds (55% girls) from 6 rural provinces in Cambodia attending State Preschools, Community Preschools, Home-Based Programs, or no programs were assessed twice using the Cambodian Developmental Assessment Test. Controlling for baseline differences, children who participated in any early childhood programs performed significantly better in posttest than those of children who did not participate in any programs. Children in State Preschools scored significantly higher than those in either Community Preschools or Home-Based Programs; scores did not differ as a function of attending Community Preschools or Home-Based Programs. The results indicate that some preschool experience is better than none at all.     

Enabling critical reflection on research supervisory practice

This paper describes the development of an instrument—The Reflective Supervisor Questionnaire (RSQ). The RSQ maps the domain of research supervisory practice as a facilitative process involving educational tasks and activities. It is designed to assist research supervisors explore, by means of self‐reflection and reflection on feedback from others, how they practise supervision. In developing the RSQ 58 items were generated describing 5 hypothesised constructs derived from prior research. The resulting instrument was tested on postgraduate research students in 2 institutions. The questionnaire correlated highly with an established questionnaire supervision scale and with an overall satisfaction measure. Four factors identified in an exploratory analysis closely approximated the hypothesised constructs and extended the theoretical framework being developed. These 4 factors identified 4 subsets of facilitative supervisory practice: Progressing the Candidature, Mentoring, Coaching the Research Project, and Sponsoring Student Participation in Academic/Professional Practice. Issues in the interpretation of the findings and the possible usage in academic development programs of an instrument based on them are discussed.     

Competing philosophies in the classroom: a challenge to Hong Kong teachers

The present paper examines the experiences of teachers in teaching children with special needs in mainstream schools and how they see and evaluate the feasibility of the new integration initiatives in Hong Kong. The data are based on individual and focus group interviews with general class teachers, resource class teachers and principals of mainstream schools admitting students with special needs. Teachers reported difficulties and problems in maintaining classroom discipline and ambivalence in meeting the competing demands between students with and without special needs. The structural constraints of implementing a rigidly defined curriculum and being accountable for good academic results regardless of student competence pose formidable obstacles in achieving the goals of integrated education. There is a conflict at the systemic level between the philosophy of academic excellence defined by grades on the one hand and the philosophy of equality and inclusion on the other. Improving parent participation, having an ample supply of funds, the provision of necessary equipment and facilities, the availability of pre‐ and in‐service training to teachers, and additional manpower in counselling are the most urgently needed resources in facilitating teachers to engage in teaching students with special needs alongside others.     

Inclusion of children with special educational needs in mainstream schools in Ghana: influence of teachers’ and children’s characteristics

The issue of where to teach children with special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities has been a great concern as countries respond to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Salamanca Statement on inclusion of 1994. In this study, the responses of 500 trained and untrained mainstream primary school teachers selected from three of the ten regions of Ghana were analysed to investigate their attitudes to including children with SEN and disabilities in mainstream schools in Ghana. These attitudes were examined alongside teachers’ characteristics such as gender, age, length and level of teaching experience, and knowledge of SEN, and also the type, nature and degree of children’s SEN. The results showed that teachers in Ghana were positive towards the inclusion of children with SEN and disabilities with a few reservations which are elaborated. On the basis of the findings, conclusions were drawn that the inclusion agenda should be subject to national and local interpretation, aimed at ensuring that policies and regulations on SEN are fashioned to meet local situations and standards.     

Will that be one mentor or two? A cross‐sectional study of women's mentoring during college

Three teacher educators formed a new teacher support group for three novices whom we had prepared, in order to help them deal with challenges and uncertainties of the first year of teaching. Using narrative inquiry, we collected the novice teachers' stories by composing field texts, using audiotaped interview data, classroom observations, bi-monthly journal entries, and participant personal narratives as data sources. Common patterns across the data stories included induction into the isolation of teaching, interest in NOT abandoning university teacher preparation, and the need to learn from mentoring. The implications provide discussion of the educative role of teacher support groups in learning to teach, and university involvement in learning to teach during the induction years.     

Rituals in Committed Romantic Relationships: The Creation and Validation of an Instrument

Rituals are widely studied in interpersonal communication research, but no instrument for assessing the preceived use of rituals among couples in committed romantic relationships exists. The purpose of this investigation was to create and validate such a measure (Rituals in Committed Romantic Relationships; RCRR). Five-hundred-sixty individuals in committed romantic relationships responded to a 50-item questionnaire that measured 5 sets of rituals pertaining to daily routines and tasks, idiosyncratic behavior, everyday talk, intimacy, and couple-time. In addition, they completed measures of perceived relational quality and perceived relational intimacy. Multiple analyses supported a 5-factor model consisting of 30 of the original 50 items. Perceived use of rituals was predictive of alterations in both perceived relational quality and perceived relational intimacy.     

The Trouble with Aileen Wuornos,Feminism's “First Serial Killer”

Lesbian prostitute Aileen Wuornos was popularly termed “America's first female serial killer.” Between 1989 and 1990, she killed six men, later testifying they had raped or attempted to rape her. By analyzing media coverage of Wuornos’ story, I argue that Wuornos’ incommensurability with available stories of women who kill illustrates the need to expand the rhetorical resources that make female violence and victimage intelligible. After demonstrating that Wuornos’ gender transgressions were disciplined into intelligible terms by understandings of criminality as an already spatial and gendered category, I conclude by discussing the “trouble” Wuornos poses to feminist and queer cultural politics.     

Editorial

The field of educational development has a 40-year history of providing continuing education or professional development for academic staff, particularly focusing on improving teaching and learning. However, little has yet been written on the historical origins and development of this field, apart from content analyses of some key journals and books conducted recently. This article asks critical questions about the emergence and evolution of educational development, focusing particularly on Australia. It traces the genealogies of some of its dominant positionings and demonstrates, through historical textual analysis, how some topics, themes and methods have retained their dominance over this 40-year period, while others continue to remain marginal. Finally, it argues for further historical research, particularly employing genealogical historical methodologies, as a means of enabling the field to recover from historical amnesia, develop more critical means of interrogating its underlying epistemologies and creating the possibility for broader, contested futures.