American college students' perceptions of counsellor approachability: Professional implications

The Repertory Grid technique was used to explore differences in the way in which freshers and postgraduate counselling students perceived the roles of “counsellor” and “friend”. Postgraduates viewed counsellors as more approachable than other students, while freshers viewed other students as more approachable than counsellors. The constructs identified by the students were content-analyzed to define “approachability” for each group. The perceptions held by students were used to address implications for the provision of outreach services, role-induction programmes, and the status of the counsellor as the professional.     

Fifty-one families with computers: A study of children's academic uses of microcomputers at home

This paper examines the extent to which children in a 51-family, qualitative study used their home microcomputers for learning school subjects such as reading, mathematics, science, and social studies. Logs and analytic documents gathered over two years were content analyzed. This analysis revealed that most of the children who used their home microcomputers were not using them for academic learning. The absence of home academic microcomputing by children was found to be associated with a set of factors which included the lack of parental pressure and support for home academic microcomputing, the schools' emphasis on programming and computer literacy, the unreceptivity of the children and their peers to home academic microcomputing, and the dearth of academic software in the homes. The implications of these findings for the fostering of home academic microcomputing are discussed.     

‘In transition’: choice and the children of New Zealand’s economic reforms

New Zealand’s rapid emergence as a late‐modern, neo‐liberal society following 1984 led to a transformation in the institutional infrastructure for youth transitions from school to post‐school worlds. Our research focuses on the ways that young people born after 1984 craft identities in transition. We investigate their perspectives on transition in their last year of school, and the processes by which they make choices about post‐school destinations. In particular, we examine the extent to which the transitions they negotiate are shaped by the institutional infrastructure for transition established by policy. Expecting some degree of mismatch between the complexities of participants’ lives and the linear transition process implicit in policy, we found instead a combination of traditional assumptions (that transition would be a straightforward, linear process) and late‐modern assumptions (about the construction of elective biographies through active choice). These combined to produce a particular perception of risk among participants.     

School mining clubs in Kono,Sierra Leone: the practices and imaginaries of a pedagogy of protest against social injustice in a conflict-affected context

ABSTRACT

This paper takes as a case study the pedagogical practices emergent from the educational interventions of a civil society organisation in the conflict affected region of Kono, Sierra Leone. Using a cultural political economy approach, it highlights the possibilities of pedagogy being leveraged to protest against perceived and experienced social injustices. In so doing it contributes to understanding of a context-specific model of teacher agency, rooted in the local and global challenges faced by pupils and their communities. It thereby illuminates an alternative to the generic and decontextualized framings of pedagogy frequently offered in human rights and peace education curricula.     

Peer Networking as a Dynamic Approach to Supporting New Faculty

This article presents a dynamic method of supporting new faculty through a peer support group led by a facilitator. Group members participate in ongoing self-assessment, individualized goal setting, and activities that reflect the changing needs of the group. We explain the history and activities of the group and also the benefits for institutions considering developing a support mechanism for new faculty.     

The effects on the student-teacher relationship in a one-to-one technology classroom

This embedded case study explores the student-teacher relationship in a one-to-one technology environment. The actual change in relationship in a one-to-one classroom was examined. The study was guided by the self-system theory of motivation and its three characteristics of autonomy, relatedness, and competency as a theoretical framework. To explore this topic, the researchers considered the perspectives of four classroom teachers and 207 high school students at a suburban public high school in New Jersey. The case study research utilized teacher interviews, classroom observations, student surveys, and a student focus group. The findings revealed a notable change in the relationship between teachers and students within the one-to-one environment. The change existed in the connectivity between the teachers and their students beyond the classroom and school. The researchers concluded that the teachers and their students did have a positive relationship in a one-to-one environment and that relationship depended on the teacher’s ability to engage students using the one-to-one device. The researchers concluded that the one-to-one environment creates an autonomous learning environment for students; teachers and students have a relatedness that extends beyond the traditional boundaries of a school; and a higher level of competency in both teachers and students creates a more engaging classroom. As one-to-one technology environments are becoming more popular across the country, this study contributes to a better understanding of the expected changes in teacher-student relationships before issues of conflict occur.     

Placing photovoice under erasure: a critical and complicit engagement with what it theoretically is (not)

While there have been multiple breaks, shifts and developments within the theories that shape photovoice (i.e. praxis and feminist standpoint theory), they are rarely accounted for in the ways in which photovoice is (re)constituted. In this paper, I ask and engage with the questions: what might it mean to reconceptualise photovoice through a substitution of these similar yet different iterations of these theories? What is produceable in turn? By placing these (mis)readings of theory in conversation with concepts key to photovoice, empowerment and voice, I provide not what photovoice should be but rather possible possibilities for what it could be.     

Literalism in the young child’s interpretation of pictures

This article describes four studies concerned with the young child’s response to the illusion of incompleteness in pictures. A substantial proportion of the children, aged 4 to 7 years, responded as if an element “out of sight” in a picture either did not exist or was incomplete. This mode of responding, termed “literalism,” was found to be related to age and proved to be little influenced by training and one other form of structured experience. The work reported in this article was funded by a grant from the Education Research and Development Committee, Commonwealth Department of Education, Canberra, Australia. The author acknowledges with gratitude the assistance of Ann Ring, June Sleet, and Janette Muir in the execution of these studies.