Caught between a rock and a hard place: disruptive boys’ views on mainstream and special schools in New South Wales,Australia

Students with disruptive behaviour in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) are increasingly being educated in separate ‘behaviour’ schools. There is however surprisingly little research on how students view these settings, or indeed the mainstream schools from which they were excluded. To better understand excluded students’ current and past educational experiences, we interviewed 33 boys, aged between 9 and 16 years of age, who were enrolled in separate special schools for students with disruptive behaviour. Analyses reveal that the majority of participants began disliking school in the early years due to difficulties with schoolwork and teacher conflict. Interestingly, while most indicated that they preferred the behaviour school, more than half still wanted to return to their old school. It is therefore clear that separate special educational settings are not a solution to disruptive behaviour in mainstream schools. Whilst these settings do fulfil a function for some students, the preferences of the majority of boys suggest that ‘mainstream’ school reform is of first-order importance.     

Reading on the computer with orthographic and speech feedback

In this paper we present an overview of a computer program directed toward the remediation of children's deficits in word recognition and phonological decoding. In the present studies, 138 children read stories on the computer, in their school, for a half hour per day during a semester. Children were trained to request synthetic-speech feedback (DECtalk) for difficult words by targeting the words with a mouse. Different groups received whole-word feedback, wherein targeted words were highlighted and spoken as a unit, or segmented feedback, wherein segments of words (onsets, rimes, or syllables) were sequentially highlighted and spoken by the computer, requiring the child to pay attention to and blend the segments. Both whole-word and segmented feedback resulted in almost twice the gains in standardized word recognition scores compared to control groups that spent an equal time in their normal remedial reading program. Most important, the computer-trained groups improved their phonological decoding of nonwords at about four times the rate of the control group. However, there was a significant interaction between level of deficit severity and optimal feedback condition. The most severely disabled readers showed the largest phonological decoding gains from syllable feedback, while the largest gains for the less severely disabled readers were from onset-rime feedback. The disabled readers' level of phonological awareness at pre-test was the strongest predictor for gains in word recognition and phonological decoding. Implications of the results for future training programs are discussed.     

Reprising John Dewey: A Review of Andreas Demetriou, George Spanoudis & Antigoni Mouyi's “Educating the Developing Mind: Towards an Overarching Paradigm”

As a summary of current advances in developmental psychology, the above article makes some useful contributions. As a contribution to educational policy and practice, it is limited if not a failure for two reasons. It fails to come to grips with the real demands of living classrooms, and second, it fails to grasp the actual subjective lives of the children taught. The gap between science and practice is now as large as it was when John Dewey first called attention to “the whole child” and a pragmatic approach to knowledge and thinking.     

The submergence and re-emergence of gender in undergraduate accounts of university experience

Gender distinction has been shown to characterise both undergraduate experiences and outcomes. Yet research recounted in this article supports work that shows that young people are often unaware of such trends, subscribing instead to individualist perspectives that foreground equality of opportunity and agency. This article examines the gender continuities and divergences in 64 undergraduate students' accounts of their experiences, and constructions of peers and lecturers, in higher education. Concepts of heteroglossia and monoglossia are applied to gender to explain how students submerged ‘structure’ and inequality in their accounts, but how discourses that presented the genders as distinct (and in which the masculine is elevated over the feminine) nevertheless ‘bubbled up’ in their articulations. The students tended to reject the notion that gender and other structural differences impact their experiences and outcomes; yet their broader discussions frequently reflected (often stereotypical) monoglossic constructions of gender difference. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for the sociology of education and for higher-education pedagogy.     

Student Learning about Biomolecular Self-Assembly Using Two Different External Representations

Self-assembly is the fundamental but counterintuitive principle that explains how ordered biomolecular complexes form spontaneously in the cell. This study investigated the impact of using two external representations of virus self-assembly, an interactive tangible three-dimensional model and a static two-dimensional image, on student learning about the process of self-assembly in a group exercise. A conceptual analysis of self-assembly into a set of facets was performed to support study design and analysis. Written responses were collected in a pretest/posttest experimental design with 32 Swedish university students. A quantitative analysis of close-ended items indicated that the students improved their scores between pretest and posttest, with no significant difference between the conditions (tangible model/image). A qualitative analysis of an open-ended item indicated students were unfamiliar with self-assembly prior to the study. Students in the tangible model condition used the facets of self-assembly in their open-ended posttest responses more frequently than students in the image condition. In particular, it appears that the dynamic properties of the tangible model may support student understanding of self-assembly in terms of the random and reversible nature of molecular interactions. A tentative difference was observed in response complexity, with more multifaceted responses in the tangible model condition.     

Perceptions and practices regarding M.A. capstone options and PH.D. admission decisions: A survey of communication M.A. and PH.D. program representatives

In terms of positioning a student for Ph.D. admission, the decision to complete a thesis or comprehensive exams as one's M.A. capstone is based on much speculation, but little systematic study. This study surveyed M.A. and Ph.D. Communication program representatives about doctoral programs' admission preferences and practices regarding applicants holding M.A.s from other institutions, as well as perceptions of their institution's students' actual capstone choices. In nearly half the cases, doctoral program representatives were unaware of whether students admitted with M.A.s had elected the thesis, comprehensive exams, or some other capstone option. Additionally, the results show that Ph.D. programs prioritize students' writing samples, statements of reasons, and GRE scores when deciding admission. There were discrepancies between M.A. program representatives' perceptions of what information weighed most heavily with doctoral admissions committees and the priorities reported by Ph.D. program representatives.     

“If you hit me again,I'll hit you back:” Conflict management strategies of individuals experiencing aggression during conflicts

In interpersonal relationships characterized by aggression, the negotiation of conflict is especially significant. The present study examined the conflict management strategies used by 31 individuals who had experienced verbal and/or physical aggression during conflicts with their partners. Sillars’ (1986) conflict tactics coding system was used as a framework to analyze 960 pages of transcribed data. The results of this deductive content analysis indicated that the participants reported using primarily Distributive conflict strategies. Analytic induction was also used to interpret nonverbal forms of conflict management, revealing three common tactics: crying, nonverbal avoidance, and aggression. Implications for using these conflict strategies in interpersonal relationships characterized by aggression are discussed.     

Beyond family structure: The family in domestic comedy

This inquiry examined the portrayal of family relationships in domestic comedy. Participants were randomly assigned to view and evaluate samples of thirteen programs, selected for the study on the basis of their popularity during the period 1950‐1990. Separate discriminant function analyses of spousal and parent‐child relations showed that spousal relations were defined in terms of receptiveness and expressiveness while parent‐child relations were defined in terms of the effectiveness of child socialization and the affective tone of the relationship. Further examination provided strong evidence that the development of the television family has occurred as a stepwise process in which successive generations have been characterized by changed levels of relational openness and a general trend toward increased expression of affect in spousal relations. The study yielded no support for the claim that family life and family relations have deteriorated across time in the television family although there was evidence that working‐class families are seen to be less functional than higher socio‐economic status families. The limitations and implications of these findings are discussed.