Integration of Preschoolers with Severe Disabilities into Daycare

A diary study was conducted over a 15-week period during which six preschoolers with severe disabilities made weekly visits to a daycare center. The intent was to describe successful examples of interactive or imitative play and to note what events prompted these interactions. The results indicated that very little spontaneous cooperative play occurred between daycare children and children with disabilities. An increase in social and play skills was noted in individual students with disabilities. Anecdotal evidence is presented to support these observations.     

Written feedback: Response certitude and durability

This study tested assumptions of a servocontrol model of test item feedback. High school students responded to multiple-choice items and rated their certainty of correctness in each response. Next, learners either received feedback on the items or responded again to the same test. The same items were tested again after 1 and 8 days, with the order to alternatives randomized for half of the subjects in each feedback group. The results generally supported the control model and suggest that response certitude estimates can be treated as an index of comprehension.     

Literacy and Numeracy Events in Social Interactive Contexts

Experiences relevant to emergent literacy and numeracy in 2‐year‐ old and 3‐year‐old children were examined in 10public nurseries. The research was guided by three aims, ie. to describe the frequency and variety of such experiences and investigate the contexts in which they occur; to gauge the quality of the experiences in terms of the type of adult‐child interaction in which they are embedded: and to examine variation between nurseries with regard to the frequency of relevant experience. Observations showed numeracy experiences to be infrequent relative to literacy experiences; both were highly context‐ dependent and related to adult input. Variation between the nurseries on a number of measures was examined and showed consistent patterns between variables relating to staff background and nursery organisation on the one hand and the frequency of literacy and numeracy experiences provided for children on the other. In those nurseries with smaller groups, more effectively implemented staff‐child assignment systems and younger staff, the children were more frequently observed involved in some kind of literacy or numeracy experience, and more often seen having positive and less often negative interaction with adults around these experiences. The importance of the interactive basis of early learning is stressed by these findings.     

Collaborative action research for middle grades improvement

Technology’s rapid evolution applies constant pressure to educational organizations, suggesting a need to continually re-envision schools for the digital age. Yet educators often struggle to understand the growing chasm between students’ out-of-school and in-school technology lives. This gap is particularly noticeable during the middle grades years, when home technology use increases dramatically. The purpose of this research was to examine the experiences of teachers and students engaged in collaborative action research for middle school improvement in technology-rich settings. We begin by outlining our theoretical framework, emphasizing Fletcher’s Ladder of Student Involvement. We then describe our case-study design and methods. Findings are organized by action research components and a discussion of key themes follows. Finally, we consider the implications of this study for action research as a means of student involvement and teacher learning.     

Towards a Language of Possibility: critical reflection and mentorship in initial teacher education

Abstract

This paper examines a programme which aimed at creating alternative school‐based experiences for postgraduate students following a 1‐year higher diploma of education course at the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg. The programme was premised on the belief that critical reflection is necessary for educational transformation, and that teacher educators increasingly will be expected to raise the quality of teaching in schools. The background to the Mentor Programme is described and the underlying rationale is discussed. Whilst the evidence from the study reflects mentor satisfaction at the quality and range of teaching skills developed by students during the programme, the investigators express disappointment at their lack of success in attaining critical reflection by their students. Students generally did not look critically, as they had been encouraged to do, at the institutional or societal context of their teaching. The discussion identifies three possible reasons for this, but concludes that any approach to teacher education which does not encourage teachers to reflect critically on their own educational views and on the nature of education as it is realised in the institutional setting of schools will be inherently flawed.     

Beyond Discourse to Emancipatory Action: Lessons From an Undergraduate

One undergraduate's transformational story of self‐discovery and personal development frames this discussion of the importance of undergraduate involvement in social justice research.     

Book reviews

Women, sport and performance, C.L. Wells, Human Kinetics, Champaign, Illinois, 1985. xi+333 pp, $24.00 (hb), ISBN 0 931250 87 0

Research designs and statistics for physical education, Anne L. Rothstein, Prentice Hall, New York, 1985. xiii + 353 pp, £31 (hb), ISBN 0 13 774142 1

Limits of human performance, American Academy of Physical Education Papers No. 18, D.H. Clarke and H.M. Eckert (eds), Human Kinetics, Champaign, Illinois, 1985. 144 pp, £14.50 (pb), ISBN 0 931250 99 4

Sports physiology, (2nd edn) E.L. Fox, Holt Saunders, Eastbourne, 1984. xii+418 pp, £18.95 (hb), ISBN 0 03 063771 6

Sport management ‐ macro perspectives, P. Chelladurai, Sports Dynamics, London, Ontario, 1985. 191 pp, $11.95 (pb), ISBN 0 9691619 0 5

Microelectronics in the sport sciences, Charles F. Cicciarella, Human Kinetics, Champaign, Illinois (distributed in the UK by Eddington Hook & Co.), 1986. 105 pp, $12.00 (pb), ISBN 0 87322 056 0

The biomechanics of sports techniques, (3rd edn) J.G. Hay, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1985. xvii+539 pp, £15.95 (pb), ISBN 0 13 078304 8     

Obama's American Graduation Initiative: Race,Conservative Modernization,and a Logic of Abstraction

The American Graduation Initiative stands as the cornerstone of the Obama administration's higher education agenda. To investigate the state of the politics of education in the Age of Obama, this article employs critical discourse analysis to unveil the hidden meanings and ideological commitments inherent in Obama's policy discourse. Read within and against the backdrop of what Apple (2006 Apple, M. W. 2006. Educating the “right” way: Markets, standards, God, and inequality , 2nd ed., New York, NY: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]) called the era of conservative modernization, Obama's policy discourse relies on a logic of abstraction that serves to promote a falsely “postracial” society in which hegemonic notions of education are perpetuated.