‘It’s never okay to say no to teachers’: Children’s research consent and dissent in conforming schools contexts

This article examines the limits to children giving research consent in everyday school contexts that emphasises their conformity to comply with adult expectations, and highlights children’s competence and agency in navigating this conformity through different practices of dissent. It draws on research into children’s agency, using a multimodal ethnography of Year 1 classrooms in two English primary schools. The article includes a reflexive methodological focus, exploring the extent to which I counter the schools’ emphasis on conformity. This includes creating visuals for children to practice consent; positioning myself as the researcher in a non-teacher role, as ‘least adult’ and the one who ‘least knows’; and designing interview spaces markedly different from classrooms. The article examines how children navigate conforming discourses by finding different ways to dissent in the research. Firstly, children demonstrate a sophisticated awareness of the cultural norms of indicating refusals beyond saying the word ‘No’. Secondly, children achieve unnoticeability, by which they absent themselves from the ‘on-task’ classroom culture, and by extension the research process. Thirdly, they engage in playful dissent, demonstrating their political knowingness of the classroom social order. The article discusses the implications for educational research when the values of consent are in conflict with a schooling focused on conformity. This includes emphasising the limits of consent procedures, paying closer attention to how researchers recognise and respond ethically to children’s multiple practices of dissent, and using research to disrupt problematic power structures in education settings that limit possibilities for children’s consent.     

Developmental Trajectories of Chinese Adolescents’ Relational Aggression: Associations With Changes in Social-Psychological Adjustment

This study investigated the development of relational aggression (RA) in a sample of Chinese youth (N = 2,274, 52% boys) from fourth (M_age = 10.27 years) to ninth grade. Using latent class growth analysis, four trajectories were identified for both peer- and teacher-rated RA: a no aggression trajectory, a low-increasing trajectory, a moderate-decreasing trajectory, and a chronically high trajectory. Chronically high RA showed a chronicity effect on adolescent peer acceptance, rejection, and rule-breaking behaviors. Adolescents showed worse adjustment as RA increased, but they did not necessarily evidence significant improvement in adjustment even if their RA decreased. Findings reveal the maladaptive nature of RA and highlight the importance of considering cultural context in understanding RA.     

Self‐assessment and the disadvantaged student: potential for encouraging self‐regulated learning?

The Science Foundation Programme (SFP) at the University of KwaZulu Natal, Pietermaritzburg attempts to address past educational inequalities by providing disadvantaged matriculants with the skills, resources and self‐confidence needed to embark on their tertiary studies. Students entering the Programme typically adopt a surface approach to learning with emphasis being placed on high score achievement which results in a mark‐driven attitude towards assessment. Students also lack the metacognitive skills associated with a deep approach to learning. Within this mark‐driven culture, it is important to attempt to move students away from such a superficial approach to learning and assessment. Worldwide, self‐assessment practice has been gaining recognition, and it has been linked to the adoption of a deep approach to learning; self‐regulated learning and the development of metacognitive skills. In the biology module of the Programme, students are given two essay assignments, tasks that are routinely performed very poorly. In attempt to improve SFP students’ essay writing abilities, a self‐assessment scheme to accompany the essay tasks was instituted, hoping that this would get the students to engage with the assessment criteria. It was intended that students would not only fulfil the requirements of the task better, but also achieve the valuable skill of self‐assessment. The results provide overwhelming evidence that SFP students cannot accurately self‐assess. Their naivety and inexperience in fulfilling assessment criteria was also revealed. Overall, marks awarded by staff were significantly lower than those awarded by students, and there was no evidence to suggest that any one category of students based on academic ability were better able to self‐assess than another. Marker inconsistencies were revealed, but this was shown to have no effect on findings. In spite of these results, a case for pursuing self‐assessment is made and proposals for improving student self‐assessment practice in the SFP are suggested.