Measuring elementary teacher stress and coping in the classroom: Validity evidence for the Classroom Appraisal of Resources and Demands

The Classroom Appraisal of Resources and Demands (CARD, elementary version) was used to investigate teacher stress among a sample of elementary teachers (n = 521). The CARD measures teacher stress by examining the subjective experience of both classroom demands and resources provided by the school, and thereby attempts to capture the situationally specific nature of teacher stress. This study attempted to examine whether the CARD can provide reliable and valid information that addresses the call by experts in the field of teacher stress research for measures that consider each teacher's specific occupational circumstances. Specifically, the factor structure of the CARD was supported empirically. Further evidence was offered for the construct and concurrent validity by correlations between CARD scales scores and other measures theoretically relevant to teacher well‐being: general health, teacher efficacy, self‐critical attitudes, and burnout symptoms. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

A Review of Collegiate Recovery Communities and Recommendations for Implementation on a Small Residential Campus

Although the Collegiate Recovery Community is increasingly seen as the treatment modality of choice for students in recovery, relatively few such programs have been established on small residential campuses. In this article we examine the possible reasons for this reluctance and suggest ways in which the standard model for a Collegiate Recovery Community, as represented by its three benchmark programs, can be modified and adapted to better fit the small residential campus environment. We summarize the problem and review the concept of a Collegiate Recovery Community, and we then explain and recommend 1) a bottom-up initiative for planning and 2) scaled-down resource demand and utilization. We provide a 5-point plan for a “bottom-up, scaled-down” Collegiate Recovery Community on a small residential campus.     

Developing coaching pedagogy: seeking a better integration of theory and practice

Despite evidence that experience within practical coaching contexts serves as the principal knowledge source for coaches, academic (and professional) coach education programmes continue to be heavily taught along didactic lines. Such courses are often considered as fine in theory but divorced from the gritty realities of practice. The aim of this article was to construct and evaluate a pedagogical framework (delivered through an MSc unit) drawn from tenets of both action research and ‘communities of practice’ as a means through which the practice-theory gap can be somewhat addressed. The unit in question involved students being introduced to a particular theoretical position with the expectation that they would integrate that theory into their practice in the upcoming week. The students then shared their experiences in structured discussion groups during the following class. Data on student learning were gathered both through on-going observations, and focus groups interviews with staff and students at the end of the unit. The data were inductively analysed. Findings revealed that the students were generally stimulated by and, hence, generally positive about the pedagogical approach experienced. This was specifically in terms of better ordering the knowledge they had as well as developing new insights about coaching practice. Although not unproblematically, the staff were also positive about the unit; citing better and more continuous student engagement as a result of it.     

‘Studentship’ and ‘impression management’ in an advanced soccer coach education award

The purpose of this study was to investigate how coaches perceived and responded to the content knowledge and assessment processes that they were exposed to during an advanced level soccer coaching award programme. In-depth interviews were conducted with six coaches who had successfully completed the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) ‘A’ Licence in the UK. Using the concepts of the ‘dialectic of socialisation’, ‘studentship’ and Goffman's (1959) work on ‘the presentation of the self’ as analytical pegs, the discussion highlights how the coaches were far from ‘empty vessels’ waiting to be filled. Rather, the findings reveal the active role that the respondent coaches played in terms of accepting, rejecting and resisting the knowledge, beliefs and methods espoused by the coach educators. Finally, perceiving of coach learning as a negotiated and contested activity is discussed in terms of its implications for existing and future coach education provision.     

Changing personas and evolving identities: the contestation and renegotiation of researcher roles in fieldwork

The aim of this paper is to discuss the development and evolution of particular personas adopted by researchers in the quest for rich exchanges within the social field. It analyses my role (the principal author) as a female ethnographer (and the sole female) in the world of elite male rowing. Data are drawn from personal notes, reflections and observations during a five-month-long training camp. My experiences are located within dramaturgical social theory and, in particular, Goffman's work on face and impression management. The significance of the work is twofold. Firstly, it lies in recognising the strategies we use and the identities we construct as researchers in negotiating the social field towards desired ends. Secondly, it raises awareness of the implications performances have for the nature of the data gathered and the conclusions drawn from them.     

Whose children are they? A transnational minority religious sect and schools as sites of conflict in Canada, 1890–1922

Abstract

In 1874, 6000 Old Colony Mennonites, an ethno-religious minority sect, immigrated to the Canadian prairies from Russia, after negotiating a charter of privileges with the federal government. Chief among these freedoms was the right to educate their children without government interference. Between 1890 and 1922, tensions mounted between the Mennonites and the government over issues related to schooling, culminating in the 1922 exodus to Latin America. Archival evidence – school inspector reports, personal correspondence and German and English-language newspapers – illustrates how a lack of identity with a nation-state rendered government attempts at assimilation through schooling ineffective. The transnational lens elucidates why these Mennonites were not moved by state efforts; their allegiance was to their own community and to the kingdom of God, but not to any particular nation. Successive legislation – the 1890 Schools Act, the 1907 law mandating that the Union Jack flag be flown outside schools, and the School Attendance Act – though not directed solely at the Mennonites, made it harder for them to conduct their schools according to tradition. Schooling served as the primary locus through which their language, religion and worldview were transmitted and these goals often conflicted directly with predominant concepts of education.     

Psychological Resources as Stress Buffers: Their Relationship to University Students' Anxiety and Depression

The association of protective resources, personality variables, life events, and gender with anxiety and depression was examined with university students. Building on regression analyses, a structural equation model was generated with good fit, indicating that with respect to both anxiety and depression, negative life events and coping resources were mediated by a common distress factor. Personality variables were associated with anxiety, which in turn had a direct relationship to depression.     

Religious Challenges to School Voucher and Tax Benefit/Scholarship Programs

A key component of current school reform efforts focuses on increasing parental choice through voucher systems and programs that provide tax benefits for contributions to scholarship programs for private school tuition. Indeed, proposals to adopt such programs have been or currently are being considered in four-fifths of the states, and about half of the states have already adopted some type of voucher and/or tax benefit program to assist parents in selecting private education for their children. This article provides an overview of the challenges to school voucher and tax benefit programs under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and/or the religion clauses of state constitutions. Specific sections address pertinent Supreme Court decisions, state constitutional religion clauses, state court cases rejecting religious challenges to voucher and tax benefit/scholarship programs, and cases in which such initiatives have been invalidated under the religion clauses of state constitutions. The concluding section focuses on the viability of future religion clause challenges to such programs and implications of legal developments pertaining to the privatization of schooling in our nation.