Goodness of Fit Between Children and Classrooms: Effects of Child Temperament and Preschool Classroom Quality on Achievement Trajectories

Research Findings: The purpose of this study was to examine whether child temperament differentially predicted academic school readiness depending on the quality of classroom interactions for 179 Head Start preschoolers. Teachers rated children's temperament as overcontrolled, resilient, or undercontrolled in the fall and reported on children's language/literacy and math skills continuously throughout the year. Observations of classroom emotional and instructional support were conducted in the spring. Results from multilevel models indicated that overcontrolled children (compared to resilient children) made greater math gains in classrooms with higher instructional support, whereas a trend-level effect suggested that undercontrolled children (compared to resilient children) made lower math gains in classrooms with lower emotional support. Results also showed that resilient children's gains in language/literacy were more positively associated with high emotional support than were the scores of overcontrolled children. Practice or Policy: This study adds to prior findings suggesting that overcontrolled and undercontrolled children need special attention in the preschool classroom. Teachers and administrators may want to carefully consider the effect that classroom interactions and instructional techniques have on individual children and attempt to tailor instruction to meet the individual needs of children within classrooms.     

Peer mentoring: engaging pre‐service teachers in mentoring one another

This article discusses a peer mentoring teacher education initiative that aims at developing pre‐service teachers’ capacities to participate successfully in learning communities, both during their initial teacher education and throughout their teaching careers. Peer mentoring utilizes the latest conceptualization of mentoring, that of co‐mentoring by Bona et al. or that proposed by Hargreaves and Fullan, where all teachers give and receive support. Such a conceptualization challenges the traditional assumption that the mentor knows best and is consistent with the latest approaches to teacher professional development, where teachers are encouraged to participate in learning communities. A peer mentoring teacher education initiative is described and three essential elements are highlighted.     

Change of plans: an evaluation of the effectiveness and underlying mechanisms of successful talent transfer

Abstract

Talent transfer (TT) is a recently formalised process used to identify and develop talented athletes by selecting individuals who have already succeeded in one sport and transferring them to another. Despite the increasing popularity of TT amongst national organisations and sport governing body professionals, however, there is little empirical evidence as to its efficacy or how it may be most efficiently employed. Accordingly, this investigation was designed to gain a deeper understanding of the effectiveness and underlying mechanisms of TT, achieved through a two-part study. Stage 1 provided a quantitative analysis of the incidence and distribution or, in this respect, epidemiology of TT, finding the most popular transfer to be sprinting to bobsleigh, with an average transfer age of 19 years. Stage 2 scrutinised the TT process and explored the specific cases revealed in stage 1 by examining the perceptions of four sport science support specialists who had worked in TT settings, finding several emergent themes which, they felt, could explain the TT processes. The most prominent theme was the psychosocial mechanism of TT, an aspect currently missing from TT initiatives, suggesting that current TT systems are poorly structured and should redress their approach to develop a more integrated scheme that encompasses all potential mechanisms of transfer.     

Building resilience in pre-service teachers

This article examines the role that professional experiences (practicum) can play in building resilience in pre-service teachers. In particular it focuses on a learning communities model of professional experience with its emphasis on relationships and its attention to the complex and dynamic interactions between individuals and their ‘student teaching’ contexts. This article draws on a number of studies including evaluations of two cohorts of graduate Bachelor of Education (primary) students and a self-study based on the work of two university academics. Jordan's [2006. Relational resilience in girls. In S. Goldstein, & R. Brooks, (Eds.), Handbook of resilience in children. New York: Springer] model of relational resilience – with its characteristics of mutuality, empowerment and the development of courage – is used as a conceptual framework for illuminating some of the emerging insights from our work with the Learning Communities model.     

Different for girls? Feminism,health information and librarianship*

This paper focuses on the provision and organization of health information materials in women's health centres in UK and Ireland in the late 20th century Such centres sprung from the work of feminist activists and health workers from the late 1960s onwards, promoting health information and other interventions to counteract women's devalued status within society, and the stereotypes perpetuated by health care and other systems. Centres that developed were (and still are) typically within the voluntary sector, have a strong feminist perspective and are run by lay workers. This paper will draw on research into information provision in these centres, its scope, organization and who provides it. It will argue that this work is of interest to mainstream librarianship, but there are minimal linkages as feminist thinking within librarianship has been unable overall to make common cause with the work of these, and other such agencies, which has inhibited potential developments of mutual benefit. This paper draws on ongoing research into feminism and librarianship, and findings that have been presented in a number of settings.     

Hospital libraries: focal point in the continuing education crisis

The Proposed Requirements for Professional Libraries in Hospitals to be Licensed in the Commonweath of Pennsylvania are presented and discussed. Indication is given of current trends in the development of hospital libraries as the single most important factor in continuing medical education and as the least-developed factor.     

Gender,ethnicity, science achievement,and attitudes

Science achievement and attitudes were assessed for a series of students in Grades 3–12 representing the four major ethnic groups in Hawai'i (USA). It was found that more differences were accounted for by ethnicity and even grade than by gender; in addition, there was little interaction between ethnicity and gender. With respect to ethnicity, Caucasian and Japanese-American students outscored Hawaiians and Filipino Americans at all grade levels. Caucasians also expressed the most positive attitudes toward science and Japanese expressed the most positive perceptions of scientists; Hawaiians generally expressed the least positive perceptions. Younger students generally expressed more positive attitudes toward science but less positive perceptions of scientists compared to older students. Caucasians expressed the most positive perceptions of their own science ability and achievement. With respect to gender, there were no consistent differences in science achievement and very few in science attitudes and perceptions. The major differences were that males reported more experiences with physical science activities and also expressed a more male-stereotyped view of science than females, with some variation by ethnicity and grade. There were differences in enrollment in advanced science and mathematics classes in that females were more likely than males to enroll in many, but for both genders the major reason was college admission: Japanese students were most likely and Hawaiians least likely to indicate science interest as a reason. Findings are discussed within the context of cultural ecology and feminist social theory. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Beyond the academic precariat: a collective biography of poetic subjectivities in the neoliberal university

The ‘neoliberal turn’ in the higher education sector has received significant intellectual scrutiny in recent times. This scrutiny, led by many established academics working within the sector, has highlighted the negative repercussions for teaching and research staff, often referred to as the ‘academic precariat’ due to their tenuous employment prospects within an increasingly market-driven system. This critique of the modern university can also inadvertently position academics as either resisting or complying with neoliberal governance. This does not adequately account for the nuanced and poetic ways in which professional, personal and gendered subjectivities are formulated, intertwined and negotiated. In this paper we draw on the six overlapping yet distinct narratives of the six female authors, all early-career academics from Australia. We capture and analyse these narratives through collective biography, a qualitative methodology underpinned by the work of Davies and Gannon and others, that helps us to move beyond the ‘good vs. bad’, ‘resistance vs. compliance’ debates about academic life. We identify aspects of our lived subjectivities that offer rupture through poetic and hopeful ways of understanding how academics construct and negotiate their lives.     

The social experience of early childhood for children with learning disabilities: inclusion,competence and agency

This paper tells of the social experiences of three four‐year‐old children with learning disabilities as they negotiate their daily lives in their homes and early education settings in England. We apply a social model of childhood disability to the relatively unexplored territory of young children and use vignettes drawn from video observation to explore the interactive spaces contained in settings with different cultures of inclusion. Using a multimodal approach to the data we show the nuanced ways in which the children enact their agency. We explore the relationships between agency, culture and structure, and argue that children with learning disabilities are active in making meaning within social and relational networks to which they contribute differently depending on the barriers to doing and being that each network presents. Thus, the paper provides an original use of the notion of distributed competence.     

New technologies,new multimodal literacy practices and young children's metacognitive development

This paper discusses concepts of learning through ‘collaborative multimodal dialogue’. It draws on an ESRC‐funded study (RES‐000‐22‐2451) investigating 3‐ and 4‐year‐old children's encounters with literacy as they engage with a range of printed and digital technologies at home and in a nursery. The study goes beyond analysis of spoken language, giving a more complete understanding of literacy learning processes through detailed analysis of how children use multiple communicative modes as they experience literacy in different media. These experiences underpin metacognitive development and are crucial to children's abilities to act strategically in future situations. Drawing on notions of literacy as social practice, this paper discusses how the advent of new technologies has introduced new dimensions into young children's literacy learning, the implications of which have not yet been fully recognised in early years policy guidance, training or practice.