Factors associated with the effective inclusion of primary-aged pupils with Down's syndrome

It is increasingly common for pupils with Down's syndrome to be offered places in mainstream primary schools. However, there is still much to learn about the impact of these placements upon children and classrooms. Recently the Nuffield Foundation funded a two-year research project exploring the inclusion of primary-aged pupils with Down's syndrome. The research focused on the inclusion of 18 pupils with Down's syndrome who attended mainstream primary schools in six local education authorities (LEAs) in the north-west of England. The research team investigated the ways in which schools manage the inclusion of pupils with Down's syndrome and the factors that contribute to the success of mainstream placements. In this article, Sam Fox, Peter Farrell and Pauline Davis from the University of Manchester discuss some of the findings from the study. These concern the support in place for the child and the attitudes of staff, other pupils and the parents of peers towards the inclusion of the child with Down's syndrome. Evidence from the 18 case studies suggests that there is no single way to guarantee effective inclusion. The extent to which a child is effectively included in a mainstream class is likely to be influenced by a number of key factors, including the way in which the teaching assistant (TA) works with the class teacher. Inclusion is more likely to be successful when the class teacher takes a central role in the management of support and the organisation of a child's daily educational experiences.     

Training Basic Visual Attention Leads to Changes in Responsiveness to Social‐Communicative Cues in 9‐Month‐Olds

This study investigated transfer effects of gaze‐interactive attention training to more complex social and cognitive skills in infancy. Seventy 9‐month‐olds were assigned to a training group (n = 35) or an active control group (n = 35). Before, after, and at 6‐week follow‐up both groups completed an assessment battery assessing transfer to nontrained aspects of attention control, including table top tasks assessing social attention in seminaturalistic contexts. Transfer effects were found on nontrained screen‐based tasks but importantly also on a structured observation task assessing the infants’ likelihood to respond to an adult's social‐communication cues. The results causally link basic attention skills and more complex social‐communicative skills and provide a principle for studying causal mechanisms of early development.     

Implementing curriculum reform in Wales: the case of the Foundation Phase

Abstract

The Foundation Phase is a Welsh Government flagship policy of early years education (for 3–7 year-old children) in Wales. Marking a radical departure from the more formal, competency-based approach associated with the previous Key Stage 1 National Curriculum, it advocates a developmental, experiential, play-based approach to teaching and learning. The learning country: A paving document (NAfW, 2001) notes that, following devolution, Wales intended to take its own policy direction in order to ‘get the best for Wales’. Building on a three-year mixed methods independent evaluation of the Foundation Phase we discuss in detail the aims and objectives of the Foundation Phase, including the context to its introduction, the theory, assumptions and evidence underlying its rationale, and its content and key inputs. We then contrast this with how the Foundation Phase was received by practitioners and parents, how it has been implemented in classrooms and non-maintained settings, and what discernible impact it has had on young children’s educational outcomes. The paper concludes with a critical analysis of the policy process and identifies a number of contextual issues during the inception of the Foundation Phase that has, it could be argued, constrained its development and subsequent impact. We argue that these constraints are associated with an educational policy landscape that was still in its infancy. In order for future education policy to ‘get the best for Wales’ a number of important lessons must be learnt.     

Using the British Education Index to Survey the Field of Educational Studies

Bibliographic records published by the British Education Index (BEI) between 1957 and 2000 are analysed in the context of a history of the BEI's changing presentation of information about the field. The value of frequency counts for BEI subject terms is discussed, in relation to their potential for revealing trends in the fields of educational studies and information management.     

Can middle‐school science textbooks help students learn important ideas? Findings from project 2061's curriculum evaluation study: Life science

The transfer of matter and energy from one organism to another and between organisms and their physical setting is a fundamental concept in life science. Not surprisingly, this concept is common to the Benchmarks for Science Literacy (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993 ), the National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996 ), and most state frameworks and likely to appear in any middle‐school science curriculum material. Nonetheless, while topics such as photosynthesis and cellular respiration have been taught for many years, research on student learning indicates that students have difficulties learning these ideas. In this study, nine middle‐school curriculum materials—both widely used and newly developed—were examined in detail for their support of student learning ideas concerning matter and energy transformations in ecosystems specified in the national standards documents. The analysis procedure used in this study was previously developed and field tested by Project 2061 of the AAAS on a variety of curriculum materials. According to our findings, currently available curriculum materials provide little support for the attainment of the key ideas chosen for this study. In general, these materials do not take into account students' prior knowledge, lack representations to clarify abstract ideas, and are deficient in phenomena that can be explained by the key ideas and hence can make them plausible. This article concludes with a discussion of the implications of this study to curriculum development, teaching, and science education research based on shortcomings in today's curricula. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 538–568, 2004