Special and mainstream school collaboration for the promotion of inclusion

The Green Paper Excellence for All Children ( DfEE, 1997 ) set out an agenda for the future of special needs provision which was further endorsed by Meeting Special Educational Needs: A Programme for Action ( DfEE, 1998 ). Amongst the recommendations made within these documents was a reappraisal of the role of special schools to support increased opportunities for inclusion. This paper reports on research conducted in one English local education authority (LEA) to examine an approach to develop greater links between a special school and a number of mainstream schools, with the intention of enabling pupils with complex needs to be supported in mainstream classrooms. The research focused upon the procedures which had been developed to support pupils through a period of transition from segregated to mainstream education, and considered those conditions which had been created in order that inclusion might succeed.     

The relationship between school belonging,sibling aggression and bullying involvement: implications for students with and without disabilities

Bullying is grounded in the interactions between an individual and complex social–ecological systems. Therefore, bullying involvement is not just confined to the classroom or school. Recent research suggests that sibling aggression may be a predictor for peer-level aggression. These findings may be more relevant for students with disabilities because studies suggest that students with disabilities are disproportionately involved in the bullying dynamic. Therefore, this study explored the intersection between sibling aggression and school belonging on bullying, victimisation and fighting for 14,508 students, including 1183 students with disabilities and 13,325 students without disabilities in grades 6 through 12. As hypothesised, students with disabilities reported higher levels of victimisation, bullying and fighting. Additionally, high levels of school belonging partially buffered fighting and bullying behaviours for students with and without disabilities. These findings demonstrate the importance of establishing an inclusive and safe environment for school-aged youth.     

Pointing to parallels in ability-related differences in the use of metacognition in academic and psychomotor tasks

This paper offers a brief review of the use of metacognition by proficient and poor performers in academic and psychomotor tasks as well as highlights the parallels and provides directions for future research. Metacognition is knowledge about one's own cognitive processes [Flavell, J.H. (1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive-developmental inquiry. American Psychologist, 34, 906–911.]. To date, the study of the use of metacognition by children with different levels of abilities (from those having a learning disability to those identified as gifted) has been mostly restricted to the cognitive abilities in academic areas such as reading, writing, or mathematics. The structure of knowledge has been more extensively explored in the expertise literature in the performance of both academic and psychomotor tasks. Similarities have been noted in the characteristic differences between experts and novices in both these types of tasks. Studies have begun to explore the use of metacognition in psychomotor tasks such as key strokes, ball throwing–catching, and running. It seems that, as with the structure of knowledge, parallels also exist in the use of metacognition by poor and proficient performers in academic and psychomotor tasks.     

Visual presentations to parents

Visual presentations to parents are useful in building positive pathways to home and school communication. Parental concerns and demands are prevalent and persistent. Parents are expressing loud and clear their desire to be involved.Rose Merenda has taught four and five year olds for twenty years and recently received a grant to study parental communication. Joan Bloom, first grade encourages parental participation in her classroom. Ann J. DiOrio directs the Growing Child School in Narragansett, R.I. All are Assistant Professors at the Henry Barnard Laboratory School, Rhode Island College.     

You are my sunshine: A thematic unit for early childhood

Sun-sational experiences for young children abound as late spring, early summer days brighten how together we look at the world around. Some ideas may also be appropriate to include in a Things-to-do-over-the-summer newsletter to parents.Rose C. Merenda is Associate Professor at the Henry Barnard School, Rhode Island College, Providence, RI     

Utilization of CSR to build organizations’ corporate image in Asia: need for an integrative approach

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been found to be a strong predictor of a favorable corporate image [Gray, 1986. Managing the corporate image: The key to public trust. London: Quorum Books]. Websites have become an essential communication platform [Dawkins, 2004. Corporate responsibility: The communication challenge. Journal of Communication Management, 9(2), 108–119]. This study aims to investigate how CSR can be used in enhancing organizational corporate image. Content analyses of 150 corporate websites of organizations in Asia headquartered in Singapore were conducted, followed by in-depth interviews with public relations (PR) practitioners to examine the motivations behind their CSR engagement. Findings showed that organizations utilized CSR as a means to enhance corporate image via four ways: Engaging in two-way conversations with stakeholders, adopting an inside-out communication approach with employees, recognizing the relevance of other CSR communication channels, and communicating CSR with authenticity. However, some organizations hesitate to use CSR communication to enhance their corporate image because they wanted to avoid being seen as using CSR as a promotional tool.     

Serving a Fragmented Field: Information Seeking in Higher Education

This study examines the information seeking habits and needs of scholars of higher education. Because higher education is a field which draws on many disciplinary traditions rather than a pure discipline in itself, the information needs of these scholars require diverse information seeking strategies. Phenomenological interviews with productive scholars of higher education were conducted and analyzed for this study. Ellis' (1989) common information seeking behaviors of social scientists are used as a framework to examine the behaviors of these applied social scientists in the modern information seeking environment.     

Strong Diagnostic Questioning Effects on Deception Detection Accuracy With U.S. Customs Agents

Recent communication research shows several paths to improving accuracy in deception detection. According to truth-default theory, one promising approach is diagnostic questioning. A sample of elite U.S. Customs agents participated in a deception detection task. Agents viewed senders who were interrogated with one of three different sets of questions that differed in diagnostic utility. The different questioning sets produced a 36-point swing in accuracy from 42% to 78% accuracy. These findings demonstrate that how someone is questioned can make a substantial difference in deception detection accuracy and that improved accuracy is possible with diagnostic questioning.     

Curation,conservation, and the artist in Silent Explosion: Ivor Davies and Destruction in Art

This paper examines the preservation and curatorial approaches explored for the exhibition Silent Explosion: Ivor Davies and Destruction in Art at Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales (November 2015–March 2016). The collaboration between the artist, curator/researcher, and conservators is considered and the evolving and flexible way in which transient pieces were presented/re-presented is described. The paper offers a case study in the context of this exhibition and argues that regardless of whether it is in traditional media (such as painting) or as time-based media (unstable and open to interpretation), Davies' work challenges a perception of artworks as finished, single-authored objects.