Children's rights,school exclusion and alternative educational provision

This paper examines findings from a recent study in Wales of school exclusion and alternative educational provision. Many, but not all, children in alternative provision have been excluded from school. The most recent statistics reveal that nearly 90% of pupils in alternative provision have special educational needs, nearly 70% are entitled to free school meals (free school meal entitlement is often used as a proxy indicator for poverty in the UK) and three quarters are boys (Welsh Government. 2012a. Pupils Educated Other than at School, 2011/12. Cardiff: Welsh Government). The paper focuses on analysis of findings about young people's experiences of exclusion and alternative provision, and how these experiences may be contextualised within a discussion of children's rights. This analysis suggests that young people's experience is highly variable; that inappropriate curricula are still common, pastoral support uneven and that few opportunities exist for success or re-integration. In the most disturbing examples, young people were found to have experienced physical restraint and the use of isolation as punishment. The paper concludes, therefore, with a proposal for change aimed at ensuring that children's rights are placed at the heart of educational experience in practice as well as policy.     

Gender balance in teaching debate: tensions between gender theory and equality policy

This paper draws on findings from a research project funded by the Scottish Executive which analysed the gender balance in teaching and explored the underlying reasons for the decline in the number and proportion of men, particularly in secondary schools. As in other developed countries, such as Australia, the USA and Canada, the proportion of men entering teaching has declined fairly rapidly over a ten‐year period. At a time when women are participating in paid work in greater numbers than ever before, their concentration in certain areas of work, particularly in the service sector and the ‘caring’ professions, is increasingly apparent. Despite the clarity of this trend, it is evident that responses from academics and policy‐makers have been very different, with some policy‐makers linking the declining proportion of men in teaching with the problem of boys’ underachievement and a perceived ‘crisis in masculinity’, whilst some feminist writers have questioned these views, drawing on recent gender theory which questions the utility of the binary categories of ‘man’ and ‘woman’, instead suggesting that gender is performed and may have little to do with the body of the person who is involved in the particular performance. Sex and gender thus become decoupled, with the focus on individual actors freely choosing the version of gender they wish to practice. This line of argument suggests that the sex of the teacher is irrelevant; what really matters is the way in which they perform gender in the classroom. Work on the gender balance in teaching therefore provides an opportunity to reflect on underlying tensions in gender theorising and policy‐making. The paper begins by considering tensions between modernist and post‐structuralist accounts of sex and gender. Having outlined the underlying theoretical tensions, it then goes on to consider the accounts given by teachers and students of the reasons for their own choice of teaching as a career, their experiences in teaching and their views of the reasons underlying the declining proportion of men in teaching. The aim is to consider whether students and teachers believe that sex is an important variable structuring their lives, including their decision to become a teacher and their experiences of working as a teacher, or whether they regard gender as something which is chosen from a wide repertoire of options and is relatively free from the constraints of embodiment. In relation to research on the gender balance in teaching, the paper concludes by suggesting that there is a need to make use of the idea of gender as performance, whilst at the same time holding on to the foundational concepts of ‘woman’ and ‘man’. This is necessary to monitor and understand the career paths and underlying power relations of women and men in teaching and to transform these over time.     

Assessing Reading Comprehension: The Effects of Text-Based Interest,Gender, and Ability

Previous research has established that interest in a text is related to better comprehension and recall, but the impact of interest on comprehension in testing situations has not been widely investigated. This study used Hierarchical Linear Models (HLM) to examine the relationship between students' interest in reading passages and their performance on reading comprehension test items over those passages. The study involved 19,735 students in Grades 4 through 8. Stimuli consisted of 98 different reading passages. A small but significant relationship between interest and test performance was found, which was stronger for girls and for students of higher ability levels. A second HLM analysis was employed to explore whether certain passage characteristics were associated with higher or lower interest. The implications for test construction are discussed.     

Sex Differences in the Use of Science and Technology in Children's Cartoons

Television is among the many mechanisms that transmit information about sex-appropriate behavior to children. In order to examine whether television cartoons portray male and female characters using science and technology in a different manner, we examined the amount and type of science and technology utilized by characters in popular children's cartoons. Results revealed that most characters in these cartoons were male who were often depicted using science and technology, usually while being aggressive. When female characters were shown, they were portrayed as both able and prosocial, using science and technology for the greater good of others, rather than for destruction. In addition, female characters performed prosocial behaviors such as caring and sharing, showed self-confidence and explained things to others, and were less angry and violent than were male characters. Our findings suggest that the portrayal of female characters as competent may be successfully linked with the tendency to also show them as prosocial. Despite relatively positive portrayal of female characters, however, their appearance was rare and most likely not the main focus of the action.