Hurricane Katrina's Impact on Students and Staff Members in the Schools of Mississippi

Following Hurricane Katrina, a team of researchers from the University of Southern Mississippi's Department of Educational Leadership and Research surveyed school administrators regarding the impact of Hurricane Katrina upon students and school staff members in Mississippi public schools. Respondents disclosed concerns over displacement and psychological stressors experienced by both students and staff. Additional concerns were expressed regarding support systems for students, destruction of student and personnel records, student achievement and school accountability, and the employment status of teachers. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

Using LISREL to Fit Nonlinear Latent Curve Models

Latent curve models offer a flexible approach to the study of longitudinal data when the form of change in a response is nonlinear. This article considers such models that are conditionally linear with regard to the random coefficients at the 2nd level. This framework allows fixed parameters to enter a model linearly or nonlinearly, and random coefficients at the 2nd level may only enter linearly. Beginning with LISREL 8.80 for Windows, such models can be fitted, giving users greater flexibility in model specification. An example with LISREL syntax is provided.     

Custom-designed and safe-space coaching: Australian beginning principals supported by experienced peers form pipeline of confident future leaders

Transition from teacher to principal involves both a technocratic response based on ‘yearning for certainty’ that requisite leadership skills will be learned, and a critically-reflexive approach to adopting a new professional identity (Crow and Møller 2017. “Professional Identities of School Leaders across International Contexts: An Introduction and Rationale.” Educational Management and Leadership 45 (5): 749–758, 750). Globally, the maintenance of pipelines of confident and capable principals is a priority, but principal preparation programmes have often been described as decontextualised and inadequate (Cheung and Walker 2006. “Inner Worlds and Outer Limits: The Formation of Beginning School Principals in Hong Kong.” Journal of Educational Administration 44 (4): 389–407). Consequently, without opportunity to develop leadership strategies and reflect critically with a trusted mentor, newly-appointed principals often leave the role prematurely (Marks 2013. “Leadership Succession and Retention: It's Time to Get Serious about a Principal Retention Policy.” Leading and Managing 19 (2): 1–14). This Australian study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a Queensland Department of Education and Training coaching programme for beginning principals, designed to secure future quality leaders. A custom-built philosophy incorporated support from local master principals and a high degree of autonomy. One-on-one interviews with programme participants confirmed that: enduring professional relationships resulted from a safe-space approach; knowledge and understanding of the Australian Professional Standards for Principals (AITSL 2014. Australian Professional Standard for Principals and the Leadership Profiles. Canberra: Australian Government) increased; and feelings of empowerment and control of leadership situations accelerated. For the benefit of leadership pipelines worldwide, new principals in other contexts may be energised to continue with the complex role of being effective school leaders through similar, autonomous and peer-supported programmes.     

Fishing in Puddles: Place and Space in Performance Research

This article examines the significance of place and space from a Performance Studies and Social Studies perspective. In terms of the social sciences, I draw upon the formal, symbolic and marginal articulation of place. Hetherington suggests that certain places act as focal point for the establishment of social identities, citing city‐centre landmarks and shopping malls. Similarly, children attach all kinds of values to the formal spaces they occupy. As one example of this point, I examine the child's relationship to the school hall. From the perspective of performance, I examine a project under taken at a junior school in Stoke‐on‐Trent, inspired by the site work of Wrights & Sites. As a critical lens, I adopt Boal's understanding of the oneiric dimension. The oneiric dimension is particularly relevant in performance work as these are the moments when we (as performers and spectators) are pulled into the action. In these instances, the physical space simply disappears, imagination replaces actuality and the desire to believe outweighs the reality of the present.     

Sensitivity Analysis of Multiple Informant Models When Data Are Not Missing at Random

Missing data are common in studies that rely on multiple informant data to evaluate relationships among variables for distinguishable individuals clustered within groups. Estimation of structural equation models using raw data allows for incomplete data, and so all groups can be retained for analysis even if only 1 member of a group contributes data. Statistical inference is based on the assumption that data are missing completely at random or missing at random. Importantly, whether or not data are missing is assumed to be independent of the missing data. A saturated correlates model that incorporates correlates of the missingness or the missing data into an analysis and multiple imputation that might also use such correlates offer advantages over the standard implementation of SEM when data are not missing at random because these approaches could result in a data analysis problem for which the missingness is ignorable. This article considers these approaches in an analysis of family data to assess the sensitivity of parameter estimates and statistical inferences to assumptions about missing data, a strategy that could be easily implemented using SEM software.     

Struggles and Successes in Constructivist Jewish Early Childhood Classrooms

This study examined the experiences of teachers in a Jewish early childhood center implementing constructivist theory and pedagogy through a Reggio Emilia-inspired model. Constructivist practices were described through interviews, surveys, classroom documentation, and observations. The data indicated that areas that were initially deemed as successes were hard to maintain and seemingly overshadowed by challenges. These areas included understanding constructivist theory, using open-ended materials, and relying on open-ended questions to facilitate knowledge. Furthermore, teachers struggled when comparing information gained by children from classes using a more traditional educational approach. Insights in each area are provided to support Jewish and general studies constructivist teachers.     

Children’s rough and tumble play: perspectives of teachers in northern Canadian Indigenous communities

Ten teachers in kindergarten and grade one classrooms in remote northern Canadian Ojibway communities, and two consultants from a First Nations Student Success Program participated in focus group discussions about the place of rough and tumble and superhero play, and teachers’ roles in preventing relational and physically aggressive play in school. This paper reports on issues related to sociocultural influences on perceptions of play involving objects to which Indigenous children assign implicit roles as guns, and teachers’ concerns about external perceptions of teachers’ roles vis-à-vis rough and tumble play in school. Implications for teacher practice and for teacher education include establishing boundaries and negotiating rules and consequences with students, and teaching problem-solving approaches. Teachers’ expressed need for exposure to research on rough and tumble play in teacher education and professional development initiatives is consistent with the findings of previous research. This study provides perspectives from teachers in a non-mainstream teaching context on a controversial topic with mixed views coming from researchers and media reports.     

Using Large-scale Assessment Datasets for Research in Science and Mathematics Education: Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

Large-scale assessments of student achievement provide a window into the broadly defined concepts of literacy and generate information about levels and types of student achievement in relation to some of the correlates of learning, such as student background, attitudes, and perceptions, and perhaps school and home characteristics. This paper provides an overview and outlines potential research opportunities of one such assessment—the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). In order to provide examples of the work that can be accomplished with these data, we describe and discuss the results generated from PISA 2000 and PISA 2003 in terms of international comparisons of achievement and the models of relational patterns of student, home, and school characteristics. We provide insight from the recent pilot testing conducted in Taiwan for PISA 2006, which has a focus on scientific literacy. This is followed by a discussion of the implications and potentials of the 2000 and 2003 datasets to facilitate research on scientific and mathematical literacy. The paper concludes with a look ahead to PISA 2006 and what researchers should be attending to in the research reports generated from the OECD and the research interests that they could follow given access to the datasets generated.

Schools,student health and family welfare: Exploring teachers’ work as boundary spanners

Young people's health and welfare is an enduring, and sometimes contested, underpinning rationale for compulsory schooling. However, a contemporary culture of austerity and accountability has challenged the capacity of schools to address health-related agendas. This article reports on how four Australian teachers negotiate the network of partnerships within and beyond the school when attempting to solve their students’ particular health and welfare needs. Drawing on interview data collected as part of a larger government-funded project, we reveal the labour-intensive, typically risky and often emotionally charged nature of this work. To better understand this ‘health work’ we drew on the idea of ‘teacher as boundary spanner’ to get a clearer sense of the type of work undertaken within an education sector that operates under the conditions of what Fraser calls progressive neoliberalism. We conclude that there is a compelling need to better support those particular teachers who are, to all intents and purposes, human safety nets called upon to care for some of the most vulnerable children in our schools.     

An exploration of adult career interests and work values in Taiwan

The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between vocational interests and work values among 206 adults in Taiwan. The instruments were the Career Interest Inventory developed based on Holland’s RIASEC typology and the Work Value Inventory developed based on Super’s theory. The results of multivariate analysis of variance indicated significant gender differences in overall vocational interests and overall work values. In addition, the gender differences were found in three vocational interests (Realistic, Artistic, and Social) and three types of work value (Achievement, Economic Return, and Way of life). The results of canonical correlation analyses showed similar, but not exactly the same, patterns in correlation of interests and values between men and women. These results were discussed in terms of their implications for research and practice.