Lifelong Learning Within Higher Education in South Africa: Emancipatory Potential?

In South Africa under apartheid higher education was inaccessible to the majority. This article argues that in the new South Africa there is an opportunity to redress this situation and promote equity though lifelong learning. This would involve greatly widening access and providing programmes to develop broadly applicable abilities such as computer literacy and problem-solving skills, which would increase the economic competitiveness and personal empowerment of learners. At the same time, the author argues, new educational approaches are needed to promote active citizenship.     

A comparison of Thai and American counselling students perceptions of counselling

The expectancies that people of different cultures bring to counselling affect the outcomes of counselling. It was the purpose of this study to examine the ways that counselling students in two different countries, Thailand and the United States, perceived Counselling. The evaluative and potency scales of the Semantic Differential were used to compare the attitudes of these students related to Counselling, Counsellors, and Group Counselling. No significant difference were found in the ratings of the two groups of students on the evaluative scale for Counselling, Counsellors, or Group Counselling, but the American students rated the potency scales for these three variables significantly higher than the Thai students. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Social competence,cultural orientations and gender differences: a study of Mandarin–English bilingual preschoolers

This study investigated whether host and heritage cultural orientations were associated with Chinese preschoolers’ social competence and whether such associations varied across gender in Western contexts. Ninety-six Chinese-Australian children aged 36–69 months from 15 childcare centres in Sydney participated in the study. The General Ethnicity Questionnaires were modified to obtain a parent report of children's orientation to the host and heritage cultures. Social competence was assessed using teacher reports on the Behaviour Assessment System for Children-2 (BASC-2) with four composite scales: Externalising, Internalising, Behavioural Symptoms and Adaptive Skills. Host culture orientation was negatively associated with Internalising, Behavioural Symptoms and positively with Adaptive Skills in the overall sample. When analysed by gender, host cultural orientation was found to be positively associated with Adaptive Skills for boys and girls and negatively associated with Externalising and Behavioural Symptoms only in girls. Heritage cultural orientation was not associated with the BASC-2 composites either in the overall sample or by gender. The results indicate that host culture has a stronger relationship with social competence than heritage culture, particularly for girls.     

Teachers’ Learning Communities for Developing High Order Thinking Skills—A Case Study of a School Pedagogical Change

Interchange - This study deals with an elementary school that is undergoing a process of pedagogical change. The teachers understood that their weak point was excessive use of teaching based on...     

A Festschrift for Andy Hargreaves

Recent social policy reforms have sought to overcome the limitations of “First Way” strategies emphasizing the welfare state and “Second Way” approaches advocating markets. Scholars and policymakers instead have begun to explore optimal synthesis of the public and private sector in a new “Third Way” of leadership and change. According to one line of interpretation advanced by Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley, however, the Third Way as developed in education has ushered in a new orthodoxy of testing, accountability, and data-driven decision making. This new orthodoxy is said to distract educators from their true moral purposes. Hence, Hargreaves and Shirley have called for a new “Fourth Way” of change that draws upon international best practices in education. In this interpretive essay for a Festschrift issue of the Journal of Educational Change celebrating Andy Hargreaves’ 60th birthday, Dennis Shirley revisits Fourth Way change architecture to inquire after the appropriate role of new technologies in classrooms and schools. He retrieves the concept of mindful teaching and learning from the Fourth Way change model and illustrates how it can be used as a lens to adjudicate various interpretations of the appropriate role of new technologies in schools.     

UNDERSTANDING PARTICIPATION RATES IN POST-16 MATHEMATICS AND PHYSICS: CONCEPTUALISING AND OPERATIONALISING THE UPMAP PROJECT

We report on a project currently in progress that aims to identify through research the range of factors (individual, school and out-of-school, including home) and their interactions that influence post-16 (i.e. post-compulsory) participation in mathematics and physics in the UK and to assess their relative importance among different student populations. In this project, we are beginning to elucidate the views of students and examine the sources of these views by exploring the contexts in which both school and university students experience barriers or opportunities and form their identities with regard to participation in mathematics and physics. Our focus in this paper is on our methodology, the reasons for it and how and why our approach to data collection developed during the project. We situate our work within a mixed-methods approach, using multilevel modelling and discourse analysis to analyse and interpret our findings that derive from our own questionnaires, interviews and ethnography and from existing large-scale datasets. We argue that greater acknowledgement in the education literatures that investigate student participation in mathematics and science needs to be made than is usual of the range of factors, including unconscious forces that may affect participation.     

Genetic and Environmental Influences on Perceptions of Self-Worth and Competence in Adolescence: A Study of Twins, Full Siblings, and Step-Siblings

Although it is generally assumed that the origins of adolescents' perceptions of self-competence lie in shared family environmental influences, the contributions of nonshared environmental or genetic influences have not been explored. We investigated sibling resemblance for perceived competence and self-worth in 720 adolescent pairs aged 10 to 18 years, using a twin, full sibling, and step-sibling design. Our goals were to assess the magnitude of shared and nonshared environmental influences and to disentangle resemblance due to shared genetic heritage from that due to shared environmental experiences. Shared environment was not significant for any of the scales. 4 of the subscales showed significant genetic influence: scholastic, social, physical, and athletic competence. We also explored possible sources of genetic influences on perceived competence. Bivariate models revealed common genetic variance between scholastic competence and vocabulary and social competence and sociability. These measures, however, did not account for all of the genetic variance in perceived social and scholastic competence.     

Social Competence and Language Skills in Mandarin–English Bilingual Preschoolers: The Moderation Effect of Emotion Regulation

Research Findings: The main aim of this study was to examine whether language skills and emotion regulation are associated with social competence and whether the relationship between English skills and social competence is moderated by emotion regulation in Mandarin–English bilingual preschoolers. The language skills of 96 children ages 36–69 months from Australian child care centers were assessed using standardized English and Mandarin tests. Social competence was assessed using teacher reports on the Behavior Assessment System for Children–2 (BASC-2) with 4 composite scales: Externalizing, Internalizing, Behavioral Symptoms, and Adaptive Skills. Positive emotion regulation and emotion dysregulation were assessed using the disappointing gift task and teacher report on the Emotion Regulation Checklist. The results show that positive emotion regulation, emotion dysregulation, English skills, and Mandarin skills were associated with different composites of the BASC-2; the relationships between English skills and Behavioral Symptoms were moderated by positive emotion regulation; and English skills and Adaptive Skills were moderated by emotion dysregulation. Practice or Policy: Discussion of the results includes new considerations for a focus on emotion regulation as well as language to promote social competence in bilingual children.     

The Struggle to Pass Algebra: Online vs. Face-to-Face Credit Recovery for At-Risk Urban Students

Students who fail algebra are significantly less likely to graduate on time, and algebra failure rates are consistently high in urban districts. Identifying effective credit recovery strategies is critical for getting students back on track. Online courses are now widely used for credit recovery, yet there is no rigorous evidence about the relative efficacy of online versus face-to-face credit recovery courses. To address this gap, this study randomly assigned 1,224 ninth graders who failed algebra in 17 Chicago public high schools to take an online or face-to-face algebra credit recovery course. Compared to students in face-to-face credit recovery, students in online credit recovery reported that the course was more difficult, were less likely to recover credit, and scored lower on an algebra posttest. There were no statistically significant differences by condition on any outcomes measured during the second year of high school (standardized mathematics test and algebra subtest scores, likelihood of passing subsequent math classes, cumulative math credits, or on-track rates). The benefits and challenges of online learning for credit recovery are discussed in light of the findings to date.