Internship experience: Engaging in the big discourse

Conclusion The AECT internship provided each of us with experiences appropriate to our individual interests and expertise. Our all-access pass did help introduce us to the many larger discussions taking place across the organization. We were able to connect with other graduate students and to develop new ties with some of the pillars of the field. We can attest to the fact that AECT actively seeks new ideas, energy and leadership that can strengthen the organization. Our final thought for you is that AECT wants you to be involved. We discovered that the doors are wide open, and we know that you do not need an intern’s medallion to step through those doors. We hope these stories encourage you to step through the doors and find your place within AECT. An erratum to this article is available at .     

Towards Self-Recovery: Cultivating Love with Young Women of Color Through Pedagogies of Bodymindspirit

Seeking to meet Freire’s (Pedagogy of freedom: ethics, democracy, and civic courage, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, 1987) call to enact a critical pedagogy of love, this article explores how one urban teacher/researcher engages in pedagogy that supports students to heal from internalized oppression towards what bell hooks (Talking back: thinking feminist, thinking black, South End Press, Boston, 1989, Sisters of the yam: black women and self-recovery, Routledge, New York, 2015) calls self-recovery. Set in an elective class for young women in a Los Angeles middle school, I examine my process as teacher/researcher to understand the experiences of a student named Chelsea, and develop curriculum to serve her arising needs. I integrate critical pedagogy with embodied pedagogies and women of color feminist epistemology to critique dominant ways of knowing and teaching in urban schools. Then, I use auto-ethnography and portraiture to craft three blended portraits: exploring how Chelsea’s sense of self is influenced by her life experiences; how interventions like meditation, dialogue and vulnerability, or what I call pedagogies of bodymindspirit, helped Chelsea to unpack her distrust of others and a longing for wholeness; and how a final project supported Chelsea’s path towards self-recovery. I conclude with ways to cultivate love in the face of material and epistemological violence in schools, and offer implications and tensions for teachers seeking to utilize a bodymindspirit praxis to serve all marginalized students.

     

Dialectic dialogue: reflections on adopting a dialectic stance

ABSTRACT

A multiplicity of perspectives and methods are necessary to investigate the complexities of human development and educational institutions. However, many would-be MM researchers still have questions about how to conceptualize and conduct MM research. Taking a dialectic stance, or mixing research approaches to suit the demands of a research problem, is one way to integrate multiple perspectives from conception to conclusions in a MM research study. In this spirit, we engage in a meta-dialogue focused on our use of the dialectic stance in our dissertations. Using an autoethnographic approach we now call ‘dialectic dialogue’, we analytically and reflectively reexamine our respective research processes to investigate, individually and collaboratively, how taking a dialectic stance influenced the paradigms, methodologies, and methods of our MM dissertations. Three verbal and artistic metaphors for our experience emerged from our discussion: feeling boxed in, getting lucky, and radical commitment. Each metaphor is discussed from our individual and shared perspectives. Our goal is to open our dialogue to a field-wide conversation about the dialectic stance; thus, we conclude with questions for the MM field to consider. This article will be of particular interest to newcomers to the field of MM and their mentors.     

Journeys across educational and cultural borders: international postgraduate students with young children

There is substantial research about international postgraduate students but little research about their experiences as parents or their children’s experiences. We focus on four postgraduate international students with young children navigating early childhood education and care in New Zealand. A narrative analysis, informed by socio-cultural understandings of learning and post-structuralist understandings of identity, revealed emotional complexities, stress and transformation as parents and children made many transitions. Parents wanted their own culture respected and their host culture decoded. Families experienced tensions around the use of home and host languages as they juggled children’s present and future linguistic needs. Supporting international students in their family identity has positive effects for them, their children and their doctoral studies, and hence for universities. Further research about the experiences of international students who are parents and of their children could assist in the formulation of policies to effect such support.     

Integrating new knowledge into everyday practices: teacher pedagogy in early grade literacy in rural Mozambique

Improving literacy outcomes in sub‐Saharan Africa is a central focus of national governments, donors and non‐governmental organisations alike, as evidenced by the inclusion of literacy as a target in the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 4. Though significant international development funding has been devoted to teacher training in the region, little evidence is available on how teachers improve their literacy instruction in practice. This study profiles how 20 teachers in eight schools in rural Mozambique translated training in literacy instruction into classroom instruction. We used three domains of teacher knowledge – content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge – to analyse interview and observation data. While some aspects of training translated into classroom practices, including explicit literacy instruction and use of visual aids, teachers rarely used activities for oral language development or reading comprehension, which are critical to producing skilled readers. We discuss the research and policy implications of these findings.     

Impact of Changing Difficulty on Inferences From the National Assessment of Educational Progress

The U.S. Department of Education measures student achievement through the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). NAEP estimates of population proficiency quantiles are based on a Bayesian multiple-imputation procedure. This article shows (a) that the resulting estimates depend directly on the mix of item difficulties on the test, and (b) the difficulty of items on the NAEP mathematics exam has increased over time. Does the increasing difficulty of the exam lead to observable changes in student performance over time? This study compared the simulated performance of 1990 examinees on the easier 1990 exam and the more difficult 1996 exam. No significant differences were found. While our results instill confidence that these changes have not impacted the NAEP trend line, our findings are both data-specific and limited in scope, and NAEP should carefully evaluate future adjustments to the test in this manner.     

Nontraditional Students' Service Needs and Social Support Resources: A Pilot Study

In response to a mail survey, 53 nontraditional undergraduates provided information about their reasons for reentering college, the likelihood of using services for nontraditional students, and sources of social support. Participants reported career, self‐improvement, and family issues as primary reasons for reentry. They reported they would be likely or very likely to use campus services, especially career counseling. More than 60% reported strong social support from family and friends.     

Primary school science: implementation of domain-general strategies into teaching didactics

In the present study we present a didactic method to help children aged 11 and 12 learn science in such a way as to enable a dynamic interaction between domain general strategies and the development of conceptual knowledge, whilst each type of scientific process has been considered (forming of hypotheses, experimenting and evaluating). We have used the didactics to stimulate metacognitive awareness and implemented them in a 2-month programme around eight different content domains (alternative energy, electrical circuitry, electromagnetism, the human body, slopes, the pendulum, friction, and sinking and floating). Results showed that children developed significant understanding with regard to the process and strategy domain of scientific thinking, but that this effect was dependent on the type of teacher involved (pre-service versus in-service teacher). In addition, we found that 12 year-olds showed some aspects of self-regulated learning in hands-on experimenting after they took part in the programme. At the level of attitudes, relative to controls, a significant drop in enthusiasm for science was found while both children of 11 and 12 years old viewed science as less difficult after the end of the programme. Findings were interpreted in the light of situated interest versus longer term personal interest in science and technology.     

Book reviews

SPEAKING CHICANA: VOICE, POWER, AND IDENTITY. Edited by D. Letticia Galindo & Maria Dolores Gonzales. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1999; pp. viii + 226. $45.00 cloth; $19.95 paper.

CULTURAL BOUNDARIES OF SCIENCE: CREDIBILITY ON THE LINE. By Thomas Gieryn. Chicago: University Press, 1999; xiv + 398. $58.00 cloth; $16.80 paper.

ILLNESS AND CULTURE IN THE POSTMODERN AGE. By David B. Morris. Berkeley CA: University of California Press, 1998. $19.25 cloth.

DANCING IN CHAINS: NARRATIVE AND MEMORY IN POLITICAL THEORY. By Joshua F. Dienstag, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997; pp. 1–268. $45.00; $16.95 paper.

CIVIC WARS: DEMOCRACY AND PUBLIC LIFE IN THE AMERICAN CITY DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. By Mary Ryan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. 376 pp. $40.00 cloth; $14.36 paper.

TELLING THE SUCCESS STORY: ACCLAIMING AND DISCLAIMING DISCOURSE. By P.J. Benoit. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1997. $39.50 cloth; $12.95 paper.

BLOOD SACRIFICE AND THE NATION: TOTEM RITUALS AND THE AMERICAN FLAG. Carolyn Marvin and David W. Ingle. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999; pp. 398. £50.00 hardback; £18.95.