Labour,Learning and the Economy: a ‘policy sociology’ perspective

This paper considers Labour's education policy portfolio in two loosely related ways. Firstly, I argue for the need to see the policy continuities between the Conservatives and Labour in an international context and to suggest that in a sense Labour's policies are not specific to Labour at all; they are local manifestations of global policy paradigms. Secondly, I begin to sketch out an argument which suggests that in one key respect Labour's policy thrust is contradictory in its own terms. That is, the over‐riding emphasis on education's role in contributing to economic competitiveness rests on a set of pedagogical strategies the effects of which are actually antithetical to the needs of a ‘high skills’ economy. This contradiction arises in part from an inherited, and ultimately self‐defeating, impoverished view of ‘learning’. I shall also point to some of the effects of performativity in relation to teaching and learning     

Early Language Experience in a Tseltal Mayan Village

Daylong at-home audio recordings from 10 Tseltal Mayan children (0;2–3;0; Southern Mexico) were analyzed for how often children engaged in verbal interaction with others and whether their speech environment changed with age, time of day, household size, and number of speakers present. Children were infrequently directly spoken to, with most directed speech coming from adults, and no increase with age. Most directed speech came in the mornings, and interactional peaks contained nearly four times the baseline rate of directed speech. Coarse indicators of children’s language development (babbling, first words, first word combinations) suggest that Tseltal children manage to extract the linguistic information they need despite minimal directed speech. Multiple proposals for how they might do so are discussed.     

Evaluating the effectiveness of KooLKIDS: An interactive social emotional learning program for Australian primary school children

The effectiveness of universal social emotional learning (SEL) programs are dependent on the incorporation of best practice principles, including an evaluative component. In the present study, the effects of a best practice, teacher-led SEL program was examined with 854 children aged 8–12 years. KooLKIDS uses an interactive multimedia format and animated character to help children develop their emotion regulation capacities, social and friendship skills, empathy and compassion for others, and self-esteem. A quasi-experimental waitlist-control design was used to examine the impact of KooLKIDS on social and emotional competence, behavioral and emotional problems, academic achievement and effort. Hierarchical linear modeling demonstrated significant increases in social and emotional competence, and reductions in internalizing and externalizing problems in children post KooLKIDS program in the intervention group. The findings suggest that KooLKIDS has strong potential as a teacher-led, classroom-based, structured program for enhancing children's social and emotional learning.     

History in your hand

In the swirl of current events including a pandemic and new chapters in the awareness of race and gender, it is the professional responsibility of librarians and archivists to create durable records for future scholars, so they can understand our present.     

Patterns of intellectual differences of black,hispanic, and white children

Patterns of intellectual differences among children of different ethnic groups on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) were examined. Full Scale IQ was used as a covariate in a multivariate analysis of covariance. The results indicated that when overall IQ is held constant, Black children perform better on verbal tasks, Hispanic children perform better on visual-spatial tasks, and White children perform better on tasks requiring abstract thinking and knowledge of facts. The implications of these results regarding assessment practices are discussed.     

Predictors of teachers perceived self-competence in classroom management

The purpose of this exploratory study was to identify predictors of teacher manageability beliefs (the degree to which teachers believe they can personally manage a behavior). One hundred and eighty-two teachers completed the 39-item, nine-subtest Teacher Manageability Scale (TMS), which asked participants to rate each behavior (on a 5-point scale) by responding to the question “How easily can you manage the behavior when any student…?” Results of a multivariate regression analysis evaluating the relationship between the nine subtests (dependent variables) and eleven teacher-reported independent variables indicated that between 13% and 18% of the variance was predicted for the six TMS subtests achieving significance. The variables related to the greatest number of dependent measures were student academic achievement and socioeconomic status. Surprisingly, principal's disciplinary support and class size (enrollment) failed to predict even a single subtest. Implications for professional educators working with students identified for special educational services and future research are discussed.     

Tutor and tutee characteristics as predictors of tutorial outcomes

A peer tutoring program in spelling was developed to investigate the effects of several tutor and tutee characteristics on tutorial outcomes, amount of learning and learning efficiency. Examination of the data reveals that only the tutee's pretutorial spelling score was a significant predictor of the amount of learning.