Construction of difference and diversity within policy and practice in England

Policy and practice responses to diversity and difference in pupil populations continue to challenge education systems around the world. This paper considers how teachers’ understandings of diversity and difference and their pedagogical responses at the local level are influenced by, and can be reconciled with, policy at the general level with its impulse for categorisation, normalcy and ‘ableness’. Two frameworks around orientations to diversity and types of pedagogic need are combined in order to examine this tension and develop possible responses. This is illustrated through the example of special educational needs as a type of difference. The paper argues that for critical, ethical and socially just pedagogies, policy needs to support teachers in acknowledging and troubling difference at the classroom level.     

Language and Memory Development in Children with Down Syndrome at Mainstream Schools and Special Schools: A comparison

Increasingly, children with Down syndrome are receiving their education in mainstream schools but little research has investigated whether these placements may influence language and memory development. The present study compared 22 children with Down syndrome in mainstream school placements matched for chronological age with 22 children attending special schools in a different LEA where mainstream placements were rare. The children were assessed to obtain measures of the following language and memory abilities: receptive vocabulary; grammar comprehension; sentence repetition; digit span; face recognition; and memory for hand movements. Children in mainstream placements achieved significantly higher scores for vocabulary, grammar and digit span measures, but not for non-language based memory measures. More importantly, even after controlling for age and receptive vocabulary, grammar understanding and digit spans were significantly greater for the mainstream children.     

Averting a Recruitment Crisis in Educational Psychology Services: An investigation of psychology undergraduate perspectives on the profession

This paper describes a survey of psychology undergraduates' perceptions of educational psychology, and the factors most likely to motivate or deter them from joining the profession. Results suggest that interest in educational psychology as a career option is at its lowest level for thirty years or more. The paper presents evidence that the current recruitment crisis within the profession needs to be addressed at a number of levels, including: the promotion within first degree programmes of improved understanding of educational psychology as a discipline and a profession, and of the links between basic research and its applicability to educational psychology in practice; the further development of the role which educational psychologists (EPs) fulfil, and the accurate dissemination of information about the profession; stream-lining and rationalising post-graduate training routes for psychology graduates, in order to offer a more accessible career route, and maximising its direct relevance in supporting the acquisition of core professional skills; and attenting to pay and conditions within the profession, so that it competes on more equal terms with other career destinations considered by undergraduates.     

Annual Index Volume 8

The objective of this paper is to report the development and use of an observation checklist to identify typically developing children with behavioural manifestations associated with inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity. This measure is termed the Scope Classroom Observation Checklist (SCOC). The SCOC was developed, assessed for reliability using an independent observer and teacher ratings, and administered to a sample of 157 mainstream schoolchildren. The SCOC revealed a normal distribution of scores on the checklist, and the top and bottom quartiles of this distribution were found, as would be expected, to differ significantly on SCOC score. The SCOC had good inter‐observer reliability and a high rate of concordance with teacher ratings of attentional difficulties. The SCOC has emerged as a reliable measure that could prove to be a useful tool in a battery of screening measures to identify mainstream schoolchildren with difficulties characterised by inattention and hyperactivity‐impulsivity.     

The Dead Hand of the Exam: The impact of the NEAB anthology on poetry teaching at GCSE

This paper considers the impact of the NEAB GCSE anthology on the poetry teaching of a small sample group of practitioners in a range of 11-18 schools in one LEA over a two-year period. While some teachers in the sample embraced the opportunities they believe the anthology offered them, others appeared more resistant, perceiving the anthology as reductive and an imposition on their established poetry teaching practices. The process of adjustment, which occurred as teachers began to make the poetry element of the GCSE syllabus their own, is illustrated, with the implications of these findings for classroom practice.     

A situative metaphor for teacher learning: the case of university tutors learning to grade student coursework

In the continuing concern about academic standards in the higher education sector a great deal of emphasis has been placed on quality assurance procedures rather than on considering how university tutors learn to grade the quality of work produced by students. As part of a larger research project focused on how tutors grade student coursework, this paper offers a new metaphor for such tutor learning, based on a sociocultural perspective. The research project used think‐aloud protocols recorded as university tutors graded student coursework, and this was followed by semi‐structured interviews. The voluntary participants consisted of 25 lecturers in four contrasting domains—humanities, art and design, medicine and teacher education—in three universities, two teaching‐led and one research intensive. We developed a metaphorical framework that helps to understand the work and learning of the lecturers and tested it by applying it to analysis of the tutor interview data. Grading, writing feedback, second marking and moderation are important situated professional learning opportunities for tutors to debate and reach agreement on the academic standard demonstrated by student coursework. The metaphor considers professional learning as interplay between the vertical domain of public knowledge and the horizontal domain of teachers' practical wisdom. The metaphor presented in this paper is proposed for critical consideration and wider use by academics, teachers, academic developers and teacher educators as an aid to better understanding of teacher's professional learning.     

Reproduction and transformation of students’ technology practice: The tale of two distinctive secondary student cases

Disparities in the technology practices, skills and knowledge of school students still exist, despite widespread investment, and use in schools. In order to understand why inequalities remain, we first need a more nuanced understanding of students’ technology practice, including understanding how their backgrounds, circumstances and experiences shape their perceptions of and engagement with technology. This paper proposes that research in the field of educational technology would benefit from a sociological framing in order to highlight how and why students use technology at school and in their everyday lives. The paper reports on a qualitative embedded case study of 13–16-year-old students in two Australian secondary schools. In-depth case studies of two selected students illustrate the complex nature of students’ technology practice. Bourdieu’s concepts of field, habitus and capital are used as a lens through which to view and understand inequalities in students’ technology practice. The findings demonstrate the utility of sociological theory in educational technology research by highlighting systems and structures of reproduction and transformation. Furthermore, the findings can inform an approach to teaching and learning that considers students’ varied experiences, knowledge, perspectives and backgrounds relating to technology.     

Which Words? Words which 4 to 6 Year Old Children Use in Their Writing

The use of high frequency word lists has re-emerged recently as a useful part of the knowledge base of primary teachers of literacy. The National Literacy Project framework for teaching makes explicit use of such lists. In this article Laura Huxford and her colleagues examine the contents of word lists and make some useful observations about the words it appears important to teach children to read at Key Stage 1.