Resilience and loss in work identities: A narrative analysis of some retired teachers’ work‐life histories

The article examines the importance of ‘emotional labour’ in the constitution of the ‘teacherly‐self’. Deriving from a research project on work and social identity, the article explores the ways teachers have negotiated the radical changes in the profession in recent years, and uses the notion of ‘teacher resilience’ to explore the ways teachers have reacted to the effects of neo‐liberal reforms to education; reforms that have powerfully impacted on the more child‐centred ways of working in the classroom and school environment. Using narrative analysis of the work‐life histories of these retired teachers, recorded using oral history methodology, the authors examine structures of feeling that turn on notions of emotional labour and commitment, resilience and loss in relation to the occupational identity of teachers.     

“Brains before ‘beauty’?” High achieving girls,school and gender identities

In recent years educational policy on gender and achievement has concentrated on boys' underachievement, frequently comparing it with the academic success of girls. This has encouraged a perception of girls as the “winners” of the educational stakes and assumes that they no longer experience the kinds of gender inequalities identified in earlier studies. However, trying to balance academic achievement with being seen as a “proper girl” presents girls with difficult challenges, particularly in terms of being accepted and approved of by classmates and securing the attention of teachers. This paper explores the views of a group of high achieving 12‐ to 13‐year‐old girls who indicate that being regarded as “clever” continues to be negotiated within acceptable frameworks of femininity.     

Students, teachers and alternative assessment in secondary school: Relational Models Theory (RMT) in the field of education

The quality and types of relationships formed between students and teachers has been shown to play an essential part in the personal and academic success of students (Davis, 2003; Pianta, 1999). Little, however, has been done to determine the role that assessment plays in teacher-student relationships. Drawing upon the work of cultural anthropologist Alan Fiske (1991), I explore the ways in which certain basic forms of relationships (known asRelational Models) are initiated and maintained in secondary school through the use of alternative assessment methods — narrative evaluations, portfolios, rubrics, and end-of-year presentations — in place of traditional letter grades. In his Relational Models Theory, Fiske posits that human relationships and social systems are culturally-specific implementations of four elementary Relationship Models: “Authority Ranking”, “Communal Sharing”, “Equality Matching”, and “Market Pricing”. Here, I discuss how the non-traditional assessment methods used at a progressive secondary school in California allow relationships between students and teachers to shift away from an exclusively authority-based system (the Relational Model of Authority Ranking), towards a more nuanced model of negotiation (Market Pricing) and communal input (Communal Sharing) — ultimately leading to more empowered and involved students.     

New technologies,new multimodal literacy practices and young children's metacognitive development

This paper discusses concepts of learning through ‘collaborative multimodal dialogue’. It draws on an ESRC‐funded study (RES‐000‐22‐2451) investigating 3‐ and 4‐year‐old children's encounters with literacy as they engage with a range of printed and digital technologies at home and in a nursery. The study goes beyond analysis of spoken language, giving a more complete understanding of literacy learning processes through detailed analysis of how children use multiple communicative modes as they experience literacy in different media. These experiences underpin metacognitive development and are crucial to children's abilities to act strategically in future situations. Drawing on notions of literacy as social practice, this paper discusses how the advent of new technologies has introduced new dimensions into young children's literacy learning, the implications of which have not yet been fully recognised in early years policy guidance, training or practice.     

The Draw‐An‐Environment Test Rubric (DAET‐R): exploring pre‐service teachers’ mental models of the environment

The use of drawings as representations of personal mental models or images is one method of analyzing personal beliefs. This article discusses the development of the Draw‐An‐Environment Test and Rubric (DAET‐R) for assessing the mental models or images of the environment held by pre‐service teachers. It also provides results of preliminary research using the DAET‐R to assess pre‐service teachers’ personal beliefs and understandings about the environment, as interpreted from their drawings. Results of this pilot study using the DAET‐R for scoring early childhood pre‐service teachers’ drawings of the environment suggest that the participants’ mental models of the environment are incomplete. Results of this study also show that the DAET‐R can provide information about pre‐service teachers’ beliefs about the environment useful to teacher educators in the development and delivery of environmental education.     

Student-centred anti-smoking education: Comparing a classroom-based and an out-of-school setting

The present study monitored a student-centred educational anti-smoking intervention with fifth graders by focusing on their cognitive achievement and intrinsic motivation. In order to assess the potential influence of the setting on self-directed learning, the intervention was conducted in two different learning environments: a classroom-based group in class at school; and an out-of-school group in an outreach setting at a youth camp. A control group didn’t experience any specific intervention. Outcomes were assessed with an achievement test and the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory. Although in both learning settings similar cognitive levels were achieved, the out-of-school group showed a larger decrease in cognitive achievement and lower intrinsic motivation scores for interest and perceived choice. This empirical study adds new evidence to student-centred learning schemes in different learning environments, especially in an interdisciplinary context.     

Human cumulative culture in the laboratory: Effects of (micro) population size

Traditionally, experiments on social learning (in both humans and nonhumans) involve dyads, with an experimenter or experimenter-trained conspecific serving as the demonstrator and the participant as the observer. But social learning in nature often involves multiple potential models, and the models themselves were once learners. We discuss our studies of social learning by adult humans in interactive group settings in the absence of formal demonstrations by experimenters, which tracked transmission over multiple learner generations. In these experiments, we found evidence for cumulative learning over generations. This has allowed us to manipulate learning conditions in order to test hypotheses regarding the necessary conditions for cumulative culture. We also report results from a further experiment using similar methods, which compared conditions of varying cohort size. Participants were given the task to build a paper airplane to fly as far as possible. Contrary to expectations, there was no advantage for larger cohort sizes, in terms of the cumulative effects observed.     

The participation of schools in the recruitment of teachers: evaluating new procedures in Germany

Traditionally, in Germany, the centralized state school administration oversees the staffing of its schools. Specifically, the administration assigns new teachers to designated schools. During the last decade, some German Bundesländer have established new procedures for hiring new teachers. Since 1997 the Bundesland Nordrhein‐Westfalen (NRW) has implemented a new recruitment system. Now local schools can advertise their own teacher vacancies and select among candidates. The purpose of this is to support the school in developing and realizing a special ‘school profile’: a certain pedagogical programme that is distinctive for a school. The results of the empirical study show that the schools in general appreciate the new staffing procedure very much. They like it because now the school has the opportunity to select among different candidates on the basis of a personal appraisal. Support for the school profile seems to be not so important. So this innovative procedure is very well accepted—but not for the reason it was originally installed for.

En Allemagne le processus de sélection et d'embauche d'enseignants est traditionnellement géré par la commission scolaire. L'inspection scolaire attribue les instituteurs aux écoles à partir de listes de candidats. Au cours des dix dernières années, quelques Bundesländer ont toutefois introduit une nouvelle forme d'embauche. Le Bundesland Rhénanie‐du‐Nord‐Westphalie (NRW) a également établi un nouveau système de recrutement en 1997. Les écoles elles‐mêmes peuvent mettre en concours leurs postes libres et faire leur choix parmi les candidats. Cette procédure vise à soutenir les écoles dans leurs efforts à développer un profil pédagogique particulier et de le réaliser. Les résultats d'évaluations montrent que les écoles apprécient beaucoup cette nouvelle forme d'embauche, puisque elles ont désormais la possibilité de faire leur choix à partir d'une impression personnelle. Par contre, l'aspect de soutien du profil pédagogique ne semble pas avoir autant d'importance pour les écoles. Cette nouvelle forme est donc très appréciée— mais pas forcément pour les raisons pour lesquelles elle a été introduite.

Tradicionalmente son las autoridades escolares en Alemania quienes realizan el procedimiento de la selección y contratación del cuerpo docente. A base de las listas de los solicitantes, las autoridades reparten a los docentes capacitados entre los centros educativos. Sin embargo, algunos estados federales han implementado, en los últimos diez años, un nuevo procedimiento de contratación del profesorado. Desde 1997, el estado federal alemán de Renania del Norte‐Westfalia (NRW) ha establecido un nuevo sistema de ingreso en la función pública docente. En consecuencia de ello, los mismos centros educativos ahora ya tienen toda la autonomía para ofrecer un empleo y eligir a sus candidatos. El objetivo de este procedimiento es de apoyar los centros educativos tanto en el desarrollo del perfil escolar específico como en la realización del mismo en la práctica. Las investigaciones empíricas demuestran que los centros estiman en mucho este nuevo procedimiento de empleo. Lo aprecian porque tienen la posibilidad de escoger, en virtud de una impresión personal, el candidato apropiado. Si éste apoya o no el perfil escolar les parece ser de menos trascendencia. De modo que se aprecia mucho este nuevo procedimiento de empleo aunque no sea por la razón pensada.

Traditionell wird in Deutschland der Prozess der Auswahl und Einstellung von Lehrern durch die Schulbehörden vollzogen. Auf der Basis von Bewerberlisten weist die Schulaufsicht ausgebildete Lehrer den Schulen zu. Im Laufe der letzten zehn Jahre haben jedoch einige Bundesländer ein neues verfahren der Lehrereinstellung eingeführt. Seit 1997 hat auch das Bundesland Nordrhein‐Westfalen (NRW) ein neues Rekrutierungssystem etabliert. Jetzt können Schulen selbst ihre freien Lehrerstellen ausschreiben und zwischen Bewerbern auswählen. Der Zweck dieses Verfahrens ist es, die Schulen in der Entwicklung und praktischen Realisierung ihres besonderen Schulprofils zu unterstützen. Die Ergebnisse der empirischen Untersuchungen zeigen, dass die Schulen dieses neue Einstellungsverfahren sehr schätzen. Sie schätzen es, weil die Schule nunmehr die Möglichkeit hat, zwischen geeigneten Bewerbern aufgrund des persönlichen Eindrucks zu entscheiden. Die Unterstützung des Schulprofils scheint für die Schulen weniger bedeutsam zu sein. So wird dieses neue Verfahren also sehr geschätzt—aber nicht aus dem Grund, weswegen es eingeführt worden ist.     

Evaluation of the KA24 (Knowledge Access 24) service for health and social care staff in London and the south-east of England. Part 2: qualitative

AIM AND OBJECTIVES: The aim of this two-part paper is to identify the main transferable lessons learned from both the quantitative and qualitative evaluations of the KA24 (Knowledge Access 24) service of online databases and selected full-text journals for health and social care staff in London and the south-east of England. The objectives of the qualitative evaluation were to assess the enablers and barriers to usage, and to assess the impact of the service on patient care. METHODS: Telephone interviews (n = 65) and a questionnaire survey (n = 296) were conducted with various types of user, in various Trust settings. Some non-users were also contacted. Selection of interviewees and questionnaire recipients was not random, and aimed to cover all groups of users representatively. RESULTS: Results show that policy goals were being delivered, with indications of changes to clinical practice, and improved clinical governance. Promotion, training and support needs to be extensive, and tailored to needs, but users are not always aware they need training. The sharing of passwords cast doubts on the reliability of some usage data. CONCLUSIONS: Digital health library services, delivered at the point of care, are changing the way some clinicians practise. A combination of qualitative and quantitative evaluation methods are needed to assess digital library services.     

The impact of information skills training on independent literature searching activity and requests for mediated literature searches

Background: Most NHS library services routinely offer both mediated searches and information skills training sessions to their users. We analyse the impact of these two services on the amount of literature searching demonstrated by users of hospital‐ based library services in the north‐west of England. Methods: Data for (1) mediated literature searches, (2) number of library users attending information skills training sessions, (3) amount of library staff time devoted to information skills training, and (4) number of Athens‐authenticated log‐ins to databases were obtained from statistical returns for 2007, and analysed for significant correlations. Results: There was evidence of quite strong correlations between the two measures of training activity and the number of mediated literature searches performed by library staff. There was weaker evidence of correlation between training activity and total literature searching activity. Discussion: Attending training sessions may make some library users aware of the difficulty of complex literature searches and actually reduce their confidence to perform their own complex searches independently. The relationships between information skills training, mediated literature searches, and independent literature searching activity remain complex.