Learning from children’s voice in schools: Experiences from Ireland

In Ireland there is progressive legislation on children’s participation in the education system. The Education Act 1998 advocates that school boards should involve students in the school and establish student councils in second-level schools. Since the publication of this legislation progress on realising students’ participation in schools has been slow. In 2006 the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended that Ireland strengthen its efforts to enable children to express their views in schools and other educational institutions. The National Strategy on Children and Young People’s Participation in Decision-making (2015), the first to be produced internationally, commits to facilitating children and young people’s voice in the development of education policy, the running of schools and in other areas of school policy. This paper presents and discusses the results of qualitative participatory research with children and young people aged between 7 and 17 years, teachers and school principals, and parents, on their attitudes towards and opportunities for participation by students in schools in Ireland. The data reveal that students are keen to participate in school but recognise that their opportunities to do so are inadequate, that teachers understand participation very differently from students, and that parents have little knowledge of their children’s participatory experiences in school. It concludes that effective participation in schools requires policy, practical and cultural change.     

Auditory processing,linguistic prosody awareness,and word reading in Mandarin-speaking children learning English

This study examined language-specific links among auditory processing, linguistic prosody awareness, and Mandarin (L1) and English (L2) word reading in 61 Mandarin-speaking, English-learning children. Three auditory discrimination abilities were measured: pitch contour, pitch interval, and rise time (rate of intensity change at tone onset). Linguistic prosody awareness was measured three ways: Mandarin tone perception, English stress perception, and English stress production. A Chinese character recognition task was the Mandarin L1 reading metric. English L2 word reading was assessed by English real word reading and nonword decoding tasks. The importance of the auditory processing measures to reading was different in the two languages. Pitch contour discrimination predicted Mandarin L1 word reading and rise time discrimination predicted English L2 word reading, after controlling for age and nonverbal IQ. For the prosodic and phonological measures, Mandarin tone perception, but not rhyme awareness, predicted Chinese character recognition after controlling for age and nonverbal IQ. In contrast, English rhyme awareness predicted more unique variance in English real word reading and nonword decoding than did English stress perception and production. Linguistic prosody awareness appears to play a more important role in L1 word reading than phonological awareness; while the reverse seems true for English L2 word reading in Mandarin-speaking children. Taken together, auditory processing, language-specific linguistic prosody awareness, and phonological awareness play different roles in L1/L2 reading, reflecting different prosodic and segmental structures between Mandarin and English.     

Framework of mechanical symmetry breaking theory and its application to innovative design

Symmetry breaking phenomena exist in many mechanical products. Based on an analysis of the variation in physical features in several design examples, mechanical symmetry breaking concept systems that consist of general requirements, working principles, and cross-scale mechanical structures are established from the macro to micro levels and in both machine assembly and the design of parts. The connection between symmetry breaking and product requirements is systematically studied. Eight design principles using symmetry breaking to achieve mechanical functions, performance, and constraints are proposed. The method and process of applying symmetry breaking in mechanical concept design are described. These principles, method, and process are then used in the concept design of a gear chain. With symmetry breaking characters, the transmission stability of the newly innovated gear chain is greatly improved, compared with traditional ones.     

The relationship of teacher ratings of executive functions to emergent literacy in Head Start

Reading and Writing - The purpose of this study was to investigate the concurrent relationships between selected teacher-rated executive function (EF) and a comprehensive array of emergent literacy...     

A Review of Collegiate Recovery Communities and Recommendations for Implementation on a Small Residential Campus

Although the Collegiate Recovery Community is increasingly seen as the treatment modality of choice for students in recovery, relatively few such programs have been established on small residential campuses. In this article we examine the possible reasons for this reluctance and suggest ways in which the standard model for a Collegiate Recovery Community, as represented by its three benchmark programs, can be modified and adapted to better fit the small residential campus environment. We summarize the problem and review the concept of a Collegiate Recovery Community, and we then explain and recommend 1) a bottom-up initiative for planning and 2) scaled-down resource demand and utilization. We provide a 5-point plan for a “bottom-up, scaled-down” Collegiate Recovery Community on a small residential campus.     

Inclusive schooling policy: An educational detective story?

Since the publication of the Salamanca statement (UNESCO 1994), inclusive schooling has formed a growing part of the deliberations of the special education community. Inclusive schooling research in Australia in the main continues to reproduce traditions of the special education field, emphasising the dominant psychological perspectives that have been superimposed on inclusive education discourses. At the fifth International Congress of Special Education (ISEC 2000) held in Manchester, ‘the death knell of the concept of special education’ (ISEC 2000) was announced. The concept proposed by Mike Oliver, Professor of Disability Studies at the University of Greenwich, asserts an end to understandings of diversity dependent on medical, psychological and charity-based discourses. From a recent study of inclusive schooling policy, and drawing from poststructuralist methodology, I suggest an approach to research, policy development and practice that questions traditionalist theorising in the special education field. Reflecting on the implementation of the Inclusion of Students with Disabilities Policy (DECCD 1995) in the Tasmanian government school system, I outline my alignment with Oliver’s view and highlight how questions of epistemology and reconstructions of research methodologies are central to rethinking understandings of difference. I also illustrate a methodological orientation that offers possibilities for a different science to take place, thereby understanding diversity as multiple and contradictory — and beyond the single ‘detective story’ (Gough 1998) of the medical, psychological and charity-based discourses that circulate in schools as the populist conceptions of ‘inclusion’.