��It depends on what science teacher you got��: urban science self-efficacy from teacher and student voices

In the United States today, urban schools serve the majority of high-poverty and high minority populations including large numbers of Hispanic students. While many Hispanic students perform below grade level in middle school science, the science teaching community as a whole is lacking elements of diversity as teachers struggle to meet the needs of all learners. Researchers have recognized that science teacher effectiveness, one consequence of self-efficacy among teachers, is associated with future science achievement and science-related careers of their students. This qualitative study explores how three science teachers’ effectiveness in the classroom impacts students’ science self-efficacy beliefs at one urban middle school. Hispanic students were the focus of this investigation due to demographics and history of underperformance within this district. Teachers’ perspectives, as well as outside observer evaluations of instructional strategies and classroom climates were triangulated to explore dynamics that influence students’ interests and motivation to learn science using a framework to link teachers’ sense of efficacy (focusing on student outcomes). Findings suggest the impact teacher effectiveness can have on student outcomes, including strengthened student science self-efficacy and increased science achievement. Building awareness and support in teachers’ sense of efficacy, as well as developing respectful and supportive relationships between educator/facilitator and pupil during the transition to middle school may construct permanence and accomplishment for all in science.     

A longitudinal study of religious identity and participation during adolescence

To examine the development of religious identity during the teenage years, adolescents (N = 477) from Latin American, Asian, and European backgrounds completed questionnaires in the 10th, 11th, and 12th grades (10th grade age: M = 15.81, SD = 0.36). Results indicated that religious identity remained stable across high school whereas religious participation declined. Even after controlling for ethnic differences in religious affiliation, socioeconomic background, and generational status, adolescents from Latin American and Asian backgrounds reported higher levels of religious identity and adolescents from Latin American backgrounds reported higher rates of religious participation. Within individual adolescents, changes in religious identity were associated with changes in ethnic and family identities, suggesting important linkages in the development of these social identities during adolescence.     

Applying reciprocity and accommodation theories to supervisor/subordinate communication

Reciprocity and accommodation theories were applied to communication between supervisors and subordinates. It was reasoned that supervisors and subordinates informally (and not necessarily consciously) negotiate communication styles with each other which become significantly correlated over time. It was hypothesized that the supervisors’ Socio‐Communicative Style and the subordinates’ Socio‐Communicative Orientation would be positively correlated with each other and both would predict the subordinates’ perceptions of the supervisors’ credibility, attractiveness, and the subordinates’ general attitude toward the supervisor and communicating with that supervisor. The results were consistent with the hypotheses.     

Visualizing strategic change in an educational development centre with product-based analysis

Product-based analysis (PBA) is a new way of modelling the strategic direction of an educational development centre (EDC). It was developed within an English EDC to complement other strategic techniques, providing a means of visualizing the overall strategy. This critique of PBA is set in the context of global university reforms, restructurings and economic constraints that EDCs mirror in miniature. The case for PBA is demonstrated through two exemplars, one retrospective, the other applied to the same group, now dispersed several years on, as it sets out a collaborative strategy to address the future uncertainties shared by many EDCs.     

NURTURING EARLY CHILDHOOD PROFESSIONALISM: THE RHODE ISLAND EARLY CHILDHOOD SUMMER INSTITUTE

This article describes the independent study project of a student who was a graduate assistant in a child development laboratory preschool when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck the Gulf Coast area. Through her experiences with “Project Katrina” she deepens her understanding of developmentally appropriate practices as she learns firsthand about the project approach and writing an article for publication in a professional journal.     

Reading and Writing the Passions in Duchenne de Boulogne's Mécanisme de la physionomie humaine

This paper examines Duchenne de Boulogne's Mécanisme de la physionomie humaine (1862) as a limit case between Foucauldian epistemes of signification. Electrically inducing ‘expression’ in his subject's face, Duchenne, a neuro-physiologist, claimed to have discovered the true ‘orthography’ of the passions. He photographed and published his experiments to offer the art world a positivist corrective to the historically ‘arbitrary’ representation of emotion. The narrative accompanying the photographs provides the basis for this analysis which focuses on how Duchenne used the image/text idea of an ’orthography‘ to shape his technologically mediated expressions with a Renaissance and Classical poetics of resemblance and representation. Making an analogy with linguistic ‘units’, Duchenne located a scene of writing under the facial flesh where action was ‘transfigured’ into passion. The Classical debate on the origin of language and the Renaissance physiognomic tradition inspired his discourse, which failed to grasp the modernity of his technologically mediated passions.