The “Voice” of Children of Poverty: Candid Insights to Their Career Aspirations and Perceptions of Self-Efficacy

Career development in children largely involves learning about the world of work from family members, peers, and classroom exploration in elementary school. For children of economic disadvantage, a lack of resources and restricted access to information may curtail their ability to envision career attainment. The current qualitative study explored the career aspirations of fourth- and fifth-grade students living in poverty to discern their career interests, knowledge background, understanding of educational and career pathways, and their self-efficacy for achieving their vision for the future. The data collection process involved focus groups and individual case studies. The investigators highlighted the direct verbal exchange with and among students as the most critical approach to understanding children’s aspirations. Study results indicated that the children envisioned a future of educational and occupational prosperity, but their “dreams” were often circumscribed by their limited knowledge of and exposure to employment options.

     

Hope for Children Trapped in Failing Schools: The Promise of Crawford v. Davy

On October 4, 2007, a trial level court in New Jersey dismissed Crawford v. Davy, a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of 60,000 schoolchildren throughout the state seeking the court's authority to leave schools that fail to educate their students. By filing suit, plaintiff schoolchildren had hoped to be transferred to an alternative successful public or private school utilizing their pro rata share of state and local school funds to subsidize the transfer. Now, the dismissal of Crawford consigns these children to poor inadequate neighborhood schools indefinitely. If the dismissal of Crawford v. Davy is not reversed on appeal, it will not only extinguish the hope of plaintiff schoolchildren to receive an equal and adequate educational opportunity, but could threaten the right of a thorough and efficient education guaranteed by the State Constitution and reverse gains achieved over the past 40 years in New Jersey's education jurisprudence. This article places Crawford in the context of the state's enduring legal struggle to equalize educational opportunities and discusses its claims and purposes in relation to that history. The article then addresses the significance of the Crawford dismissal on the state's legal precedents, especially rulings in the on-going Abbott v. Burke equity funding litigation. Finally, the article concludes with a prediction of the impact that Crawford's dismissal may pose for the larger equity/adequacy litigation movement playing out across the country. For the moment, the hope of 60,000 plaintiff schoolchildren is diminished. Only time and New Jersey's appellate courts will dictate whether their hope for an equal and adequate education shall survive.     

Technology,learning and instruction: distributed cognition in the secondary English classroom

In this paper, we analyse interactions between secondary students and pre‐service teachers in an online environment in order to understand how their meaning‐making processes embody distributed cognition. We begin by providing a theoretical review of the ways in which literacy learning is distributed across learners, objects, tools, symbols, technologies and the environment in modern English language arts classrooms. This is followed by a case study where we identify how programme values, textual resources and cultural schema function as distributed tools. In traditional schools, with an emphasis on taking standardised tests, the learning environment is designed on the view that learning is a transaction that happens solely ‘inside the head’. Unfortunately, this pushes many students to the margins of classroom engagement and participation. By analysing students' and pre‐service teachers' online discourse, we argue that virtual spaces can facilitate critical dialogue and can act as catalysts for a distributed theory of mind.     

The information practices and politics of migrant-aid work in the US-Mexico borderlands

Abstract

Numerous organizations work to provide humanitarian aid to undocumented migrants along the US-Mexico border—from running shelters in Mexico to placing water on migratory trails. Resistance to information-sharing between organizations (and to the public), especially through technologically mediated means, is common. However, some organizers and volunteers work across organizational boundaries and share information informally. Information secrecy is often justified by concerns that law enforcement authorities or anti-immigration activists might gain access to information, allowing them to harm, detain or remove migrants, or interfere with humanitarian work. The choices made about the collection and (non)disclosure of information are manifestations of what we call “liminal” information practices: such behaviors are unique to humanitarian volunteers working in the gray, ethical area between law enforcement and humanitarian values and action, and they are guided by the information politics at play within this context.     

Stakeholders′ conceptions of connecting learning at different sites in two national VET systems

Learning through active participation and engagement in education and workplace settings is a prerequisite for effective professional competence development through Vocational Education and Training (VET). Equally important is that learning from multiple sites and sources needs to be purposefully connected and integrated to construct meaningful knowledge and understandings. The quality of connectivity and learning outcomes is influenced by conceptions of the different actors. The aim of the research reported in this article was to gain an understanding of key stakeholders’ (learners, teachers, trainers and managers/coordinators) conceptions of connections between school-based and work-based learnings which offer the main sources for developing vocational competence, and are the main sites for the enacted and engaged curriculum for VET. We identify and compare conceptions of vocational learning and teaching across education and workplace settings in Swiss and Australian VET actors. Differences and similarities are discussed and implications for VET research and development of teachers and trainers are outlined.     

Situated cognition and learning environments: implications for teachers on- and offline in the new digital media age

John Seely Brown suggested that learning environments should be spaces in which all work is public, is subject to iterative critique by instructors and peers, and in which social interaction is primary. In such spaces, students and teachers engage in a situated cognition approach to teaching and learning where “cognitive accomplishments rely in part on structures and processes outside the individual”. Here we describe a qualitative analysis of a socially situated learning setting that aimed to develop children who can design, analyze, critique, and transform media, subjecting existing social media, their designs, and their peers’ designs to public and iterative critique. In this setting, adult mentors supported children’s self-expression, self-reflection, and skillbuilding through authentic, socially situated reading, writing, and discussion, and media production. Creating and leveraging such spaces is essential for preparing all children for successful experiences in the new knowledge economy in formal and informal educational settings.