Play For All at Chicago Children's Museum: A History and Overview

In 2004, Chicago Children's Museum founded the Play For All initiative, which creates a community where play and learning connect for visitors of all abilities. The Play For All team discovered that families with children with disabilities were looking for an opportunity to explore and enjoy the museum without limitations and the fear of being judged. CCM also learned that being ADA compliant was not enough; being accessible and inclusive meant going above and beyond the ADA. Children's museums are a rare treat where almost everything should be interactive and ready to be played with. The Play For All team has made significant changes to the exhibits, staff training, and programming at Chicago Children's Museum by working with local families with disabilities and partner organizations. A culture shift has taken place within CCM. Play For All is now a top priority when decisions are being made.     

The Civil Contract of Photography

A climate of political repression, formed by the Pitt Government in response to agitation by so‐called “radical” societies, surrounded debate on the Habeas Corpus Suspension Bill of 1794. Pitt employed rhetorical tactics such as manipulating evidence and disparaging motives in order to secure passage of this repressive measure. Pitt's tactics appear unjustified in the light of available historical evidence.     

Holistic Media Education: An Assessment of the Effectiveness of a College Course in Media Literacy

The general purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of a college course in media literacy. Specifically, the course took a holistic approach to media literacy and was designed to heighten college students' awareness of media structures, content, and impact, as well as to encourage students to become more critical/informed participants in the media environment. A pre-test, post-test, control group post-test only, quasi-experimental design was employed to assess the effectiveness of this approach to media literacy education. Overall, students' responses produced significant differences between the control group and the experimental groups' post-test scores on most (but not all) dependent measures. The implications of these results and suggestions for future research were discussed.     

Unpacking child-centredness: A history of meanings

This paper examines the historical development of the term 'child-centred' in the discourse of early schooling in America. The discussion begins with the founder of the kindergarten, Friedrich Froebel, and traces the development of the kindergarten in the US until the 1930s. We explore how underlying meanings of the term child-centredness have changed - which were lost and which survived by tracing the educational and philosophical currents of each historical context. The term balances on many layers of complex and sometimes contradictory meanings that have been forged over the years by competing interest groups, each appropriating the term and, adding to and taking away from the existing meaning, moulding it to their own purposes. In the process, some underlying meanings were lost, others were added. Meanings were changed and then shared within and sometimes across groups. The term has masked complex and contradictory underlying assumptions about children and their learning and development that should be addressed.     

Whose curriculum is it anyway? Stakeholder salience in the context of Degree Apprenticeships

A Degree Apprenticeship model has recently been introduced into the United Kingdom (UK) Higher Education system as part of wider changes to vocational training. The system has experienced numerous rapid changes in regulation and funding, and it is now little understood by many stakeholders. Distinguishing different phases in UK Higher Education, and using a salience model as a lens for analysis, this article identifies and examines stakeholders with regards to their influence on the Higher Education curriculum. The new Degree Apprenticeship model is funded by an employer payroll levy and it requires Higher Education institutions to deliver training to specific standards. This research explores the implications of the model for the Higher Education curriculum, concluding that the direct involvement of employers in the design and delivery of vocational Higher Education introduces untried elements into UK Higher Education on the assumption that the funding requirement will lead to a change in employer behaviour. This, coupled with the opening of Higher Education provision to private providers, transfers power over the curriculum to those with potentially no commitment to wider public values, and may offer a threat to the international standing of UK Higher Education. This article contributes to research in understanding how Higher Education systems respond to, and actors cope with, imposed change.     

Child forensic interviewing in Children's Advocacy Centers: empirical data on a practice model

OBJECTIVE: Children's Advocacy Centers (CACs) aim to improve child forensic interviewing following allegations of child abuse by coordinating multiple investigations, providing child-friendly interviewing locations, and limiting redundant interviewing. This analysis presents one of the first rigorous evaluations of CACs' implementation of these methods. METHODS: This analysis is part of a quasi-experimental study, the Multi-Site Evaluation of Children's Advocacy Centers, which evaluated four CACs relative to within-state non-CAC comparison communities. Case abstractors collected data on investigation methods in 1,069 child sexual abuse cases with forensic interviews by reviewing case records from multiple agencies. RESULTS: CAC cases were more likely than comparison cases to feature police involvement in CPS cases (41% vs. 15%), multidisciplinary team (MDT) interviews (28% vs. 6%), case reviews (56% vs. 7%), joint police/child protective services (CPS) investigations (81% vs. 52%) and video/audiotaping of interviews (52% vs. 17%, all these comparisons p<.001). CACs varied in which coordination methods they used, and some comparison communities also used certain coordination methods more than the CAC with which they were paired. Eighty-five percent of CAC interviews took place in child-friendly CAC facilities, while notable proportions of comparison interviews took place at CPS offices (22%), police facilities (18%), home (16%), or school (19%). Ninety-five percent of children had no more than two forensic interviews, and CAC and comparison differences on number of interviews were mostly non-significant. CONCLUSIONS: Relative to the comparison communities, these CACs appear to have increased coordination on investigations and child forensic interviewing. The CAC setting was the location for the vast majority of CAC child interviews, while comparison communities often used settings that many consider undesirable. CACs showed no advantage on reducing the number of forensic interviews, which was consistently small across the sample.