The Implicit Curriculum in Social Work Education: The Culture of Human Interchange

This article focuses on the culture of human interchange, which is included as a component of the implicit curriculum in the current EPAS. It presents the use of the implicit curriculum concept in teacher and medical education as a context for its application to social work education. The authors argue that professional behaviors taught in the explicit curriculum of the classroom need to be consciously reinforced in the many venues and through the ongoing interpersonal relations throughout the educational environment. The article identifies the challenges that movement in this direction would create but which the implicit curriculum standard mandates us to address.     

Secondary Social Studies Teachers’ Experiences Planning and Implementing Inquiry Using the Inquiry Design Model

While the use of inquiry-based instruction has been encouraged for many years, it continues to be the exception rather than the norm. The publication of the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework, as well as the Inquiry Design Model that provides structure for its implementation, offer support for teachers to use inquiry in their social studies classrooms. This phenomenological study used semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and document analyses to explore three secondary social studies teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge as they planned and implemented inquiries. Findings indicate that teachers found a structured method of designing inquiries useful and that their approaches to planning and implementing those inquiries varied with individual context and personal pedagogical stances. There is no one-size-fits-all inquiry, even when teachers used the same support tool.     

Making the conceptual shift: teacher performance appraisal as professional growth

Often, the traditional forms of performance assessment are incongruent with the emerging view of schools as learning organizations. In this pilot study, the authors explored the use of action research as an alternative means of teacher performance appraisal. The findings suggest that action research holds great promise in incorporating teacher learning, continual growth and teacher ownership into the appraisal process. However, this process also necessitated a conceptual shift to connect teacher performance appraisal practices with professional learning.     

Farmers’ Attitude towards a Participatory Research Method Used to Evaluate Weed Management Strategies in Bananas

Abstract

In this study, farmers were engaged in a participatory research project and their attitudes evaluated. The purpose was to identify the characteristics of farmers who are favourably predisposed towards meaningful participation in the process. Several cover crops were tested for possible use in the management of watergrass (Commelina diffusa), a noxious weed in banana cultivation. Small, limited-resource farmers were exposed to the essentials of systematic research through a process of experiential learning using participatory techniques. Thirty-six farmers evaluated three cover crops against the current weed control practice of farmers, which served as the control. Farmers and researchers collaborated on the experimental design, treatment allocation, data to be collected and the form of the analysis. Summary data were subjected by the farmers to the Overlap Test to evaluate differences among the treatments. Results indicated that one cover crop, Desmodium heterocarpon, was better than the others in controlling watergrass. These results were confirmed by ANOVA.

A Likert-type scale, used to assess farmers’ attitude, showed that overall, farmers were generally favourable towards the process. Differences in responses to attitudinal statements were based mainly on farmers’ differing education levels. Some level of attrition was experienced in this process, mainly by the older and more experienced farmers. The younger, less experienced farmers completed the trials to a large extent. The results provide useful information for the selection of farmers to be involved in future participatory technology development initiatives.     

Looking Presidential: A Comparison of Newspaper Photographs of Candidates in the United States and Taiwan

News coverage of elections is a popular topic in mass and political communication research. Studies of this tradition usually focus on news articles and neglect another important element of news content: news photographs. In this study, newspaper photographs of presidential candidates in the United States and Taiwan were compared. Generally, US candidates were more likely to be portrayed as a beloved leader, at leisure, from the side or back, looking determined, as a leader and follower, standing or walking, and with cheering crowds. Candidates in Taiwan were more likely to be depicted in a ‘glad-to-see-you’ pose, with a camera angle looking down, with no expression, as an equal to others in the same photograph, and with inattentive people. How political and cultural differences between these two countries may have contributed to such variations was also discussed in this study.     

Design Considerations for an Intensive Autism Treatment Centre

Individuals with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) who display severe and challenging behaviour sometimes require centre‐based intensive applied behaviour analysis (ABA) therapy to meet their health, safety and educational needs. Unfortunately, despite the need for centre‐based treatment, there is a paucity of empirical research on building and programme design features that influence positive behavioural outcomes for individuals with ASD. We surveyed professionals who had experience providing services to the ASD population regarding the building design and policy features that could facilitate treatment. This article highlights the features that were highly endorsed as beneficial in the design of an intensive ASD treatment facility, with the intended purpose of discovering which features create an environment in which the individuals can more easily transition into an appropriate mainstream learning environment. It is hoped that the results of the survey will be helpful to those developing ASD treatment facilities and allow them to circumvent trial and error that could occur when building a centre from the ground up.     

The tyranny of surveillance: male teachers and the policing of masculinities in a single sex school

This paper draws on research into male teachers in one single sex high school in the Australian context to highlight how issues of masculinity impact on their pedagogical practices and relationships with boys. The study is situated within the broader international field of research on male teachers, masculinities and schooling in Australia, the UK and the US and provides further knowledge about the gendered dimensions of male teachers’ pedagogical practices in secondary schools. The authors argue for the urgent need to interrogate the impact of masculinities in male teachers’ lives at school, given the call for more male role models to ameliorate the supposed feminizing and emasculating influences of schools on boys’ lives. A particular Foucauldian perspective, which draws on surveillance and its key role in practices of gender subjectification, is used to provide insight into how two male teachers learn to police their masculinities and to fashion pedagogical practices under the normalizing gaze of their male students.