The ‘Problem’ of the Female Pupil Teacher: constructions,conflict and control 1860‐1910

This paper highlights just one aspect of the highly gendered nature of nineteenth century pupil teaching and focuses on how the female pupil teacher was constructed as a ‘problem’. The paper consists of two broad sections and draws extensively upon the experience of female pupil teachers who attended pupil teacher centres during the school board period. First, to set the scene and contextualise the ‘problem’, a brief account of the feminisation of teaching and what this meant for the female pupil teacher and pupil teaching in general is explored, with particular reference to the complexities of female pupil teachers’ working life and the issue of mixed centre organisation. Secondly, there follows an analysis of how attempts were made to solve or contain the perceived ‘problem’ of the female pupil teacher through the simultaneous exercise of: moral control; protection and concern with physical and mental well‐being; moulding through the medium of ‘healthful recreation’.     

The effects of dialect awareness instruction on nonmainstream American English speakers

The achievement gaps between poor and more affluent students are persistent and chronic, as many students living in poverty are also members of more isolated communities where dialects such as African American English and Southern Vernacular English are often spoken. Non-mainstream dialect use is associated with weaker literacy achievement. The principal aims of the two experiments described in this paper were to examine whether second through fourth graders, who use home English in contexts where more formal school English is expected, can be taught to dialect shift between home and school English depending on context; and whether this leads to stronger writing and literacy outcomes. The results of two randomized controlled trials with students within classrooms randomly assigned to DAWS (Dialect Awareness, a program to explicitly teach dialect shifting), editing instruction, or a business as usual group revealed (1) that DAWS was more effective in promoting dialect shifting than instruction that did not explicitly contrast home and school English; and (2) that students in both studies who participated in DAWS were significantly more likely to use school English in contexts where it was expected on proximal and distal outcomes including narrative writing, morphosyntactic awareness, and reading comprehension. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Banners for Books: “Mighty-Hearted” Kindergartners Take Action through Arts-Based Service Learning

Teaching about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, is one way to support students’ learning about issues of fairness. However, learning about this document is not enough. Students need to have experiences where they explore issues of justice and equity in order to learn about respect and dignity for others. The present study explored an arts-based project in a kindergarten classroom about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 26—The Right to Education. Over the course of several months, nineteen kindergarten students learned about educational inequities around the world and specifically about an under-resourced partner school in El Salvador. Children’s literature about human rights became the catalyst for critical conversations, written responses, and drawings inspiring action. Students worked to address injustice by screen printing images they drew about their beliefs regarding a child’s right to education on fabric banners to raise awareness about school inequity. These banners were then displayed in their school and in the partner school. Overall findings from students’ discussions, writing, illustrations, and interviews indicated that the kindergartners were able to recognize their own rights and educational privilege. Through the project they demonstrated active citizenship centered on care and sought further connections with children at the partner school. In using arts-based service learning, educators involved in the study discovered how art can be used as a creative process and a teaching method to support young learners raising awareness about global inequities.     

Relationships among L1 print exposure and early L1 literacy skills, L2 aptitude, and L2 proficiency

Authors examined the relationship between individual differences in L1 print exposure and differences in early L1 skills and later L2 aptitude, L2 proficiency, and L2 classroom achievement. Participants were administered measures of L1 word decoding, spelling, phonemic awareness, reading comprehension, receptive vocabulary, and listening comprehension in 1?C5th grades, and then followed into 9?C10th grades where measures of L2 aptitude, L2 proficiency, and L1 print exposure were administered. Students?? responses on the L1 print exposure measure were used to divide them into High, Average, and Low Print groups. Findings showed significant differences between the High versus Low Print groups on all L1 skill measures, L2 aptitude and L2 proficiency tests, and L2 classroom achievement after controlling for IQ. L1 skill differences between the groups emerged as early as 1st grade. L1 phonemic awareness, L1 word decoding, and L1 spelling measures were the best discriminators of L1 print exposure among the three groups. Results suggest that early success in L1 reading and reading volume prior to L2 study may be related to differences in L2 aptitude, L2 proficiency, and L2 achievement several years later.     

Contexts built and found: a pilot study on the process of archival meaning-making

Over the last 20 years, humanities and archival scholars have theorized the ways in which archives imbue records with meaning. However, archival scholars have not sufficiently examined how users understand the meaning of the records they find. Building on the premise that how users come to make meaning from records is greatly in need of examination, this paper reports on a pilot study of four book history students and their processes of archival meaning-making. We focus in particular on behaviors of an interpretive rather than forensic nature. This article includes a discussion of the theoretical concepts and scholarly literature that shaped our goals for this paper. It then discusses the methodology and our interpretations of the research findings, before turning to a discussion of the findings’ implications and directions for future work.     

Integrating environmental sustainability into universities

Universities play a fundamental role in addressing global environmental challenges as their education, research and community involvement can produce long-lasting environmental effects and societal change. By demonstrating best practice in their operations, research and teaching, universities have both multiple and multiplier effects on society. For universities to comprehensively address sustainability, a ‘learning for sustainability’ approach needs to be embedded across every aspect of institutional operations in a synergistic way. Using semi-structured interviews, this research explored the factors that influence the integration of sustainability into the operations, teaching and research activities of universities in Australia and England. The research found that individuals, committed to the goal of a more sustainable world, play a vital role in the success of integrating environmental sustainability into universities. The factors critical to enabling universities to undertake the transformational changes necessary to embed environmental sustainability into all university areas included: a strong policy environment, resourcing of strategies, and encouragement of leaders and environmental sustainability advocates. Educating and building the awareness of university staff of the importance of environmental sustainability to future generations was key to a successful strategy.     

Preserving respectability or blatant disrespect? A critical discourse analysis of the Morehouse Appropriate Attire Policy and implications for intersectional approaches to examining campus policies

In this paper, I conduct a critical discourse analysis of the Morehouse College Appropriate Attire Policy and discuss how issues of race, gender, and sexuality converge to reveal both overt and hidden meanings embedded in the policy. I also consider how power is used towards “other” black college men who neither fit neatly into prescribed gender norms, nor foster representations of “good” black men. I situate this critical policy analysis in the context of two ideas: bipolar masculinity and the politics of respectability, and offer implications for the use of intersectional frames in scholarship and research on men and institutional policies.     

Enthusiasts,fence-sitters and sceptics: faculty perspectives on study abroad in Australia and the Czech Republic

Although governments and universities worldwide recognise the value of study abroad as a means to prepare graduates to live and work in a globalising world, there is a wide gap between the rhetoric and reality. The reasons for this are complex, but one factor, not often discussed, is the role academics play in study abroad. This paper explores academics' perceptions of study abroad in universities within two higher education systems: Australian and Czech. Findings from both countries are considered across four themes: academics' perceived value of study abroad; ‘internationalising’ academic staff; academics' concerns about student equity and integrating study abroad into the curriculum at home. The implications for practice and further research are discussed.     

‘They have different information about what is going on’: emotion in the transition to university

Most new students experience school to university transition as challenging. Students from backgrounds with little or no experience of higher education are most vulnerable in this transition, and most at risk of academic failure. Emotion appears implicated in the differential way in which first-generation students and students with family familiarity of university experience the transition. This article draws on the voices of first-year dental and oral hygiene students at a South African dental faculty regarding university transition experiences. It draws on the construct of capital and Archer's [(2002). Realism and the problem of agency. Journal of Critical Realism Alethia, 5(1), 11–20] understanding of ‘competing concerns’ to examine how emotion shapes students' experiences of university transition and how they position themselves with regard to these experiences. The article explicates the ways in which emotional commentary and classed locations intersect, exploring the extent to which this intersection shapes young people's framing of their concerns of ‘being a student’ and ‘becoming a dentist’. The article identifies aspects of the university's material and cultural environments which shape students' emotional responses and which consequently are implicated in the perpetuation of class-based differential life chances.