Feminine sexual desire and shame in the classroom: an educator’s constructions of and investments in sexuality education

ABSTRACT

Within the growing body of literature on sexuality education in South Africa, researchers have highlighted how teachers may face, or themselves be, barriers to the implementation of rights-based comprehensive sexuality education. Important issues with regard to educators are: firstly, the social and discursive space within which educators are located; and secondly, the complex emotional and psychic investments that educators take up within particular discourses and practices. This paper explores, through a psychosocial reading of an interview extract with a particular educator based in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, how discursive and psychic concerns are sutured within the complex subjectivity of the educator as the medium for sexual education in schools. Specifically, it highlights the numerous ways in which feminine sexuality and desire may be avoided, denied and silenced. Even when feminine desire is specifically evoked as in this case, it is done so in a way that ensures social and cultural respectability, thereby reproducing shame narratives that form and maintain traditional gender discourses. Our analysis demonstrates how engaging with educators as subjects with their own sexual history and psychic dynamics, and as individuals with raced, gendered and classed identities, is a potentially transformative perspective for effective sexuality education.     

Teacher–Child Interactions in Early Head Start Classrooms: Associations With Teacher Characteristics

ABSTRACT

Research Findings: The current study examined characteristics of 71 Early Head Start lead teachers in relation to classroom interactions with infants and toddlers. Measured teacher characteristics included education, years of experience, beliefs about child rearing, depressive symptoms, and the temperamental characteristics of positivity and frustration. Teacher–child interactions were measured using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System, Toddler Version (La Paro, Hamre, & Pianta, 2012). Results indicated that field of degree was directly associated with the majority of dimensions of teacher–child interactions. Examination of teachers’ years of experience and intrapersonal characteristics revealed a number of significant interactions, indicating that teacher experience and appropriate beliefs may serve as protective factors in the presence of psychosocial risk factors. Practice or Policy: Overall, our findings suggest that both early childhood education degrees and years of experience are directly or indirectly associated with multiple dimensions of teacher–child interactions, confirming that these patterns established for preschool teachers hold for teachers of infants and toddlers. These results also suggest that years of experience and progressive beliefs about children may be especially important for teachers who are depressed or who have low levels of positivity and high levels of frustration. Implications for future research, as well as preservice and in-service professional development, are discussed.     

Modifying socially withdrawn behavior: A playground intervention for students with internalizing behaviors

There is little research regarding interventions for children with internalizing behaviors in schools, both within classrooms and in nonclassroom environments. In response to this need, a nonclassroom treatment package, consisting of (a) social skills instruction, (b) mediated self‐management, and (c) a reinforcement system, was implemented to modify the socially withdrawn behavior of 3 elementary students. The effects of this treatment package were evaluated on the school playground—during recess—by recording both the number of communicative acts and the total time spent engaged in appropriate peer play for each target student. All target students showed marked improvement in their playground, social interaction. Future research should be conducted with similar populations, using variations of the described methods in other school settings. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 44: 779–794, 2007.     

Outcome status of students with learning disabilities at ages 21 and 24

This study investigated whether the presence of learning disabilities (LD) at age 10 was related to later schooling, employment, income, receipt of public aid, involvement in crime, and feeling of victimization at ages 21 and 24. Confidential self-report data were collected in a prospective, longitudinal panel study from a sample of 571 students, of whom 60 (10.5%) were children with LD. After controlling for gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, the following results were obtained: The highest postsecondary school attainment for young adults with LD was not significantly different from that of their peers without LD, both at age 21 and age 24. The rate of employment and amount of earned income of young adults with LD were not significantly lower than those of their peers without LD both at age 21 and age 24. Young adults with LD were not significantly different from their peers without LD at age 21 and age 24 with respect to having children, but young adults with LD received significantly more public aid (such as food stamps, supplemental security income, and unemployment compensation) at age 21 but not at age 24. Young adults with LD were not significantly different from their peers without LD in committing crimes or feeling victimized at age 21 and age 24.     

Instructional principles for self-regulation

The purpose of this article is to suggest principles for embedding support in instruction to facilitate self-regulation (SR) in less expert learners. The principles are based on an analysis of the growing body of research on the distinctive self-regulation differences between higher and lower achieving learners. The analysis revealed four instructional principles that designers should consider to provide support for self-regulation. Each principle is supported by research and instructional examples are included.     

1. Three-Element Energy Field and Leadership

心、身、能量,即元极理论中的三元(能量),对培育个人领导能力及组织机构整体的学习环境都是个深奥而又重要的概念和实践。在一个组织机构和共同体中,开发交感和谐的集体三元场是建立健康、有创造性、能赋予生命以意义和价值的环境的微妙而又实际的基础工作,对缓解紧张压力和保健医疗十分重要。而启动这样一个富有挑战性的集体学习、康复和成长的过程,集体的认识和共同体领导的实际投入都是必要的先决条件。文中引述了能量医学、认识科学、理论物理学、管理学、学习与知识创新理论近年来的研究成果,并分析了中国鄂州元极医院应用三元能量系统治疗晚期癌症等与紧张压力有关的疑难病症的成果。     

领导管理学和卫生保健医疗中的能量场:元极三元模型

心、身、能量,即元极理论中的三元(能量),对培育个人领导能力及组织机构整体的学习环境都是个深奥而又重要的概念和实践.在一个组织机构和共同体中,开发交感和谐的集体三元场是建立健康、有创造性、能赋予生命以意义和价值的环境的微妙而又实际的基础工作,对缓解紧张压力和保健医疗十分重要.而启动这样一个富有挑战性的集体学习、康复和成长的过程,集体的认识和共同体领导的实际投入都是必要的先决条件.文中引述了能量医学、认识科学、理论物理学、管理学、学习与知识创新理论近年来的研究成果,并分析了中国鄂州元极医院应用三元能量系统治疗晚期癌症等与紧张压力有关的疑难病症的成果.     

The Unification of Post-Compulsory Education: Towards a Conceptual Framework

The drive to 'unify'post-compulsory education and training systems is one of the most important current developments in education policy. However the concept of 'unification' lacks clarity, is not widely recognised, and is pursued through different measures in different countries. In this paper we propose a conceptual framework with which to analyse the different meanings of and debates about unification. Using England and Scotland as examples, we show how the framework may be used to analyse existing systems, reform strategies, and processes and pressures for change. The framework is exploratory and will need to be tested and developed in relation to a wider variety of education systems.