Integrated schools and intergroup relations in Northern Ireland: the importance of parents

Background: Integrated schools were established in Northern Ireland in the early 1980s. With an explicit intention to build better relations between Catholics and Protestants, it has an intuitive appeal in a society which has long experienced sectarian division. Whilst the sector has attracted considerable research, less is understood about how parents’ perceive the approach adopted by schools to build intergroup relations.

Purpose: The present article seeks to address the gap in the literature by exploring parents’ views of integrated education. Drawing on theories of intergroup contact, the paper seeks specifically to explore how parents and head teachers perceive and negotiate the approach that the schools adopt to build intergroup relations.

Method: In an attempt to probe the deeper meanings that participants attach to integrated education, a qualitative research approach was adopted; semi-structured interviews were carried out with 17 parents and 2 head teachers in two integrated primary schools.

Findings: Through the data analyses, three main aspects were evident. Firstly, the study reveals something of the relational dynamic between head teachers and parents and the significance of this relationship for determining how intergroup relations are pursued in integrated schools. Secondly, it highlights the nebulous nature of identity salience and the practical challenges of making identity salient within mixed identity contexts. Finally, the study suggests the value of qualitative approaches for exploring intergroup contact initiatives.

Conclusions: Overall, the paper demonstrates the inherent challenges of establishing an integrated school where good relations will be developed when multiple interpretations of what constitutes an appropriate response to difference and diversity prevails.     

Self‐Assessment in Art Education through a Visual Rubric

A tool for self assessment in secondary art education was developed and tested. The tool includes rubrics for assessing production and reception activities in art education and consists of visual and text rubrics. The criteria in the rubrics are based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Visual Literacy which was developed by The European Network of Visual Literacy (ENViL). The way teachers and students use the rubrics, whether they consider them helpful and to what extent students’ self‐assessments are in line with teacher assessments was studied. It was concluded that teachers work with the rubrics intensively and both students and teachers appreciate its visual form. However, it was found that the agreement between teachers and students about the students’ scores was moderate and needed to improve. The results show that it is untrue that students, or boys in particular, overestimate their own performance in art education. The current study contributes to the development of feasible and valid assessment criteria and instruments in secondary art education.     

Thirteen-month-olds rely on shared labels and shape similarity for inductive inferences

This study examined the influence of shape similarity and labels on 13-month-olds' inductive inferences. In 3 experiments, 123 infants were presented with novel target objects with or without a nonvisible property, followed by test objects that varied in shape similarity. When objects were not labeled, infants generalized the nonvisible property to high-similarity objects (Experiment 1). When objects were labeled with the same noun, infants generalized the nonvisible property to high- and low-similarity objects (Experiment 2). Finally, when objects were labeled with different nouns, infants generalized the nonvisible property to high-similarity objects (Experiment 3). Thus, infants who are beginning to acquire productive language rely on shared shape similarity and shared names to guide their inductive inferences.     

Troubling identities: teacher education students' constructions of class and ethnicity

Working with diverse student populations productively depends on teachers and teacher educators recognizing and valuing difference. Too often, in teacher education programs, when markers of identity such as gender, ethnicity, ‘race’, or social class are examined, the focus is on developing student teachers' understandings of how these discourses shape learner identities and rarely on how these also shape teachers' identities. This article reports on a research project that explored how student teachers understand ethnicity and socio‐economic status. In a preliminary stage of the research, we asked eight Year 3 teacher education students who had attended mainly Anglo‐Australian, middle class schools as students and as student teachers, to explore their own ethnic and classed identities. The complexities of identity are foregrounded in both the assumptions we made in selecting particular students for the project and in the ways they constructed their own identities around ethnicity and social class. In this article we draw on these findings to interrogate how categories of identity are fluid, shifting and ongoing processes of negotiation, troubling and complex. We also consider the implications for teacher education.     

Discriminative stimuli that follow the absence of reinforcement are preferred by pigeons over those that follow reinforcement

Clement, Feltus, Kaiser, and Zentall (2000) found that when pigeons have to work to obtain a discriminative stimulus that is followed by reinforcement, they prefer a discriminative stimulus that requires greater effort over one that requires less effort. The authors suggested that such a preference results from the greater change in hedonic value that occurs between the more aversive event and the onset of the stimulus that signals reinforcement, a contrast effect. It was hypothesized that any stimulus that follows a relatively more aversive event would be preferred over a stimulus that follows a relatively less aversive event. In the present experiment, the authors tested the counterintuitive prediction of that theory, that pigeons should prefer a discriminative stimulus that follows the absence of reinforcement over a discriminative stimulus that follows reinforcement. Results supported the theory.     

Occupational stereotyping by hearing impaired and hearing people: experiences of a comparative survey

ABSTRACT

The problems of preparing hearing impaired people for adult life and for productive work have not yet been properly solved in Hungary. The main reasons can be found in the old tradition of segregated education for people with disabilities. The political changes of 1990 and the economic reforms have not brought about any favourable changes. A nationwide, comparative survey dealing with vocational prejudices and attitudes concerning hearing persons and hearing impaired persons showed that the vocational knowledge and expectations of the latter group is not satisfactory, their information is uncertain and that they have prejudices against themselves ‐ that is, they suppose that high‐prestige professions are not available to them. Deaf persons are even more prejudiced than hard of hearing persons.     

Auswirkungen von körperlicher Aktivität auf demenzielle Erkrankungen

There is evidence for a positive influence of physical activity on dementia. However, the study design and data processing of current studies on physical activity in patients with dementia are heterogeneous, which makes it difficult to evaluate and compare their results. In our review, we categorized the studies based on different aspects of the training interventions and discussed these aspects in detail. Based on the existing literature, the length of an ideal training program is at least 16 weeks with two to three training sessions per week and qualified supervision and instruction. The workout program should contain at least two of the three components strength, endurance and balance. These recommendations should be confirmed in future studies with comparable study designs and homogeneous patient groups.     

Early Education for Spatial Intelligence: Why,What, and How

Spatial representation and thinking have evolutionary importance for any mobile organism. In addition, they help reasoning in domains that are not obviously spatial, for example, through the use of graphs and diagrams. This article reviews the literature suggesting that mental spatial transformation abilities, while present in some precursory form in infants, toddlers, and preschool children, also undergo considerable development and show important individual differences, which are malleable. These findings provide the basis for thinking about how to promote spatial thinking in preschools, at home, and in children's play. Integrating spatial content into formal and informal instruction could not only improve spatial functioning in general but also reduce differences related to gender and socioeconomic status that may impede full participation in a technological society.