A New Consciousness Trudging Toward Leadership

Integrating elements of oppression psychology, Popular Education (1999), critical pedagogy, and critical race theory, this article highlights a study of seven African American elders who graduated from a Senior Advocacy Leadership Training (SALT) program. These elders confronted external and internal oppressive ideologies and challenged the stereotypes of African American elders. They accomplished this via a critical theoretical approach to the study of African American history and the promotion of the elders' strengths as leaders. The findings increase our understanding of African American elders as leaders and the role of Popular Education in affirming their leadership capabilities.     

"The New Generation": Mental Hygiene and the Portrayals of Children by the National Film Board of Canada, 1946–1967

That is the achievement of the psychologists. In our own society they are very kind, and do everything for our own good. The tales of what they do elsewhere are rather terrifying. —Hilda Neatby So Little for the Mind (1953)     

Leadership in Singapore Schools: The Impact of National Culture

When we look at school management in Singapore, is there a distinctive characteristic that acts as a cultural imperative which shapes the working patterns and lives of school principals? As part of an international comparative study of the principalship, we sought to gain insights into the typical thinking and behaviours of four school principals. Using a cultural analysis model to examine power relationships, relationships with colleagues, gender issues and tolerance of ambiguity and uncertainty, we concluded that these leaders' lives were far from routine and were characterized' by paradox. They used a range of cultural ‘tools’ as a way of trying to sustain stability in an erratic and fast-changing system. Thriving amidst the complexities and chaos of their jobs suggested a unique characteristic, something that might best be described as ‘Singaporeanness’.     

From Einstein to Shirakawa: the Nobel Prize in Japan

There have been two Japanese Nobel laureates in chemistry, three in physics, and one in the category of medicine or physiology. This relatively small number has been attributed to shortcomings in Japanese science. The award of the Physics Prize in 1949 to Hideki Yukawa and to his colleague Sin'itirô Tomonaga in 1965 gave public evidence of how Japanese could make outstanding individual contributions to science. Paradoxically, the Prize also reinforced a belief that such men formed part of a traditional hierarchical system. This essay examines how the Nobel Prize has been represented in Japan.     

College Students With High‐Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder: Best Practices for Successful Transition to the World of Work

The transition from college to work is a challenging time for students with autism spectrum disorder. College counselors who understand the challenges students face adjusting to the world of work can position themselves to be change agents for this population. This article illuminates the challenges facing these students to help close the knowledge gap of their career development trajectory. Strategies and best practices to guide these students through successful transition to the world of work are provided.     

Redundancy and expertise reversal effects when using educational technology to learn primary school science

Two experiments using the science topics of Magnetism and Light were conducted with younger learners (Year 5) who had no prior knowledge of the topics, and older learners (Year 6) who had studied the topics previously. Half of the learners were presented the information in auditory form only while the other half were presented the auditory information simultaneously with a visual presentation. Results indicated that older students with prior knowledge of the topic learned more from the auditory only presentation. For these students, the addition of visual information was redundant and so they were disadvantaged by the use of an audio-visual presentation. However, for younger students with no prior knowledge of the topic, the difference between means reversed. Some of these students might require a visual presentation to make sense of the auditory explanation. These two sets of results were discussed in the context of the redundancy and the expertise reversal effect.     

Bringing Singapore’s teacher education beyond its shores

In recent years, education systems around the world have been keeping a keen eye on rankings of student achievement as measured by internationally benchmarked tests. This has led to considerable attention being paid to teasing out success factors that may account for countries that have emerged top of the ranks or those that have shown the most rapid improvement from one test period to the next. Singapore’s education system, which has consistently emerged as one of the higher ranking countries has garnered much international attention as a consequence. Even as other nations are learning more about Singapore, it is timely for Singapore to share our expertise and experience to benefit other systems. In this article, one such effort of internationalisation is focused on i.e., teacher education and professional development programmes. The underpinning philosophy of internationalisation is to serve the global educational community. Three models of internationalisation are expounded upon, namely; building the local capacity of our partner countries, training the trainers, and the offering of executive leadership training programmes to an international market. The past and future challenges of internationalisation are also discussed. The article ends with how it began, in terms of examining Singapore’s internationalisation of its teacher education and professional development programmes in the light of whether we are indeed, paving the Fourth Way as espoused by Hargreaves and Shirley (2009).     

Career Narratives of African American Female College Students: Insights for College Counselors

The authors collected narrative data from 11 African American female college students at a predominantly White institution using the Career Construction Interview (Savickas & Hartung, 2012 ), the Future Career Autobiography (Rehfuss, 2009 ), and a qualitative career experiences questionnaire. Using the constant comparison method (Strauss & Corbin, 1990 ), the authors uncovered 4 overarching themes based on the unique experiences of participants. The authors present insights for college counselors providing career development services.