A resourcification manifesto: Understanding the social process of resources becoming resources

In times of major global interconnectedness and environmental change, the pressure to identify, create, and exploit new resources is certain to intensify. Given that there are unavoidable trade-offs, conflicts, and arenas for violence involved when increasingly more material and immaterial things are turned into resources, we call for explicit research on the very process – a process that we label resourcification. The concept of resourcification shifts attention from essentialist queries about the nature of resources to a focus on the social processes through which things are turned into resources. In search of a better understanding of resources in the Anthropocene and, in particular, an understanding about the way resources emerge and are used, resourcification offers a new conceptual framework that allows for a systematic search for knowledge about the diversity of contexts, conditions, modes, and temporalities of resourcification. This Resourcification Manifesto offers a theoretical and empirical framework for a radical and disruptive approach to innovation, sustainability, and management studies and policies.     

Reflective Functioning,Limit Setting,and Emotional Availability in Mother–Child Dyads

Objective. There is a need for better understanding the relation between parents’ mentalizing about their child and their actual behavior toward the child. Specifically, it is important to understand the significance of mentalization about discrete parental challenges in comparison with mentalization about the relationship in general in relation to their interaction with the child. This study aimed to examine parental mentalization and observed emotional availability. Design. Forty mothers were observed in a play situation with their children (aged 3–10 years) to rate the emotional availability in the interaction. Mothers were also interviewed with the parent development interview and about parental limit setting to assess parental reflective functioning. Results. Analyses showed moderate correlations between the reflective functioning scores and the emotional availability dimensions. Approximately 15% of the variance in emotional availability scales could be accounted for by the reflective functioning ratings. Conclusions. The results suggest that parents’ ability to mentalize about limit setting behaviors may affect interactions between the parent and child.     

Teachers’ attitudes toward integration of students with disabilities in Haïti and the United States

This investigation compared the attitudes of teachers toward integration of students with disabilities in Haïti and the United States. A sample of 152 high school teachers in Haïti and 216 high school teachers in the United States was asked to complete a background questionnaire and the Opinions Relative to the Integration of Students with Disabilities scale (Antonak & Larrivee, 1995 Antonak, R and Larrivee, B. (1995). Psychometric analysis and revision of the Opinions Relative to Mainstreaming Scale. Exceptional Children, 62(2): 139–142.  [Google Scholar]). Results showed that teachers in both countries had similar attitudes toward the integration of students with disabilities. Years of experience was individually correlated with attitudes, but it was not a significant predictor when other variables were included in a multiple regression. Three variables predicted attitudes toward integration of students with disabilities. Teachers’ attitudes explained the largest variance, followed by advanced degree, and range of effective accommodation of different categories of disabilities.     

Differentiation through individualisation – an ethnographic investigation of how one Swedish school creates inequality

The present article examines the general debate on curriculum differentiation and individualisation. Based on a policy ethnographic case study of class 9a at Forest School, it critically analyses how curriculum differentiation and individualisation are enacted in and interfere with classroom practice. The results show how Forest School's curriculum model on differentiation and individualisation has created and reproduced a system in which different knowledge is available to different groups of pupils. In practice, owing to this policy, some pupils are categorised as successful, some as adequate and some as failing. The analysis also shows that this practice creates differentiation in relation to school achievement and grades, but foremost that pupils in this class of 9th graders are paying a high price for their schooling, in the form of underachievement and social inequality.     

A pedagogical alliance for trust,wellbeing and the identification of errors for learning and formative assessment

Formative assessments and feedback are vital to enhancing learning outcomes but require that learners feel at ease identifying their errors, and receiving feedback from a trusted source – teachers. An experimental test of a new theoretical framework was conducted to cultivate a pedagogical alliance to enhance students’ (a) trust in the teacher, (b) well-being in the learning environment and (c) identification of confusion and errors for the purpose of learning, assessment and feedback. A sample of 101 undergraduate students was randomly assigned to either an intervention (n = 51) or control (n = 50) condition in Elementary Statistics. Results indicated that a pedagogical alliance could be created to enhance student trust in the instructor, leading students to report greater well-being and a higher number of potential areas of confusion in their understanding of new content material relative to a control group. These results have implications for formative feedback, assessments, and by extension learning outcomes.     

Trajectories of perinatal depressive symptoms in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

This study sought to advance understanding of the potential long-term consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for child development by characterizing trajectories of maternal perinatal depression, a common and significant risk factor for adverse child outcomes. Data came from 393 women (86% White, 8% Latina; mean age = 33.51 years) recruited during pregnancy (n = 247; mean gestational age = 22.94 weeks) or during the first year postpartum (n = 146; mean child age = 4.50 months; 55% female). Rates of depression appear elevated, relative to published reports and to a pre-pandemic comparison group (N = 155). This study also provides evidence for subgroups of individuals who differ in their depressive symptom trajectories over the perinatal period. Subgroup membership was related to differences in maternal social support, but not to child birth outcomes.     

Comparing effects of school inspections in Sweden and Austria

In recent years, school inspections have been newly introduced or adapted to the evidence-based governance logic in many European countries. So far, empirical research on the impact of school inspections has produced inconclusive results. Methodologically, it has mainly focussed on analysis of a national inspection model and used cross-sectional data. In the following paper, we investigate the effects of school inspections in a comparative and longitudinal perspective in Sweden and Austria (province of Styria). In these countries, inspections follow different governance approaches. While Austria represents a low-stakes system which does not link consequences for schools to inspection results, sanctions and even financial penalties are potential consequences of Swedish inspections. To discuss the effects of inspections, we asked principals in three consecutive years about the impact of inspections. Our results indicate that school inspections in Austria and Sweden do have a small to medium impact on school improvement and school effectiveness.     

Contributions of the Home Literacy Environment and Underlying Language Skills to Preschool Invented Writing

This study aimed to enhance our knowledge of the constituent variables affecting invented writing skills in 5-year-olds by investigating the concurrent relationships among home literacy, underlying language skills, and invented writing. The study comprised 111 Norwegian-speaking children (mean age: 5.7 years; 58 girls) and their parents. The children’s language skills were tested individually. The results showed that, on average, children achieved low scores on tests of word writing; however, the within-group variations in the children’s invented writing performances were large. The statistical modeling showed that parental education was significantly related to the home literacy environment, which was, in turn, directly related to both vocabulary and phonological awareness and indirectly related to invented writing skills. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

The legitimation of OECD's global educational governance: examining PISA and AHELO test production

Although international student assessments and the role of international organisations (IOs) in governing education via an evidence-based educational policy discourse are of growing interest to educational researchers, few have explored the complex ways in which an IO, such as the OECD, gains considerable influence in governing education during the early stages of test production. Drawing on a comparative analysis of the production of two international tests – the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) – we show how the OECD legitimises its power, and expertise, and defines ‘what counts’ in education. The OECD deploys three mechanisms of educational governance: (1) building on past OECD successes; (2) assembling knowledge capacity; and (3) deploying bureaucratic resources. We argue that the early stages of test production by IOs are significant sites in which the global governance of education is legitimated and enacted.