Elternvertreter mit Migrationshintergrund an allgemeinbildenden Schulen

Parents with a migration background are underrepresented among parent representatives at schools in Germany. However, increased involvement of these parents is essential for a lively democratic culture. To explore the motivations of parents with migration background regarding their school involvement, interviews with N?=?31 parent representatives with migration background were content analysed, starting deductively from a set of categories according to the theory of planned behaviour. In the analysis, the main category ??attitude?? was deductively subdivided into ??motivation in the course of action/intrinsic value??, ??results and consequences regarding own interests?? and ??results and consequences regarding others/altruistic motivation??. ??Subjective norm?? was inductively differentiated into ??other parents??, ??teachers and leadership team?? and ??other persons/perceived general expectations??; ??perceived behavioural control?? was differentiated into the subcategories ??assertiveness and freedom from anxiety??, ??language competence??, ??socioeconomic background??, ??availability of time??, ??setting in school and school district?? and ??field expertise and know-how??. Additionally, ??habit?? was deductively established and retained as a main category. Analysis of 513 statements resulted in an interrater-agreement of ???=?0.82. Implications for working with parents in an intercultural context are discussed.     

Evaluating Student Success in a Cohort-based Graduate Program for Criminal Justice Professionals

Previous studies have shown that additional education for criminal justice professionals can improve individual effectiveness. This higher level of education can facilitate better communication, problem-solving skills, and performance. The University of South Florida offers a unique cohort-style/weekend-based Master’s program (MACJA) that is designed specifically for these professionals. This program has graduated 180 students since 2006, all members of the criminal justice field. The current study aims to determine which student background factors are associated with a higher graduating GPA in the program. This project will also discuss the results of a follow-up survey of MACJA graduates assessing professional advancement following graduation, specifically targeting topics such as promotions, special awards or recognitions, teaching experience, and further education.     

Problems of Transferring Software

If we make a survey of the present state of the distribution of teaching media around the world, we can venture to say, after a first analysis, that ‘software is the least equally shared thing in this world’. This phenomenon generally remains unnoticed because not very obvious, for it is difficult to evaluate the capital of software, because the studies led for the past ten years in the educational field have brought to the fore the problems of how to deal with systems, of planning, mainly enhancing thereby the social and economical elements. The diagrams displaying the compared situations, as well as the markingout of the boundary between well-equipped and developing countries, have been established according to easily ‘measurable’ facts: the percentage of the national income devoted to education, the number of practising teachers, the equipments, the schooling rate, the school dropout rate, the growth rate.     

Variable memory strategy use in children's adaptive intratask learning behavior: developmental changes and working memory influences in free recall

Variability in strategy use within single trials in free recall was analyzed longitudinally from second to fourth grades (ages 8-10 years). To control for practice effects another sample of fourth graders was included (age 10 years). Video analyses revealed that children employed different strategies when preparing for free recall. A gradual shift from labeling to cumulative rehearsal was present both with increasing age and across different list positions. Whereas cumulative rehearsal was frequent at early list positions, labeling was dominant at later list portions. Working memory capacity predicted the extent of cumulative rehearsal usage, which became more efficient with increasing age. Results are discussed in the context of the adaptive strategy choice model.     

Transformation and contextualisation: conceptualising students’ conceptual understandings of threshold concepts in calculus

Research on student learning in higher education suggests that threshold concepts within various disciplines have the capacity to transform students’ understanding. The present study explores students’ understanding in relation to particular threshold concepts in mathematics—integral and limit—and tries to clarify in what sense developing an understanding of those threshold concepts involves a transformation of understanding in relation to ways of thinking in mathematics. Drawing on data collected in interviews with students taking a basic course on calculus the analysis offers an initial characterisation of students’ understandings as algorithmic. It then proceeds to construct a more fine-grained theoretical account for how these understandings develop in the course of the interview, suggesting that the transformative aspects of threshold concepts may be conceptualised in terms of shifts in students’ contextualisations allowing the development of conceptions at different levels of abstraction simultaneously interacting to shape students’ awareness of the ways of thinking and practising in the subject.     

Oatmeal facials and sock wrestling: the perils and promises of extra-curricular strategies for ‘fixing’ boys' education

Advocates for boys' education have forwarded numerous ‘fixes’ for boys' supposed educational woes, including both academic and non-academic programs and strategies. This article focuses on the lesser-discussed non-academic, extra-curricular means suggested, specifically outdoor education. Using qualitative analysis of an Australian school's outdoor education program, I demonstrate that outdoor and other non-academic sites and strategies for addressing boys' education have particular gendered dangers alongside progressive possibilities. The dangers include reproducing dominant masculinist gender regimes through social interaction, requirements for gendered self-disclosure, and philosophies of the ‘uses’ of nature. Progressive possibilities, conversely, include re-imagining outdoor education as a space for explicit resistance to gender or reimagining the uses of nature to eschew gender altogether.