‘Listen to the voice of reason’: the New Orleans Tribune as advocate for public,integrated education

The New Orleans Tribune (1864–1870), the first black daily newspaper in the United States, was the singular text in the public South at its time to staunchly advocate for public, integrated education, anticipating the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education, and arguing that separate education would always be synonymous with unequal education and would reinforce the mark of inferiority already placed upon blacks by slavery. This article argues that the Tribune grounded its argument against segregated education in logos-centred rhetoric that focused specifically on combating the dominant discourse of white supremacy and black inferiority embedded in the emerging ideology of scientific racism. The Tribune defended against the divisive rhetoric of the newly forming eugenics movement and instead posed public, integrated education as a necessary prerequisite to rebuilding a nation destroyed by the Civil War.     

South African teachers' views of collaboration within an inclusive education system

The development of sustainable collaborative partnerships between different role players within an inclusive education system seems to be a continuous challenge in South Africa. The focus of this research study was to understand how teachers view collaboration within an inclusive education system. Open-ended questionnaires were completed by 85 participating teachers and focus group interviews were employed with 24 educators. The findings indicate that educators still believe that they are not adequately trained and skilled to play an equal role in a collaborative partnership and prefer to rather refer learners experiencing barriers to learning to other support structures and professionals for support.     

How is gender integrated in the curricula of Dutch medical schools? A quick‐scan on gender issues as an instrument for change

Medical education has not taken on board the growing awareness of sex and gender differences. A nation‐wide project to incorporate sex and gender in medical education aims to establish longitudinal gender and sex specific curricula in all Dutch medical schools that move beyond sex and gender differences in reproduction. A baseline assessment was necessary to gain an overview on the state of the art of sex and gender in Dutch medical curricula and on the courses that were suitable to integrate sex and gender differences. A quick‐scan demonstrates that sex and gender differences beyond reproduction are mostly ignored. Results have been used to create the necessary commitment of policy‐makers in all Dutch faculties to take further steps towards establishing longitudinal gender‐specific medical curricula.     

Geschlechterspezifische Leistungsunterschiede bei Fünfzehnjährigen im internationalen Vergleich

W?hrend Geschlechterunterschiede in mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Leistungen bereits umfassend dokumentiert sind und sich weitgehend übereinstimmend Vorteile für die Jungen zeigen, ist die Befundlage für den sprachlichen Bereich, insbesondere für die Lesekompetenz, noch uneindeutig. Die Daten der internationalen PISA-Stichprobe mit 174.923 15-j?hrigen Schülerinnen und Schülern aus 32 Staaten werden genutzt, um Geschlechterunterschiede in der Lesekompetenz von Jugendlichen genauer zu bestimmen. Zus?tzlich zur international vergleichenden Analyse der Differenzen werden geschlechterspezifische Leistungsprofile für verschiedene Textformate und Teilaspekte des Leseverst?ndnisses untersucht. Weiterhin wird die Bedeutung motivationaler Merkmale für die Erkl?rung der Leistungsdifferenzen analysiert. Die Ergebnisse zeigen deutliche Leistungsunterschiede zugunsten der M?dchen in allen 32 Staaten. Die Differenzen sind bei kontinuierlichen Texten ausgepr?gter als bei nicht-kontinuierlichen Texten, und sie variieren systematisch über verschiedene Anforderungen von Leseaktivit?ten. Ergebnisse von Mediationsanalysen weisen darauf hin, dass die Leistungsunterschiede zu einem erheblichen Teil auf Differenzen im Leseinteresse zurückzuführen sind, wobei jedoch die St?rke des Mediationseffekts über verschiedene Teilaspekte der Lesekompetenz variiert.     

Noticing Children’s Learning Processes – Teachers Jointly Reflect on Their Own Classroom Interaction for Improving Mathematics Teaching

One could focus on many different aspects of improving the quality of mathematics teaching. For a better understanding of children’s mathematical learning processes or teaching and learning in general, reflection on and analysis of concrete classroom situations are of major importance. On the basis of experiences gained in a collaborative research project with elementary school teachers, several ideas about a professional reflection on one’s own instruction activities are explained. The paper focuses on joint reflection between teachers and researchers on the participating teacher’s own classroom interaction by means of concrete examples. It becomes clear that changes of one’s own interaction behavior will take place only in the long-term. Nevertheless such a joint professional reflection should be an essential component of teachers’ professional knowledge in a natural way. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Students’ adoption of course-specific approaches to learning in two parallel courses

Research on students’ adoption of course-specific approaches to learning in parallel courses is limited and inconsistent. This study investigated second-semester psychology students’ levels of deep, surface and strategic approaches in two courses running in parallel within a real-life university setting. The results showed significant differences in course-specific adoption regardless of approach. However, the strategic approach seemed more stable. Sub-groups of students exhibited substantial variation: more than half of the students adopted similar approaches in both courses while large minorities showed great variability. Students scoring low on the surface approach, high on the deep approach or high on the strategic approach to learning were flexible in adopting different parallel approaches. However, students scoring high on the surface approach, low on the deep approach or low on the strategic approach seemed stable across contexts. This suggests that even smaller variations in teaching and learning environments can influence students’ approaches to learning.     

The implementation of inclusive education in South Africa after ten years of democracy

Inclusive education in South Africa has not been promoted as simply one more option for education but as an educational strategy that can contribute to a democratic society. After the end of the Apartheid era the new democratic government committed itself to the transformation of education and key policy documents and legislation stress the principle of education as a basic human right as enshrined in the Constitution. White Paper 6: Special Needs Education, building an inclusive education and training system (2001) provides a framework for systemic change for the development of inclusive education. As a philosophy, the concept of inclusive education in the South African context embraces the democratic values of equality and human rights and the recognition of diversity. Research however indicates that multifaceted societal changes, encompassing educational reforms and contextual changes, including the management of diversity in schools, have had a negative impact on the implementation of inclusive education. After ten year of democracy, the enduring tension between changing the structure of education and changing the process of education is still influencing progress. Enhancing the recognition and acceptance of the basic rights of all South African children to be accommodated in inclusive school communities therefore remains a challenge.     

Source interpretation: teaching students with and without LD to read and write historically

We review domain-specific teaching approaches for students with learning disabilities in social studies, then present De La Paz's 2005 historical reasoning strategy so that readers understand the rationale for and have information on each stage of instruction. Next, we highlight the role of self-regulation for the reasoning process. We then turn to describing the role of each teacher (Morales as the social studies educator and Winston as the special educator), first as they collaborate with De La Paz and each other, then as Morales works alone, 1 year later. Implications are given for changes in teaching. The topic of women's suffrage is used throughout the article to highlight the teaching approach and to present student work.     

Optimism as a Candidate Health Asset: Exploring Its Links With Adolescent Quality of Life in Sweden

This study aims to understand the role that optimism could play in the context of a health asset approach to promote adolescent health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Adolescents (n = 948), between 11 and 16 years old from a medium-sized rural town in Sweden, answered questionnaires measuring optimism, pessimism, and HRQOL. The findings indicate a significant decrease in optimism and a significant increase in pessimism between early and midadolescence. The study has allowed us to present associational evidence of the links between optimism and HRQOL. This infers the potential of an optimistic orientation about the future to function as a health asset during adolescence and by implication may provide additional intervention tool in the planning of health promotion strategies.