The impact of a college counseling program on economically disadvantaged gifted students and their subsequent college adjustment

The impact of a college and career counseling program on economically disadvantaged gifted students and their subsequent college adjustment was assessed. Fifty‐five students from public high schools in a major urban school district in the midwest were compared to a group of economically advantaged students who participated in a special summer program for high school students at a private midwestern university. Results indicate that both before and after the program, the groups were similar with respect to the basis for their college choices, motivation to attend college, and career readiness. The economically disadvantaged students changed their plans to finance college as a result of the program and expected college to be significantly more lonely. A three‐year follow‐up revealed that economically disadvantaged gifted students were more likely to enroll at in‐state colleges, to experience college as significantly more boring, dull, and snobbish, and to have more difficulty adjusting socially and forming attachments to their universities.     

Naturally Acquired Mentoring Relationships and Young Adult Outcomes Among Adolescents with Learning Disabilities

We evaluated whether having a naturally acquired mentor during adolescence was associated with improved adult outcomes among youth with learning disabilities (YLD). Mentored youth were more likely to have graduated from high school, reported a higher level of self‐esteem, and reported a higher overall number of positive outcomes than nonmentored youth. Mentorship by teachers/guidance counselors was associated with larger differences in high school graduation rates and self‐esteem compared to nonmentored youth whereas mentorship by nonteachers was associated with smaller changes in self‐esteem and no differences in high school completion rates. Future research should include more in‐depth, objective assessments of youths’ learning disabilities, consideration of interactions with concurrent risk factors, and efforts to clarify optimal strategies for mentoring support of YLD.     

Gramsci's challenge to the politics of the left in ‘Our Times’

This article offers a detailed discussion of the writings of Antonio Gramsci, one of the founders of the Italian Communist Party. Gramsci's writings, and secondary source accounts of these, have had a profound influence in many areas of ‘radical’ adult and community education in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The article attempts, by returning to Gramsci's original texts and by interpreting them within his own ‘leitmotiv’, to challenge many of the current applications of his thought within radical education and ‘left’ political practice. The former types of applications are normally filtered through the political and academic writings of the latter; therefore the challenge offered, on behalf of Gramsci, is directed primarily at these.     

Core Competencies to the Rescue: Taking Stock and Protecting Institutional Knowledge

What happens when the only staff member who knows how to do a particular task is no longer available? Using NASIG’s Core Competencies for Electronic Resources Librarians, the Electronic Resources and Serials Department of Auburn University set out to tackle the problem of the indispensable staff person, and discovered that expertise is never fully achieved, and competence is always a work in progress.     

Competence Profile School Management (CPSM) – an inventory for the self-assessment of school leadership

The professional demands on school leaders have changed drastically and have become highly complex in the last few years. The professionalization of school leaders is high on the agenda. Human resource management includes different aspects of professionalization. One major domain is the preparation, induction and continuous professional development of individual leaders and leadership teams. Another is personnel marketing and selection, which includes the question of attracting capable future leaders and of appointing the right candidates. However in Europe there is a need for standardised tools which provide systematic feedback to professionals interested in assessing their strengths and individual development needs. Suitable instruments are still scarce. The Competence Profile School Management CPSM (German: KompetenzProfil SchulManagement; KPSM) is the first online-based self-assessment in the German language which has been designed to fit the school context and is based on psychometric principles. It offers participants the possibility to reflect their strengths and weaknesses in different requirement areas of school leadership; and to compare their individual results with peers from the school context, thus gaining valuable information on their individual profiles when planning their professional development and careers. After sketching the theoretical and empirical background, this article presents information about the aims and purpose of CPSM, the tool’s development, its test scales and test formats, the results of the pilot study and those of the evaluation study. Then, the further development of the tool in terms of modifications and add-ons are outlined, before, finally, the tool’s contribution to practice and research is discussed.     

Empowerment or impediment? School governance in the school-based management era in Hong Kong

Following the international trend in education towards democracy and decentralization, the Hong Kong government introduced a school-based management (SBM) system about two decades ago. It is widely recognized in the literature that decentralization, empowering school level management and marginalizing the influence of the intermediate level of governance, can result in better deployment of school resources and better meet the demands of various stakeholders. However, in the unique historical and cultural context of Hong Kong, the advantages of decentralization claimed in the literature have yet to be fully realized. This paper discusses the contextual factors affecting the implementation of SBM in Hong Kong, and examines their impact on four major stakeholders, namely the government, the principals, the teachers, and the parents in the wake of reform.