Reducing Prejudice Against Children with Disabilities in Inclusive Settings

Growing numbers of American children are being educated in inclusive settings. Legal mandates for inclusion cannot ensure that children will be accepted and treated equitably. Attitudinal barriers and discriminatory practices continue to prevent the full participation of students with disabilities in the United States. Understanding how children develop prejudice and the roles adults play in establishing equitable opportunities is critical to the inclusion of all minorities, including children with disabilities.     

Student achievement and elementary teachers’ perceptions of school climate

Teachers’ perceptions of school climate in 59 elementary schools were assessed using a modified version of the School-Level Environment Questionnaire (SLEQ). Using structural equation modelling, a statistically significant, positive relationship was found between school mean teachers’ perceptions of school climate and school mean student achievement. A second model showed that school and community context variables mediated that relationship. In schools in high socioeconomic status (SES) communities, the influence of school climate on student achievement was stronger than it was for schools in lower SES communities. Recommendations for further examination of the relationships are also made.     

Professional ethics education for future teachers: A narrative review of the scholarly writings

This article provides a narrative review of the scholarly writings on professional ethics education for future teachers. Against the background of a widespread belief among scholars working in this area that longstanding and sustained research and reflection on the ethics of teaching have had little impact on the teacher education curriculum, the article takes stock of the field by synthesizing viewpoints on key aspects of teaching ethics to teacher candidates—the role ethics plays in teacher education, the primary objectives of ethics education for teachers, recommended teaching and learning strategies, and challenges to introducing ethics curriculum—and maps out how opinions on these matters have evolved over the three decades since the initial publication of Strike and Soltis’ seminal book, The Ethics of Teaching. In light of the review’s results, the article identifies critical deficits in this literature and proposes a set of recommendations for future inquiry.     

Sources of inflexibility in 6-year-olds' understanding of emotion in speech

When utterances contain conflicting emotion cues, 6-year-olds judge emotion from content, even when instructed to judge emotion from paralanguage (Morton & Trehub, 2001). Two experiments examined the nature of this bias. In Experiment 1, priming paralanguage reversed 6-year-olds' normal bias to content. In Experiment 2, 6-year-olds were instructed to listen to paralanguage under various conditions. Children were more likely to follow instructions delivered with feedback than instructions delivered alone. Children who described conflicts between content and paralanguage were more likely to follow instructions than children who did not describe these conflicts. Results suggest that 6-year-olds can judge emotion from paralanguage in the presence of competing content but often remain focused on content because of the way they represent the instructions.     

A practical guide to zero-based curriculum review

This paper presents a systematic framework and practical guidelines for the implementation of a zero-based curriculum review (ZBCR). ZBCR begins with atabula rasa and the commitment that program faculty and an external advisory board will create a framework of competencies, knowledge bases, professional practices and skills which graduates should have. ZBCR is intended to help us move from an accidental curriculum to an intentional curriculum. Specific examples illustrate the structuring, conducting, and application of the results of the review. ZBCR maximizes the benefits of a fresh perspective and minimizes time and effort, with a situationally-flexible and reusable structure and process. ZBCR is based on procedures recently developed and used with success in reviewing the curricula of a department's programs at a major state university.He received his Ph.D. in higher education and economics from the University of Iowa. His research and teaching fields are postsecondary curriculum and instruction and economics of higher education.He received his Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky. His research and teaching has focused on educational administration and planning.     

做到金口玉言

无论何时你许了愿,就要恪守诺言;无论何时你说了“不”,就要坚持不变;无论何时你达成了协议,就应该遵守协议的规定。     

Interpersonal relations between school children and their peers,parents, and teachers

This article describes the nature of school children's relationships with parents, peers, and teachers, and identifies some interpersonal and academic consequences of unhealthy relationships. Also described are trends of relationship development, tools for assessing relationships, and finally, some intervention techniques available to enhance relationship building. The article points to the following conclusions: Healthy relationships are characterized by mutually reinforcing exchanges that lead to socially desirable consequences; quantification of the prevalence of unhealthy relationships is difficult; students who exhibit unhealthy relationships are at significant risk for problems later in life, such as dropping out of school, criminality, and marital maladjustment; educators have a number of assessment tools and techniques available to assess and promote social skills acquisition; and cooperative learning environments offer the greatest promise to educators for promoting healthy relationship building among students.     

Assessing culturally sensitive factors in the learning environment of science classrooms

As schools are becoming increasingly diverse in their scope and clientele, any examination of the interaction of culturally sensitive factors of students' learning environments with learning science assumes critical importance. The purpose of this exploratory study was to develop an instrument to assess learning environment factors that are culturally sensitive, to provide initial validation information on the instrument and to examine associations between students' perceptions of their learning environments and their attitudes towards science and achievement of enquiry skills. A measure of these factors of science student's learning environment, namely the Cultural Learning Environment Questionnaire (CLEQ), was developed from past learning environment instruments and influenced by Hofstede's four dimensions of culture (Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, Individualism, and Masculinity/Femininity). The reliability and discriminant validity for each scale were obtained and associations between learning environment, attitude to science and enquiry skills achievement were found.