Effects of preschoolers’ storybook exposure and literacy environments on lower level and higher level language skills

Reading and Writing - The development of preschoolers’ language skills is influenced by literacy environments and individual differences in storybook exposure. Extant research is limited as...     

A qualitative study of specialist schools’ processes of eliciting the views of young people with autism spectrum disorders in planning their transition to adulthood

Government legislation and research literature highlight the importance of the participation of pupils with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) in planning for their transition to adulthood. However, effective processes which enable their participation are under‐researched. In this study, nine teaching staff from two specialist schools in the north‐west of England were interviewed and a transition meeting was observed in one school to explore these processes. Analyses indicate that in both schools, enabling the participation of young people with ASD in the planning for their transition to adulthood involves three phases and is underpinned by a person‐centred ethos. Although the processes were perceived to be effective, the participation of pupils varied between schools. Final decisions still tend to be made by schools and the local authority due to limited external resources. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Democratising Teacher Education Research in India

This paper argues for the need to adopt a more participatory and research-based approach to teacher development in India. Drawing on the experiences of a participatory teacher educator development project in three States, we discuss processes of developing a democratically orientated qualitative research team to work with teachers and teacher educators, highlighting the interplay between their education and socialisation and the demands of the methodology. In the second part of the paper, aspects of developing collaborative action research projects with teacher educators in the context of District Institutes of Education and Training are discussed. Both these approaches require the development of autonomy and critical reflexivity, and although there are tensions in this process, these emerge as vital components of developing a more democratic approach to teacher education.     

Dialogue's Impact on the Quality of Relationships

This paper presents the findings of an action research that examines teachers' perception of the quality of dialogue and how it impacts on the quality of relationships in a primary school in Singapore. The paper explores how school leaders can facilitate dialogue and also discusses the issues and factors that affect teachers' perception of dialogue. Analysis of the data obtained through a questionnaire and face-to-face interviews shows that the more favourable the perception of dialogue amongst teachers, the more favourable is their perception of the quality of relationships in the school. The implication for school leaders is that by developing a higher quality of dialogue, a better school climate is fostered. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Children writing funny stories: some reflections on the impact of collaborative talk

This article describes work undertaken with a class of Scottish Primary Six children (aged 10) that encouraged them to write humorous stories. It reflects on the impact of different teaching approaches, in particular exploring how teacher‐led input combined with opportunities for peer talk might serve to influence children's writing. The aims were first, to investigate whether, through ‘mini lessons’, children's story schemas could be expanded to include ideas about incongruity, and second, to discover how independent talking in pairs might encourage children to take up and reformulate ideas given in the initial teacher‐led input. During the sessions following the ‘mini lessons’, many opportunities for paired talk were offered. These were found to lead to a reinterpretation of ideas of incongruity, and to affect the selection and devising of voices for characters. The children's talk often gave evidence of a marked ability to describe humour and act it out orally, but analysis of the written stories reveals difficulties in writing down comic events. This has implications for the role of the teacher in finding ways to intervene sensitively to introduce new strategies.     

Student assessment and learning for a changing society

This article examines the traditional roles of assessment and the current demands for assessment to ‘gear up’ education systems in response to global economic changes. It argues that in the next millennium, and with the information revolution, it will be important to foster higher order skills and good learning strategies in a high proportion of our students. The article goes on to consider, set against the critical relationship among high-stakes testing, teaching and learning, the nature of high-quality assessment programmes. It will present evidence of impact of the national assessment programme on teaching in England and Wales in the United Kingdom.     

Stakeholder influence strategies in bidding for a professional sport franchise license

This paper examines an application for a franchise license in Australia's professional rugby league competition, the National Rugby League (NRL). Frooman's (1999) typology of stakeholder influence strategies is used to analyse the negotiation of resource relationships between a Gold Coast franchise bid team and its key stakeholders. Primary data came from 12 interviews with nine key actors in the bid process; these were buttressed by secondary data. Frooman's typology provided a useful heuristic, but did not fully account for the critical role of firm legitimacy in stakeholders’ choice of influence strategies. The bid team negotiated stakeholders’ initial direct withholding strategies by creating access to the intangible resource of legitimacy. This subsequently provided access to material resources such as finance, a new stadium, and, ultimately, a franchise license. The findings are of note to practitioners and scholars interested professional sport and stakeholder theory.