Studying Headteachers' Professional Lives: Getting the life history

In order to obtain a better understanding of how headteachers frame their professional lives, a comparative project was set up with a life history approach. A series of open-ended interviews were conducted where headteachers talked about themselves, their work, background, experiences and career. The article focuses on the modes of inquiry used in the study and explores alternative approaches to analysis, especially of content and form. Several methodological issues are discussed, for instance the production of data as an interactive and collaborative process of creating meaning, the central role of the research relations, dialogical analysis and how to move from separate individual stories to an analysis of headteachers' lives across different countries. As the analysis has unfolded, new questions have been posed about the comparative aspect of the project. At the beginning, cross-national similarities and differences were relatively straightforward and were found in the content of interviews. Since then, explorations of the form and structure of the stories have raised more complex juxtapositions. More recently, new questions have begun to emerge, such as about the nature and meanings of 'professional confidence' and its relationship to external accountability in national contexts.     

Everything Is Connected

A self‐report instrument, a test of Predispositions toward Verbal Behavior, was designed to measure the cognitive orientation that persons hold toward the extent of their verbal participation in social settings. A word association task was devised to test correspondence among self reports of verbal activation, interaction patterns, and subsequent social attributions. Results showed a significant linear trend among levels of verbal activation and (1) duration of verbal responses, (2) number of words per response, and subjects’ subsequent impressions of (3) their own verbal activity and (4) interviewer understanding of what they had said.     

Commonwealth public address and the voice of dissent*

After describing the widespread popularity enjoyed by recently established courses in Interpersonal Communication, this article traces the genesis of such courses to “humanistic” trends in education, contemporary theories in psychotherapy developed by Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, and the concern for “feelings” expressed by students in the sixties.     

Social Control,Social Policy and Adult Education

This paper contrasts a number of different cultures existing within Adult Education. It incorporates theoretical perspectives from Bourdieu and Williams with case‐study material obtained through observation, questionnaire and interview at a South London adult education centre in 1986/87. Bourgeois culture is seen as the exception rather than the rule in adult education. Adult education provides space for a number of alternative cultural formulations, but they operate within a predominantly middle‐class atmosphere. Equal opportunities and the social justice dimension of adult education represent a new cultural formulation, but without further developmental work cannot yet be regarded as significant interventions in a society deeply divided by gender, race and class. While the case‐study material is set in the UK of the 1980s, the theoretical perspectives are relevant to the persistence of inequality in many advanced industrial countries.     

Supporting children with genetic syndromes in the classroom: the example of 22q deletion syndrome

An increasing number of children are likely to have a known genetic cause for their special educational needs. One such genetic condition is 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22qDS), a genetic syndrome associated with early speech and language difficulties, global and specific cognitive impairments, difficulties with attention and difficulties with social‐emotional functioning. In this article the learning and behavioural strengths and needs of this genetic syndrome are described along with recommendations for classroom‐based interventions. Suggested recommendations in the learning and emotional‐behavioural domains for the syndrome draw on a number of approaches that have been found to be useful for children with a range of conditions including ADHD, ASD and dyscalculia. While teachers cannot be expected to know about all potential genetic causes for special educational needs, knowing that a genetic condition is likely to be associated with a pattern of relative cognitive and behavioural strengths and needs is important.     

Taking the muddle out of the middle

This article considers how children with visual impairment (blind and low vision) can be included in the mainstream primary classroom. In particular, this article reports on an inquiry' Including visually Impaired Children in the Mainstream Primary Classroom', which was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The focus is an analysis of ways in which teachers can effectively include a child with visual impairment within a mainstream classroom. Inclusive practices are viewed in terms of promoting a holistic development of the child and providing equality of access to opportunities.     

提高西藏黄奶牛生产性能研究

该项目是中澳国际联合的其中一个,根据发展奶业,促进农区畜牧业发展,提高农村生活水平的需要在西藏河谷流域农牧交错带开展调研.三年来在四个不同的区域进行随机抽样设点,了解项目区奶牛发展现状,系统收集分析当前农户饲养奶牛的饲料结构,营养水平、繁殖成活能力以及管理模式.同时引进澳方饲养奶牛的先进技术、管理措施和发展理念,有效利用西藏现有的作物秸秆,研发优良饲草、饲喂技术,进一步研究牛在一个生长周期中的饲料平衡、生长模式及量化营养等生产性能的对应关系,加大引创结合、重点突破,提高项目区奶牛生产性能,增加农户现金收入.     

Primary School Teachers' Understanding of Environmental Issues: An interview study

In the light of an increased emphasis on environmental education in revisions of the National Curriculum to be introduced in September 2000, this study used in-depth interviews to explore the understanding of a non-random sample of 12 practising primary school teachers in four areas: biodiversity, the carbon cycle, ozone and global warming. A methodological innovation in this research was the prior identification of basic scientific explanations of each area for a primary teachers, and the use of these as benchmarks for judging understanding. The study was able to identify those underpinning science concepts which were well understood, and those which were not so well understood. Some missing concepts and misconceptions are also reported. Although the findings cannot be generalised to all primary teachers, the fairly strong science backgrounds of eight teachers in the sample suggest that some of the difficulties reported may be found more widely. It is suggested that both the basic explanations and the difficulties of understanding displayed by the teachers can usefully inform programmes of professional development for environmental education. An outline of a guide for teacher education adopting this approach is provided.