What does the teaching and learning of sexuality education in South African schools reveal about counter-normative sexualities?

ABSTRACT

Using the interlocking concepts of power, knowledge and discourse, this article focuses on how counter normative sexualities are discursively constructed in the sexuality education classroom and with what effects. Drawing on in-depth interviews with teachers and classroom observation, the evidence highlights the presence of specific discourses about the teaching and learning of sexuality diversity. First, while many teachers argued for the inclusion of counter-normative sexualities, in their teaching and responses they privileged heterosexuality as legitimate and natural and same-sex sexualities as deviant and Other. Second, teachers’ discourses construct queer youth not only as innocent and childlike but also as hypersexual and rebellious – requiring discipline and intervention. These constructions link closely to discourses of pity and tolerance, or blame when counter-normative sexualities were expressed. Finally, despite heterosexuality being privileged in the classroom, teachers’ and pupils’ questions about gender and sexuality diversity suggest the need for a more defined and inclusive curriculum sexuality education curriculum. Findings justify concern about how counter-normative sexualities are addressed in the sexuality education classroom and advocate for improvement in teaching and learning about counter-normative sexualities in South African secondary education.     

Envisioning a Culturally Imaginative Educational Psychology

Culture has mostly been neglected in mainstream educational psychology research. In this paper, we argued for the need to cultivate a cultural imagination and provided seven key recommendations for conducting culturally imaginative research. We explained how these recommendations could prove useful in avoiding the two types of errors that trap cross-cultural researchers. The first type is the cultural attribution error which pertains to attributing any observed difference to culture even if culture is not the relevant factor. The second type is the cultural blind spot error which pertains to the failure to see how culture influences psycho-educational processes and outcomes. We proffered seven recommendations to avoid these twin pitfalls. We reviewed the papers published from 2006 to 2016 in four flagship educational psychology journals including the Journal of Educational Psychology, Contemporary Educational Psychology, Cognition and Instruction, and British Journal of Educational Psychology. Our review focused on how educational psychologists have studied culture over the past decade and how the published studies aligned with our seven recommendations. The content analysis indicated that only a small percentage of the articles dealt with culture, most of the studies drew on Western samples, and that almost all studies relied on an etic approach with very few studies using an emic bottom-up perspective. We ended with a justification for why a culturally imaginative educational psychology is urgently needed in an increasingly diverse world.     

Teachers’ work in complex times: the ‘fast policy’ of Swedish school reform

This paper analyses recent educational reforms on teachers’ work in Sweden following the 2010 Education Act, and up to the School Commission Report released in April 2017. We draw upon key policy texts and associated documents from the Ministry of Education, and the Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket). We consider the background to the reforms, their relations with one another and how they have played out in the Swedish educational policy context. We argue that these reforms exhibit features of ‘fast policy’ in terms of how they have taken on an increasingly centralised and neoliberal character, and the rapid-fire way they have been directed at teachers as individuals, rather than broader schooling structures. We show how the fast policy reforms have recentralised schooling and teachers’ work—effectively de-professionalising educators.     

Instructional Investment or Administrative Bloat: The Effects of Charter System Conversion on Resource Allocations and Staffing Patterns

Despite the growing call for local autonomy and flexibility, few scholars have examined the role of school district–level flexibility on resource allocation and staffing patterns. Leveraging the charter system law within the State of Georgia, we utilize a generalized difference-in-differences approach to estimate the impact of flexibility of system-level expenditures and staffing changes. We find evidence of increases in central office spending and staffing post-conversion to a charter system. In addition, we find evidence that local support is replaced by the state-funded supplemental funding.     

Exploring sex differences in science enrolment intentions: An application of the General Model of Academic Choice

In many countries there remain substantial sex differences in enrolments in elective science courses, despite concerted efforts in recent years to alleviate them. This paper explores the reasons for these differences by comparing models of male and female enrolment intentions in elective courses in biology, chemistry and physics. The models are based on responses from approximately 450 students from 5 Australian high schools. First, a theoretical model, the Science Enrolment Model, was derived from Eccles and colleagues’ General Model of Academic Choice. Students’ responses were then used to develop empirical models of enrolment intentions in the three elective courses. Analyses for the models were conducted using the LISREL “mean structures” extension. Sex differences in the dependent variables in the models were then attributed to the relevant sets of independent variables. Substantial sex differences were identified in measures of perceived career value, interest and performance expectations in all three models which explained between 70% and 82% of the sex differences in enrolment intentions.     

So far so good? A qualitative case study exploring the implementation of consultation in schools

This paper describes a small‐scale research project carried out one year after the implementation of a consultation model of service delivery within an Educational Psychology Service. Following a series of interviews held with special needs co‐ordinators, a hierarchy of development was identified, and conditions pertaining to this development isolated. Through identifying optimum conditions for the development of consultation, a number of specific recommendations are made, aimed at ensuring that all schools gain maximum benefit from this way of working.     

Phenomenography — a “good‐for‐nothing brother” of phenomenology? Outline of an analysis

This article will argue that five different ways of doing phenomenography can be found amongst the works of Gothenburg phenomenographers: Discursive, Experimental, Naturalistic, Hermeneutic and Phenomenological. Commenting on an earlier version of phenomenography, Jacob Needleman stated that it was “a ‘good‐for‐nothing’ brother of phenomenology”. We will argue that it is not. It is productive research, even if at times the degree of methodological reflection applied by phenomenographers to their work is found wanting. Two of five forms of Gothenburg phenomenography can be developed by recourse to phenomenology.     

Reciprocal Teaching of Comprehension‐fostering and Comprehension‐monitoring Activities with Ten Primary School Girls

Abstract This paper reports an experimental evaluation of a direct instruction procedure in which children are taught and practise activities to both foster and monitor their comprehension while reading. Three different class groups of low comprehenders, Standard 4, Form 1 and Form 2, were serially exposed to 21 days of 20‐25 minutes instruction in four study activities: summarising, questioning, clarifying and predicting. Instruction was by reciprocal teaching whereby the adult tutor and children took turns leading a dialogue centred around the important topics of the instructional text. The design of this study incorporated both with‐subjects multiple baseline and between‐subjects comparisons, the no treatment comparison groups being average and above average comprehending class peers. Daily comprehension assessment on a different text at the same difficulty level as that used for reciprocal teaching and pre and post intervention scores on a reading comprehension test served as the dependent measures for the study. Results show significant increases in accuracy on comprehension tests for all experimental groups upon introduction of the reciprocal teaching procedure. On completion of the intervention two of these groups scores matched those of the above average controls. Follow‐up probes eight weeks later showed that all groups had maintained their comprehension gains.     

The Effects of an Introductory Provision of Context on the Oral Reading Behaviour of an Above Average Reader

Abstract Previous studies have shown that prior discussion, or the provision of context, both decrease oral reading errors and increase self‐correction amongst low‐progress and mentally retarded readers. This study investigated the effects of prior provision of context upon the reading behaviour of an above average reader. The results indicate that discussion of context (through examination of the relevant illustrations, asking and answering questions, and the verbal introduction of some new words in the text) both significantly decreased errors, and slightly increased the amount of self‐correction for this subject.