Afro-Caribbean Immigrant Faculty Experiences in the American Academy: Voices of an Invisible Black Population

Afro-Caribbean immigrants have been an integral part of the history and shaping of the United States since the early 1900s. This current study explores the experiences of five Afro-Caribbean faculty members at traditionally White institutions of higher education. Despite the historical presence and influence of Afro-Caribbean communities and the efforts within education systems to address the needs of Afro-Caribbean constituents, Afro-Caribbean faculty members continue to be rendered indiscernible in higher education and to be frequently and erroneously perceived as African–Americans. The study examines the lived experiences of these individuals in the hegemonic White spaces they occupy at their institutions with both White and Black populations. Through their narratives, issues of stereotyping, microaggression, and isolation are addressed. The participants also offer solutions to address these issues by university administrators, department heads, faculty development professionals, diversity officers, policy makers, and other stakeholders. The voices in this study shed light on an overlooked, misunderstood, and under-researched population within our faculty ranks in the American Academy.     

高校教师心理健康的维护

高校教师的素质水平对学生的发展起着决定性的作用，教师的心理状况影响着学生心理的发展。因此，教师心理健康的维护是高校心理健康工作的基础。要维护教师的心理健康，就要明确他们的心理问题及其成因，由此找出解决的途径。本主要从社会、学校、个人三个角度分析引发教师心理问题的因素，并从中探寻维护教师心理健康的方法。     

Current conceptions of literacy – insights from work with children and older learners with sensory needs

There have been many efforts to conceptualise literacy, both in terms of its essence and component parts, but it has proved difficult to define. This paper considers work that is undertaken with children and older learners with sensory needs in order to promote the early stages of literacy. Recent government initiatives aimed at fostering literacy development have caused teachers of children with sensory needs to re-examine their practice. The paper discusses early literacy as part of children's attempts to communicate and describes children with sensory needs engaging in a range of activities that are termed 'literacy' by those working with them. By taking into account these activities, the authors endeavour to throw light on the broader questions around concepts of literacy.     

Self‐help in research and development relating to assessment: a case study

This article briefly chronicles nearly a decade of research and development activity undertaken in the area of assessment by a group of committed volunteers, ‘The Student Assessment and Classification Working Group’ (SACWG). However, greater attention is given to demonstrating what a self‐help approach can achieve in respect of research and development in higher education, and to identifying the factors that contribute to success in this respect. It is suggested that the approach has transfer value, provided that certain conditions are met.     

OFSTED's Spiritual Dimension: An analytical audit of inspection reports

The Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) continues to judge schools in England and Wales to be generally unsuccessful in providing opportunities to pupils and students for spiritual development. This article reports on a study of OFSTED inspection reports for Norfolk state secondary schools. The study aimed to understand what was going wrong with spiritual development and how things might be improved. The study noted OFSTED's guidance to its inspectors on spiritual development, but then audited inspectors' assessments of spiritual development as they saw it in the field. After a close analysis of the reports the study concluded that inconsistencies in inspectors' reporting, particularly of spirituality across the broader curriculum, meant that both the mechanisms for assessment and for raising standards were not clear. The article discusses possible reasons for that lack of clarity and suggests that increased dialogue between inspectors and teachers might help raise standards in this area.     

The stability of kindergarten teachers’ effectiveness: A generalizability study comparing the Framework For Teaching and the Classroom Assessment Scoring System

To meet recent accountability mandates, school districts are implementing assessment frameworks to document teachers’ effectiveness. Observational assessments play a key role in this process, albeit without compelling evidence of their psychometric rigor. Using a sample of kindergarten teachers, we employed Generalizability theory to investigate (across teachers, raters, and lessons) the stability of scores obtained with two different observation measures: The CLASS K-3 and the FFT. We conducted a series of Decision studies to document (for both measures’ constituent domains) the number of lessons per teacher and raters per lesson that would justify the use of observation scores for high stakes decisions. Acceptable, stable scores for individual-level decisions about teachers may generally require more raters and lessons than is typically used in practice (1–2 raters and fewer than 3 lessons). The considerable variability of observation-based scores raises concerns about either measure’s appropriateness for making individual or group decisions about teachers’ effectiveness.     

Disruptive Behaviour in School,Personality Characteristics and Heart Rate (HR) Levels in 7‐ to 9‐year‐old Boys

Disruptive behaviour, as assessed by teachers, is reported as being consistently related to low base heart rates and low reactivity to mild stress. To date, most investigations have used mainstream school samples of boys within the 11‐16 age range approximately. It has been suggested that the predicted low base heart rates for antisocial children may be reversed in younger children. Present findings do not confirm such a trend in boys aged 7 to 9 years. Their responses were similar to those of older children. The implications for further research and the management of children in school are discussed.