IV and SEN: Using interactive video with special educational needs pupils

Ten pupils with moderate learning difficulties worked on a series of mathematics related activities while visiting a school providing a whole range of multi-media. The investigation suggests that IV has a particular contribution to make in meeting special educational needs. In addition to specific benefits in the teaching and learning of mathematics, the technology proved to be a facilitator in the areas of geography and life skills. There was also some evidence to suggest that IV can help to raise self-esteem, provide equal opportunities and support collaborative learning. Sense of ownership, language development and motivational characteristics, together with the promotion of attention and the accompanying benefit for teachers of the reduction of anxiety over discipline, are other factors suggesting the usefulness of the medium in this context.     

Research on Social Integration: What Are The Problems?

THIS LIMITED REVIEW of research on the social integration of children with disabilities in mainstreaming programs showed that there are several factors which may explain the apparent inconsistencies within the research literature. The diverse groups of individuals involved necessitate that attention be paid to pertinent variables and that care must be taken when findings are generalized to other groups of children with disabilities. An issue of particular concern was the simplistic measuring techniques employed in some research, particularly where studies relied on a single technique such as sociometry. There is limited evidence to support the increased use of multivariate statistical procedures as a means of producing more consistent findings. While most studies reviewed did not incorporate special treatments, that is other than integrated settings, invariably such treatments produced positive outcomes. Studies involving research designs which used the social acceptance of normal children as the basis for assessing social integration frequently resulted in negative findings.     

Supporting the transition to inclusive education: teachers’ attitudes to inclusion in the Seychelles

The inclusion of children with disability in regular classroom settings has been identified worldwide as crucial to the provision of effective education for all children and to the creation of more inclusive societies. To this end there has been significant focus on pre-service and in-service teacher education to ensure that teachers are adequately prepared to teach in inclusive classrooms. When delivering a unit on inclusive education in the Seychelles, which was developed in Australia, we considered it essential to determine the suitability of the unit in supporting Seychellois teachers to teach inclusively. Teachers’ attitudes and beliefs about people with disability are two aspects that have consistently been shown to impact on a teacher’s willingness to include children with disability. Therefore, the Seychellois teachers were asked to complete questionnaires in the first and final weeks of the semester in which the teachers undertook the unit. The two sets of responses were analysed to determine significance and effect sizes of any change in attitudes and beliefs. Data revealed that the Seychellois teachers reported more positive attitudes and beliefs about the inclusion of children with disability in regular classrooms after completing the unit, suggesting that the unit of study was suitable for the Seychellois context.     

Peer regulation of teenage sexual identities

This article examines the teenage policing of heterosexuality in schools and contributes to debates about teenage sexual moralities and heterosexual male agency. It reports on a qualitative study in England of the collective sexual values of 12‐ to 13‐year‐olds and 14‐ to 15‐year‐olds. Focus group interviews indicated that pupils developed a consensual sexual morality through collusive sex talk. Homophobic and misogynistic views and verbal abuse were found to be key instruments of teenage peer regulation of sexual identities crossing class and ethnic boundaries. We found that the ‘official’ discourse of sex education did not relate to teenage lives. Anxieties about heterosexual masculinity and girls' sexual agency were conveyed by some boys through verbal sexual harassment—a form of behaviour regarded as intimidating yet normal. While white and Asian boys were more conservative in their views about marriage than girls, white and Asian girls struggled to resist heterosexual masculine power through career aspirations, by questioning marriage and being informed about sexual issues.     

Community participation in bureaucratic organizations: Principles and strategies

The present paper points out that there are tasks that primary groups perform better than bureaucracies and those that bureaucracies perform better than primary groups. Both types of tasks are very interdependent so that sometimes primary group tasks must be performed within the boundaries of the bureaucratic organization. The argument is made that when primary groups intervene in bureaucracies, they can do so directly in non-expert tasks without lowering the effectiveness of the bureaucratic organization. When they intervene in expert aspects, they should do so indirectly through an expert advocate. However, in all intervention the primary group must take into account that its structure is contradictory to that of the bureaucracy and, therefore, it must keep as much distance as possible—consistent with its ability to intervene. From this analysis we derive a series of hypotheses suggesting when the community might ideally use the bureaucracy's own experts, when the community must hire its own experts, when the community should use mass media, strikes, indigenous workers, etc. It is suggested that the multitudinous possibilities for linkages can all be derived from a few basic underlying dimensions of the situation.

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Résumé Cet article montre qu'il existe certaines tâches que les groupes primaires accomplissent mieux que les bureaucraties, et certaines autres qu'accomplissent mieux les bureaucraties. Les deux sortes de tâches sont interdépendentes; donc parfois les tâches des groupes primaires doivent s'accomplir parmi les organisations bureaucratiques. Les auteurs soutiennent que les groupes primaires peuvent intervenir dans les bureaucraties en complétant les tâches non-expertes sans réduire l'efficacité de l'organisation bureaucratique. Quands ils participent à certains sujets experts, ils devraient se munir d'un agent expert. Mais dans toute intervention le groupe primaire doit se rendre compte que sa structure contredit celle de la bureaucratie et que, par conséquent, il doit se tenir autant à distance que possible par rapport à sa compétence d'intervention. De cette analyse proviennent des hypothèses qui indiquent quand une communauté peut se servir le mieux du personnel expert d'une bureaucratie, quand la communauté doit engager des experts, quand la communauté doit se servir des mass média, des grèves, des ouvriers indigènes, etc. Les nombreuses possibilités de liaisons proviennent toutes de quelques dimensions fondamentales de la situation.

     

Deaf and hearing students' morphological knowledge applied to printed English

The study examined the ability of deaf and hearing students at the college and middle school levels to discern and apply knowledge of printed word morphology. There were 70 deaf and 58 hearing participants. A two-part paper-and-pencil test of morphological knowledge examined subjects' ability to (a) perceive segmentation of morphemes within printed words and (b) recognize meanings associated with various printed morphemes. The hearing college students performed best on every dependent measure of the two-part test. The deaf college students scored significantly lower than the hearing college students but similarly to the hearing middle school students. Deaf middle school students consistently scored the lowest on both parts of the test. While all students' performance declined as the difficulty of the morphemic content increased within both tasks, the decline was greatest among middle school deaf students. Although segmentation and semantic analysis skills necessary to morphographic decoding were apparent in the deaf students, their mastery levels fell significantly below those of the hearing subjects.