From Cultural Dissonance to Diasporic Affinity: The Experience of Jamaican Teachers in New York City Schools

This phenomenological study was designed to investigate the experience of Jamaican teachers recruited to serve in elementary and high schools in New York City. The study explored three broad questions: (1) What was teaching like for the participants before they assumed their assignments in the US? (2) What is teaching in the US like for them? and (3) What meanings/insights do they derive from their experience teaching in the US? The findings indicate that the immigrants’ experienced profound cultural dissonance in the classroom as their experiences in the US differed significantly from their previous experience in Jamaica. This dissonance was illustrated by four prominent themes that emerged from data collected through in-depth interviews: (1) lack of respect for teachers and other adults; (2) disregard for teacher authority; (3) lack of student appreciation for the teacher’s work; and (4) student apathy towards education. The cultural dissonance immigrants experienced made them more sensitive to the condition of African American and other minorities, disrupted their strong sense of nationalism, and engendered a growing allegiance to the black Diaspora.     

Development of Reading in Grades K–2 in Spanish‐Speaking English‐Language Learners

Development of English‐ and Spanish‐reading skills was explored in a sample of 251 Spanish‐speaking English‐language learners from kindergarten through Grade 2. Word identification and reading comprehension developed at a normal rate based on monolingual norms for Spanish‐ and English‐speaking children, but English oral language lagged significantly behind. Four categories of predictor variables were obtained in Spanish in kindergarten and in English in first grade: print knowledge, expressive language (as measured by vocabulary and sentence repetition tasks), phonological awareness, and rapid automatic naming (RAN). Longitudinal regression analyses indicated a modest amount of cross‐language transfer from Spanish to English. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that developing English‐language skills (particularly phonological awareness and RAN) mediated the contribution of Spanish‐language variables to later reading. Further analyses revealed stronger within‐ than cross‐language associations of expressive language with later reading, suggesting that some variables function cross‐linguistically, and others within a particular language. Results suggest that some of the cognitive factors underlying reading disabilities in monolingual children (e.g., phonological awareness and RAN) may be important to an understanding of reading difficulties in bilingual children.     

Technology Integration in a Science Classroom: Preservice Teachers’ Perceptions

The challenge of preparing students for the information age has prompted administrators to increase technology in the public schools. Yet despite the increased availability of technology in schools, few teachers are integrating technology for instructional purposes. Preservice teachers must be equipped with adequate content knowledge of technology to create an advantageous learning experience in science classrooms. To understand preservice teachers’ conceptions of technology integration, this research study explored 15 elementary science methods students’ definitions of technology and their attitudes toward incorporating technology into their teaching. The phenomenological study took place in a science methods course that was based on a constructivist approach to teaching and learning science through science activities and class discussions, with an emphasis on a teacher beliefs framework. Data were collected throughout the semester, including an open-ended pre/post-technology integration survey, lesson plans, and reflections on activities conducted throughout the course. Through a qualitative analysis, we identified improvements in students’ technology definitions, increased technology incorporation into science lesson plans, and favorable attitudes toward technology integration in science teaching after instruction. This research project demonstrates that positive changes in beliefs and behaviors relating to technology integration in science instruction among preservice teachers are possible through explicit instruction.     

Discovering the More: Reading Wright's,Colette's,and Cather's Texts as Philosophy of Education

Rather than using literary texts to evidence an analytic argument, within this piece we read Julia McNair Wright's (US, 1840–1902), Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette's (France, 1873–1954), and Willa Cather's (US, 1873–1947) texts through theoretical lenses that expose their educational meaning and value and that create conversation among them concerning girls’ and women's educations. While we do not claim that one can generalize these women's works and lessons to every life, we contend that these women and the literary products they created offer girls and women powerful lessons about resistance, subversion, and nurturing one's intellect, lessons that in some ways transcend class and race in particular. First, we define and explain Bruner's concept of the more using Rosenblatt, Gallagher, and Gardner's theories and findings to illuminate his concept. Next, we identify and examine three themes that emerge across these authors’ texts—subverting through the everyday, becoming one's own steward, and moving from survival to self-actualization. Establishing these themes first in Wright's texts, we then use them to frame Colette's and Cather's fiction and support these themes by focusing on one lesson that emerges from each author's work(s). Finally, we ask what one might learn about educating girls and women from these texts and others whose educative meaning and value remain hidden.     

Low-profile policy: the case of study support in education policy ensembles in England

This paper presents the case of a relatively low-profile policy initiative that has been successively reframed as part of larger policy ensembles within UK schools over a six-year period, and translated during this time at national and school levels. The policy examined is that of study support or out-of-hours learning. The trajectory of this policy is traced as it is first launched within an educational policy ensemble around the raising achievement agenda and then re-framed as part of the then New Labour government’s major educational and social policy agenda of Every Child Matters. Drawing on interview data from head teachers and teachers, the ways in which study support policy was translated in two contrasting schools over this period is explored, highlighting different tensions with national policy and local agendas. The ‘fate’ of study support as an initiative is questioned following a change of government in the UK and in the context of global education policy developments. This analysis of the re-framing of a low-profile policy adds to our understanding of the cycles of policy ensembles and their translation by different agents in different sites over time.     

Cultivating a Religiously Literate Society: Challenges and Possibilities for America's Public Schools

This article presents a rationale as well as a proposal for a religious literacy curriculum in U.S. public high schools. Relying on the Religious Education curriculum currently in use in the United Kingdom, the authors sketch a religious literacy curriculum designed to help students thrive in a pluralistic and democratic society. In order to help young citizens develop the skills, dispositions, and knowledge to thrive in an increasingly global, pluralistic, and democratic society, they need to become religiously literate. For students to be religiously literate they must learn to respect the religious other as well as understand the role of religions in contributing to civic life.     

A criminal justice contribution to a general education diversity requirement

In the United States, colleges and universities have recently increased attention to diversity of faculty, staff, and student populations. Among the manifestations of the diversity movement are calls for modifications of general education courses to include coverage of cultural or human diversity. At the University at Albany, one of the first human diversity courses was offered by the School of Criminal Justice. The authors review the objectives of the course, the teaching materials selected, and students' reactions to the first offering of the course. Among the most troubling reactions was students' resistance to history, to explorations of context of criminal justice practice, and to examination of current discriminatory policy and practice.