Literacy Practices in Head Start and Early Childhood Special Education Classrooms

A preliminary study was conducted to investigate the literacy experiences of preschoolers in Head Start and early childhood special education (ECSE) class- rooms. Two groups of teachers (10 Head Start teachers and 20 ECSE teachers) completed surveys that gathered information relative to the literacy activities occurring in their classrooms, the priority given reading and writing goals, and their attitudes about the literacy development of their students. The results indicated similarities between the two groups of teachers regarding the relatively low priority placed on reading and writing goals at preschool, and the ways in which children were involved in reading activities. The two groups differed in their use of supportive interactions during TV viewing-and writing/drawing activities, and the expectations the teachers held for the children's future literacy abilities. The need for further research describing emerging literacy practices with at-risk and disabled groups of children is discussed.     

Neo-liberalism and the state of higher education in the UK

This article reports findings from a research project on the impact of neo-liberalism on university life in the UK. Unusually, data collection includes interviews with senior management such as heads of departments and senior professors, as well as with lecturers and union representatives. Interviewees reported that the nature of institutional and individual pressures has changed and intensified over the last 30 years, resulting generally in negative experiences for staff and students; yet grounds exist for rejecting a purely deterministic thesis on the impact of neo-liberalism on higher education. Certain aspects of university work were described in positive terms and individual senior managers seemed able at times to mediate external pressures. Creative strategies of resistance were evident which provided some relief from an otherwise gloomy scenario.     

Micro-political practices in higher education: a challenge to excellence as a rationalising myth?

ABSTRACT

Excellence has become a ‘hoorah’ word which is widely used in higher education institutions to legitimate practices related to the recruitment/progression of staff. It can be seen as reflecting an institutionalised belief that such evaluative processes are unaffected by the social characteristics of those who work in them or their relationships with each other. Such views have been challenged by gender theorists and by those researching informal power in state structures. The purpose of this article is to raise the possibility that excellence is an ‘idealised cultural construct’ and a ‘rationalising myth’. Drawing on data from qualitative interviews with 67 men and women, who were candidates or evaluators in recruitment/progression processes in five higher educational institutions (in Ireland, Turkey, Bulgaria, Germany and Italy), it conceptualises and illustrates masculinist, relational and ‘local fit’ micro-political practices that are seen to affect such recruitment/progression. Variation exists by gender and by contextual positioning in the process (i.e. as evaluator/candidate). These practices illustrate the perceived importance of the enactment of informal power. The article suggests that the construct of excellence is used to obscure these practices and to maintain organisational legitimacy in the context of multiple stakeholders with conflicting expectations.     

脑的研究和教育:追赶潮流抑或夯实基础

教育界最新的突破是神经科学的研究或称为脑的研究,这是一个直到现在对教育者来说仍是陌生的领域。研究给予实践的好处是使我们的工作可以基于明确可表达的原理而不再是凭直觉而为。令人遗憾的是,一些咨询人士和教育者在那些基于脑的项目策略还没有经过试验时就把它们搬进了课堂。教育工作者要明确开展脑的研究是夯实基础而不要追赶潮流,理应做到细致辨别,择善而从。     

Complementing the mainstream: an exploration of partnership work between complementary alternative provisions and mainstream schools

In the English context, complementary alternative provisions (APs) can make specific positive contributions for young people at risk of exclusion from mainstream school. Whilst recognising the potential value of all complementary AP that is carefully selected and of high quality, we problematise the ‘repair and return’ rationale that continues to underpin the commissioning of some provisions. Drawing on two case studies, we explicate the nature and value of partnership working between complementary provider and mainstream school. We argue that when a productive partnership happens (1) schools take greater responsibility for young people at risk of exclusion, and (2) there is the potential to encourage wider shifts in the learning context of the mainstream school in ways that are beneficial for a larger group of pupils. Such wider transformations in the mainstream context may be particularly beneficial given the current performative regimes that dominate English education policy, and focus schools’ work on the achievement of key data targets rather than inclusive practice. We reflect on what can be learnt from these cases in relation to the evolving AP policy context in England.     

Perpetuating academic capitalism and maintaining gender orders through career practices in STEM in universities

Academic capitalism is an outcome of the interplay between neoliberalism, globalisation, markets and universities. Universities have embraced the commercialisation of knowledge, technology transfer and research funding as well as introducing performance and audit practices. Academic capitalism has become internalised as a regulatory mechanism by academics who attempt to accumulate academic capital. Universities are traditionally gendered organisations, reflecting the societal gender order. Despite fears regarding the feminisation of the academy, the embrace of academic capitalism is contributing to its re-masculinisation and exercises an incidental gender effect. Practicing is the means by which the gender order is constituted at work. Three practices in which academics engage are examined as exemplars of the way academics increase their academic capital stock in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) faculties in four European universities, in Bulgaria, Denmark, Ireland and Turkey. These practices tend to be more achievable and likely to be engaged in by men, thus, career practices are the mechanism through which the gender effect of academic capitalism is achieved, academic capitalism perpetuated and the gender order maintained in STEM in academia.