The antecedents of teacher satisfaction with professional development programs

Literature has shown that on-the-job professional development programs are most beneficial when they are long-term, focused on students’ learning, and linked to the curricula. We hypothesized that the higher the control teachers have over job professional development processes, and the greater the resemblance of these processes to the typical teaching culture in classrooms, the greater the teachers’ satisfaction with job professional development processes. The findings of this study demonstrate that the main factors affecting teachers’ satisfaction with the instructional programs are related to their desire to maintain instructional processes “close to home”, and to shape these processes in accordance with their needs and expectations. The implications of the study are discussed with relation to decision-makers in the school setting and at the local authorities’ level.     

Higher education policies in Brazil: 1970–90

Under the authoritarian regime, policies on higher education were mostly produced by the Excutive. First of all, an Educational Reform made up for the rapid expansion of a huge private sector where small teaching institutions prevail and which now absorbs over 60% of Brazilian students. The public sector, in turn, was substantially improved: the number of full time faculty increased and teachers in the federal universities were encouraged to apply for a M.A. or a Ph.D. and to get involved with research activities. Meanwhile, a dual funding system (teaching and research) emerged which was responsible both for the creation of graduate programmes all over the country and for the expansion of a research infrastructure. The civilian government (1985 on) brought policy making out of the bureaucracy and into the Congress. The new Constitution granted the university a degree of autonomy it had never enjoyed before which, however, is still to be regulated by further legislation. Policy initiatives driving at institutional differentiation and at performance assessment have systematically failed to become effective due to resistances within the university itself. Meanwhile financial stringency at a time of recession necessarily leads to reductions in funding, notably for research.     

Selectivity in Learning: A Theme in the Application of Whitehead’s Theory of Prehensions to Education

This paper, which is particularly centered on the student’s learning process, is the first half of a detailed study of selectivity in Whitehead’s philosophy of education. Here, by setting forth the analogy between the creative process exhibited in Whitehead’s Theory of Prehensions and the learning process through an interpretation of the term, ‘prehending subject’ as ’learner,’ I argue that selectivity, via ‘negative prehensions,’ is the efficient motive power at work in the process of learning. Various concrete classroom examples of selectivity are alluded to, which lend support to this thesis. With clues from the Aims of Education, by reading the theory of prehensions with some conceptual modifications made for the purposes of education, I present the perspective that, as one side of a logical contrast, Whitehead’s theory of prehensions can be said to be conducive to a critical pedagogy.     

UK university part-time higher education: a corpus-assisted discourse analysis of undergraduate prospectuses

ABSTRACT

In the UK, higher education (HE) policy discourse over the past 60 years has advocated flexible part-time HE for social mobility, personal development, economic advantage and leisure. However, part-time undergraduate HE in the UK is in steep decline. Against this backdrop, we were interested in how universities promote, or fail to promote, part-time study options today. We built a corpus of 90 UK undergraduate prospectuses for 2018 entry (5,673,799 words). Using a corpus-assisted discourse analysis approach, we found significant mismatch between policy discourse and marketing discourse regarding part-time study. In particular, we found that UK university marketing discourse positions full-time study as the dominant mode of study and writes of part-time study as ‘second-best’. This discourse mismatch is particularly marked when it comes to the elite Russell Group of universities. Viewing the absence of strong promotional discourse relating to part-time study alongside other factors such as increased tuition fees and the rise of global online education platforms adds a new perspective to the decline of flexible part-time undergraduate HE at campus-based universities in the UK.     

The experiences of lesbian,gay and bisexual students and staff at a Further Education college in South East England

Research exploring the educational experiences of lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) students and staff members has traditionally been characterised by homophobia, hostility, victimisation and marginalisation. Recent research has evidenced a shift in the experiences of LGB young people, to somewhat more accepting and positive narratives, including within post‐compulsory schooling. Yet, there is limited research exploring the lived experiences of LGB staff members in the Further Education context. Utilising inclusive masculinity as a sociological paradigm, this research explores the qualitative data from the narratives of 26 LGB staff and students at one Further Education college in the south of England. The results find a distinct lack of homophobia within this college, a nuanced understanding of homosexually themed language, and an organisational culture of inclusivity and widespread symbolic visibility of the LGB community. Overall, our research aligns with broader social patterns that the experiences for LGB persons is improving.     

Salivary cortisol as a predictor of socioemotional adjustment during kindergarten: a prospective study

This study, based on a sample of 172 children, examined the relation between average afternoon salivary cortisol levels measured at home at age 4.5 years and socioemotional adjustment a year and a half later, as reported by mothers, fathers, and teachers. Cortisol levels were hypothesized to be positively associated with withdrawal-type behaviors (e.g., internalizing, social wariness) and inversely related to approach-type behaviors, both negative and positive (e.g., externalizing, school engagement). Higher cortisol levels at age 4.5 predicted more internalizing behavior and social wariness as reported by teachers and mothers, although child gender moderated the relation between cortisol and mother report measures. An inverse relation was found between boys' cortisol levels and father report of externalizing behavior. A marginal inverse relation was found between child cortisol levels and teacher report of school engagement. Behavior assessed concurrently with cortisol collection did not account for the prospective relations observed,suggesting that cortisol adds uniquely to an understanding of behavioral development.