Adverse Consequences of School Mobility for Children in Foster Care: A Prospective Longitudinal Study

Few prospective studies have examined school mobility in children in foster care. This study described the school moves of 86 such children and 55 community comparison children (primarily Caucasian), living in a medium‐sized metropolitan area in the Pacific Northwest who were approximately 3 to 6 years old at the study start. Additionally, the effects of moves from kindergarten through Grade 2 on academic and socioemotional competence in Grades 3 through 5 were examined. A greater number of early school moves was associated with poorer later socoemotional competence and partially mediated the effects of maltreatment and out‐of‐home placement on socioemotional competence. This was the case only for children with poorer early learning skills in kindergarten. Implications for preventive intervention are discussed.     

The scholarship of teaching and learning: A Special Niche for Faculty at Comprehensive Universities?

We investigated the involvement of faculty members at comprehensive universities in scholarship of teaching and learning publishing activities in four disciplines. Compared to to their publishing rates in research-oriented journals, comprehensive university faculty members were more involved in publishing articles and serving on editorial boards for pedagogical journals. Over the past three decades, the relative involvement in the scholarship of teaching and learning journals by faculty members at comprehensive universities and liberal arts colleges has increased whereas participation by faculty members at research universities has declined.     

Sibling Differences in Divorced Families

Sibling differences in family processes and individual adjustment were examined for 133 sibling pairs (10–18 years old) in divorced families. Although all siblings differed, siblings who lived apart after their parents' divorce differed more than siblings who lived together, contradicting past research that found negligible effects of shared environment on sibling similarities. The possibility that siblings might live apart because they were initially more different was considered. This hypothesis was not supported in the limited tests permitted by the data. Differences in family processes were associated with differences in adjustment for pairs who lived together as well as pairs who lived apart.     

Your place or mine? global imbalances in internationalisation and mobilisation in educational professional experience

International mobility programmes and opportunities have enthusiastically been embraced by universities as part of a growing demand for graduates with global, international and intercultural capital on the part of graduates. In this project, we take two universities, one Australian and one Indonesian, as illustrative case studies of some of the commonalities, differences and, in particular, imbalances, with regard to the conduct of international professional experience in the global north and south. Specifically, a recent visit by Indonesian pre-service teachers was used to inform an upcoming visit by Australian pre-service teachers to Indonesia. We used this opportunity to compare the accessibility of travel for Australian and Indonesian pre-service teachers, as illustrations of in/equality of access for northern and southern learners. We hope that this paper will prompt discussion about global imbalances of opportunity with regard to international experiences. We also hope that our mutual interview process adopted for this study might be a useful research tool.     

Adolescents' perceptions of their fathers' involvement: Significance to school attitudes

Based on data from 2,722 British adolescents aged 14–18 years, this study explored whether perceived father involvement can be associated with school attitudes even after controlling for perceived mother involvement. Multiple regression analysis showed that both father involvement and mother involvement contributed significantly and independently to positive school attitudes. Furthermore, the association between father involvement and school attitudes was the same for sons and daughters. We did not find evidence to support the notion that being in a non‐intact family weakens the association between perceived father involvement and school attitudes. Finally, there was no evidence suggesting that the impact of perceived father involvement on school attitudes depends on the level of perceived mother involvement. © 2002, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Factors that impede curriculum change: a preliminary report

The management of curriculum change in religious education is of interest to all who are concerned with a continuing pursuit of excellence in this curriculum area. Utilising a grounded theory approach, this paper describes some findings concerning the management of curriculum change in the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne, Australia. It reports the perspective of religious education coordinators, who were responsible for managing a major change in the religious education curriculum in Catholic secondary schools. Emanating from a broader on‐going study, the report focuses on factors that the religious education coordinators felt impeded curriculum change.     

The ‘foreign’ language teacher: negotiating the culture of a school when unfamiliar with the language of instruction

This article examines and theorises the experiences of 12 primary pre-service teachers at an Australian university, undertaking a two week professional teaching experience in Bangkok. This qualitative ethnographic study of our students’ and to some extent our own experiences draws on interviews, questionnaires and observations from the students, as well as reflective notes from two participating supervisors, and sets out to account for and understand the sources of the achievements and frustrations experienced by our pre-service teachers. The findings illustrate differences between the students’ overseas experiences and Australian-based experiences. These differences include organisational structures, teacher mentoring and cultural understandings, and the effects these had on the students. In particular, we distinguish the more readily observable structural nature of the schools in which the pre-service teachers were teaching, and the less visible cultural aspects that underlie these structures. We propose ways of helping students, as part of pre-departure briefings, to become more aware of these cultural underpinnings, with a view to helping them become more at ease negotiating intercultural workplaces.