Meaning Making with Multiple Representations: a Case Study of a Preservice Teacher Creating a Digital Explanation

Research in Science Education - The construction of dynamic multimedia products requires the selection and integration of a range of semiotic resources. As an assessment task for preservice...     

Parents who hit and scream: Interactive effects of verbal and severe physical aggression on clinic-referred adolescents’ adjustment

The goals of this study were first, to delineate the co-occurrence of parental severe physical aggression and verbal aggression toward clinic-referred adolescents, and second, to examine the interactive effects of parental severe physical aggression and verbal aggression on adolescent externalizing and internalizing behavior problems. This research involved 239 referrals of 11- to 18-year-old youth and their dual-parent families to a non-profit, private community mental health center in a semi-rural Midwest community. Multiple informants (i.e., adolescents and mothers) were used to assess parental aggression and adolescent behavior problems. More than half of clinic-referred adolescents (51%) experienced severe physical aggression and/or high verbal aggression from one or both parents. A pattern of interactive effects of mother-to-adolescent severe physical aggression and verbal aggression on adolescent behavior problems emerged, indicating that when severe physical aggression was present, mother-to-adolescent verbal aggression was positively associated with greater adolescent behavior problems whereas when severe physical aggression was not present, the links between verbal aggression and behavior problems was no longer significant. No interactive effects were found for father-to-adolescent severe physical aggression and verbal aggression on adolescent adjustment; however, higher father-to-adolescent verbal aggression was consistently linked to behavior problems above and beyond the influence of severe physical aggression. The results of this study should promote the practice of routinely assessing clinic-referred adolescents and their parents about their experiences of verbal aggression in addition to severe physical aggression and other forms of abuse.     

Résolution de problèmes d’hydrodynamique face à un circuit concret — Comparaison des stratégies avant et après apprentissage

The aim of this piece of research is to study physical reasoning and problem solving strategies among novices before and after a learning treatment in the field of hydrodynamics problems. The study is designed to investigate the meaning of becoming more expert in a specific domain. The results show several changes among novices after the learning treatment. Types of physical reasoning strategies appear which were not observed at the pretest. Nevertheless these correct reasoning strategies coexist with misconceptions (local reasoning). As far as general strategies are concerned, some changes are also observed. At the pretest most subjects proceed by trial and error. At the post-test their approach is guided by specific physical reasoning strategies, even if sometimes erroneous. Although the learning treatment did not deal with these various aspects, it appears that subjects experience a more rigourous approach, controlling much better than earlier the effects of their actions on the circuit. It seems as though, at the time of the pretest, the absence of domain-specific knowledge prevented students from applying a rigourous experimental approach, in principle independent of the domain concerned.     

Discourse Analysis as a Tool for Promoting the ‘Critical Literate’ VET Teacher

The paper deals with the concept of ‘Critical Literacy’ in the context of VET teacher education. It focuses on the question of whether and how critical literacy can be developed drawing on elements of discourse research. This is illustrated by means of a higher educational setting, dealing with business administration textbook usage and research. The impact of our learning and teaching setting is illustrated via an empirical longitudinal study (three-phase pre-post design) of students doing a master’s degree in business education at an Austrian university. Data were initially collected directly before and after the university seminar using a semi-standardised questionnaire (n = 54). In order to obtain an insight into the sustainable impact of our discourse analysis course on students’ thought and actions, in the third phase of data collection, eight participants, who in the meantime had four months experience in VET schools as student teachers (120 h) were invited to a qualitative interview. The paper encompasses a theoretical discussion on the concept of critical literacy, applies it to the target group VET teacher students and shows empirical evidence on pros and cons of discourse analytical course design aiming at the critical literate teacher.     

Editorial

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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Editorial

     

Recognising Women in Environmental Education Pedagogy and Research: toward an ecofeminist poststructuralist perspective

In the past, women have been overlooked in most environmental education programmes through being subsumed into the notion of ‘universalized people’. However, women have a distinctive contribution to make to environmental education pedagogy and research which needs to be foregrounded. This article reports on research into the gaps and silences present in policies, pedagogy and research in environmental education from a feminist perspective. This research has been inspired by feminist critiques of critical pedagogy and the potentialities of feminist poststructuralist methodologies. In particular I focus on the silencing of marginalized perspectives in environmental education policy development, as well as in research conducted from the perspective of the dominant positivist research methodologies, and argue for the possibilities for new directions when poststructuralist pedagogies and research methodologies are used in environmental education.     

Holiday Play for Children with Disabilities in England: Access,Choice and Parents’ Views about Integration

Families with children with disabilities can feel isolated during school holidays and concerns exist that they face greater difficulties than families of children without disabilities in finding enriching activities for their child. In the context of national policies that encourage integrated play, local service commissioners in England require evidence on what sort of short breaks parents and children prefer. The parents of 99 children with disabilities and 43 children without disabilities attending various holiday play schemes in summer 2010 completed mailed questionnaires. Parents of children with disabilities reported more difficulty getting information, less choice of schemes and further distances to travel than parents of children without disabilities. Although 72% of parents of children without disabilities and 55.5% of parents of children with disabilities stated integrated schemes would be suitable for their child, open text comments provided weaker support. Variety of provision is required to meet all needs and preferences.     

Doing without believing – enacting policy in the English primary school

ABSTRACT

This paper explores how six English primary school teachers enact assessment and attainment-focused policy and asks what this performative policy work does and whether it shapes or requires a new kind of primary teacher subjectivity. The paper draws on a small study of policy enactments in two primary schools in Greater London in order to discuss two dimensions of policy enactment that emerged from our data: first, shifting assessment regimes in primary schools which create an enactment environment of second-guessing policy; second, a shift in focus from the individual child to targeted groups that raises questions about more traditional primary school values. The paper concludes with a reflection on the effects of contradictory values and practices and how this policy context creates a form of ‘doing without believing’ in the English primary school.