Fighting for Desired Versions of a Future Self: How Young Women Negotiated STEM-Related Identities in the Discursive Landscape of Educational Opportunity

In this article, we investigate how the national imperative to increase opportunities for young women of color in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and to broaden their participation was taken up locally at two high schools in one school district. Using ethnographic and longitudinal data, we focus on four young women of color (two at each school) as they negotiated STEM-related identities in the discursive and practice contexts of their lives at school. Using Holland and Lave’s concept of history in person, we view the young women as fighting for particular versions of a future self while entangled in discursive and social relations that threatened to position them differently than they wished to be. We find that their fight for future selves was not—for them—with the national narrative about women of color in STEM but with local school narratives that negatively positioned students of color more broadly and remained silent on issues of gender, the intersection of gender and race, and the implications for STEM. High school success in STEM came as a hopeful but potentially fragile byproduct of struggles to differentiate themselves from people like them (other Blacks, Latinas, the poor). Implications of these findings are discussed.     

The Impact of Gatekeeper Training for Suicide Prevention on University Resident Assistants

Resident assistants (RAs) can serve as important suicide prevention gatekeepers. The purpose of the study was to determine if training improved RAs’ crisis communications skills and suicide‐related knowledge and to determine if the knowledge elements predicted crisis communications skills. New RAs showed significant improvement in all areas from pretest to posttest, whereas returning RAs showed no significant increase in any of the areas. None of the knowledge areas predicted communications skills for either group.     

Computerized and Traditional Administration of Questionnaires: Psychometric Quality and Completion Time for Measures of Self-Concept

In two independent studies of questionnaire administration, respondents completed multidimensional self-concept inventories within four randomized research conditions that mirrored the most common administration formats used in practice: paper booklets with and without answer sheets and computer questionnaires with single versus multiple items per screen. Strong differences among conditions emerged for completion time, but not for psychometric properties of scores (means, variances, reliability coefficients, concurrent validity coefficients). Answer sheets increased completion time by 24% to 34%, single-item displays by 20% to 25%, and computerization by 13% to 17%. Completion time was longer for multiple-alternative than for rating-scale items, but relative effects of answer sheets, single-item displays, and computerization remained consistent. We discuss implications for questionnaire construction and administration.     

‘They call me wonder woman’: the job jurisdictions and work‐related learning of higher level teaching assistants

This paper reports on an in‐depth interview study of the roles, job jurisdictions and associated learning of higher level teaching assistants (HLTAs). This role has the core purpose of covering classes to enable teacher release for planning, preparation and assessment. HLTAs’ individual job jurisdictions are described and discussed as are implications for their knowledge and practice. The HLTAs are found to have wide‐ranging job domains and, sometimes, unexpected involvements which mean they have to improvise practice. The study acknowledges that these HLTAs are being creatively managed and deployed by head teachers for the sake of teachers and schools. However, they are, at times, required to take on planning and cover duties which are beyond their knowledge and training with a likely impact on children’s learning. Given their training and experience it is asked if covering classes to release teachers is the most effective use of their abilities and time.     

Improvisation: An analytic tool for examining teacher–child interactions in the early childhood classroom

This article explores the use of improvisation (improv) as a lens for viewing and describing teacher–child interactions. The author describes the relationship between the principles of improv and the characteristics of responsive teaching, and how improv can be used as a lens for seeing relational activity. The author hypothesizes that improv would provide a valuable tool for understanding and describing what is happening between teachers and children. An in-depth case study was conducted of an experienced early childhood teacher in a play-based classroom. Analysis was done using both the codes derived from the teacher–child interaction literature and improv theory. Improv analysis offered a nuanced picture of what early childhood teachers are doing in practice. The findings revealed that using improv provides a lens for seeing teacher–child interactions as an ensemble activity and what the teacher is doing in terms of its usefulness to the activity. While this study focused on a single teacher in one classroom, the findings demonstrate the potential of an improv lens for developing and deepening our understanding of early childhood teaching.     

Teacher Candidates' Perspectives on the Value of a Site-Based Methods Course

Abstract

In the field of teacher education, the disconnect between university-based coursework and practical field experiences has long been a concern. To make teacher preparation coursework more meaningful, some programs partner with P-12 schools to offer site-based courses. Although situated learning for novices in practice-based professions makes sense, more research is needed to determine if, how, and why site-based courses in particular may be beneficial for teacher candidates’ (TCs) learning. In this study, we used surveys and interviews with TCs, who had taken the same site-based literacy methods course, to identify which aspects of the course they found most facilitative of connections between the course content and the field. Our findings suggest working with children in classrooms, course instructors’ involvement at the school, and opportunities to discuss and reflect upon their experiences immediately after they had been in the field were the primary features of a site-based course TCs found valuable.     

Putting Foucault to Work: Understanding Power in a Rural School

This case study uses the work of Michel Foucault to challenge the normalization of the principal's role and to examine the complex power relations of a rural school and community in the midst of a closure/consolidation and subsequent reopening as a charter school. In so doing, we move beyond analysis of best practices and toward a more theoretical approach to understanding the social interactions and subjectivities that constitute one rural school and its leadership. The analysis challenges commonsense assumptions that schools operate in neutral ways and that “best practices” exist outside of social and cultural constructs.     

F. Memoirs and Biography

ON TELEVISION by Pierre Bourdieu, translated from the 1996 French original by Priscilla Ferguson (New York: The New Press, 1998—$18.95, paper, ISBN 1–56584–407–6, 104 pp., appendix, translator's note, bibliography, notes, index)

BUYER'S GUIDE TO FIFTY YEARS OF TV ON VIDEO by Sam Frank (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1999—$22.95, paper, ISBN 1–57392–226–9, 1,498 pp., index)

THE TELEVISION STUDIES BOOK edited by Christine Geraghty and David Lusted (London: Arnold / New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998—$59.95/18.95, ISBN 0–340–66232 hard, 0–340–66231‐X paper, 337 pp., index)

WHY WE WATCH: THE ATTRACTIONS OF VIOLENT ENTERTAINMENT edited by Jeffrey H. Goldstein (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998—$49.95/17.95, ISBN 0–19–511820–0 hard, 0–19–511821–9 paper, 270 pp., illustrations, references, subject and name indexes)

BROADCASTING IN AMERICA: A SURVEY OF ELECTRONIC MEDIA by S. W. Head, C. H. Sterling, L. B. Schofield, T. Spann, and M. A. McGregor (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998 [8th ed.]—$52.00, paper, ISBN 0–395–87371–1, 337 pp., 280 photos &; graphics, bibliography, index, instructor's manual)

PRIME TIME LAW: FICTIONAL TELEVISION AS LEGAL NARRATIVE edited by Robert M. Jarvis and Paul R. Joseph (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1998—price not given, ISBN 0–89089–805–7 hard, 0–89089–808–1 paper, 323 pp., notes, index)

MASTERPIECE THEATRE AND THE POLITICS OF QUALITY by Lawrence A. Jarvik (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1999—$60.00, ISBN 0–8108–3204–6, 261 pp., notes, bibliography, index)

TELEVISION VIOLENCE: A GUIDE TO THE LITERATURE edited by P.T. Kelly (Nova Science Publishers, 6080 Jericho Turnpike, Suite 207, Commack, NY 11725—price not given, ISBN 1–56072–299–1, 193 pp., index)

UNDERSTANDING SOCIETY, CULTURE, AND TELEVISION by Paul Monaco (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998—$55.00, ISBN 0–275–96057–9, 152 pp., bibliography, index)

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TELEVISION NEWS edited by Michael D. Murray (Phoenix: Oryx Press, 1999—price not given, ISBN 1–57356–108–8, 315 pp., photos, further reading, index)

STUDENT TELEVISION IN AMERICA: CHANNELS OF CHANGE by Tony Silvia and Nancy F. Kaplan (Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1998— $29.95, paper, ISBN 0–8138–2160–6, 243 pp., illustrations, selected bibliography, appendixes, index)

LIVING COLOR: RACE AND TELEVISION IN THE UNITED STATES edited by Sasha Torres (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998—$49.95/17.95, ISBN 0–8223–2178–5 hard, 0–8223–2195–5 paper, illustrations, selected bibliography, index)     

Evaluating Continuing Resources: Perspectives and Methods from Science Librarians

Five science librarians share their experiences with the evaluation of continuing resources at an academic university and discuss implications caused by the evaluation process. Four of the authors were new to collection evaluations at the time of the Serial Evaluation Project. These new librarians faced many challenges, both personally and professionally, in dealing with the cancellation process. Although the differences in approaches to collection analysis are discussed somewhat, they are not a focus of the article.