Successful components of school improvement in culturally diverse schools

Contemporary phenomena, including modernization, globalization, and migration, have altered the sociopolitical and cultural conditions of schooling. Schools are called upon to respond to such change through improvement efforts fostering intercultural education. To this end, this research examines school actors’ perceptions of the successful components of school improvement in culturally diverse schools. For the purposes of this research, we used the Cypriot education system as our case study to carry out observations and interviews with head teachers, teachers, immigrant and native students, and their parents. In identifying the inputs for the improvement of culturally diverse schools, as perceived by school actors, various components emerged, including listening to student voice, socioemotional and culturally responsive teaching, and increased parental involvement. Arguably, these contributing factors bear implications for school-based leadership, building successful professional communities, and enhancing intercultural competence in schools.     

Students' Perceptions of Literacy Assessment

Students' perceptions of literacy assessment processes and practices were investigated in two year long case studies undertaken in two English classrooms in two state high schools in Queensland, Australia. A range of qualitative data techniques was used to collect information related to students' previous experiences of assessment in primary school, students' responses to the first and last literacy assessment task of the school year, and their perceptions of assessment at the end of the year. The study showed that students' attitudes, beliefs, practices and understandings about assessment varied both within and across student groups and differences in students' accounts were evident both at the start and end of the school year. The findings highlight the role that students play in actively constructing knowledge about literacy assessment through their prior and current experiences with assessment tasks, and in their interactions with each other.     

A methodology for the analysis of patterns of participation within computer mediated communication courses

In this study we propose a methodology for the analysis of text based interchanges on computer mediated conferences which is based on Speech Act theory and which takes the illocutionary act as its unit of analysis. This methodology is used to compare messages from two different conferences — one based on methods for fostering learner independence and one based around a guest speaker seminar — and to show the differing patterns of interaction provoked by the differing task designs.     

‘Opening up’ a science task: an exploration of shifting embodied participation of a multilingual primary student

Culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students have different home languages and cultures from many of their peers, In our context, these students suffer from higher school drop-out rates than their peers and are far behind their peers in sciences. This study investigates the interactions of a nine-year-old child whose home language is Portuguese and who learns science in this specific case in a diglossic environment in the Luxembourgish school system, in which his teacher used German for written tasks and Luxembourgish for oral communication. We examine, moment-by-moment, the interactions around a task regarding environmental protection. The role of this Lusoburguês (Luxembourgish and Portuguese identities and nationalities combined) student and his embodiment and participation changes when his group is confronted with an activity that requires an increased amount of manipulation. His identity evolves in interaction, as he becomes the leader in his group, and through a playful stance, manages to open the task so that his peers can further explore. Implications include the value of including more open-ended investigations in the teaching and learning of science as well as implications for further study concerning practice-based approaches in science classrooms with CLD students, particularly in increasingly multilingual/cultural and/or diglossic or heteroglossic school contexts.     

Singaporean Early Childhood Teachers' beliefs about Literacy Development in a Multilingual Context

It is widely recognised that teachers' pedagogical practices are influenced by many factors, including their personal experiences, their theoretical knowledge and the institutional context in which they work. Yet little is known about the beliefs held by Singaporean teachers about language and literacy development. Given the significance of early childhood for subsequent academic achievement, this study employed a survey method to explore the beliefs about literacy held by 79 teachers of 4‐ to 6‐year‐old children in prior‐to‐school settings. The findings indicate that almost all teachers viewed their primary goal as fostering children's ability to communicate and express themselves. They believed in using an eclectic approach rather than focusing on one or other ‘method’. The findings have implications for early childhood teacher education programs, professional development and implementation of Government policies in Singapore.     

Reading,metacognition and motivation: A follow-up study of German students in Grades 7 and 8

This follow-up study to van Kraayenoord and Schneider (1999) examined the performance in reading, metacognition and motivation related to reading of students in Grades 7 and 8. Results showed significant correlations between all of the variables. A multivariate analysis of variance showed that “good” and “poor” readers differed in reading self-concept and metacognitive measures related to reading and memory. A stepwise regression analysis suggested that the metacognitive variables were the best predictors of reading. Furthermore, a comparison of the results of the previous study with those of the current investigation revealed that the findings were stable over time. Since the period between the two studies is the time during which students make important decisions related to enrolment in one of three distinct school-types in Germany, we examined the results of various groups of students: those in “Gymnasium” (high educational track), “Realschule” (middle educational track), and “Hauptschule” (low educational track). Students in the Gymnasium scored significantly better than students in the other two groups on almost all variables related to reading. A re-analysis of the data from our first investigation found that the results of the Gymnasium students in the second study could be predicted from their results obtained during elementary school.     

“Martin Luther King Fixed It”: Children Making Sense of Racial Identity in a Colorblind Society

Children in the United States grow up in a context wherein colorblindness and racism coexist. This article examined how colorblindness functions as a societal “master narrative” that shapes how children construct their own racial identities. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews with 217 Black, White, and Multiracial children (M_age = 9.92) in public schools in the Pacific Northwest during 2013–2014 academic year. Our analysis identified four race narratives, which varied systematically by child age and race. Associations were also found between narrative types and children’s ratings of racial identity importance. Although colorblindness infuses many of the racial narratives, there was evidence that children also question and disrupt this master narrative with stories of resistance that counter colorblind norms.     

Adolescent Journeys: Finding Female Authority in <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Rain Catchers and The House on Mango Street</Emphasis>

This article compares the first-person narratives of two adolescent girls in the novels The Rain Catchers and The House on Mango Street. I propose that adolescent girls can use literacy to read the world around them as a text and therefore help them to form their own identities enough to ultimately find authority in telling their own stories. I use Judith Langer’s theory of envisionment-building as a primary lens through which to interpret the girls’ narrative work and further elucidate the feminist aspects involved through Belenky et al.’s famous work, Women’s Ways of Knowing.

Rats acquire a low-response-cost daily time-place task with differential amounts of food

Gallistel (1990) theorized that when animals encounter a biologically significant event, they automatically form a tripartite code consisting of the time, place, and nature of the event. Recent research examining such time-place learning (TPL) has shown that rats are reluctant to perform TPL tasks and appear to do so only under high-response-cost situations (Thorpe, Bates, & Wilkie, 2003; Widman, Gordon, & Timberlake, 2000). In the present study, we trained rats on a low-response-cost daily TPL task, in which the amount of food varied with the spatiotemporal contingencies. It was found that rats readily learned this task. We hypothesize that, rather than automatically encoding a tripartite code when faced with a biologically important event, rats instead automatically encode bipartite codes consisting of time-event and event-place information.