Education for children with severe and profound general learning disabilities in Ireland: factors influencing teachers’ decisions about teaching these pupils

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceived high turnover of teachers working with pupils with severe and profound general learning disabilities in Ireland. Questionnaires and interviews were used to explore the situations in which teachers worked and their reasons for leaving or staying in teaching this group of pupils. The study found that while teachers were positive about working with this group, their working conditions and the level of support that they received were crucial factors in determining whether they remained in post. These factors and the implications for practice are discussed.     

Researching school choice in regional Australia: what can this tell us about the ethnographic imaginary?

This is an exploration of methodological debates related to ethnographic research. Reflection on conducting research on school choice in an Australian regional centre is the beginning point for a discussion of what Appadurai describes as a dialectical relationship between the neighbourhood and its capacity to exist and reshape itself in relation to outside forces. The place of the researcher is considered in relation to a regional context and the possibility that within such a context, the urban researcher could be a ‘stranger’. The notion of the ‘strange’ researcher is used to explore belonging and through it, geographic imaginaries of regionality. The case is made that the production of locality in this region contributed to a researcher ‘lock out’ because local knowledge about school choice was being unsettled. The paper takes up the question of how research in a region can contribute to understandings of ethnographic research as unbounded.     

Genome‐Wide Association Study of Latent Cognitive Measures in Adolescence: Genetic Overlap With Intelligence and Education

Individual differences in executive functions (EF) are heritable and predictive of academic attainment (AA). However, little is known about genetic contributions to EFs or their genetic relationship with AA and intelligence. We conducted genome‐wide association analyses for processing speed (PS) and the latent EF measures of working memory (WM) and inhibitory control (IC) in 4,611 adolescents from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. While no loci reached genome‐wide significance, common genetic variants explained 30% of the variance in WM and 19% in PS. In contrast, we failed to find common genetic contributions to IC. Finally, we examined shared genetic effects between EFs and general intelligence, AA and ADHD. We identified significant genetic correlations between WM, intelligence, and AA. A more specific pattern was observed for PS, with modest genetic overlap with intelligence. Together these findings highlight diversity in the genetic contributions to specific cognitive functions and their genetic relationship with educational and psychiatric outcomes.     

Single‐sex schooling: is it simply a ‘class act’?

The current debate about boys education risks taking us back decades in terms of understanding the significance of gender in relation to education. Of particular concern here is the tendency within such debates to rely on dichotomous understandings of gender which reinscribe essentialist understandings of both ‘girls’ and ‘boys’. In this way, the so‐called gender wars construct a climate whereby difference between the categories obfuscates difference within each. Here this issue is explored most specifically in relation to access to higher education and the possible impact of single‐sex schooling. Current debates surrounding boys' experience of schooling have refreshed interest in the possible benefits of single‐sex education, particularly for boys. Schools are establishing single‐sex classes for boys and in some cases parallel education (the provision of single‐sex facilities for girls and boys at the same campus) is being promoted as a way forward. In this paper we examine data from Australia's largest and most diverse university in order to explore the relationship between single‐sex schooling and access to higher education in ways which account for difference based primarily on school sector and socio‐economic status. In these terms, if single‐sex schooling is beneficial for boys we need to consider which boys are benefiting and at whose expense.     

Introduction: education,war and peace

Abstract

This editorial introduction to the special issue on education, war and peace proposes that the dynamics between education, war and peace have been insufficiently researched in the history of education but have become a focus of increasing attention. Education for war, education for peace, the impact of war on education, and representations of war and peace are particular aspects of this general theme that are developed in detail in the collection as a whole.     

Changing literacies—people,place and objects: a review essay

In this review essay, I refer to two recently published scholarly works that explore the notions of transcultural, mobile and placed literacies: in Languages and literacies as mobile and placed resources edited by Sue Nichols and Collette Snowden, and Literacy lives in transcultural times edited by Rahat Zaidi and Jennifer Rowsell. Much research in the field of literacy education has recently acknowledged how literacies are continually changing due to globalisation and transmobility. People move, places change, and objects shift in and through these spaces. Researchers and educators are, therefore, grappling with how best to address these diversities and engage learners in such environments. Through a review of the books mentioned above, two key questions are explored: what are the appropriate pedagogies for literacy education? Where and how is literacy education research leading us into the future? This review takes a socio-cultural perspective of literacy by presenting the contemporary research that attempts to answer these questions.     

Supporting students with Tourette syndrome in secondary school: a survey of staff views

Tourette syndrome is a neurological condition involving involuntary movements and sounds (tics) and is thought to affect as many as 1% of school‐aged children. Some young people with Tourette syndrome experience educational difficulties and social difficulties. Current clinical guidelines suggest educators can play an important role in maximising learning potential and reducing the negative impact of this condition on students' social adjustment. Secondary school staff (N = 63) with responsibilities for special educational needs or disabilities completed a survey about support strategies for students with Tourette syndrome. Participants were first asked to suggest potentially helpful strategies and then rated how easily 17 recommended strategies could be implemented in school. The survey participants suggested a range of support strategies that were categorised as (1) promoting knowledge and understanding in school, (2) helping the student to cope with his/her tics, (3) supporting the student's learning and (4) providing social and emotional support. All the recommended support strategies were rated as being easy to implement (or already in place) by the majority of respondents (e.g., increasing staff awareness and regular communication with home). The strategies that were identified as being least easy to implement were those requiring extra staff input (support from teaching assistants and individual/small group working). Additional challenges to providing support were also identified by the participants (e.g., getting input from outside agencies).