Personalized learning through 1:1 technology initiatives: implications for teachers and teaching in neoliberal times

Situated within the broader context of neoliberalism, this article explores how personalized learning, as tied to 1:1 technology initiatives, prompts changes in teachers’ classrooms and practices. The article draws upon a case study of one novice teacher as a way to view how personalized learning is undergirded by tenets of neoliberalism that ultimately change the relationship between teachers, students, and knowledge. While this article does not dispute the positive effects that personalized learning through technology has offered to many students, it explores facets of how such a change has reoriented the role of the teacher and repositioned knowledge as it relates to classrooms and students.     

Structural and strategic approach to school phobia/school refusal

Different theoretical approaches to school phobia/school refusal are reviewed briefly. A structural and strategic approach is presented in which school phobia and school refusal are viewed as two ends of a continuum of progression from “involuntary” symptoms on one end to “willful” refusal on the other. In later stages of school phobia/school refusal, the symptom becomes no longer a fear response, but takes on a protective function for the entire family. A treatment case is reported to demonstrate the strategies of reestablishing the proper parent-child hierarchy, strengthening the sibling subsystem within the family and increasing the involvement of peripheral family members, and establishing positive links with the school system, as well as the principles of effective case management. A vigorous and intensive treatment of school phobia/school refusal is advocated.