Students’ Perspectives on LGBTQ-Inclusive Curriculum

Implementing curriculum that is inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) people has the potential to create an equitable learning environment. In order to learn more about students’ experiences of LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum, 26 high school students with diverse racial/ethnic, sexual, and gender identities were recruited from the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) Network in California. Students participated in focus groups conducted by telephone by GSA staff, sharing their experiences of LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum in school. Qualitative coding methods, including grounded theory, were used to identify themes and interpret students’ responses. Data revealed that LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum was most often taught in social sciences and humanities courses as stand-alone lessons. LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum rarely met standards of social justice education, though opportunities for critical conversations about systemic oppression regularly emerged. For instance, teachers often failed to intervene in LGBTQ bullying and missed teachable moments conducive to inclusive curriculum. Some students learned positive LGBTQ lessons and highlighted the ways such curriculum reflected their identities and created a supportive school climate. Implications for equitable education are discussed.     

Children's hypothetical reasoning about complex and dynamic systems

Children's hypothetical reasoning about a complex and dynamic causal system was investigated. Predominantly White, middle-class 5- to 7-year-old children from the Greater Toronto Area learned about novel food chains and were asked to consider the effects of removing one species on the others. In Study 1 (N = 72; 36 females, 36 males; 2018), 7-year-olds answered questions about both direct and indirect effects with a high degree of accuracy, whereas 5-year-olds performed at chance. Six-year-olds showed intermediate performance. Using food chains with clearer constraints, Study 2 (N = 72; 35 females, 37 males; 2020–2021) replicated these findings. These results indicate that the ability to think about hypothetical changes to dynamic causal systems develops between 5 and 7 years. Implications for science education are discussed.     

Examples of Good Practice when Dealing with Bullying in a Further/Higher Education College

This qualitative study, conducted via interviews, focuses on the strategies used by tutors and support staff in dealing with bullying in an FE/HE college. This area is under researched and yet studies have shown that 10 per cent of students in FE experience bullying (McDougall, 1999). It was found that bullying was being dealt with effectively using a range of approaches. The examples of good practice found in this study correspond with the more extensive work into primary and secondary schools by Byrne (1994), Tattum and Herbert (1993) and Sharp and Smith (1993). All respondents treated the issue seriously and relationships built up between tutors/support staff and the students were the crucial factor.     

Balancing Cultural Diversity and Social Cohesion in Education: The Potential of Shared Education in Divided Contexts

This article considers how the education systems of divided societies have been shaped in response to the experience of ethnic and religious conflict. The analysis identifies two competing priorities in such contexts – the development of social cohesion and the protection of cultural, ethnic and religious identities – and explores how these may be reconciled through a model of ‘shared education’. Drawing on research evidence and recent experience of shared education in Northern Ireland, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Cyprus, we reflect on the advantages and challenges of this model in areas experiencing conflict and division.     

Using iPad tablets for self‐modeling with preschoolers: Videos versus photos

As technology becomes more accessible and acceptable in the preschool setting, teachers need effective strategies of incorporating it to address challenging behaviors. A nonconcurrent delayed multiple baseline design in combination with an alternating treatment design was utilized to investigate the effects of using iPad tablets to display video self‐modeling and activity photos for three preschoolers during circle time. During baseline, all three children demonstrated low levels of engagement and high levels of off‐task behavior compared to peers. The intervention phase consisted of alternating between showing the child the self‐video and photos prior to circle time. A child preference phase was conducted whereby each child self‐selected the video or photo prior to circle time. For all three children both videos and photos led to increased engagement and decreased off‐task behaviors. During the child preference phase, all three children selected the video most frequently. Social validity data demonstrated teacher and child preference for the video self‐modeling condition.     

Children’s rights in education research: from aims to outcomes

One approach to children’s rights in research is to adopt a methodology that focuses on eliciting children’s perspectives. Ensuring representative participation from all children allows a diversity of contexts to be reflected in the results, and points to ways in which improvements can be made in specific settings. In cultural contexts where participation in decision-making is not a traditional role for children, their viewpoints are likely to provide results that highlight differences between cultural norms and children’s rights, and can offer an important focus of dialogue among stakeholders. It is proposed that children’s rights can therefore become integral to the whole process of a quantitative research project. This paper describes such an approach used in a Pacific Islands study, which investigated the quality of schooling through a probability-based sample survey of 1560 children in the first three years of formal education in 55 schools in Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and Kiribati.