The Marae-based Hui: Intensive induction to cross-cultural counselling,a New Zealand experiment

A three-day residential Hui or gathering was held for counsellor trainees in the Maori tribal village, the Marae. Its aim was to provide an induction to Maori culture and Marae protocol, to challenge trainee assumptions and their professional role image, and to integrate their group at the outset of the training course. Trainees learned protocol through personal participation, received presentations on selected topics, carried out field visits, and discussed the implications of their experience. Questionnaire responses and observations indicate a marked increase in knowledge, beginning protocol competence, attitude development, and a specification of further training goals. The rationale for this kind of intensive induction experience must be validated by comparative studies, and by its integration with subsequent training activities.     

Changes in cultural representations on Indonesian children's television from the 1980s to the 2000s

This study describes the changes over time in the portrayal of socio-cultural characteristics; namely gender, age, ethnicity, religious outlook, family unit, violence experienced, living conditions, and cultural values in Indonesian children's television programs. Using systematic-quantitative content analysis of popular locally produced Indonesian children's television programs in the 1980s and the 2000s, this study found that all socio-cultural characteristics changed over time, except for gender representation with male actors consistently outnumbering female actors. There were some predominant socio-cultural characteristics in the 1980s, the era of authoritarian broadcasting system in Indonesia: most of the major characters were children and preteens, from Western Indonesia, not showing religious symbols or practices, having more than one sibling, and the majority of the adult characters were married. In the 2000s, the era of liberal broadcasting system, major characters were children and teens, showing certain religious symbols, having no or only one sibling, and the majority of the adult characters were single. Indonesian children's television brought certain cultural values to the fore for their young audiences to identify themselves with: self-direction and benevolence.     

Effectiveness of the Clinical Supervision Strategy as a Tool for Improving Teaching Quality: Perceptions of South African School-Based Managers and Educators

Research was undertaken to find ways of resolving implementation challenges of supervision and evaluation systems by examining the perceptions of South African school-based managers and educators regarding the effectiveness of the clinical supervision strategy as a tool for improving the quality of teaching in compliance with the total quality management (TQM) principle of empowerment as related to the integrated quality management system (IQMS). The article reports on part of the findings of a formal study designed to investigate the effectiveness of the developmental supervision model as a tool for improving the quality of teaching in Gauteng, South Africa The findings from using a mixed method approach, comprising a quantitative phase in the form of questionnaires and a qualitative phase in the form of three focus group interviews, indicated that the clinical supervision strategy complied with the TQM principle of empowerment, which was perceived to have a positive influence on the quality of teaching. In contrast, the IQMS evaluation process was perceived to lack compliance with empowerment due to characteristics related to the traditional inspection approaches to professional development.     

The logic of success: the relation between complex problem-solving skills and university achievement

This article deals with the demands that plagiarism places on academic communities, and with the resources staff possess in dealing with these demands. It is suggested that plagiarism ought to be placed in the context of network of intertwining communities (scholarly, pedagogical and administrative), to which participants are engaged to a different extent. The relationship to the ethical issue of plagiarism is related to the subject’s engagement in these communities. The article examines the way teachers deal with plagiarism from the point of view of work engagement and work-related wellbeing. In particular, we analyse job demands created by episodes of dealing with plagiarism as well as job resources teachers possess that aid them in coping with these demands. We used thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews of teachers in two universities. Our results show that the demands fall on five thematic categories: 1. rupture in the personal pedagogical relationship, 2. challenge on the supervisory “gatekeeping” responsibility; 3. a breach of the “everyday normality”; 4. ambivalence in explaining plagiarism and 5. the strain of performing the act of accusation. A key job demand in dealing with plagiarism is that teachers must balance both rule-ethical and care-ethical orientations in their reactions and actions. The resources teachers draw upon when dealing with these demands are: 1) dialogue and reflection in collegial dialogue 2) support from superiors and administration 3) shared protocols, procedures and plagiarism detection software. Our analysis shows that there are various demands that make dealing with plagiarism a strenuous task, but university environments also provide teachers with resources to cope with them.     

Localizing the development of ability differences in organized memory

Although it is well know that learning disabled children tend to perform more poorly than normally achieving children on most memory tasks, the basis of this poor performance remains unclear. Recently, evidence has been accumulating which suggests that disabled children have difficulty with the basic processes of storage and retrieval. The purpose of the present research was to investigate this hypothesis using a recently developed model of memory that provides a factoring procedure for measuring storage and retrieval processes. In particular, we were interested in localizing the source of the development of ability differences in organized recall in early (grade 2) and later (grade 6) elementary school. All of the 600 children who participated had measured IQs in the 97–107 range; however, the disabled students were at least 1 year behind in either reading or arithmetic but not both. All of the children learned a 16-item list that was either unrelated or categorized using either a free or cued recall procedure. The results indicated that while ability differences were present at storage and retrieval, differences tended to be larger at retrieval than at storage, on categorized rather than on uncategorized lists, and in the cued rather than in the free recall conditions. These results illustrate that the ability to execute purposive components of retrieval develops more slowly in disabled than in nondisabled children. Consequently, it is these processes that should be the primary target in remedial memory programs.     

Negative Knowledge: Understanding Professional Learning and Expertise

In this paper, we critically analyze how the concept of negative knowledge contributes to the understanding of professionals’ expert practice and learning. Negative knowledge is experientially acquired knowledge about what is wrong and what is to be avoided during performance in a given work situation. In terms of its theoretical foundation, the concept relates to constructivist theorization and metacognition. Building on existing conceptions of negative knowledge, we systematically relate the concept to research on expertise and learning from errors. The concept of negative knowledge augments existing theories of professional knowledge by emphasizing knowing about what to avoid as part of experts’ effective actions. During routine actions, negative knowledge enhances professionals’ certainty of how to proceed and increases the efficacy through the avoidance of impasses and suboptimal problem-solving strategies. Quality and depth of reflective processes after actions are related to the development of negative knowledge. The potential of negative knowledge for the investigation of professional learning is discussed through reference to recent empirical work. Re-submitted for publication in: Vocations and Learning: Studies in Vocational and Professional Education.     

Violence in urban schools: school professionals’ categorizations and explanations of violence among students in two different demographic areas

The present study explores how officials in Swedish secondary schools define and categorize situations in which students have been exposed to violence in the school. The study is designed as a case study of two secondary schools, situated in two demographically different urban neighbourhoods. The results indicate that different socio-economic conditions influence how professionals categorize and explain violence, but also what strategies are used to deal with different incidents. In the socially disadvantaged area, there is closer collaboration with the police, and filing police reports is more common. In the school located in a middle-class area, professionals handle similar situations by collaborating with parents and using diagnoses as the main explanation for students’ problematic behaviour.     

Gender Attitudes and Modernization Processes

The article aims to explain why attitudes toward gender equalityand gender relations in society vary between individuals andcountries. The hypotheses that are tested stem from two partlyconflicting theories of modernization. Wilensky (2002) advocatesa ‘structural’ explanation for variation in genderattitudes, while Inglehart (1990, 1997) suggests a ‘values’explanation. The author conducts a three-part analysis: an individual,a national, and a multilevel analysis. The structural explanationis better able to account for individual level gender attitudes.Values do, to some extent, serve as the mechanism that producesnational level variation. Inglehart (1990, 1997) is also rightin suggesting that the effect of values on gender attitudesincreases with increasing development. Received for publication August 30, 2005. Revision received December 10, 2005.