‘Teaching Is Still a Good Job for a Woman’: the influence of gender on career and life choices

This article reports on an investigation of primary and early‐childhood teacher‐education students’ understandings and beliefs about the influence of gender on their careers and life choices. The research was undertaken by a collaborative team from three Victorian universities. We took as our premiss that if teacher‐education students are to be effective in promoting gender inclusiveness throughout the schooling culture, they must first reflect on the operation of the sex/gender system in their own lives. A range of viewpoints are included about the gendered understandings commonly held by the tertiary students surveyed. The resulting insights enabled us to suggest more effective strategies for fostering gender awareness in teacher education.     

'Learning to Cooperate': A study of how primary teachers and children construct classroom cultures

This paper reports on the findings of a study, the 'Constructing Classroom Cultures' project, funded by a small Australian Research Council grant at the University of Melbourne. Located in three primary school classrooms in Melbourne, Victoria, this study investigated how teachers and grade 3-4 students develop shared values and understandings concerning formal and informal codes of behaviour. Drawing on classroom observations, individual interviews with teachers and focus group interviews with children, this paper discusses the ways that teachers and children together build classroom cultures. Practices that work to produce supportive classroom environments as well as problem areas are identified. Examining classroom cultures at the micro-political level offers scope for considering how power relations can contribute positively to educational processes. Additionally, the ways in which informal interactions between teacher and students and among students call into play collaboration, compliance and resistance are opened up for examination. These case studies aim to contribute to understanding how productive classroom cultures are constructed in day-to-day interactions, a significant area of concern for teachers and teacher education students.     

Self-Predictions of Emotional Response Patterns: Age, Sex, and Situational Determinants

A total of 407 males and females in 4 different age groups (M age = 8.0, 10.8, 15.2, and 20.3 years) completed questionnaires requiring self-ratings of 5 emotions (angry, happy, sad, fearful, and loving), on a 5-point scale, for 10 affect-laden sentences. Each of the 5 emotions was targeted as a key emotion by 2 sentences. The resulting patterns indicate that children as young as 8 can discriminate between affect-eliciting statements, differentially rate up to 5 concurrent emotional responses, and predict response patterns similar to those predicted by adults. Furthermore, sex differences occur during adolescence whereby males predict more varied but less intense secondary emotions, whereas females predict fewer but more intense secondary emotions.     

Mindful hands,gestures as language: listening to children

This paper explores ideas of language as a cognitive tool and the role of gesture in expressing children's interests and levels of knowledge. The context is a group of three‐year‐old children who participate in a weekly music session with a trained musician. The authors present drawings from photographs of children's hands and interpret them, using contextual information, to explain how the positioning of the children's hands reflects their internalized understandings and can be viewed as a rich symbolic language. A discussion of the early childhood curriculum and the use of finger plays has been included to suggest that gesture was initially viewed as part of ‘the whole child’ but, today, activities like finger plays have become ritualized exercises. It is suggested that if adults do not listen to the language of hands they are depriving themselves of a valuable window into children's thinking and learning.     

High-Active Children and Achievement Tests: A two-year follow-up

A two-year follow-up of 52 elementary school children indicated that in fourth grade, as in second grade, language ability, as measured by the WISC-R Vocabulary subtest, was more strongly related to Achievement Test scores among high-actives than among nonhigh-actives. High-active children of low-to-average language ability had significantly lower achievement test scores than nonhigh-actives, with significant decrement in scores in Reading subtest over the two-year period. On the other hand, high-actives of high language ability had scores only slightly lower than nonhigh-actives, with differences that did not reach significance. Discussion centers on implications for further research and for educational interventions for hyperactive children.     

Gaining ISO 9001: the experience of Oxford Journals

Whilst experience of ISO 9001 is relatively commonplace in the printing industry, few publishers have implemented the standard to any significant degree. This case study explains why and how Oxford Journals went about obtaining ISO 9001:2008 certification. The overall objective of gaining this certification was to create a standardized framework for the processes by which high‐quality products were created and service given, to the satisfaction of all customers. Oxford Journals wanted to demonstrate to societies, editors, authors, and subscribers that there was a robust methodology in place for the management of quality in relation to its operational processes. This case study documents what Oxford Journals had to do in order to gain this certification, the timescales involved, how the project was initiated, the preparations for the external audit, and how the ongoing maintenance of the certification is now handled. It also considers some lessons that were learned during the certification process.