Orienting Schools Toward Equity: Subgroup Accountability Pressure and School-Level Responses

Abstract

This article examines school-level responses to subgroup accountability pressure through an ethnographic case study of a school cited for failing to make adequate yearly progress for student subgroups. Concerns about the calculations and measures used to derive the citation and reservations about acting on accountability data delegitimized the citation and rendered the identified subgroups irrelevant to daily practice. Under district guidance, compliance with subgroup accountability was independent of the school's internal efforts to promote equity.     

Enhancing the practice of social work

This account of practice focuses on my learning and development as a new Action Learning Facilitator. It reflects on my thoughts and feelings as I began to facilitate my own sets a year or so ago. It will discuss and reflect on topics such as communication, feedback, expectations (both mine, the set members and the organisations), values, ethics, power and confidentiality. It opens with a personal reflection on my experience of becoming a set facilitator and then explores other aspects of my learning. It draws out, in particular, the links between Action Learning and social work and the ways in which the principles that underpin each of these are complementary and mutually enhancing.     

Building student belonging and engagement: insights into higher education students’ experiences of participating and learning together

Student belonging and engagement has received increased attention in the context of an expanding and more diverse higher education student population. Student retention is regarded as a priority with many universities augmenting their retention strategies to instil a sense of belonging. This article provides insights into first year Business Management students’ experiences of starting their degrees and retention interventions at a university in the South of England. It is based on findings from an ongoing study that applied Wenger's social theory of learning and adopted an appreciative inquiry approach to focus group interviewing to investigate students’ perceptions. Students developed a sense of belonging, constructed learner identities, made sense of their learning and gained confidence, but also experienced instances of tension and frustration that raise questions about the extent to which sociality practices within evolving communities of practice can address diverse engagement and identity development needs and mitigate disengagement.     

A tale of 804.573 horses: Arithmetic teaching in Victoria 1860–1914

Between 1860 and 1902, the arithmetic curriculum in government elementary schools in Victoria, Australia changed little. It was based on British models and valued highly computational skills, speed and accuracy. Teaching practice was dominated by the payment by results examination, and was mechanical, rules-based and often ineffective. By the end of the nineteenth century, dissatisfaction with both the principles and practice of this instrumental form of education was widespread; and the ideas of the New Education were incorporated into the courses of 1902 and 1911. However, teaching practice lagged behind the new aims, and continued to be largely mechanical, rules-based and abstract. The inspectors continued to demand the computational skills of the old courses, and the education and training of teachers did not keep pace with the new demands.     

Teaching Against the Grain as an Act of Love: Disrupting White Eurocentric Masculinist Frameworks Within Teacher Education

What is radical love in teaching? How can radical love incite change and transformation within teacher education? What does radical love entail to prepare critically minded teachers for urban schools? In this conceptual paper, we respond to these questions through our individual and collective experiences as social justice oriented teacher educators preparing students to teach in urban schools. We engage with our womanist ways of knowing (Walker in In search of our mothers’ gardens: womanist prose, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, 2004) and “theory in flesh” (Moraga and Anzaldúa in This bridge called my back: writings by radical women of color, 2nd edn, Kitchen Table/Women of Color Press, New York, 1983) to collaboratively reflect and analyze our conversations, reflective journaling, meetings, and other telling moments about what it means to practice radical love in teaching. More specifically, we identify three central concepts of what love as an act of resistance or teaching against the grain entails: (1) vulnerability, (2) collective support and healing, and (3) critique. Through these concepts we offer a framework from which to practice radical love in teaching and work in solidarity with others to transform oppressive systems in urban (teacher) education.     

The information requirements and information-seeking behaviours of health and social care professionals providing care to children with health care needs: a pilot study

OBJECTIVES: The objectives of this work were to identify the sources of information currently received, information-seeking behaviours, information requirements and preferences for future information provision amongst health and social care professionals providing care to children with health care needs. METHODS: Data were collected using a cross-sectional postal questionnaire survey. RESULTS: A wide range of information resources was reported as being available to professionals. However, a large proportion of respondents found it necessary to perform additional searches for information, suggesting that current resources were not satisfying their needs. The majority of professionals reported a preference for electronic formats, whilst a smaller proportion preferred hard copy materials. Participants promoted the use of informal networks as a means of support and exchange of information. CONCLUSION: Supplementing the information that is provided in electronic and hard copy formats, by enhancing informal networks, may be the most effective way of meeting the information needs of this group of professionals.