Mental health and subjective well-being of staff in a secondary school for adolescents with severe and profound multiple learning difficulties

The main purpose of this study was to explore the mental health and subjective well-being of staff working with adolescents with severe and profound multiple learning difficulties. The participants were 19 teachers and 25 teaching assistants working in an inner London, local authority, specialist day provision. A demographic questionnaire, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, the Positive Affect Scale, and the Satisfaction with Life Scale were used as data collection tools. The inferential statistical tools used were t-tests and correlational analyses. The study brought to light a high number of borderline and abnormal anxiety scores among all staff. The study also found a significant difference in the resilience scores of teachers and teaching assistants, with teaching assistants scoring higher on the resilience scale. The results, alongside findings from previous research, call for better mental health support for teachers and staff working in the field of special educational needs and disabilities. The study highlights the emotional toll on educators, and the need for mitigation strategies that promote good mental health outcomes for both teachers and students.     

JOURNALISM AND BLOGGING

Adopting a systems framework from the sociology of occupations, this study proposes a model to explain the vulnerabilities of journalism in the face of challenges from blogging, and the conditions under which journalists are likely to change their practices to address these vulnerabilities. A test of this model shows that editors’ awareness of local blogging activity corresponds to increased use of blogs as sources, discussion of blogs in planning meetings and adoption of the blogging form on news websites.     

Writing readiness and children with Down Syndrome in an Irish context

There is a dearth of studies investigating writing readiness in children with Down Syndrome (DS) and limited information on appropriate interventions. This article reports on a study conducted in the Republic of Ireland. An uncontrolled pretest‐posttest design was implemented using writing readiness measures specifically adapted/developed from the literature to collect data on the writing readiness skills of 28 school‐aged children with DS attending mainstream schools in the Republic of Ireland. Teacher/parent perspectives were also gathered during focus groups. The children presented with complex needs in relation to posture, pencil grasp, copying basic shapes, name/letter copying. Teacher and parent reports highlighted the need for collaborative intervention with occupational therapy. Findings from the study support the need for targeted early collaborative syndrome‐specific intervention to support the development of writing readiness in children with DS as an important part of school readiness. Intervention should include adopting a broader emergent literacy approach, teacher education regarding writing readiness and parental involvement in intervention.     

纳米技术对环境和人类健康影响的文献计量学研究

检索了MEDLINE光盘数据库1991—2009年收录的纳米技术对环境和人类健康影响的文献,利用文献计量学方法对其发表时间、国家、类型、期刊种类、主题词、副主题词等的分布进行了统计分析,旨在为科研人员提供参考。     

突破公务员养老改革困境:政策分析的视角——近年公务员养老改革国际趋势对中国的借鉴

20世纪80年代开始一些国家的公务员养老改革呈现出多支柱战略下的统一覆盖格局,经验说明在公平、统一的价值理念下,公务员养老改革从属于社会保障改革问题系统。把我国公务员纳入社保并构建公务员职业年金、鼓励个人养老储蓄,这应该是实现企业和公共部门养老体系长久和谐发展的合理战略选择。为突破当前改革阻力和困境,策略上应该注意区分公务员纳入社保和构建公务员职业年金两个相对独立的政策议程,应优先推动前一个议程以抓住有利的改革实际。     

浅析会计职业道德建设

会计职业道德作为社会道德建设的一个组成部分,是完善社会道德体系的重要方面,是先进文化的重要内容,也是在新世纪全面建设小康社会,加快改革开放和现代化建设步伐,顺利实现第三步战略目标的重要前提.加强会计职业道德建设,不断提高会计人员的职业修养,具有重要的现实意义.     

A Conceptual Framework for Assessment Literacy: Opportunities for Physical Education Teacher Education

ABSTRACT

Although more nuanced understandings of assessment have been proposed in the physical education literature, assessment practices remain relatively underdeveloped, and when used, tend to focus on traditional, summative evaluations of learning. However, physical education teacher education programs can be used as an intervention to help pre-service teachers develop assessment knowledge and skill. Toward this end, the purpose of this article is to propose an evidence-based framework for helping pre-service teachers develop assessment literacy that is rooted in occupational socialization theory. The framework provides a four-phase approach to integrating assessment into teacher education, and includes suggestions for how physical education teacher educators can progressively help build pre-service teachers’ assessment knowledge in line with the focus given to instruction and planning. These suggestions acknowledge the technical and sociocultural aspects of learning to use assessment. Implications are discussed along with the need to help graduating pre-service teachers transfer lessons learned into the workplace.     

Professional identity in early childhood care and education: perspectives of pre-school and infant teachers

This paper explores perceptions of professional identity in the early childhood care and educations sector (ECCE) in the Republic of Ireland (ROI). It is concerned with the status, salary and conditions of those working with children aged four to six in pre-school and primary school settings. Using qualitative methodology, the study garnered personal perspectives and insights into professional identity. It presents new empirical evidence on the attitudes of those working in ECCE towards their professional identity and their aspirations for the future. Findings indicate that professional identity is contentious and problematic. At pre-school level, this is predominantly associated with the lack of a mandatory training requirement. There is compelling evidence that highly trained ECCE graduates are being lost to the sector. At primary school level, while teachers per se enjoy a relatively high social status, their professional identity as infant teachers is compromised within individual school settings. Teachers believe that this is related to a perception that the infant class is akin to ‘playschool’. As a result, they do not get the same respect as teachers working in classes higher up the school. These issues gives rise to fundamental questions about the value of early childhood as well as the value placed on those working with four- to six-year-old children in pre-school and primary school.     

For philosophy of education in teacher education

The time has come to re-assess the role that Philosophy has to play in the education of teachers, both at the beginning of and during their careers. The currently fashionable craft conception of teaching is inadequate as a preparation for a career in teaching. Philosophy of Education has an important role to play in preparing for a career in teaching. First, it enables teachers to acquire a grasp of the conceptual field of education and an ability to find their way around the often contested views within that field, which in turn impinge upon the normative structure of particular education systems. Second, it enables them to understand better the conceptual debates that involve the subjects that they are teaching. Third it enables teachers to understand the scope and limits of empirical research in education and the relationships between that research and conceptual issues in education. These claims are discussed with examples, and recent government statements about standards and competences in teaching are looked at through the perspective of a conceptually informed, career-oriented profession of teaching. Reasons for the past decline of philosophy of education in teacher education and how they might be avoided in the future are also reviewed.