The local curriculum in Mozambique: the Santa Rita Community School in Xinavane

In 1983, Mozambique started reviewing the education system that it had inherited from the Portuguese colonial administration. One of the innovations introduced into basic education is the time allocated to the local curriculum (LC) within the national curriculum (NC). The LC enables the communities, including the poorest and those furthest removed from the school environment, to identify themselves with the importance of schooling and allow children to find meaning in what they learn with respect to their life in their community. The good practice described below has been introduced in a community school, where it has successfully brought together the LC and NC to become an individual and collective asset for the community in which it has been implemented. It is a successful example worth studying in detail.

A social realist perspective on student learning in higher education: the morphogenesis of agency

Contemporary critiques of student learning research call for new theoretical and methodological approaches. This article proposes a social realist approach to this research, using the morphogenetic theory of sociologist Margaret Archer. The applicability of this approach is demonstrated by reference to an empirical study of engineering students at a South African university, using narrative analysis. In the article itself, two narratives are given in some detail, illustrating the key outlines of the analysis. Students’ emerging personal identities are shown to be highly dependent on their social backgrounds, yet when in the university the possibilities for the morphogenesis of student agency are very constrained. A critical interrogation of these findings proposes that a true higher education should facilitate the development of an enlarged sense of agency for students.     

African American Othermothering in the Urban Elementary School

Othermothering and community othermothering can be defined as African American women's maternal assistance offered to the children of blood mothers within the African American community. Originally traced to slavery, othermothering was a survival mechanism that served as a vehicle for educational and cultural transmission. Currently, an othermothering tradition exists within the urban elementary-school context, and African American female educators play an integral role in fulfilling the pyschoeducational needs of the urban child. By employing a qualitative methodology, this article presents two biographical portraits that examine othermothering by a young elementary-school principal and community othermothering by a fifth-grade elementary-school teacher with 25 years of experience in the urban classroom.     

Avoiding versus seeking: the relationship of information seeking to avoidance, blunting, coping, dissonance, and related concepts.

QUESTION: How have theorists and empirical researchers treated the human tendency to avoid discomforting information? DATA SOURCES: A historical review (1890-2004) of theory literature in communication and information studies, coupled with searches of recent studies on uptake of genetic testing and on coping strategies of cancer patients, was performed. STUDY SELECTION: The authors' review of the recent literature included searches of the MEDLINE, PsychInfo, and CINAHL databases between 1992 and summer of 2004 and selective, manual searches of earlier literature. Search strategies included the following subject headings and key words: MeSH headings: Genetic Screening/psychology, Decision Making, Neoplasms/diagnosis/genetics/psychology; CINAHL headings: Genetic Screening, Genetic Counseling, Anxiety, Decision Making, Decision Making/Patient; additional key words: avoidance, worry, monitoring, blunting, cancer. The "Related Articles" function in MEDLINE was used to perform additional "citation pearl" searching. MAIN RESULTS: The assumption that individuals actively seek information underlies much of psychological theory and communication practice, as well as most models of the information-seeking process. However, much research has also noted that sometimes people avoid information, if paying attention to it will cause mental discomfort or dissonance. Cancer information in general and genetic screening for cancer in particular are discussed as examples to illustrate this pattern. CONCLUSION: That some patients avoid knowledge of imminent disease makes avoidance behavior an important area for social and psychological research, particularly with regard to genetic testing.     

Student-centredness: the link between transforming students and transforming ourselves

It is widely accepted in the higher education literature that a student-centred approach is pedagogically superior to a teacher-centred approach. In this paper, we explore the notion of student-centredness as a threshold concept and the implications this might have for academic staff development. We argue that the term student-centred in the Rogerian sense implies a focus on the person of the student and is deeply resonant with Barnett's assertion that the emergent being of the student is as important as the development of skills and knowledge. To facilitate transformative learning in higher education an academic must know how to value the person of the student in the learning process. Academic staff development initiatives need to work with the person of the academic and take into account the level of personal development required for each academic to be able to facilitate this kind of learning.     

Going Deeper than Deep and Surface Approaches: A study of students' perceptions of time

This paper supports Paul Ramsden's call to look beyond students' approaches to learning towards their perceptions of the educational context. However, we argue that Rams den's suggestions for an analysis of student perceptions are somewhat limited, and present an method which is more qualitatively and linguistically grounded. In the present study, this method was used to analyse students' perceptions of time in a second year chemical engineering course. Regardless of approach to learning, all students displayed two distinct ways of talking about time, one reflecting a perception of 'being in control' and the other a perception of 'being out of control' of time. Where students using a conceptual approach differed to the others was in the way they used perceptions of 'being in control', specifically in the way they chose to allocate time. For those not using a conceptual approach, the highly time-pressured environment seemed to militate against the adoption of a conceptual approach.     

Culture and country choice of international students: evidence from Ghana

ABSTRACT

This study seeks to examine the influence of the cultural elements on international students’ country choice. It also examines whether individual values moderate the influence of cultural elements on the country choice of international students. Drawing upon a sample size of 223, the data was analysed using structural equation modelling technique. Among the five cultural elements, education, language and social institutions were found to have a positive significant influence on the international student’s country choice. When moderated by individual values education was found to be the only key significant value to international students when selecting a country to further their education. The cultural elements should be given much attention by marketers, government and managers of academic institutions. An improvement in the standards of education in developing countries would attract more students from developed countries.     

学生着眼于全球问题的解决

[1]虽然还不到开车的年龄,迈克尔·吉普森已经在心中梦想着自己的汽车。但斯托高级中学的学生并不是在思考一辆保时捷汽车或宝马汽车是否能够更好地在佛蒙特州那使人愉悦弯曲迂回的道路以不宜说出口的速度行驶。不,他漂亮的车轮设计只有一个目的:帮助减轻全球气候变化问题。[2]公平地说,迈克尔有些额外动机。他与三位合伙人一起——一位来自美国,另外两个来自中国——已经进入了全球挑战竞赛,这是本地创立的一个提高美国学生数学和科学能力的竞赛活动。[3]在过去一学年的课程中,这个小组提出了一份长达30页的商业报告,设计了一辆在每个轮子…