Collaboration of Child Protective Services and Early Childhood Educators: Enhancing the Well-Being of Children in Need

This paper examines the role of interprofessional collaboration in the identification and reporting of a child in need. Such collaboration is especially important in the context of the global pandemic caused by the novel Coronavirus disease of 2019, known as COVID-19. The child protection system must have the capacity and resources to respond to increased demands during this time, and early childhood educators serve as an essential link for child protective services in identifying and reporting a child in need. As an effective system to accomplish these two aims requires a working collaboration among its participants, Bronstein’s interdisciplinary collaboration model was used as a framework to interpret this practice. A small-scale qualitative study was conducted that included principals of nursery schools and child protection workers from one region in Estonia. Findings indicate that effective collaboration was believed to require communication and ongoing systematic relationship building. Collaboration in practice varied, as principals reported a high turnover rate for the child protection workers, which hindered the development of a working relationship and support for the process of noticing and thereby identifying a child in need. In contrast, child protection workers assessed collaboration more positively, recognizing the need to have a supportive system in place for nursery schools. Both groups of collaborators acknowledged the need to train teachers, particularly to conduct joint training exercises to foster a common understanding of the child in need and of the intervention process itself.

     

Creative Thinking in the Classroom

The article discusses how current changes in the system of reasoning about education in Finland, Iceland and Sweden are characterised by culturally woven patterns where marketisation strategies, for instance budget reform, are introduced as technically effective devices both for educating the best and to increase inclusion. This system of reason presupposes that the neo-liberalist restructuring changes are inevitable global phenomena and that they are a progress compared with the old arrangements, but is silent about socio-economic issues and the equity goals of the 1960s-1980s. The article also argues that school-based self-evaluation as a practice and as a language is a normalising technique that ensures that school actors will identify the obstacles encountered in the restructuring transition so that neither state nor other authorities intervene.     

ENHETLIGHET OCH DIFFERENTIERING I SKOLELEVERS KAMRATVÄRDERINGER

Søvik, N. 1977. Individual Instruction in Norwegian (The PODIN Project). Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 21, 197‐232. As the principle of integration instead of segregation has become dominant in the planning and organization of the Norwegian school (1st to 9th grade), different kinds of individualized instruction have been recommended to the teachers to use. The main problem behind the project reported here was to investigate whether, and to what extent, an experimental program of individualized instruction within an ordinary school class would improve students’ performance in oral and written Norwegian compared with traditional instruction. It was carried out in three parallel studies with first‐graders and a new series of three experiments with second‐graders.     

Modern Educational Sagas: Legitimation of ideas and practices in Icelandic education

The article tells the story of changes in governance discourse and practices in Icelandic primary and secondary education in the late 1990s. Budget reform, curriculum changes and school-based self-evaluation aimed at a greater financial and pedagogical accountability of school professionals, especially principals, has changed the roles of principals and teachers. A clinical approach to diagnosing special educational needs views inclusion as a technical matter rather than as a social goal and enhances the emphases on the individual and her or his needs, proposed in the curriculum discourse. These kinds of reform have entered the educational discourse in Iceland, looking as if they were inevitable steps towards progress in the new millennium. They are modern educational sagas about Iceland and its place and role in global competition.     

Education Governance in Transition: An introduction

The purpose of this article is to present concepts and research problems dealing with education governance and social inclusion and exclusion. Education restructuring, as a recent international movement, is regarded as a combination of transitions in governing and new managerialism. Social inclusion and exclusion is conceived of as a duplet concept, mutually defining each other. The relation between new governance - deregulation, decentralisation, privatisation and steering by goals and results - and social inclusion/exclusion is conceptualised as an equity problematic and a knowledge problematic. It is argued that there is a need to understand the system of reason in order to capture the implications of education governing in transition.     

Engineering Courses Taught in English: An Experience from Denmark

The article gives a brief review of the internationalization of Danish higher education and engineering education in particular. It addresses the questions of why it is important to develop courses in English with regard to the process of internationalization, impact on the curricula and impact on students. Finally, it shows the necessity for higher education institutes in minor language areas to develop courses in English, and new keywords in the internationalization process are discussed.     

Bilingual-bicultural education of immigrant children in Sweden

Current research emphasizes the importance of the mother tongue in second language teaching. This paper describes a longitudinal project which studies 4 groups of Finnish children in Malmö, Sweden, who are receiving a bilingual education starting from the pre-school.

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Zusammenfassung Die zeitgenössische Forschung betont die Rolle der Muttersprache beim Zweitsprachenerwerb. Dieser Artikel beschreibt eine Längsschnittstudie an vier Gruppen von finnischen Kindern in Malmö, Schweden, die eine zweisprachige Erziehung von der Vorschule an erhalten.

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Résumé Les recherches courantes soulignent l'importance de la langue maternelle dans l'enseignement de la langue seconde. Cet article décrit un projet longitudinal examinant quatre groupes d'enfants finlandais recevant à Malmö, Suède, un einseignement bilingue qui commence dans l'école maternelle.

     

The northern light: from mystery to modern space science

As the name implies, the northern light is visible only at high latitudes, and it is therefore not surprising that Scandinavian scientists have been prominent in research on its origin and nature. This article reviews the history of its observation and the development of an understanding of its true origin.     

Librarians' Views of Academic Library Support for Scholarly Publishing: An Every-day Perspective

This article reports on a study of academic librarians' views of their work and possibilities regarding support for researchers' publishing. Institutional repositories and Open Access are areas being dealt with in particular. Methods used are highly qualitative; data was gathered at two Swedish university libraries over a six month period through focus group interview sessions and personal logs by informants. Findings indicate that attitudes are often in collision with practicalities in the daily work in libraries. Even though they have a high degree of knowledge and awareness of scholarly publication patterns, librarians often feel insecure in the approach of researchers. There is a felt redirection in the focus of academic librarianship, from pedagogical information seeking tasks towards a more active publication support, a change which also includes a regained prominence for new forms of bibliographical work. Although there are some challenges, proactive attitudes among librarians are felt as being important in developing further support for researchers' publishing.