Why Do We Want to Change Teachers’ Beliefs and How Could We Support These Changes? The Case of Conceptions of Learning

The theoretical part of this paper argues for an embedding of the question of stability and change of teachers’ conceptions of learning into the researchers epistemological standpoint. The empirical part illustrates this statement by showing how changes in a teacher's conception of learning could be understood from a constructivist perspective. According to this perspective, conceptions are related to other relational and environmental variables that form a meaningful configuration. Thus, although conceptions of learning appear as relatively stable cognitive structures, they are also related to environmental variables to be managed by the teachers’ educators. This research result determines the discussion of the basic questions addressed in the title of this paper: why do we want to change teachers beliefs and how could we, as teachers’ educators, support these changes.     

Sur l'Acquisition des structures numériques en fin de 3ème

Sans résuméRésultats d'une enquête effectuée en mai-juin 1973 par une équipe de l'IREM de Strasbourg dans les classes de 3ème du Bas-Rhin.L'équipe comprenait quatre membres de l'IREM:Mathématiciens:—Mademoiselle Anne Scherpereel—Monsieur François PluvinagePsychologues:—Mademoiselle Catherine Bloch—Monsieur Raymond Duval.     

Cinema Demand in Spain: A Cointegration Analysis

In this paper we explain the decline in cinema attendance in Spain since 1968. We use a cointegration analysis to estimate an individual demand function for cinema, with annual data and in terms of average attendance per inhabitant. We find that cinema is a luxury good and that its demand is elastic with respect to its price. We also show that television acts as a deterrent with regard to cinema attendance. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Writing instruction for social justice: an investigation into the components of a teacher preparation course

Future teachers must notice, navigate, and address ideologies in order to counter inequities in the literacy classroom. This article presents the findings of two teacher educators who have taken up the call to critically reflect on their own underlying beliefs and discourses regarding writing instruction. Through an education design framework, they analysed important components of the course, arguing for a higher degree of visibility of the ideologies and social forces that impact writing instruction. They found that despite encouraging a fairly complex and all-encompassing view of learning to write to the future teachers in their course, the creativity discourse was present passively and the socio-political was downright absent, despite clear social justice aims in the course. They discuss how well-established discourses can serve as gateways to embed the socio-political into the course and address more granularly the question of exclusion through selected mentor texts.     

Motivational Profile and Academic Achievement Among Students Enrolled in Different Schooling Tracks

From the contextual perspective, researchers argue that the relevance and weight of motivational variables of students' functioning vary depending on different dimensions related to individual, cultural or situational characteristics. The first objective of this study examined this contention by comparing self-perceptions of competence, learning goals and judgments of usefulness of school subjects as motivational determinants of high school students' commitment and achievement according to their assignment to their learning abilities. The second objective was to compare how these variables related to academic commitment and achievement according to the type of student and two school subjects. Two-hundred-and-twenty-six high school students from a same school participated sixty-one were learning disabled students, 60 were high achievers and 105 were average students. Findings suggest that the relevance of the motivational variables did not vary much across either the type of student or the school subjects. They also support Bandura's view about the primary role of self-perceptions of competence in students' academic commitment and achievement.     

Developmental Achievements of 7‐year‐old Children in Poland in the Light of International Tests and the Requirements of the Polish Language School Program

The language competence and reading comprehension of 406 7‐year‐old children are examined in the research discussed in this article. The children were tested using comparative tests as part of an international project conducted in 14 countries and sponsored by the IEA and the High Scope Research Foundation in Ypsilanti, USA. The discussion here relates only to a part of this wider research and focuses upon the aims and contents of Polish language teaching in grades I—III of the Polish primary school.