Gender and Sex Education: A study of adolescent responses

This is a study of sex education programmes and focuses on the reactions adolescents had to the sex education they were offered. The findings suggest that girls and boys respond differently to the sex education schemes, and that boys react more negatively than girls. The conclusion is that there is a need for new strategies, both to reach the boys effectively and to protect space for the girls' interests. We argue for the provision of some single-sex work in the sex education area of the curriculum, especially in the early years of secondary school.     

Teacher Identity in an Era of Educational Reform: The case of Trinidad and Tobago

The pace of educational reform has been increasing significantly at the global level and teachers have significant roles to play in such reform movements. This paper compares the beginning teacher identity of primary teacher trainees in Trinidad and Tobago with the concept of the teacher that seems to underpin present reform initiatives. Beginning teacher identity, explored through the use of a questionnaire and interviews, is portrayed as images and metaphors. It seems to encapsulate the missionary ideology of teaching and the notion of child-centred pedagogy, with the classroom as the centre of interaction between pupil and teacher. The reforms, on the other hand, look to teachers to support, as well, the decentralisation effort that calls for collaboration with the community, and the promotion of continuous assessment practices that calls for collaboration across grade levels in the school. Both the community focus and the school focus are likely to pose problems for beginning teachers who maintain a classroom focus. The paper highlights the need for reform efforts to take into account the gaps between existing teacher identity images and those envisioned for the reformed system.     

From Technologization to Totalization in Education Research: US Graduate Training, Methodology, and Critique

Focusing on the context of graduate training in educational research in the United States today, this article is organized into two principal parts. The first overviews the state of research training in order to emphasize the preoccupation with, indeed dominance of, study of methodology. This has turned 'how to do research' into valuing method as technology for its own sake, and thus into technologization. The second part turns to three critiques of technology that together point to potential totalization in research: technologization that limits research processes and potential results. The writings of Martin Heidegger and Jacques Ellul provide a broad frame; the three specific critiques are found in contributions from Henry Adams, Aldous Huxley, and Donna Haraway. The conclusion calls for a questioning of the current form of graduate training and by implication its hold on current research practice.     

A Survey of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Counseling Training Needs

A total of 580 vocational rehabilitation counseling professionals from Rehabilitation Services Administration Region III responded to a 40-item, forced-choice questionnaire regarding perceived needs for training in the area of psychiatric rehabilitation. Although it was identified as least available, opportunity for continuing education was rated as the optimal vehicle for training rather than formal academic course work or agency in-service programs. Translating psychiatric diagnoses into functional behavioral terminology was ranked foremost as a specific training need; training in career counseling and realistic goal planning and job-seeking skills and job placement needs of the psychiatrically disabled client ranked second and third.