Profile of abused and neglected American Indian children in the Southwest

From both knowledge gained working in Indian communities and a major data collection program, this article examines child abuse and neglect among the Indian tribes in a southwestern state. The period of study covers 1982 through 1985. The study sample consists of 53 children targeted by the local Indian Health Service Hospital Child Protection Team as being abused and/or neglected. In addition, information on the parents, grandparents and, in a number of cases, great-grandparents are examined. The study is a secondary data analysis of clinic and hospital records and interviews with local community health care providers and tribal officials. The results indicate that alcohol abuse was present in 85% of the neglect cases and in 63% of the abuse cases. In addition, child abuse and neglect occurred simultaneously in 65% of the sample. Child abuse and neglect are found to be part of a larger phenomenon of multiproblem families which raises the issue of intergenerational perpetuation of these problems. The results underscore the importance of interagency cooperation in surveillance, treatment, and prevention, as well as more careful and thorough documentation of record maintenance.     

Worldwide deliberation and public use of reason online

The aim of this paper is threefold: (i) to trace the idea of deliberation back in the history of philosophy and establish the link to the Kantian concept of public reason; (ii) to pave the way for rhetoric as a constituent part of public deliberation; (iii) to undertake an applied ethical approach to worldwide deliberation online. The two former aims are treated in part one of the paper, whereas the applied analysis is undertaken in part two. One important task is to demonstrate in what ways the internet as a new and powerful venue for deliberation both challenges the old theories of public deliberation, and also points in the direction of certain revisions of our basic ideas about deliberation.     

浪费还是节约

父亲:噢,杰克,你又睡了一上午。难道你不知道这是在浪费时间吗?杰克:我知道,爸爸。可我还给您节省了一顿饭呢,是不是?Father:Oh,Jack,you have slept away the whole morning.     

Teachers’ professional development: a theoretical review

Background and purpose:?The article reviews studies that focus on the professional development of teachers after they have completed their basic teacher training. Teacher professional development is defined as teachers’ learning: how they learn to learn and how they apply their knowledge in practice to support pupils’ learning. The research question addressed in the article is: How do experienced teachers learn?

Main argument:?The review is framed by theories within the constructivist paradigm. From this perspective, knowledge is perceived as the construction of meaning and understanding within social interaction. The social surroundings are seen as decisive for how the individual learns and develops. It is argued that courses and lectures, or ‘times for telling’, and teachers’ development of a metacognitive attitude are decisive factors for teachers’ learning within a constructivist frame of reference.

Sources of evidence and method:?To attempt to answer the research question, a search was conducted of the subject of pedagogy in the ISI WEB of Science (search undertaken 9 August 2011) using the search strings ‘teacher learning’, ‘teacher development’ and ‘teacher professional development’, and covering the period from 2009 to 2011 to probe the most recent decade of research. Articles that dealt with basic education, primary and secondary school, were selected, and articles that dealt with learning using digital tools and the internet and newly trained teachers were rejected. A set of 31 articles was selected from this search. To ensure width and depth of coverage, this was supplemented by a selection of review studies and research on further education in respect of teachers’ learning. The texts were analysed by means of open and axial coding, developing main and sub-categories.

Conclusions:?The review of articles shows that both individual and organisational factors impact teachers’ learning. Teacher co-operation has importance for how they develop, and some of the teachers can lead such learning activities themselves. Moreover, a positive school culture with a good atmosphere and understanding of teachers’ learning, in addition to co-operation with external resource persons, may impact the professional development of teachers. The article concludes with the reflection that learning in school is the best arena for further development of teachers.