Rediscovering the political dimension of the personal life story: results from an intergenerational narrative learning project with older adults in South Westphalia

Using qualitative interviews, focus groups, storytelling and collective journaling, the life experiences of people in a local village community, in South Westphalia, Germany, born between 1930 and 1945, were analysed collaboratively. The research intention was to give the younger generations in that region access to these experiences and insights, within the context of democratic learning and civic education. The focus of this narrative learning project was on the politically relevant issues and themes they contained, above all: the significance of free information and thought, a free cultural life, access to education for all children and youth, a self-determined life for women and girls, as well as cohesion and self-help structures in the social community. Many tales were shared from the Third Reich, making references to Wilhelmine Germany and the Republic of Weimar, including how these times had been narrated to them through their forebearers and families’ archives.     

The employment styles of school principals recruiting beginning teachers

In New Zealand, school principals (headteachers), sometimes with a sub-committee of the school board of trustees, interview and hire their own teachers. This research examined whether school principals exhibit different styles in recruiting beginning teachers. A small group of principals was interviewed and items reflecting their views were then developed and put on cards. The cards were sorted by people familiar with educational vocabulary to enable category setting using Kirkland and Bimmler's GOPA technique. Seventy-one principals then prioritized the items. A k-means algorithm was used to cluster principals with similar responses. Analysis of the clusters suggests that recruiting styles do exist. General compatibility emerged as being most important. This suggests that having schools appoint their own staff may lead to greater diversity between schools and greater conformity within them.     

Gender Games

This textual analysis focuses on the portrayal of female journalists in House of Cards. The uneven depictions of six female journalists could have a socializing effect on the audience. The researchers argue that the character Zoe Barnes is depicted as childlike, unprofessional, and unethical, while the character Ayla Sayyad is portrayed as a dedicated watchdog journalist. The researchers then explore the ethical implications of these portrayals through the lens of social responsibility theory.     

Principals’ Perceptions of Barriers to Teacher Dismissal

Although scholars and popular press writers are critical of school district failures to remove inadequately performing teachers, little has been said about the thinking of principals on this issue. Because principals are the front-line implementers of evaluation policy, their beliefs about barriers (real or perceived) are likely to influence their actions. This study asked elementary and middle school principals in the state of Oregon to identify barriers to deal effectively with inadequately performing teachers. Results demonstrated that principals believe teacher unions to be the most significant barrier, and blame the union representatives more often than the language of the negotiated contract. In addition, principals identify the amount of time required to engage in the process as a barrier. Continued study of principal beliefs about these factors may suggest (1) areas of needed reform in the implementation of evaluation and (2) administrative training needs.     

Solitary and Collaborative Pretense Play in Early Childhood: Sources of Individual Variation in the Development of Representational Competence

This study evaluates sources of individual variation in child pretense play as an expression of emerging mental representation. Family sociodemographic characteristics, maternal personological characteristics, and maternal affective and cognitive play behaviors, as well as children's gender, language competence, and play, were examined simultaneously. Naturalistic child solitary play and child collaborative play with mother were videorecorded in 141 20–month-olds. Child solitary play, child-initiated and mother-initiated collaborative play with mother, and maternal demonstrations and solicitations of play were then coded into nonsymbolic and symbolic acts. Zero-order relations obtained between child play and, respectively, child gender and language, family SES, and maternal verbal intelligence, personality, physical affection, and play demonstrations and solicitations. Structural equation modeling supported the following unique predictive relations: Child language and mothers' symbolic play positively influenced child collaborative play, and child gender and mothers' verbal intelligence predicted child solitary play. Child gender and mothers' verbal intelligence and physical affection influenced mothers' play and so influenced child collaborative play indirectly. The cognitive advantages of child play and maternal influences on child play are placed in an adaptive parenting framework.     

Examining Faculty Member Changes in an Innovative Educational Doctorate Program

Recent criticisms of the Educational Doctorate (Ed.D.) have challenged faculty members to create or reform such programs. In response to these concerns, faculty members at a particular institution designed and implemented a new Ed.D. program focused on leadership and innovation. We conducted this action research study in order to examine the changes faculty members experienced as they implemented the program along with the factors to which they attributed these changes. Data were gathered with an online survey; and results indicated changes had occurred in perceptions of research, teaching, and students as well as professional identities. Participants attributed these changes to collaborative teaching, a community of practice, and strong leadership. Findings will guide program leaders and faculty members in the coming years and may provide insights to leaders of similar programs and to those guiding innovative efforts.     

Play in two societies: pervasiveness of process, specificity of structure

The present study compared Argentine (N = 39) and U.S. (N = 43) children and their mothers on exploratory, symbolic, and social play and interaction when children were 20 months of age. Patterns of cultural similarity and difference emerged. In both cultures, boys engaged in more exploratory play than girls, and girls engaged in more symbolic play than boys; mothers of boys engaged in more exploratory play than mothers of girls, and mothers of girls engaged in more symbolic play than mothers of boys. Moreover, in both cultures, individual variation in children's exploratory and symbolic play was specifically associated with individual variation in mothers' exploratory and symbolic play, respectively. Between cultures, U.S. children and their mothers engaged in more exploratory play, whereas Argentine children and their mothers engaged in more symbolic play. Moreover, Argentine mothers exceeded U.S. mothers in social play and verbal praise of their children. During an early period of mental and social growth, general developmental processes in play may be pervasive, but dyadic and cultural structures are apparently specific. Overall, Argentine and U.S. dyads utilized different modes of exploration, representation, and interaction--emphasizing "other-directed" acts of pretense versus "functional" and "combinatorial" exploration, for example--and these individual and dyadic allocentric versus idiocentric stresses accord with larger cultural concerns of collectivism versus individualism in the two societies.     

Patterns of debate in tertiary level asynchronous text-based conferencing

Argumentation can be defined at different levels and serve different purposes, but its role in knowledge understanding and construction has given it a central place in education, particularly at tertiary level. The advent of computer-supported text-based conferences has created new sites where such educational dialogues can take place, but the quality of the interaction and whether it is serving its educational purpose is still uncertain. This paper reports on a framework of analysis that has been developed to illuminate the arguing process within an asynchronous electronic conferencing environment, showing how it is both similar to, and different from, argumentation in the more traditional forums of multi-party, face-to-face discussion and traditional written essays. The framework develops earlier work by the authors and is applied to two electronic conferences within the same postgraduate course, comparing overall patterns of argumentation. Findings are presented on the extent to which the technology of electronic conferencing shapes and supports students’ participation in academic literacy practices relating to argumentation, proposing, at the same time, that the teaching strategy adopted by the lecturer is also an important variable.     

Impacts of directed tutorial activities in computer conferencing: a case study

This paper describes a qualitative study of asynchronous electronic conferencing by three tutorial groups on the same postgraduate course (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages Worldwide), forming part of an MA in Applied Linguistics (via Distance Education) at the Open University, UK. The groups varied in the degree to which the tutor participated in the discussion and in whether the tutor's input took the form of responding to student posts or the setting of tasks to scaffold the learners' development of academic skills. It is argued that the least interventionist strategy in terms of tutor response and task-setting resulted in the least productive conference discussion in terms of both communicative interaction and academic development, while a more interventionist role by the tutor depended for its success on characteristics of the tutor input and the task set.