Revisioning professionalism from the periphery

Abstract

The issue of who should be included and recognised as professionals in the early childhood education and care (ECEC) service system is both contested and pressing in the current policy climate. At stake is a high-quality early childhood care and education service system that is both responsive and appropriate to the constituency it serves. A review of the history of ECEC professionalism reveals complex entanglements and debates regarding professional belonging. Services that deliver education and care to children and families living in high poverty contexts are often excluded from ECEC professionalism debates. Drawing on notions of rationality, emotionality and criticality presented in recent accounts of ECEC professionalism, we use data collected from interviews with service providers delivering services to children and families living in high poverty contexts in Australia to develop an account of criticality that is pertinent to current funding and policy contexts. We argue that these service providers’ perspectives about their own professionalism have much to offer broader debates.     

Assessing General Education and Special Education Majors’ Self‐Efficacy for Teaching Reading

In an era of teacher quality reforms, one overlooked area for assessing readiness for teaching is education majors’ self‐efficacy for teaching reading. This gap is unfortunate, as teaching reading is a common responsibility among general and special education teachers. In the current push for RTI—one in which more general education teachers are increasingly called upon to provide reading support to students with learning disabilities, in addition to the support received from special educators—it is important to determine preservice teachers’ self‐efficacy for teaching reading. Self‐efficacy is an important construct to consider as it is related to eventual teacher attrition. The purpose of the current study was to develop a scale to measure elementary and special education majors’ self‐efficacy for teaching reading. With a sample of 110 education majors, a three‐factor scale was developed and demonstrated strong psychometric properties. Implications for the future of teacher education programs are discussed.     

The Access Course Route to Higher Education

Nowadays access has become probably the most fashionable word in the world of higher education. Its popularity owes much to demographic desperation, but something also to the success of Access entrants in higher education. In the current climate, Access Courses, so recently labelled a threat to quality, have apparently come in from the cold, and are now identified as one of, ‘three recognized routes to higher education’. Yet, by comparison with the other two routes (‘A’ levels and vocational qualifications) very little is known about these courses and Access students are still classified as ‘non-standard’ entrants. This paper offers a basic guide to Access Courses, predicts their future in a post-Reform Bill world and considers whether the, present a lifeline or a threat to conventional departments, as the focus of debate begins to shift from the quality of the entrant to the quality of the higher education curriculum, and the question is not only who higher education is for but increasingly what is it for?     

Franchising: The Quiet Revolution

The rapid spread affranchising activity by universities over the last few years has been a quiet revolution - revolutionary in its speed and radical nature, but so quiet that its significance has yet to be assessed. Publications on franchising, and there are only a few, are investigative and informative, rather than analytical or policy-oriented. This is perhaps because there has been no major national policy lead on franchising. Government departments and national bodies have contributed at best encouragement and recognition; at worst suspicion and obstruction. In the tradition of revolutionary activity, franchising has been a bottom-up initiative, institution-led, and at a speed which, 'In a sector not known as a quick-change artist is breathtaking'. This paper examines the origins, nature and implications of this quiet revolution.     

‘The bar is slightly higher’: the perception of racism in teacher education

The education and training of teachers is an issue of national concern. In this paper we analyse the findings of an in‐depth investigation, undertaken by means of semi structured interviews, of a group of minority ethnic teacher trainees who withdrew from Initial Teacher Training courses in England, and a smaller group of those who completed these courses. We focus, in particular, on trainees' perception of the manifestation of racism during their training. Though none of the minority ethnic withdrawers perceive racism as the determining factor for their withdrawal, some mention instances of covert and even overt racism, while others note subtle forms of discriminatory obstacles to successful completion of the course, which they are reluctant to label as racism. The paper concludes by pointing to the complexity of categorizing phenomena as racism. It also draws attention, on the one hand, to the vulnerability of those who view themselves as being racially abused, and, on the other, to those who are disinclined to dwell on barriers to success as forms of racism and are more predisposed to regarding them as failures of the system.     

The impact of technology enhanced science instruction on pedagogical beliefs and practices

The paper presents a qualitative case study of a Technology Enhanced Instruction (TEI) model called Technology Enhanced Secondary Science Instruction (TESSI). The implementation of TEI in TESSI classrooms resulted in significant changes in the educational beliefs, and the teaching and learning practices of those involved: a) classroom structures were modified to emphasize guided, self-directed learning; b) views of learning were transformed to regard skills such as time management, goal setting, self monitoring, and problem solving to be as significant as science knowledge; and c) teachers' roles were changed from transmitters of knowledge to facilitators of learning. These changes are illustrated through reflections by the teachers, students, administrators and researchers associated with the Project. TESSI resulted in a significant increase in enrollment and achievement as measured by government exams.     

Modeling aspects of print-processing skill: implications for reading assessment

This study examined how well elementary students?? performance on a set of commonly-used reading assessments conformed to a model of automatic print processing. The assessments included measures of word recognition-untimed, word recognition-timed, oral reading accuracy, oral reading rate, silent reading rate, and spelling. The proposed print-processing model, based on the work of Perfetti (1992) and Share (1995), held that contextual reading accuracy is directly related to automatized word knowledge which is directly related to reading rate. Structural equation modeling showed that the performance data had an acceptable fit to the proposed model and to a second, post hoc model in which automatic word recognition is directly related to contextual reading accuracy. However, additional regression analyses tended to favor the initial model. Because the six print-processing components in this study proved to be reliable and related, and because two of the components (word recognition?Ctimed and spelling) are seldom used in conventional reading assessments, the results have important implications for practice.     

The Development of a Multi-media Portfolio for Enhancing Learning and Assessment in a K-8 Science Methods Class

Journal of Science Teacher Education -