An ordinary moonlighting activity? Determinants of the provision of private tutoring by Czech schoolteachers

Teacher moonlighting (teachers working other jobs in addition to teaching) may have positive as well as negative implications. In the context of post-socialist countries, the provision of private tutoring is one of the common forms of teacher moonlighting. The aim of the paper is to analyse the prevalence and factors that are associated with a) having a paid job in addition to one’s regular teaching obligations; b) provision of private tutoring among teachers. Results are drawn from a representative sample of 494 Czech teachers of academic school subjects in lower secondary schools who responded to an online questionnaire survey. Male teachers working part-time, with shorter professional experience, higher household financial burden and lower satisfaction with teacher salaries were more likely to moonlight. The provision of private tutoring was only associated with shorter professional experience and the teaching of core subjects, suggesting that Czech teachers’ motivation to provide private tutoring is currently not primarily financial.     

Bundled or unbundled? A multi-text corpus-assisted discourse analysis of the relationship between teaching and research in UK universities

Creating and disseminating knowledge through research and teaching has long been regarded as the hallmark of the modern university. However, new university business models have called into question the ‘bundling’ of teaching and research, and sustained research on the relationship between teaching and research has found little evidence of an insoluble connection between the two activities. In this article, we explore the relationship between teaching and research from the perspective of universities’ institutional discourse. We use corpus-assisted discourse analysis to examine the relationship between research and teaching as presented in two sets of institutional texts currently influential in UK Higher Education: Research Excellence Framework environment statements and Teaching Excellence Framework provider submissions (a total of 2143 documents and 12,492,071 words). Our findings show that, while universities emphasise the value of research to their teaching, they do not always emphasise (or sometimes even decry) the influence of teaching on their research. We empirically evidence that, according to what universities themselves write in institutional texts, teaching and research are not always in a mutually beneficial entanglement, but often rather a one-way relationship in which research expertise and institutional prestige are used to bolster claims of teaching excellence. This has implications for the communication of both the vision and the purpose of a university in regulatory exercises and wider policy, but also speaks to the broader idea and practice of being a university in the twenty-first century.     

Teachers’ self-efficacy and intercultural classroom practices in diverse classroom contexts: A cross-national comparison

This cross-national study provides new insights in teacher efficacy in today’s culturally diverse classrooms using survey data of 269 early childhood and primary school teachers in England, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland. Teacher efficacy can be viewed as a two dimensional concept in which both general beliefs are measured alongside (diversity-related) domain-specific beliefs. These beliefs are related to the cultural classroom context and the use of intercultural classroom practices. Our results indicate that policies and professional development targeted at the reciprocal relation between diversity-related efficacy and practices are important when preparing teachers for working in diverse classroom contexts.     

‘Teaching’ the path towards university: understanding student access through storied-futures and meritocratic grand narratives

The notion that the stories of our lives shape dispositions towards imagined futures is another lens through which university underrepresentation should be viewed. A storied lens attends to how futures, like university attendance, are storied during childhood to the extent that some youth imagine, and therefore plan, these futures as natural progression. Such was the case for study participants, indicating that childhood stories contain answers for mitigating social reproduction connected to parental education and cultural forces within the home. Examining social mobility through the underexplored storied-futures grand narrative presents unique solutions that lay hidden within the dominant meritocratic grand narrative.     

Breaking Down Barriers for Student Parents and Caregivers with Family-Friendly Library Spaces

Abstract

In 2016, J. Murrey Atkins Library at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte opened a reservable study room where student parents and caregivers can study with their children on campus. In 2018, the library opened a second family-friendly study room to meet the needs of our growing campus community. To inform the room design, the library conducted a mixed methods research study that included a user survey, an examination of room reservation and usage data, and one-on-one user interviews. This paper focuses on the user-centered design process used to inform the development of the second, family-friendly, library study room.     

Individual and cultural factors in teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion: A meta-analysis

The success of inclusive education is dependent upon classroom teachers implementing adaptations for children with disabilities. Given that willingness to make such adaptations is influenced by teacher attitudes, the current study examined teachers’ attitudes towards inclusive education through a meta-analysis of 64 samples that were found via a systematic literature search. The results indicated that teachers hold a positive attitude towards inclusion of children with disabilities in mainstream schools and that these attitudes are moderated by an interplay of cultural and demographical factors. The findings offer a renewed basis for intervention research into improving educational opportunities for children around the world.     

The Mystery Room: discovering the flexibility of an information literacy-based educational escape room

Abstract

The Mystery Room is an educational escape room based on information literacy and applied to multiple audiences, including first-year students and library student employees. In this article, we explain how we developed the game, its theoretical underpinnings, and why it’s a flexible workshop for a variety of audiences.     

对江西省高校大学生体育健身需求的调查

对江西 18所高校大学生体育健身内容需求现状进行了调查 ,通过对大学生 15项体育健身内容需求程度的统计分析 ,提出建立高校大学生体育健身体系及对策。     

甘肃省大学生心理健康状况调查

运用问卷调查、文献资料调研和数理统计等方法 ,对甘肃省 9所高校的 94 3名男、女大学生进行了心理健康状况的调研分析 ,据此提出了若干建议。     

高年级大学生课外体育活动参与特征调研

采用问卷调查、文献资料调研、数理统计等方法 ,对高年级大学生课外体育活动参与特征进行了分析与研究。结果发现 ,目前高年级大学生参与课外体育活动的人数量少 ,体育活动项目多样化 ,校园为主要的活动场所 ,每周活动次数 1～ 2次为主 ,每次活动时间 6 0 min以上 ,以中等活动负荷为主 ,呈多元化的活动目的动机 ,活动受主、客观因素的影响。据此提出了一些对策和建议。