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.     

Personal reactions to ‘strange’ situations: Attachment styles and acculturation attitudes of immigrants and majority members

A growing number of studies examine the influence of individual factors on acculturation attitudes of immigrants, but few studies focus on majority members’ attitudes. In this paper, two studies are reported on the relation between attachment styles and acculturation attitudes of both immigrants (N=177) and majority members (N=243) in the Netherlands. Until now very few studies have associated cultural adjustment with attachment styles. This is remarkable, because attachment theory refers to interaction with others in new situations. Four different styles of attachment (the secure, dismissing, preoccupied and fearful attachment styles) are related to Berry's classification of acculturation attitudes. People, both immigrants and majority members, with a secure attachment style were positive towards integration, whereas people with a dismissing attachment style were not. Dismissing immigrants were more positive towards separation. Whereas both immigrants and majority members with a secure attachment style showed a similar pattern of correlations between attachment and acculturation, they seem to react quite differently, and even in opposite ways, when they have a preoccupied attachment style. Yet, the different reactions may be caused by the same psychological process: The existential ambivalence of preoccupied people may lead to diverse reactions.     

阅读推广视域下“立德树人”实现路径研究北大核心CSSCI

高校图书馆阅读推广,不仅可以直接促进学生素质提高和文化传承,也能在这一服务育人中承载起"立德树人"教育这一神圣使命。阅读推广活动是内化式"立德树人"有效载体,红色主题阅读、经典品读、深阅读省思、真人图书的榜样力量、文化空间育人等是德育的主要路径。在此过程中,应当突出德之思想、挖掘德之内涵,实现阅读推广活动的多重目标兼容。     

A pillar of the Youngstown community: The Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County engages in the Harwood practice

ABSTRACT

The Harwood Institute arrived in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1999; and today, over 18 years later, its teachings have made a profound effect upon the city. The Youngstown Public Library, through the leadership of Carlton Sears and Heidi Daniel, has wholeheartedly embraced the methods and ideology of the Harwood Institute, helping to reinvigorate and power a city working its way back to prosperity.     

Nurturing Authority

When considering the role of local journalism in a networked media environment, it is crucial to examine how audiences attribute news with the power to define social knowledge. In particular, television news programs need to appeal to audiences by reinforcing a sense of local journalistic authority to assert the parameters of who and what is worthy of coverage. This article presents the findings from interviews with a range of commercial television news viewers in Sydney, Australia. It positions viewership in the context of people’s wider engagement with news, and in relation to their interpersonal and digital social interactions. The paper argues that local audiences have conflicting attitudes to the role of television news, both contesting and re-inscribing the programs with the power to demarcate social, political, and cultural knowledge. It traces how local audiences challenge the ability of news to convey boundaries within the community through processes of exclusion, connecting the contestations to the lived experiences of the individuals. It identifies that television news programs nurture journalistic authority in terms of their local relevance, and it contributes insights on the significance of local news by engaging with the means by which audiences themselves attach social power to journalism.     

The ‘Leeds Lake District’: Water Supply,Rural Environment,and the Cultural Landscape in Victorian and Edwardian Britain

ABSTRACT

This article highlights the benefits of cultural readings of the environment by showing how the reservoirs of the Washburn Valley, built by the Leeds Corporation between 1869 and 1879 and vital sources of potable water for the urban population, altered the area’s cultural landscape. An examination of Leeds-based newspapers and locally published guidebooks will show how the reservoirs positively affected Romantic depictions of the area, whilst the use of the phrase ‘the Leeds Lake District’ fabricated a sense of civic pride between the town and its hinterland, an area positively affected by the implementation of urban engineering.     

The impact of a professional development programme on teachers' attitudes towards inclusion

This article describes a study that aimed to answer the following question: ‘Will a programme of professional development in the area of special and inclusive education be effective in achieving attitudinal shift in teachers?’ Forty‐eight teachers who were enrolled on a Master's programme in Special and Inclusive Education were surveyed via a questionnaire at the beginning and end of a ten‐week introductory module. The results indicated overall attitudinal shift and attitudinal shift for four categories of inclusion to suggest more positive attitudes at the end of the module, compared with at the beginning. The implications for providers of pre‐ and in‐service education and training courses for teachers are discussed.     

‘Extended Schools’: an exploration of the feelings,beliefs and intentions of parents and teachers

This research is designed to provide information for participants, facilitators and policy makers in the area of Extended Schools. Its salient purpose is to investigate and examine the feelings, beliefs and attitudes of teachers and parents involved in the development of the Extended Schools project in Northern Ireland. The Extended Schools project was formally launched by the Northern Ireland Secretary of State on 7 March 2006, and aims to provide a wide range of services and activities in school with the intention of helping to meet the needs of children, their families and the wider community. The qualitative approach was deemed the most appropriate methodology for gathering data.     

Bad boys,good girls? Implicit and explicit attitudes toward ethnic minority students among elementary and secondary school teachers

Teachers’ attitudes toward ethnic minority students might differ by students’ gender and the type of school teachers are working in because of different motivations for teaching and different school practices. Hence, the aim of the current research was to investigate elementary (n = 82) and secondary school (n = 82) teachers’ implicit and explicit attitudes toward male and female ethnic minority students. Teachers worked on either a male or a female Implicit Association Test and filled out a gender-specific questionnaire for measuring explicit attitudes. The results showed that elementary and secondary school teachers had negative implicit attitudes toward ethnic minority students, independent of students’ gender. Whereas secondary school teachers were implicitly more positive toward boys, elementary school teachers were implicitly more positive toward girls. Elementary school teachers were more enthusiastic about teaching ethnic minority boys than girls. The findings provide the first insights into differences in attitudes between elementary and secondary school teachers.