Exploring the boundary between school science and everyday knowledge in primary school pedagogic practices
Author(s): Leah N. Sikoyo; Heather Jacklin
Source: British Journal of Sociology of Education, 2010, 30(6).
Abstract: This paper explores the different ways that primary school teachers in Uganda navigate the boundary between school science and everyday knowledge in the context of a centrally mandated curriculum innovation. The paper is based on a study of the pedagogic practices of 16 teachers in eight Ugandan primary schools that were selected on the basis of having a track record of either high or low academic achievement in the public primary school-leaving examination. The official primary school curriculum in Uganda prescribes that science be taught in an integrated form, including integration between science subject knowledge and everyday knowledge. The strategies that teachers in the study adopted in relating science to everyday knowledge was a key feature that differentiated between pedagogic practices in the high-performing and low-performing schools. In high-performing schools, teachers recruited everyday knowledge as a resource for learning science as a specialised discourse; whereas in the low-performing schools, acquiring everyday knowledge was viewed as an end in itself. The paper, then, considers the implications of differences in teachers' pedagogic strategies for the kinds of knowledge to which learners are given access.
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Chinese Number Words, Culture, and Mathematics Learning
Author(s): Sharon Sui Ngan Ng and Nirmala Rao
Source: Review of Educational Research, 2010, 80(2).
Abstract: This review evaluates the role of language—specifically, the Chinese-based system of number words and the simplicity of Chinese mathematical terms—in explaining the relatively superior performance of Chinese and other East Asian students in cross-national studies of mathematics achievement. Relevant research is critically reviewed focusing on linguistic and cultural influences. The review (a) provides equivocal findings about the extent to which number words in the Chinese language afford benefits for mathematics learning; (b) indicates that cultural and contextual factors are gaining prominence in accounting for the superior performance of East Asian students in cross-national studies; and (c) yields emerging evidence from neuroscience that highlights interrelationships among language, cultural beliefs, and mathematics learning. Although it is not possible to disentangle the influences of linguistic, cultural, and contextual factors on mathematics performance, language is still seen as contributing to early cross-national differences in mathematics attainment.
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Evaluating Alignment Between Curriculum, Assessment, and Instruction
Author(s): Andrea Martone and Stephen G. Sireci
Source: Review of Educational Research, 2010, 79(4).
Abstract: The authors (a) discuss the importance of alignment for facilitating proper assessment and instruction, (b) describe the three most common methods for evaluating the alignment between state content standards and assessments, (c) discuss the relative strengths and limitations of these methods, and (d) discuss examples of applications of each method. They conclude that choice of alignment method depends on the specific goals of a state or district and that alignment research is critical for ensuring the standards-assessment-instruction cycle facilitates student learning. Additional potential benefits of alignment research include valuable professional development for teachers and better understanding of the results from standardized assessments.
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Effective Reading Programs for the Elementary Grades: A Best-Evidence Synthesis
Author(s): Robert E. Slavin, Cynthia Lake, Bette Chambers, Alan Cheung, and Susan Davis
Source: Review of Educational Research, 2010, 79(4).
Abstract: This article systematically reviews research on the achievement outcomes of four types of approaches to improving the reading success of children in the elementary grades: reading curricula, instructional technology, instructional process programs, and combinations of curricula and instructional process. Study inclusion criteria included use of randomized or matched control groups, a study duration of at least 12 weeks, valid achievement measures independent of the experimental treatments, and a final assessment at the end of Grade 1 or later. A total of 63 beginning reading (starting in Grades K or 1) and 79 upper elementary (Grades 2 through 5) reading studies met these criteria. The review concludes that instructional process programs designed to change daily teaching practices have substantially greater research support than programs that focus on curriculum or technology alone.
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From Everyday to Scientific Observation: How Children Learn to Observe the Biologist’s World
Author(s): Catherine Eberbach and Kevin Crowley
Source: Review of Educational Research, 2010, 79(1).
Abstract:This article explores the development of observation in scientific and everyday contexts. Fundamental to all scientific activity, expert observation is a complex practice that requires the coordination of disciplinary knowledge, theory, and habits of attention. On the surface, observation appears to be a simple skill. Consequently, children may be directed to observe, compare, and describe phenomena without adequate disciplinary context or support, and so fail to gain deeper scientific understanding. Drawing upon a review of science education, developmental psychology, and the science studies literatures, this article examines what it means to observe within a disciplinary framework. In addition, everyday observers are characterized and a framework is proposed that hypothesizes how everyday observers could develop practices that are more like scientific observers.
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Staging the Crisis: Teaching, Capital, and the Politics of the Subject
Author(s): NOAH DE LISSOVOY
Source: Curriculum Inquiry, 2010, 40(3).
Abstract: This article proposes a philosophical reconstruction of the subject of the educator as the agent of curriculum. Starting from recent work in critical theory and philosophy, it describes the process of the existential crisis of the educator as the first step toward a truly critical education. The article argues that philosophy of curriculum must be concerned not just with forms of thought but also with forms of being—with the very ground of the subject and its real. This political ontology of the subject suggests a process of reconstruction consisting of several stages: the disclosure of ideology and complicity, the investigation of the process of interpellation, and the creation of a fundamentally collective educational practice. It is only on the basis of the effective staging of this crisis at the heart of the teaching subject that a meaningful critical pedagogy and curriculum can be articulated. The article concludes with a description of the outlines of such a critical education, as they emerge through the process of reconstruction described above.
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Journeys of Expansion and Synopsis: Tensions in Books That Shaped Curriculum Inquiry, 1968–Present
Author(s): WILLIAM H. SCHUBERT
Source: Curriculum Inquiry, 2010, 40(3).
Abstract: In honor of the 40th volume of Curriculum Inquiry, I begin by claiming that pursuit of questions about what is worthwhile, why, and for whose benefit is a (perhaps the) central consideration of curriculum inquiry. Drawing autobiographically from my experience as an educator during the past 40 years, I sketch reflections on curriculum books published during that time span. I situate my comments within both the historical backdrop that preceded the beginning of Curriculum Inquiry and the emergence of new curricular languages or paradigms during the late 1960s and early 1970s. I suggest that two orientations of curriculum books have provided a lively tension in curriculum literature—one expansive and the other synoptic—while cautiously wondering if both may have evolved from different dimensions of John Dewey's work. I speculate about the place of expansion and synopsis in several categories of curriculum literature: historical and philosophical; policy, professional, and popular; aesthetic and artistic; practical and narrative; critical; inner and contextual; and indigenous and global. Finally, I reconsider expansive and synoptic tendencies in light of compendia, heuristics, and venues that portray evolving curriculum understandings without losing the purport of myriad expansions of the literature.
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Participative Decision Making in Schools: A Mediating-Moderating Analytical Framework for Understanding School and Teacher Outcomes
Author(s): Anit Somech
Source: Educational Administration Quarterly, 2010, 46(2).
Abstract: The increasing emergence of participation in decision making (PDM) in schools reflects the widely shared belief that flatter management and decentralized authority structures carry the potential for promoting school effectiveness. However, the literature indicates a discrepancy between the intuitive appeal of PDM and empirical evidence in respect of its sweeping advantages. The purpose of this theoretical article is to develop a comprehensive model for understanding the distinct impacts of PDM on school and teachers’ outcomes. The proposed analytical framework is set within contingency theory and is aimed to predict the distinct impacts of PDM on school outcomes: innovation, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and productivity; and on teacher outcomes: job satisfaction and strain. It contains mediator-moderator components, where the mediator factors explain the relationship between PDM and school and teacher outcomes and the moderator factors influence the strength and/or the direction of these relationships. Specifically, the framework suggests that two mechanisms, one motivational and one cognitive, serve as mediators in the PDM-outcomes relationship. Then, by taking a multilevel perspective, the author posits moderators that may facilitate or inhibit the PDM effect: teacher personality (the Big Five personality characteristics) at the individual level, principal-teacher exchange (leader-member exchange; LMX) at the dyadic level, structure (bureaucratic/ organic) at the school level, and culture (individualism/collectivism) at the environmental level.
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Responsibility and School Governance
Author(s): Ann Allen and Michael Mintrom
Source: Educational Policy, 2010, 24(3)
Abstract: The concept of responsibility is highly relevant to the organization of public schooling. Through public schools, adult citizens allow for the formal nurture and training of children to become full citizens, able to participate in our shared social, economic, and political life. With growing awareness of the importance of effective schooling to individual and collective well-being, wide-scale attempts have recently been made to reform school governance in the United States and internationally. The authors show how use of a responsibility framework can generate important insights into such reform efforts and their effects. Scholars and practitioners have done well incorporating accountability into the language of policy and practice. Little has been said about responsibility. The authors address this omission and apply their framework to interpret two distinctive reform strategies: (a) efforts to strengthen mayoral control over urban schools and (b) the creation of charter schools.
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Charter Schooling and Democratic Justice
Author(s): Kathleen Knight Abowitz and Robert Karaba
Source: Educational Policy, 2010, 24(3)
Abstract: As the mixed achievements of charter schools come under more intense political inspection, the conceptual underpinnings of current charter school reform remain largely unexamined. This article focuses on one moral-political concept centrally related to school reform and policy, the concept of justice. Using examples from the state of Ohio, the authors sketch two contrary concepts of justice, tracing their logical trajectory to varied empirical consequences as these relate to charter schooling policy. They contrast these two theories of justice as “libertarian justice” and “democratic justice.” There is ample evidence to suggest that a libertarian sense of justice has pervasively shaped charter policies and minimal evidence to suggest the influence of a democratic sense of justice, based on principles of both recognition and redistribution. The full democratic potential of charter schooling reform cannot be achieved without a democratic conception of justice driving its policies and goals。
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Survey Measures of Classroom Instruction: Comparing Student and Teacher Reports
Author(s): Laura M. Desimone, Thomas M. Smith, and David E. Frisvold
Source: Educational Policy, 2010, 24(2)
Abstract: This analysis contributes to efforts to improve the use and understanding of survey data in education policy research by asking: How different are student and teacher reports of classroom instruction? Do student, class, or teacher characteristics account for any of the differences? Using National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) data, we compare the responses of middle-school students and their teachers to the same questions about mathematics instruction. We found low correlations and small significant mean differences between student and teacher reports; we also found that student reports are sensitive to key student and class variables, most notably to individual and class achievement, student race/ethnicity, income, parent education, and motivation. Implications for using student survey data in policy research are discussed.
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Gender and Achievement: Are Girls the “Success Stories” of Restructured Education Systems?
Author(s): Christine Skelton
Source:Educational Review, 2010, 62(2)
Abstract: There is a popular perception that girls' academic success means that they have taken up the kinds of gender performances in the classroom previously associated with boys. However, research into classrooms show that, amongst even the highest achieving pupils, girls are anxious about doing well and concerned about their relationships with other pupils. This paper offers an explanation as to how gendered classroom expectations and performances of girls have been translated from “failure” to “victory” without any actual change in behaviours. The explanation for this is located in education policy and gender theory but the discussion here focuses attention on the implications of these for schools, classroom practices and teachers. The reason for doing so is a concern that feminist writing should engage more closely with the daily lives of teachers.
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