School reforms,principal leadership,and teacher resistance: evidence from Korea     

Joo-Ho Park 《Asia Pacific Journal of Education》2013,33(1):34-52

Many countries design and implement school change with a focus on the fundamental reconfiguration in the structures of schooling. In this article, we examined the relationship between principal leadership and teacher resistance to school reforms driven by external interveners. For an empirical analysis, we took advantage of extensive data derived from 967 teachers and 32 principals in Korean vocational high schools that are now experiencing school reforms launched by the government. Our results revealed the importance of human aspects of school changes and reforms, in particular, driven by the external intervener. We first showed that a principal's initiative leadership is significantly related to the reduction of teacher resistance to change, in particular on the emotional and behavioural dimensions. Not surprisingly, teachers showed a higher level of resistance when their schools participate in the government-driven reform. Finally, teacher resistance depended upon characteristics of teachers as well as principals. These findings provide some useful policy implications for facilitating successful school reform efforts. Foremost, school reformers are advised to rethink the school change model design in a way of fully capturing human aspects in the reform process.  相似文献   

Experiences of young (minor) asylum seekers in further education in Malta     

Damian Spiteri 《International Journal of Lifelong Education》2013,32(2):156-171

This study appraises the particular challenges that minor asylum-seeking migrants who are in the 16–18 age category confront when pursuing their studies in a vocational college in Malta, a central Mediterranean island which is the smallest EU member state. The study explores how they exercise resilience in their desire to forge a future for themselves and traces their passage from Africa to Malta and their prospective aspirations to eventually settle elsewhere. It also explores how they integrate their lives as college students with these aspirations and how they see this as contributing to their lifelong education and ongoing processes of personal growth.  相似文献   

Adult education for social and environmental change in contemporary public art galleries and museums in Canada,Scotland and England     

Darlene E. Clover 《International Journal of Lifelong Education》2013,32(3):300-315

Historically, pubic art galleries and museums have a well-deserved reputation for elitism, colonialism and exclusion and they are, therefore, frequently omitted from the discourse of adult education. However, the escalating social, cultural and ecological problems of this new century have placed pressure on these public institutions to change and respond. Using selective examples, this article attempts to illustrate public arts and cultural institutions as contested, problematic, challenging, yet equally progressive, critical and creative pedagogical spaces that play an important role in the struggle for social and environmental change. Through exhibitions, artworks, objects, workshops and seminars, these institutions trouble identity, decolonize, mock, revisualize, tell alternative stories, reorient authoritative practice, interrogate intolerance and privilege and stimulate critical literacies. We must continue to expose and critique traditions that perpetuate inequalities and maintain the status quo but in a world starved of hope, these sites provide new pedagogical possibilities.  相似文献   

Analogical reasoning for understanding solution rates: students’ conceptual change and chemical explanations     

Muammer Çalık  Alipaşa Ayas  Jazlin V. Ebenezer 《Research in Science & Technological Education》2013,31(3):283-308

The study aims to demonstrate evidence of (a) students’ conceptual change on solution rates; (b) students’ sub‐microscopic explanations of dissolution; and (c) retention of the concepts of solution rates. The sample consists of 44 Grade 9 students (18 boys and 26 girls) drawn purposively from two different classes (22 each) in the city of Trabzon, Turkey. The current study incorporates multiple methods of data collection: items from a solution concept test, clinical interviews and examination of students’ self‐assessment tasks. The results reveal that there is a statistically significant difference between scores in pre‐test and post‐test and between pre‐test and delayed test (p < 0.05). This research indicates that the intervention has improved students’ understanding of the conceptual relationship between solution rates and the sub‐microscopic explanation of dissolution. It has also helped in overcoming students’ alternative conceptions to some extent. However, alternative conceptions have not been eliminated completely. In the light of the results, this current study suggests that a simple model such as the four‐step constructivist teaching (4E) is efficient.  相似文献   

Prediction/discussion-based learning cycle versus conceptual change text: comparative effects on students’ understanding of genetics     

Salem A. Al khawaldeh 《Research in Science & Technological Education》2013,31(2):168-183

Background and purpose:

The purpose of this study was to investigate the comparative effects of a prediction/discussion-based learning cycle (HPD-LC), conceptual change text (CCT) and traditional instruction on 10th grade students’ understanding of genetics concepts.

Sample:

Participants were 112 10th basic grade male students in three classes of the same school located in an urban area. The three classes taught by the same biology teacher were randomly assigned as a prediction/discussion-based learning cycle class (n?=?39), conceptual change text class (n?=?37) and traditional class (n?=?36).

Design and method:

A quasi-experimental research design of pre-test–post-test non-equivalent control group was adopted. Participants completed the Genetics Concept Test as pre-test–post-test, to examine the effects of instructional strategies on their genetics understanding. Pre-test scores and Test of Logical Thinking scores were used as covariates.

Results:

The analysis of covariance showed a statistically significant difference between the experimental and control groups in the favor of experimental groups after treatment. However, no statistically significant difference between the experimental groups (HPD-LC versus CCT instruction) was found.

Conclusions:

Overall, the findings of this study support the use of the prediction/discussion-based learning cycle and conceptual change text in both research and teaching. The findings may be useful for improving classroom practices in teaching science concepts and for the development of suitable materials promoting students’ understanding of science.  相似文献   

Students’ Choice: Recommendations for Environmental and Instructional Changes in School     

Laura L. Sagan 《Clearing house (Menasha, Wis.)》2013,86(6):217-222

This study investigated 134 middle school students’ suggestions concerning environmental and instructional changes based on their individual learning-style Inventories. The results of the study determined that students could suggest environmental and instructional changes that differed from the accustomed traditional environments and instruction encountered on a daily basis.  相似文献   

Transtheoretical-based bullying prevention effectiveness trials in middle schools and high schools     

Kerry E. Evers  James O. Prochaska  Deborah F. Van Marter  Janet L. Johnson  Janice M. Prochaska 《Educational research; a review for teachers and all concerned with progress in education》2013,55(4):397-414

Background Bullying threatens the physical and mental well-being of students across a broad range of schools. Tailored interventions based on the Transtheoretical model and delivered over the Internet were designed to reduce participation in each of three roles related to bullying (bully, victim and passive bystander).

Methods Effectiveness trials were completed in 12 middle schools and 13 high schools in the USA. A diverse sample of 1237 middle (6th–8th grade, with 45.1% in the 7th grade; ages 11–14) and 1215 high school (9th–11th grade, with 41.6% in the 9th grade; ages 14–17) students were available for analyses.

Results Analyses showed significant treatment effects for both intervention groups when compared to control for both the middle and high school programs.

Conclusions Given the relative ease of dissemination, these programs could be applied as stand-alone practices or as part of more intensive interventions.  相似文献   

Court-led educational reforms in political third rails: lessons from the litigation over ultra-religious Jewish schools in Israel     

Lotem Perry-Hazan 《教育政策杂志》2013,28(5):713-746

This paper offers a model for evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of judicial involvement in educational reforms. It uses the model to analyze two case studies of court-led educational reforms in the third rail of Israeli politics – the curricula and the admission policies of ultra-Othodox (Haredi) schools. These case studies are located at the knotty junction of human rights, religion, and politics in education policy, generating concern in many countries. The conclusions demonstrate that even when the courts are cautious, judicial involvement in third rail educational reforms may produce impacts that drive the cogwheels of policy-making in directions that are apt to undermine the interests of the petitioners. Therefore, the choice of courts as a forum for shaping education policy in political third rails should be prudently considered. The paper also demonstrates the need to evaluate litigation by means of a contextual, evidence-based analysis. It highlights that in certain cases, what may appear to be unjustified judicial activism or restraint is, in fact, a reasonable response, whose harmful ramifications may be attributed to the context of political third rails. Even the best judges are not immune to the well-known assertion that ‘hard cases make bad law.’  相似文献   

A quiet revolution – International influence,domestic elites and the transformation of higher technical education in Ireland 1959–72     

John Walsh 《Irish Educational Studies》2013,32(3):365-381

The upgrading of higher technical education which began in the 1960s marked the most influential intervention by the Irish government in the third-level sector since the establishment of the independent Irish state. A series of reforming initiatives extended educational opportunity and transformed the status of technical education at higher level. International pressures undoubtedly proved influential in stimulating policy change. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) encouraged far-reaching reforms through its critical evaluation of educational facilities for technical training in Ireland. But educational reform was not imposed by international agencies on a reluctant corps of national politicians and officials. International influences dovetailed with changing attitudes toward technical education within the Irish political and official elite. Leading politicians and public officials showed an increasing awareness that the previous neglect of technical education was untenable in an era of economic development and educational expansion. It was a timely combination of international scrutiny and domestic political re-appraisal, which triggered a radical restructuring and expansion of higher technical education in Ireland.  相似文献   

The limiting power of Cypriot primary school teachers' private reflections on practice     

Florentia Loizou 《Education 3-13》2013,41(5):485-500

In a previous paper (Loizou, F. 2011. How Cypriot primary school teachers promote their professional development through reflective practice. Education 3–13 39, no. 3: 233–247.) I explored the concept of theories-in-use within a qualitative research study in order to analyse the role of reflection in bringing about change in the practice of 18 Cypriot primary school teachers. In this article, I build on the findings of this study in order to explore further why reflection onpractice which remains unexamined through professional exchange can have alimiting effect on professional development. In particular, I aim to examine which devices can develop in the unconscious in order to protect unsound theories-in-use and reinforce discrepancies between actions and espoused beliefs. Furthermore, I discuss why these devices block awareness of the need to change. Finally, I make hypotheses about when the above devices could have been developed in the Cypriot teachers' unconscious. The article concludes with suggestions about how the activation of the above devices can be limited or prevented.  相似文献