Search

Against the backdrop of growing international concern for a narrowing view of early literacy, this study was initiated to determine how teachers of four-year-olds view their task of fostering early literacy. This paper reports on the first steps to design and validate an instrument which captures teachers’ perceptions of early literacy content goals; developmentally appropriate and effective pedagogical practices related to each content goal; and their own competencies to offer a suitable environment for developing early literacy. The content validity of the instrument was evaluated by an expert screening; the reliability and practicality of the instrument were assessed through a pilot study involving 20 teachers from 2 countries. Validation findings indicate that the instrument appears to be reliable. The findings from the pilot run show that teachers focus on decoding skills most; there is some attention to book orientation and understanding, and relatively little to the functions of written language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports a comparative analysis of international perspectives about curriculum design relevant to disability in education. It was part of a larger study of the perspectives of 132 education practitioners and administrators in the UK, USA and the Netherlands on several dilemmas of difference. It also compares current perspectives to previous ones for similar groups of educators from the 1990s. Participants were interviewed about their perspectives to a presented curriculum dilemma about the consequences of having either a common or a differentiated curriculum for children with disabilities/special educational needs. Findings show that a majority in each country recognised the dilemma about curriculum commonality-differentiation, that this has continued over a decade and that there were similarities across the countries in how the dilemma was recognised and resolved. The findings are discussed in terms of national differences, common cross-country perspectives and a general framework of curriculum differentiation informed by an assumption of dilemmas of difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four narrative fragments involving research disseminated globally – namely, United States, Israel, The Netherlands, The People's Republic of China – are used to instantiate the phenomenon of teachers teaching their best-loved selves, without becoming the curriculum themselves. Next, the development of the best-loved self-conceptualization as it emerged in Joseph J. Schwab's scholarship is traced, along with important connections to Michael Connelly and Jean Clandinin's research programme. After that, two important research questions are addressed: (1) If the best-loved self is integral to the teacher-as-curriculum-maker image, what practices might we engage in in teacher education to foster the best-loved self? And (2) How does change happen in pre-service teachers' pedagogical practices and repertoires, given the potential significance of the teacher's best-loved self-image? To conclude, the work returns to the opening narrative fragments to determine the answers that lie within. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]