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The quality of graduate teachers is a significant concern for teacher educators, policymakers and the public. Initiatives regarding the quality assurance of initial teacher education (ITE) programs require critical examination to ensure that ITE programs develop proficient graduate teachers to meet the demands of modern classrooms. In this paper, we draw on Biesta's (2015, 2019, 2020) theoretical framing of purpose in education (i.e., qualification, socialisation and subjectification) to analyse the policy texts related to graduate teaching performance assessment from institutions involved in the creation and implementation of the Teaching Performance Assessment (TPA) in ITE in Australia. Researchers used document analysis to examine the publicly stated purpose of the TPA. The analysis revealed that the relevant policy texts focused much more on qualification (81%) than socialisation (8%) and subjectification (11%). The findings imply that the TPA policies may contribute to narrowing the ITE curriculum and the subsequent thwarting of teacher subjectification.

The mentoring of beginning to teachers to work effectively is intuitively important. Yet, there is a lack of research on the effectiveness or impact of structured mentoring, as well as the principles that support effective mentoring. This paper reports on an empirical research using a mixed-method approach to first, quantitatively by means of a survey, measure beginning teachers' perceptions of a structured mentoring package's effectiveness that they underwent, and then qualitatively, through focused group discussions, investigate the underlying principles of effective mentoring in relation to the structured mentoring provisions of the mentoring package. Results from the survey found that the four delivery modes of mentoring (discussions, reflections, reading materials, and feedback on lesson observations) and six content components of the mentoring package (attention, routine, discipline, momentum, space, and time) were perceived by beginning teachers to have positive impact on their classroom management practices. The qualitative findings drawn from focused group discussions showed four underlying principles of effective mentoring: (1) structured-ness, (2) relevance, (3) applicability, and (4) workability.

This Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) study represents a collaboration with six students from alternative education to inquire about the experiences of vulnerable youth--students in alternative education and youth who have dropped out of school. Utilizing the Enhanced Critical Incident Technique, youth researchers asked their peers what helped and hindered their retention and success in mainstream and alternative education. Youth researchers engaged in authentic participation and took part in the iterative phases of YPAR--critical reflection and social action. Their involvement empowered them to advocate for their peers by disseminating the results and recommendations to key stakeholders within the community. Youth researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with 18 participants. Overall, the findings show that relationships with staff and peers, flexibility, psychosocial and academic supports, and personal circumstances are vital in helping vulnerable students succeed in school. Engagement in YPAR provided insight into working with vulnerable youth in a manner that promotes agency and social change within educational institutions.

Japanese and Chinese share virtually identical morphographic characters invented in ancient China. Whereas modern Chinese retained the original morphographic functionality of these characters (hanzi), modern Japanese utilizes these characters (kanji) as complex syllabograms. This divergence provides a unique opportunity to systematically investigate brain strategies for sentence reading in Japanese-Chinese bi-literates. Accordingly, we investigated brain activation associated with Japanese and Chinese reading in 14 native Japanese speakers literate in Mandarin and 14 native Mandarin speakers literate in Japanese using functional magnetic resonance imaging performed on a 3T system. The activation pattern exhibited clearly distinct features specific for each language. Regardless of the subject's native language literacy, Chinese reading activated an area significantly larger than Japanese reading, suggesting that brain processes involved in Chinese reading were much more complex than Japanese reading. Significant recruitment of corresponding cortical areas in the right hemisphere with Chinese reading was also apparent. The activation patterns associated with Japanese reading by native Japanese literates was highly consistent with previous reports, and included the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), left posterior temporal lobe (PTL), and left ventral premotor cortex (PMv). The activation pattern associated with Chinese reading by native Chinese literates was also highly consistent with previous reports, namely the left IFG, left PTL, left PMv, left anterior temporal lobe (ATL), and bilateral parieto occipital lobes (LPOL). The activation pattern associated with Chinese reading by native Japanese literates was virtually identical to that by native Chinese literates, whereas the activation pattern associated with Japanese reading by native Chinese literates was signified by additional activation of LPOL compared to that by native Japanese literate. The study indicated that IFG and PTL are universal language areas, while PMv is the area for decoding complex syllabograms. LPOL is the "Chinese language area," while ATL is essential for languages with analytic morphosyntax. (Contains 2 figures and 2 tables.)

Some peculiar properties of children's passives have long been observed in various languages such as an asymmetry between actional passives and nonactional passives. These peculiarities have been accounted for under the hypothesis that children's early passives are adjectival, and as such exhibit properties of adjectival passives in adult grammar. Under this hypothesis, a new prediction follows, namely that children's comprehension of passive predicates will vary depending upon the event structures of predicates. If a predicate has a target/result state in its event structure, it makes a good adjectival passive, and children will comprehend the predicate more easily. By contrast, if a predicate lacks a target/result state, it does not make a good adjectival passive, and children will comprehend the predicate less easily. This paper tested and confirmed this prediction in Korean children's passives. In a picture-aided comprehension task with 67 Korean children ranging from 3;10-8;8, we have found a contrast due to the event structures of predicates. The result shows that children are sensitive to the event structures of passive predicates, and thus provides additional support for the adjectival passive hypothesis. (Contains 4 tables and 13 footnotes.)

Mathematics pedagogical content knowledge (MPCK) of teachers cannot be easily defined but is a complex concept integrating generic pedagogical knowledge, mathematics teaching methodology as well as knowledge of the discipline of mathematics. It is the objective of mathematics methodology courses in teacher preparation programmes to begin the development of MPCK in their pre-service teachers. As part of a research study on the development of MPCK in primary school beginning teachers, a 16-item instrument was developed to measure some aspects of the MPCK for teaching mathematics at primary level. The instrument was administered to the 2003 Intake of the Diploma in Education student teachers at the National Institute of Education, Singapore just at the beginning of their programme. As they completed their methodology course in February 2005, the instrument was administered again. This paper will discuss the findings concerning their performance in these two tests, with reference to the overall performance as well as topic-specific and MPCK construct-specific performance. The findings indicate that student teachers at the beginning of their programmes are generally quite weak in their mathematics pedagogical content knowledge, as might be expected. There was significant improvement in some aspects of their MPCK on completion of their mathematics pedagogy course.

What do pre-service teachers learn from their observation stint during school experience attachment? This paper will present insights into the cognitive contents of the pre-service teachers' reflection log. Preliminary analyses revealed that different cultures and pedagogical practices were observed to be in operation in different school contexts. This paper will discuss the teacher trainees' perspectives of their experiential learning and critical reflection during their school experience. It will present a retrospective analysis of the subjects' reflective thoughts on the following aspects that they had observed: their cooperating teachers' practices in class, the running of the school organization, setting their own goals and the charting of their own development as trainee teachers. (Contains 2 figures and 1 footnote.)

This study examines the effects of using Texas Instruments' Voyage 200 calculator (V200), a graphing calculator with a built-in computer algebra system (CAS), on attitudes towards CAS and achievement in mathematics of junior college students (17 year olds). Students' attitudes towards CAS were examined using a 40-item Likert-type instrument developed by the main author while the effects of the use of CAS on student achievement were examined by comparing scores of the treatment and control groups on an achievement test designed to reflect the curricular goals. Descriptive data were also collected to investigate students' perceptions of the usefulness of the V200. Although a significant positive difference in student achievement was not found between the treatment and control groups, the results of this study indicate that appropriate use of the V200 in the mathematics classroom can improve students' attitudes towards CAS. (Contains 6 tables and 8 figures.)

The purpose of this study was to explore the extent of children's access to media and the relation between the use of media and language development, including its determinants, among Korean-Chinese bilingual children in Yanji, China. Questionnaires were answered by 258 grade four students and their parents. The results indicated that these children had access to a variety of media (television, video cassette recorders, stereos, cassette recorders, computers, telephones, and mobile telephones). Specifically, the levels of home computer and Internet access were considerably high, with access rates of 49.4% and 24.5% respectively. The language used by the children (Korean or Chinese) while engaged with the media differed according to the type of media. They had more access to Korean newspapers, magazines, books, and radio. Our study indicated, however, that the children often used Chinese when using the computer. Television was the only form of media that was comparatively well-balanced, with children gaining access to programmes in both Korean and Chinese. Stepwise regression analyses revealed that the children's access to Chinese in media, the proficiency of the parents in Chinese, and parental affection as measured by the self-report were related to the children's level of proficiency in the Chinese language. Our study revealed that media may play an important role in the development of bilingualism and the mediation of parents plays a significant role as well.