Issues are listed in descending chronological order.

Issue Thirty-five

September 25, 2004

Teaching To the Test: What Every Educator and Policy-Maker Should Know

Louis Volante, Concordia University

Abstract: Teachers typically receive the brunt of the criticism for poor performance on large-scale standardized tests. In order to stave off this criticism, some teachers have begun to provide instruction that utilizes actual or cloned items from these high-stakes tests. Such teaching to the test rarely helps learning and has a detrimental effect on the teaching profession as a whole. The present paper addresses the dangers of directly teaching to a standardized test and the implications of this practice for students, educators and policy makers. It also discusses measures designed to promote constructive test preparation activities. It argues that educators and policy makers both have important roles in ending this practice.

 

Issue Thirty-four

September 20, 2004

Athletic Gender Equity Policy in Canadian Universities: Issues and Possibilities

Dean M. Beaubier, University of Nebraska

Abstract: Establishing gender equity in Canadian inter-university athletics has been a challenging endeavor for policymakers. The problem of crafting and implementing an effective policy has taken considerable time and continues to be a difficult task for administrators. However, success in this undertaking is important to higher education because such policy provides an environment of opportunity and fairness for participants. Furthermore, its establishment in post-secondary athletics demonstrates a natural promotion of tenets central to tertiary institutions. This paper investigates whether U.S. Title IX athletic gender equity policy could be adapted for use in Canadian higher education. This focus is relevant to Canadian inter-university athletics because American Title IX legislation has been in place for over thirty years and has withstood challenges in the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government. A discussion of how U.S. policy directives might be implemented in the Canadian environment and whether an adaptation may be in the contexts of a partial exercise rather than a wholesale application is put forth.

 

Issue Thirty-three

September 1, 2004

Schooling in Babylon, Babylon in School: When Racial Profiling and Zero Tolerance Converge

R. Patrick Solomon and Howard Palmer, York University

Abstract: This study is about systemic containment of Black youth by authority structures within schools and law enforcement agents in racialized communities. Through the retrospective narratives of incarcerated Black students in a secure custody institution, vivid insights are provided into the construction of fear of Black youth and of the ways that arbitrary power and authority operate within the contested terrain of schools. Safe-schools policies of "zero tolerance" and the ongoing practice of "racial profiling" appear to converge in moving Black students through the "school-prison pipeline."

 

Issue Thirty-two

July 1, 2004

Special Issue: Initial Teacher Education in Canada and the United Kingdom

Guest Editors:
Jon Young, University of Manitoba and Christine Hall, University of Nottingham

Abstract: This special issue consists of nine chapter-length articles discussing teacher education in Canada and the United Kingdom. In Part 1, the authors focus on large, fundamental issues of teacher education, especially as seen in the emerging post-modern international context. In Parts 2 and 3, they discuss how these issues manifest themselves in emerging, innovative practices in the two societies.

Contents in Brief: Part 1: How is teachers' work changing? 1. Theorising Changes in Teachers' Work, by Christine Hall, University of Nottingham 2. New Technologies and Teachers' Work, by Tony Fisher, University of Nottingham 3. Teachers' Ethical Responsibilities in a Diverse Society, by Nathalie Piquemal, University of Manitoba Part 2: How is teacher education changing? 4. Systems of Educating Teachers, by Jon Young, University of Manitoba 5. The Impact of Quality Assurance on Mentor Training in Initial Teacher Education Partnerships, by Bernadette Youens and Mary Bailey, University of Nottingham 6. Redefining Classroom Boundaries: Learning To Teach Using New Technologies, by Do Coyle, University of Nottingham 7. Learning To Teach Collaboratively, by Peter Sorensen, University of Nottingham Part 3: Developing teacher identity 8. Melissa's Story: Bridging the Theory/Practice Gap, by Wayne Serebrin, University of Manitoba 9. Learning To Feel Like a Teacher, by Kelvin Seifert, University of Manitoba

 

Issue Thirty-One

June 18, 2004

Unlocking the Schoolhouse Doors: Institutional Constraints on Parent and Community Involvement in a School Improvement Initiative

Bonnie Stelmach, University of Alberta

Abstract: School improvement literature emphasizes collaboration of teachers, parents, and community members. Schools are challenged to create mutually beneficial partnerships that result in improved student performance. One source of challenge is schools’ organizational structures and processes do not contribute to full and meaningful involvement of non-professionals. Using the lens of institutional theory, this paper reports a study that examined the organizational resistance to including parents and others in one rural Alberta school district. The district implemented Joyce Epstein’s school-home-community partnership model in its Alberta Initiative for School Improvement (AISI) project. The study used the District AISI Coordinator’s field notes, as well as interviews with three parents who directly participated in AISI.

Issue Thirty

May 12, 2004

Recruitment and Selection: Meeting the Leadership Shortage in One Large Canadian School District

Anthony Normore, Florida International University

Abstract: This article investigates the recruitment and selection strategies of one large Canadian school district in Ontario, called here the "Northwestern School District." Data collection included interviews, document analyses and observations, and were gathered in 2001. Findings indicated that designated structured teams, financial and emotional support from district office, and support for developing professional growth portfolios were key to attracting candidates. Other findings indicated a need to revisit district policies such as the practice of rotating school principals every three to five years, and the policy favoring internal promotion over promotion from outside the district.

 

Issue Twenty-nine

March 5, 2004

An Intersectoral Response to Children with Complex Health Care Needs

Wendy Young, University of Toronto
Jasmin Earle, Saint Elizabeth Health Care, Toronto
Mark Dadebo, York University

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to stimulate debate on how to define and enact public responsibility to children with complex health care needs and their families. We present a program, developed using the Auditor General’s framework for accountability that involves Community Care Access Centres, schools and Saint Elizabeth Health Care, a complex care nursing provider. The case study illustrates how public responsibility was successfully enacted at a local level within existing policies for children with complex health care needs. There is no urgent need for policy to ‘catch up' with reality. Rather there is a need for the cross-sectoral development of programs that support policies.

Issue Twenty-eight

February 15, 2004

From “La Plume de Ma Tante" to "Parlez-Vous Français?”
The Making of French Language Policy in British Columbia, 1945-1982

Helen Raptis and Thomas Fleming, University of Victoria

Abstract: During the first half of the twentieth century in British Columbia, French language was considered a school subject to be taught as any other using formal classical approaches. Generally, no specific provincial or local policies existed to guide how French was taught and learned. By 1981, however, British Columbia had developed explicit language policies for implementing various programs, such as “core French,” “French immersion,” and “programme-cadre.” It did so despite the fact that fewer than two per cent of British Columbians spoke French as their mother tongue, and only about one-half of one per cent used French to communicate at home. The discussion in this article reconstructs the historical context and events that led British Columbia to embrace French language as a subject of study as well as French as a vehicle for learning and instruction. Why, from the end of World War II to the 1980s, did the province embrace core French, cadre and immersion programmes?

Issue Twenty-seven

July 25, 2003

Leadership and culture in schools in Nothern British Columbia: Bridge Building and/or Re-balancing Act?

Rosemary Foster, University of Alberta and Tim Goddard, University of Calgary

Abstract: This article reports findings from the completed third stage of an investigation of educational leadership, policy, and organization in select schools in Canada’s north. North as used here refers to the area coterminous with the boreal forest region south of the arctic (Bone, 1992). The research questions guiding this investigation were (i) what are school members’ (e.g., educators, parents, students, community members working with and in the school) perceptions and expectations of educational leadership in northern schools? and (ii) how are leadership and culture in these schools intertwined? In order to address the research questions, a qualitative case study methodology was adopted. The two case studies included in this article report on schools located in northern British Columbia. In the following, we present interpretations and a discussion of three themes as they relate to school members’ perceptions and understandings of the (i) purposes of curriculum and schooling, (ii) role of the principal, and (iii) relationship of the schools to their communities. In concluding, we draw on key findings as we urge researchers and educators to consider students’ perceptions and expectations of schooling in the future development of curricula and pedagogical approaches that will benefit all learners, including students of Aboriginal ancestry. Finally, we argue that practitioners, policy makers, and researchers need to examine the potential of models of leadership and community-based education informed by indigenous values, in addressing issues of equity and power in Canada’s northern schools.

Issue Twenty-six

April 15, 2003

Educational Psychology as a Policy Science: A Conversation

Editor’s note: Under the guest editorship of Nancy Knapp, this issue of CJEAP experiments with a new format for exploring issues related to educational policy. The issue has several parts: 1) an introduction to the issue by Dr. Knapp, 2) an exploration policy implications of educational psychology by David Berliner, former president of the American Educational Research Association, and 3) responses by four prominent educators and educational psychologists (Jere Brophy, Jeanne Ormrod, Virginia Richardson, and Asa Hilliard). In the near future, in addition, CJEAP will publish a brief rejoinder to the responses by David Berliner.

Introduction to This Special Issue

Nancy Knapp, Guest Editor, University of Georgia

Educational Psychology as a Policy Science

David Berliner, Arizona State University

Abstract: Educational psychologists should not ignore what they can contribute to the formulation of public policies about educational issues, even though they may have been trained to approach their work in "scientific" and value-free ways. Since policy-makers and leaders of society normally make decisions on the basis of particular social values, educational psychologists should engage with those values when describing research findings to the public. For example, educational psychology research has important information and conclusions to share with the public about high-stakes testing and about the training and certification of teachers. Educational psychologists have a professional obligation to share that information in ways that shows a commitment to serve society, that shows a simultaneous commitment to scholarly knowledge and practical action, and that shows a willingness to work with the uncertainty of the field of education. We are able to do this effectively because educational psychology itself is a scholarly discipline in the fullest sense: it has findings, concepts, principles, technologies, and theories about instruction.

A Choice, not a Duty

Jere Brophy, Michigan State University

Addressing an Identity Crisis of a Different Sort: A Response to Berliner’s Call To Action

Jeanne Ormrod, University of Northern Colorado (Emerita) & University of New Hamphire

In Response To David Berliner

Asa Hilliard III—Baffour Amankwatia II, Georgia State University

Partisan Research: A Critique

Virginia Richardson, University of Michigan

A Brief Response

David Berliner, Arizona State University

Educational Psychology as a Policy Science: The Beginning of a Conversation...

Nancy Knapp, University of Georgia

Issue Twenty-five

April 3, 2003

Home Schooling: Learning from Dissent

Catherine Luke, University of Victoria

Abstract: This paper is a discussion of home schooling as an alternative to the public school system, an alternative at the furthest end of the spectrum of dissent. The discussion places home schooling on the menu of choice that has come to define many aspects of Canada’s publicly-funded service systems, looks at the ideological foundations of home schooling, and explores what its critique of the public school system may have to offer current school reform agendas.

Issue Twenty-four

February 28, 2003

Moving From Denominational to Linguistic Education in Quebec

David Young, Eastern Shores School Board
Lawrence Bezeau, University of New Brunswick

Abstract: In April of 1997, the governments of Quebec and Canada, through a constitutional amendment, eliminated all denominational rights and privileges respecting education in the province of Quebec. Consequently, Quebec abolished denominational school boards, replacing them with English-language and French-language boards. This paper examines the nature of this transition with an emphasis on what is now the Eastern Shores School Board, an English-language board serving the Gaspe peninsula, the Magdalen Islands, and the North Shore of the St. Lawrence River.

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Issue Twenty-three

November 15, 2002

Why Teachers Participate in Decision-making and The Third Continuum

Kirk Anderson, University of Saskatchewan

Abstract: Shared decision-making has been related to many reasons as to whether, when, or not to include teachers in the process. For the most part, the use of shared decision-making attempted to better implement decisions and sometimes is seen as a means to enhance teacher leadership. This article discusses the literature from a historical perspective presenting a review of factors affecting teacher participation in decision-making. While the history of shared decision-making can be seen as having two continuums (Taylor and Tashakkori, 1997) a third continuum of decision-making is put forward in the following pages, notably that of actual successful influence on decisions which relates to teacher leadership in schools.

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Issue Twenty-two

September 10, 2002

Policies Affecting ESL Instruction In Manitoba

Sandra G. Kouritzin and Patrick G. Mathews,
University of Manitoba

Abstract: This archival research review aims to examine what policies, federal, provincial, and local, have, or could potentially have, an impact on ESL teaching and learning in the province of Manitoba. A politically-motivated close reading of the language in the policies, and of the nature and intent of the practices they describe, reveals the institutional attitudes toward immigrants, English as a second language (ESL) students, and the nature of public education in Canada. The article demonstrates that there are numerous and considerable political barriers to the full inclusion of ESL learners in the educational system, and concludes that many federal, provincial and local policies support discriminatory practices.

Issue Twenty-one

June 28, 2002

School District Deficits and Program Spending in Alberta

Dean Neu, Alison Taylor, and Elizabeth Ocampo,
University of Alberta

Abstract: Starting from the financial information for the population of Alberta School Districts for the 1997 to 2000 fiscal years, this study examines the association between school district deficits and sub-program spending in the areas of severely disabled education, ESL education and technology integration. Our analysis highlights how the financial performance of individual school districts is closely associated with the specific program spending choices made by different school districts-choices that arguably influence the quality of education available to students in different programs in different districts.

June 15, 2002

Toward  a Reconsideration of Biography as an Instrument for Studying Leadership in Educational Administration

John V. Brandon,
University of Manitoba
        

Abstract: The thesis of this paper is that biography does offer something valuable to educational administration that it currently lacks, and that biography ought to be reconsidered as a legitimate instrument for the study of educational leadership. Traditional research methodologies (questionnaire surveys, for example) normally associated with positivist approaches to the study of educational leadership remain theorists' predominant mode of inquiry. Such methods, however, do not pay sufficient attention to the role played by institutional contexts in the social construction of leaders and leadership systems. The difference between biography and social science also relates to the level of generality ? a sort of micro/macro distinction. Educational leadership theorists, by training and inclination, look to the general, while biography deals with the particular. Biography can be moved beyond narration and storytelling to the construction of case studies to test or evaluate theories. And it can be argued that to understand a system, we need to look at leadership both close up and from a long view. Previous approaches to the study of educational leadership decontextualized not only the decisions but also the process involved in developing them. Biography can restore the wholeness of the entire act of leadership.  
   

Issue Twenty

October 15, 2001

Encountering Resistance to Gender Equity Policy in Educational Organizations

Janice Wallace,
The University of Western Ontario

Abstract: I became interested in researching the phenomenon of resistance to employment policy that attempted to increase gender equity in educational organizations because it came up over and over ... at social gatherings, a cash register in a store while I was Christmas shopping, in my graduate courses, and in my work at the Faculty of Education at The University of Western Ontario with both colleagues and students. I found that students in the Social Foundations course that I teach could generally see the fairness of gender equity in the classroom ? at least in terms of calling on girls more often, assessing their work fairly, ensuring that they developed an interest in highly valued courses such as Math and Science, meeting the learning needs of boys in language and so on. However, when we talked about gender equity employment policy, the men were often openly hostile and the women resistant to what they perceived as "needless" efforts on their behalf. I found that rational argumentation and statistical evidence, which strongly demonstrated sex-based discrimination in educational organizations, while compelling in some ways, was simply not enough to persuade students or colleagues that there was a need for policy to rework the gendered distribution of labour in educational organizations.

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Issue Nineteen

February 24, 2001

Building Capacity For A Learning Community

Coral Mitchell,
Brock University
and Larry Sackney,
University of Saskatchewan
 

 

Abstract: Since the early days of the 20th century, schools and educators have been subjected to numerous calls for improvement of their performance. A curious aspect of this phenomenon is that school-based educators (teachers and school administrators alike) have usually been positioned as objects to be manipulated and controlled rather than as professional creators of a learning culture. In recent years, however, this position has lost considerable credibility because school-based educators are exactly the people who deal directly with the learning of children. From that standpoint, scholars and change agents have begun to advance the notion of the learning community as a preferred strategy for school improvement.

The metaphor of the learning community assumes, first, that schools are expected to facilitate the learning of all individuals, and, second, that educators are ideally positioned to address fundamental issues and concerns in relation to learning. Within this metaphor, school people are central to questions of educational practice, change, and improvement; they are the ones charged with the tasks of identifying and confronting the problems and mysteries of professional practices. But simply charging them with this responsibility will not necessarily bring about the types of profound improvement that are envisioned within a learning community. Instead, capacity for a learning community needs deliberately and explicitly to be built among educators and within schools and school systems.

In this paper, we present a model that frames our understandings about the ways in which people can construct a learning community. The model consists of three pivotal capacities that we believe need to be built if a school is to function as a learning community: personal capacity, interpersonal capacity, and organizational capacity. In a recently published book (Mitchell & Sackney, 2000), we provided a fuller development of the model and we embedded it in data from several studies and projects that we have undertaken over the past decade. In this paper, we present a summarized version of the model and of our foundational assumptions.

Issue Eighteen

December 30, 2000

The Flight of the Middle Class from Public Schools: A Canadian Mirage

Tim Goddard,
University of Calgary
 

Abstract: In this article I challenge the widely held perception that an increasing number of middle class Canadian parents are forsaking the public school system and enrolling their children in private schools.  After first providing an overview of the governance of Canadian education, I describe five versions of private education.  Following a review of current student enrolment outside the public system, I discuss alternative strategies to privatization.  Although examples from across the country are cited, the governance of education in Canada is a provincial rather than national affair.  The majority of the examples used are drawn from Alberta.

Issue Seventeen

November 30, 2000

Youth Violence, Schools, and the Management Question:
A Discussion of Zero Tolerance and Equity in Public Schooling

Stephen Jull,
Mount Saint Vincent University    
 

Abstract: In response to growing public concern and the reported increase in child/youth aggression and violence, the efficacy of school disciplinary practices and school discipline polices are being reevaluated in schools throughout Canada.  In many instances, provincial departments of education, school boards, and schools are basing the reconstruction of their school discipline policies on the principles of Zero Tolerance.  There is some concern that a Zero Tolerance approach to managing student behaviour will reinforce the marginalization of underrepresented individuals and groups through a set of disciplinary practices favouring the social behaviours of persons representative of the Anglo-European Canadian community.  A major challenge for school policy makers, therefore, is the construction of school social/behaviour management policies that are effective, inclusive, and sensitive to the specific yet ever-changing needs of students and their respective socio-political communities.

Issue Sixteen

 

October 30, 2000

Implementation of the Alberta Accountability Framework

John Burger, Government of Alberta
Merla Bolender, Government of Alberta
Valerie Keates, Government of Alberta
David Townsend, University of Lethbridge
   

Abstract: In 1994 the government of Alberta introduced legislation that mandated a comprehensive accountability framework for basic education. The action research project reported here is based on participant observation of the implementation of the accountability framework during the 1997-98 school year from the perspectives of a school principal, a central office administrator and a ministry of education official.  The research is based on a literature review, daily journal writing, and documents analysis. The paper is supplemented by an independent critique.  Observations and conclusions are organized around the perspectives of the researchersÅ respective roles.  The overall conclusion is that the Alberta accountability model is in an evolutionary period of development with substantial adjustments needed to ensure successful implementation.

Issue Fifteen

April 13, 2000

Successful School Improvement in the United Kingdom and Canada

Alma Harris,
University of Nottingham, United Kingdom

Abstract: The process of school improvement remains something of a 'black box'. While there are ample descriptions of different approaches to school improvement, there are fewer studies of a comparative nature. This article provides a comparison of two well-established school improvement programmes in England and Canada. The Improving the Quality of Education For All Project in England and the Manitoba School Improvement Programme in Canada have both demonstrated considerable success in their work with schools. This article analyses their different approaches to school improvement and concludes that their common strength lies in their ability to encourage teacher collaboration and to foster professional learning communities.

Issue Fourteen

April 12, 2000

Framing Reform for the New Millennium: Leadership Capacity in Schools and Districts
Linda Lambert,
California State University at Hayward

Abstract: The following is a script of the keynote address that Dr. Linda Lambert of California State University at Hayward, presented to the delegates attending the 1999 Western Canada Educational Administrators' conference in Edmonton in October. Dr. Lambert is the author of the book "Building Leadership Capacity in Schools." As well, she is first author of the books "Constructivist Leadership" and "Teachers as Constructivist Leaders."

Issue Thirteen

December 6, 1999

Decentralized Centralism - Governance in the field of education:
Evidence from Norway and British Columbia

Gustav E. Karlsen,
School of Teacher Education
Trondheim, Norway

Abstract: This article focuses on decentralization as a governance strategy in education. The author, Gustav Karlsen, first presents theoretical aspects of the phenomenon of decentralization and contextualizes them within the education research literature. He then analyzes the dynamics of decentralization that normally take place when governing strategies designed to decentralize authority and power are implemented. In particular, he emphasizes four aspects of that dynamic interactive process. In support of his argument, he provides evidence gathered from Norway and, to some extent, from the province of British Columbia, Canada. The dynamic interaction in the decentralization process, Karlsen contends, is implicit in the title of the article, "decentralized centralism."

Issue Twelve

January 19, 1999

The Origins of Educational Reform:  A Comparative Perspective

Benjamin Levin, Ph. D.
Jonathan Young, Ph. D.  

Abstract: This paper examines the origins of reform programs in four countries. The authors interest  is in the origins of and justifications for educational reforms, in particular, the role of ideology in the initiation and direction of some of the educational reforms examined in this study. The paper is a four year study that examined education in four countries, namely, Canada, the United States, England and New Zealand. The authors focused on these four aspects of reform in the countries: 1) Origins, 2) Approval, 3) Implementation, and 4) Effects.

Issue Eleven

November 28, 1997

Provincial Initiatives to Restructure Canadian School Governance in the 1990s

Thomas G. Fleming,
University of Victoria

Abstract: This paper examines the character of developments in the restructuring movement now underway in Canada. It is divided into three parts. The first part reviews the broad historical context in education and government which has given rise to the resturcturing movement. Part two examines the main forms, features, and traits of restructuring initiatives as they are now presenting themselves in provinces from the Atlantic to the Pacific. And part three explores several of the central ideas underlying provincial restructuring efforts, the agendas and implications of restructuring largely unstated in official documents, or what might otherwise be described as restructuring's "sub-text."

 

Issue Ten

January 14, 1997

School Boards, District Consolidation, and Educational Governance
in British Columbia, 1872 - 1995

Thomas G. Fleming
and B. Hutton,

University of Victoria

Abstract: It was not surprising to see that Education Minister Art Charbonneau's November 17, 1995, plan to "reduce significantly the number of school boards" in British Columbia was greeted with a certain amount of skepticism both within and outside the educational community.1 Criticisms of the NDP Government's proposal to restructure educational governance in the Province by reducing the number of school boards from 75 to 37 were immediate and largely predictable in nature.

Issue Nine

December 15, 1996

Globalization, Professionalization, and Educational Politics in British Columbia

Charles S. Ungerleider,

University of British Columbia

 

Abstract: Despite the fact that they are public employees in a bureaucratic institution, teachers in British Columbia, Canada, have achieved a measure of professional autonomy and influence unparalleled in other North American jurisdictions. This achievement is in part a consequence of conflict between the British Columbia Teachers' Federation (BCTF) and successive provincial Social Credit governments, groups representing divergent views about education, the part education plays in the lives of citizens, about the relationship between citizens and the state, and about globalization.

 

 

Issue Eight

November 20, 1996

 

Changing Employment Practices? Teachers and Principals Discuss Some "Part-Time" Arrangements for Alberta Teachers

 

Beth Young and Kathy Grieve

University of Alberta

 

Abstract: There are many theoretical arguments that support diverse staffing arrangements in school organizations, but surprisingly little evidence of progress in achieving equitable rather than exploitative forms of such diversity. In a trend that echoes changes in the structure of the wider labor market, an increasing proportion of Alberta teachers is employed part time. In 1995-96, 14.9% or 3500 of Alberta's 23,600 teachers were part-timers, nearly a 40% increase over five years (Alberta Education, 1996).

The overall restructuring of employment has been widely discussed from many different perspectives, but no systematic scholarly attention has been directed toward this phenomenon as it pertains to Canadian public school teachers. What are the day-to-day realities of living out "non-standard" teaching arrangements, and what politics and ideologies engender those realities?

Our exploratory research compares the enactment of three types of part-time work employment policies for teachers in one Alberta school district. About 30 teachers and administrators participated in interviews and told us their views about the professional, personal, educational, and organizational implications of these different part-time work policies and arrangements. We report an overview of our findings in this article by organizing the participants' perspectives according to three general themes -- Motivations, Negotiations, and Implications -- with an emphasis on implications related to "postmodern" employment in schools.

 

Issue Seven

April 29, 1996

From the Mail Room to the Vice-Presidency:
The Socialization of Alberta School Trustees

Part 1
Part 2

Dale Erickson

Alberta School Boards Association

and Robert Stout,

Arizona State University

 

Abstract: A study in the Province of Alberta similar to work done in Arizona, U.S.A. (Stout, 1982), indicates that many of the same dynamics are at play during the time that citizens become seasoned school trustees.

 

Issue Six

March 25, 1996

Preparing Teachers for Urban Schools: A View From the Field

 

Ethne Erskine-Cullen and Anne Marie Sinclair,
Faculty of Education, University of Toronto

Abstract: Schools in large urban centres are places where teachers are faced with a plethora of challenges that range from poverty, violence, cultural diversity and a multitude of languages. Preparing teachers to teach in these environments is a problem which many faculties of education are beginning to examine more closely. The purpose of this study was to discover what practising teachers in urban schools saw as the major differences between urban and other schools, day-to-day life in these schools, and what recommendations they had for teacher preparation programs. The findings provide interesting perceptions and recommendations from teachers about the characteristics of an urban school, challenges they present, characteristics of a successful urban teacher, as well as recommendations for teacher preparation programs. The authors suggest that the distinction between urban and suburban schools is geographic only, and that possibly, describing schools based on a continuum of challenging needs would be more accurate and beneficial to educators.

 

Issue Five

January 11, 1996

Variations in Value Orientations in the Implementation of
Multi-Grades: Implications for Moral Leadership

 

Pauline Leonard,
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Abstract: In an effort to understand the administrator's role in implementing change and the influence of values on the change process, a study of the implementation of multi-grades in a traditionally single-graded school in rural Newfoundland was undertaken. Ashbaugh and Kasten's (1984) typology of operant values in educational administration was used to analyse the data. The findings provide insight into the value orientations of the various stakeholders involved in the multi-grade change. This study underscores the role of the administrator for understanding variations in value orientations as a prerequisite for the development of shared values in the successful implementation of educational change.

 

Issue Four

November 24, 1995

Negotiating New Models of Curriculum in Changing Times: Year 1

John P. Miller,
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
and Susan M. Drake,
Brock University

 

Abstract: This paper explores the findings from the first year of a three-year study involving four school boards. The study focuses on how these boards are dealing with the changes mandated in curriculum policy documents developed by the Ontario Ministry of Education and Training.

 

Issue Three

August 2, 1995

On Framing the Problem of Violence in Schools: A Response

Juanita Epp

Lakehead University

 

Abstract: This article responds to the issues about violence raised by Hanne Mawhinney in Issue Two.

 

Issue Two

August 2, 1995

Towards an Archeology of Policy that Challenges Conventional Framing of the Problem of Violence in Schools

Hanne B. Mawhinney,

University of Ottawa

Abstract: This article examines the construction of youth violence as a problem requiring legal and regulatory responses by different levels of government. The author takes direction for this effort from critics who argue that there is a need to examine the assumptions guiding the way in which the problem of school violence is framed at both macro (provincial government), and micro (school board) political levels (Matthew, 1992).

 

Issue One

May, 1995

Reforming Secondary Education

Benjamin Levin,
University of Manitoba

 

Abstract: The context of secondary schooling has changed significantly in recent years, leading to a need for change in secondary education. There are few signs that the necessary changes at the required scale are occurring. The paper suggests some priorities for change, and outlines some actions that would help bring these about.