The School of Education, Training and Development at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg offers a Bachelor of Education (Honours) to practising teachers who already have a four year teaching diploma. The programme is delivered through interactive learning materials and Saturday tutorial sessions. However, interviews and a student survey seem…

This paper describes the development, administration, and scoring of the Pictorial Measure of School Stress (PMSS). This instrument was designed to describe individual differences in children's feelings about everyday school situations and their coping strategies for dealing with these. The PMSS uses a semi-structured interview to present specific…

There is a relative absence of research that documents ways principals and other school members construct the concept of leadership and understand its relationship to school improvement. School improvement here is defined as the enhancement of student learning, through focusing on the teaching-learning process and the conditions that support it…

Over the last two decades we have witnessed an emerging set of conditions in schools which render them contexts replete with social messages about the body, health, and self. Research has suggested that both the formal and informal contexts of education are heavily imbued with a "culture of healthism" which places moral obligation and…

In this study, I examine the perspectives of preservice teachers enrolled in a multicultural education course at a large predominately White Midwestern university. Past research on the development of multicultural attitudes and knowledge of White preservice teachers is inconclusive. In an effort to examine the multicultural perspectives of…

Background: The families of a population sample of people with Down's syndrome (DS), and of their non-disabled controls, have been followed since early childhood, and the families have now been seen again as their sons and daughters reached age 30 and 35 years. Methods: A semi-structured interview schedule was used, including items from the…

Independent learners study in highly varied circumstances that impact upon the educational process. Media technologies can provide many new educational opportunities, but are context dependent. As educators, we need to develop a better understanding of learners by considering their attitudes and preferences for using media technologies in their…

This paper reports on an investigation into the first time implementation of a technology education unit of work by a beginning primary school teacher. The researchers monitored the teacher's implementation of the unit across a 6 week period using an interpretivist research approach. A variety of data sources were drawn upon including teacher and…

The purpose of this research was to examine the educational experiences of individuals with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) and the elements of a successful school experience. Eleven parents and seven children participated in this qualitative study. Data was collected using questionnaires and in-depth semi-structured interviews.…

This paper examines teacher development of TGfU in teacher education programmes in Australia and the USA by taking a cross-sectional snapshot across a sequence covering the final two years of a teacher education programme in which TGfU is emphasised, and the first two years of teaching after graduating from the same programmes. It explores the…

This paper considers practitioners' beliefs about the literacy curriculum in four early years settings in England and the impact on the literacy experiences of the children in these settings. All four settings were working with the Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage (QCA/DfEE, 2000) and represent the range of provision in England. One…

This paper describes how collaboration emerged in a school district-university partnership designed to foster teacher development in the context of elementary science education. The Teachers Researching Inquiry-Based Science project involved four elementary teachers, a school district science mentoring teacher, a school district science…

This article discusses some findings from a small-scale investigation of children's gendered beliefs and behaviours in a Korean kindergarten which was attempting to challenge gender stereotyping through the anti-bias intervention of a "cooking curriculum". A sample of 14 children, some with "working" mothers and some with…

The field experience component in the four-year Bachelor of Education programme (Primary) at The Hong Kong Institute of Education offers a number of opportunities for students to observe or teach in a school. The aim of this article is to analyse the learning of the student-teachers and the supporting teachers during the field experience period in…

Changes that occur in teachers' careers are typically conceptualized in research as occurring in several demarcated and sequential stages/phases. This study examines secondary schoolteachers' understandings of their careers and whether they could identify stages/phases in their career development. It is based on experienced teachers' recall of…