Australia, like the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK), continues to experience a mismatch between the cultural backgrounds and socio-economic class of teachers and those of the students they work with. This article reports on a study that explored how a group of Australian teacher-education students understand their own ethnic and…

An increasing number of vacancies in school psychology academic positions and the reduced number of applicants seeking to enter academia have created projected shortages in academe. The purpose of the current study was to determine perspectives of academia held by current school psychology graduate students, who are in line to become the next…

Child care and protection have become key issues of concern for all teachers, and particularly for those teachers responsible for the care of young children. In this paper, we analyse focus group data on the topic of child care and protection produced by primary school teachers in Queensland, Australia. By drawing on concepts from cultural…

This study investigated the effectiveness of providing tutorial support for education students in core modules. An intervention designed to promote critical thinking skills was developed and delivered in week 11 of a 15 week module. Repeated measures analysis of variance indicated that the improvement in grades in Level 2 was significantly better…

The aim of this article is to discuss guidelines for support staff experiencing aggression in schools and to develop an approach for the support staff to deal with aggression to facilitate their mental health. The researchers explored the experience of aggression of the support staff in a chosen school by conducting phenomenological, unstructured…

In this article, the authors discuss the problematic trends affecting New England's human capital. These trends include migration to other states of New England's graduates due to high cost of living; more than 60 percent of college dropouts; and the decision of most companies to outsource jobs in India and other countries.

This study began in the Spring of 2003, when the Canterbury Adult Basic Education Research Network (CABERN), an informal cross-sector network of local adult literacy researchers and practitioners, sent out a questionnaire. The questionnaire addressed potential respondents by asking: "Are you a tutor engaged in any aspect of adult…

With goals in mind of engaging children in education and preparing them to address the nation's challenges, this report suggests service-learning could be a potential way to not only stem the tide of dropouts, but create a new generation of youth who are academically prepared for success in college and who possess a strong sense of civic…

Parent involvement is recognized as an important factor in encouraging student achievement. However, a survey by the National Center for Education Statistics found that in public schools with 25 percent or more American Indian students, teachers identified lack of parent involvement as one of their schools' three most serious problems. At an…

This paper reports findings from the first stage of an anticipated four-stage research project investigating the effectiveness of teacher education in health education. Prior to receiving any teacher education in health education, pre-service teachers (student teachers) were surveyed for their experiences of secondary school health education, and…

The study presented in this article focuses on strategic planning in developing countries, drawing on the author's experiences in a dozen developing countries in Asia and Africa and focus groups in three of those countries: Afghanistan, Madagascar, and South Africa. It looks at the special challenges faced by planners in developing countries and…

A pilot research study to examine the effect of a wellness-based intervention on improving students' body image, personal attitudes, and eating behaviors highlighted the importance of a healthy school environment. Parent and teacher focus groups were conducted to explore the perceived influences of wellness-based interventions designed for…

This study investigated the educational needs and barriers for diverse African refugee students in two inner-city high schools in Manitoba. Forty African refugee students, two principals, eight teachers, four parents, and four community leaders participated in the study. Five focus groups, individual interviews, and school and classroom…

Although large scale national surveys provide extensive data about the nature and frequency of alcohol use among American college students, survey research on alcohol does not provide detailed information on the context of college alcohol consumption that may contribute to drinking-related negative consequences. This research sought to gather…

The paper will argue that adopting a learning design methodology may provide a vehicle for enabling better design and reuse of Open Educational Resources (OERs). It will describe a learning design methodology, which is being developed and implemented at the Open University in the UK. The aim is to develop a "pick and mix" learning design…