Showing papers in "Canadian Journal of Education in 1981"

On Defining Literacy

Abstract: This study briefly examines contemporary approaches to literacy which, for purposes of clarification, it classifies in two basic categories: the "technocratic" (or "behaviorist") and the "progressive" The technocratic approach, it is argued, reduces the rich complexity of literate behavior in order to satisfy demands for a presumed scientific rigor and a simplified index of accountability The progressive approach, on the other hand, acknowledges the complexity of literate behavior, yet fails to provide an analytical framework for a systematic investigation of its complexity The authors discuss the currently popular concept of "functional literacy" in relation to the classical model of "high literacy" They further comment on Kirsch and Guthrie's (I977) attempt to extend and refine the notion of functional literacy The focal concern of the authors is to outline the kinds of questions that must be asked in order to assess and to critically elaborate existing research into literacy achievement They suggest, for example, that research must be guided by considerations of contextual factors influencing the acquisition and use of literate abilities Finally, the authors suggest the importance of organizing research on literacy in relation to recently documented contradictions between Canadian culture and the democratic goals of Canadian society

Clinical Supervision and Teacher Thought Processes.

Abstract: This paper attempts to develop a conceptual link between recent research on teaching, particularly on teacher thought processes, and clinical supervision. The author's thesis is that knowledge derived from research on teaching constitutes the substantive base upon which the rigorous analysis of teaching espoused by the clinical approach can be established. Goldhammer's (1969) five-phase cycle is analyzed in light of recent "commitments to teaching" identified by Dunkin and Biddle (1974). More significantly, the paper analyzes the clinical approach in light of the growing research on teacher thought processes and exposes a potential gap in the clinical framework. The author argues that the link between clinical supervision and teacher thought processes warrants a modification of the cycle in the form of the "isotopex" a brief exchange at the conclusion of the observation phase that provides for evaluation in terms of preactive and interactive objectives and strategies.

The Immersion Centre and the Dual-Track School: A Study of the Relationship between School Environment and Achievement in a French Immersion Program.

Abstract: Now that the early French-immersion program is a well-established educational alternative for English-speaking students in the Carleton Board of Education in Ontario, it has become important to examine factors which may influence the achievement of immersion students. In this study two different school settings for the program are compared: immersion centres housing only the immersion program, and dual-track schools in which both the immersion and regular English programs operate. Earlier program evaluation results had led to the hypothesis that the immersion centre environment might be more conducive to achievement in a French immersion program than the dual-track school environment. A battery of achievement tests of French, English, and other subjects was administered to classes of Grade 5 students in both school settings, and questionnaires were developed to gather relevant information from students, teachers, and principals. The test results indicate superior achievement on the part of immersion centre students in several aspects of French and English skills. The questionnaire data provide information on the possible reasons for these differences. The overall implication of the study for planning immersion programs is to provide a school environment which encourages the maximum use of French.

Streaming, Absenteeism, and Dropping-out

Abstract: A descriptive model of absenteeism and early withdrawal from school is developed using a census of the students registered in 1974-75 in secondary III, IV, and V of the Francophone sector of a large Quebec school board located in a highly urbanized area. Crosstabular analysis tends to show that the streaming system is inversely related to absenteeism and dropping-out, even when intelligence, age, academic performance, and type of school are considered separately. A path analytic model confirms the crosstabular analysis: The streaming system remains associated with both absenteeism and dropping-out. The data also confirm some of the results of previous studies on dropping-out. Certain statements of the study are qualified with respect to intervention policies.

Role Shock in Local Community Development Dynamics

Abstract: Recent developments in Canadian Indian education provide some otherwise unavailable opportunities to observe potentials for implementing significant changes in schools elsewhere. One domain of potential change, often considered by educators and others to be a desirable condition, is "local control." For all the rhetoric about local control of schooling, it is actually observable only in a few cases and very little description is available about the processes or problems of implementation. This paper describes the beginning of one such undertaking and illustrates how the unanticipated emergence of pervasive role shock inhibits the expected positive results from autonomous local control of schooling. Les d6veloppements recents dans le domaine de l'education des indiens du Canada fourissent une occasion inesper6e d'observer les possibilit6s de realiser des changements significatifs dans d'autres dcoles. Un des domaines ou des changements seraient possibles voire souhaitables, de l'avis de nombreux enseignants et autres educateurs, est celui de l'autonomie locale. Malgre toute la rh6torique entourant la question de l'autonomie locale de l'ecole, force nous est de constater que tres peu de cas et d'6tudes descriptives existent concernant les proo6des et les probl6mes relatifs a son implantation. Cet article expose les debuts d'une entreprise de ce genre et fait voir que l'apparition inopinee d'un conflit de r6le a empechbe l'atteinte des resultats positifs que l'on esperait de l'autonomie locale de I'ecole. A unique choice to assume local control of schooling is now available to Canadian Indians. Community development processes in assuming local control have model implications for all who see grass-roots participation as desirable. Control, in this context, refers to autonomy; no external educational hierarchy of authority is involved. Aoki ( 973 ) identifies this as a process of devolution - not just decentralization, but complete freedom from the centralized bureaucracies that are characteristic of Canadian education. Local control has a high positive affective appeal to many people and is variously used as a political slogan or as a means of local community power manipulation (Fein, 1971; Repo, 1972), but it is difficult to conceive under existing school laws for any Canadians other than Indians or private, independent schools. The idea is relatively new in Canada, emerging from the reform ethos of the I96os into federal policy in the I970s. Urion (1975) and Carney (1978) provide substantial reference to its genesis among Amerindian people in the Navajo Nation and its rapid spread in both the United States and Canada. The Canadian National Indian Brotherhood pro

Relationships Between Success in an Education Program and Success in the Teaching Profession

Abstract: In the final analysis, a teacher education program must be evaluated in terms of the success of its graduates This study examined the teaching effectiveness of a random sample of the University of Lethbridge bachelor of education graduates and related various components of their success to the performance of those same individuals as students within the teacher education program There appeared to be a definite relationship between success in the program and success in teaching, but individual components of the program were not good predictors of teaching success

The Bogus Science.

Abstract: are still regarded as sciences for three reasons: the presence of a large professional organization committed to this position; the "empathic ethos" dedicated to bringing about social change by way of marginal "growth" institutions like the school; and the authoritative voices of eminent professionals convinced that psychology is indeed a science with secure behavioral laws. Science3 is still in the programmatic stage and is unlikely to command much attention because it disregards forces in the milieu which influence significantly human experience and behavior. It is argued that Science2 and Science3 should be treated as belief systems which people may find useful for their various purposes. L'on fournie de l'evidence pour soutenir la these que la psychologie n'est pas une science dans le contexte courant qu'elle fuisse decouvrir des droits constants avec lesquels l'on explique A la fois le comportement humain et l'experience. Malgre cela, la psychologie est encore vue comme une science pour trois raisons: la presence d'une grande organization professionnelle commise A cette attitude depuis son fondement en 1894; l'existence egalement primitive et reliee de l'application de "mission-oriented" research, desquels les auteurs sont dedies d'apporter le changement social par l'augmentation marginal des institutions comme l'ecole; et la demonstration tentative des professionnelles elevees que la psychologie est, en verite, une science. Plusieurs soutiennent que ces raisons ne puissent pas resister la critique et la theorie "psychologie-commescience" doit etre remplao6e par un corps des convictions dans lequel les dtudiants sont encourages d'accepter n'importe quelle theorie empirique qu'ils trouvent pratique pour tout but. When the original professional psychologists declared themselves to be scientists, they forgot the imaginative and exploratory nature of much previous scientific discovery. Enthused by the salient successes of the natural sciences in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Cattell, 1966, pp. 4-5), they ignored particularly the establishing of functional relationships by tinkering with variables (Tyndall, 1961, pp. 14-15) and the use of visual models to tease out the general laws of the phenomena in question. Examples of the latter include Harvey's arriving at the concept of the heart as a hydraulic pump, Faraday's discovery of the dynamo (Williams, 1965, p. I96) and, much later, the model of the structure of the DNA molecule (Watson, I968, p. 202). What the psychologists found was a conventional science replete with laws expressed

Some Common Causes of Literacy and Numeracy.

Abstract: The "primacy of reading" hypothesis as the explanation of the high correlation between children's competencies in literacy and numeracy is rejected. Instead a "primacy of speech perception" hypothesis is examined. Analysis-by-synthesis speech recognition procedures are acquired in early childhood prior to the development of basic literacy and numeracy. Yet, the logic of the analysis-by-synthesis procedure is common to both arithmetic problem solving and reading comprehension. In structural terms, competencies in all three decoding strategies are dependent on the child's ability to intuitively use phonetic, syntactic, and semantic rule-following or cueing strategies. Thus, it was found that all the covariation between reading and numeration for a sample of grade four children was accounted for by these strategies as mediated by the school dependent basic language skills. Similarly, the research confirmed the reciprocal interrelationship between literacy and numeracy. An elasticities analysis demonstrated, however, that reading and numeration, though highly responsive to one another, were not particularly responsive to changes in children's cueing strategies or basic skills performances. Some suggestions for further research were made in the light of this unanticipated finding.

Personality, Motivation, and Second Language Learning.

Abstract: Research by Witkin (1972, 1976) and his associates has corroborated the stable and pervasive nature of degree of differentiation in many levels of psychological function. An examination of possible relationships between extremes of differentiation (field dependence/independence), which suggest contrasting personality syndromes, and motivation in second language learning (integrative motive) was carried out to identify personality and perceptual consistencies in the dynamics of the second language acquisition process, and to test further the general claim made by Witkin. The importance of the integrative motive in second language acquisition has been discussed previously by Gardner et al. (1970). Of 414 university undergraduates involved in the present study, 236 students who scored at either extreme of the differentiation continuum, measured by Thurstone's Closure Flexibility Test, were compared on scales for integrativeness. As hypothesized, T-tests indicated field dependent students were consistently and significantly more integratively motivated.

Secondary School Student Attitudes Toward the Police: An Exploratory Study

Abstract: As the mandate of the police becomes more extensive, more public support for crime prevention seems necessary. This is especially true in the area of juvenile delinquency. This study attempted to determine attitudes toward the police held by senior high school students in a municipality in British Columbia. A pretest-posttest, quasi experimental design was used. During the experimental treatments the RCMP, who police the municipality, tried to create more positive attitudes. These treatments consisted of either weekly police lectures and discussion during an entire semester (Grade 10), or the incorporation of lectures, discussion, a ride-a-long program, and an incarceration program, in a semestered Law XI class (Grades I and 2). At the end of the treatments, analysis of covariance statistics was applied to Grade I and I 2 posttest results. As matched pretest and posttest data were not available for Grade o, no statistical analysis is reported. Grade XI and 12 results indicated that experimental groups were more positive in the attitudes toward the police than were control groups. The study indicated that systematic efforts to create more positive attitudes toward the police were effective, especially when the program was coupled with experiential activities and more in-depth, follow-up work carried out in the Law XI class.

A Critical Examination of Teacher Education from the Perspective of Curriculum.

Abstract: This paper examines teacher education from varying perspectives educators have of curriculum. Although there exists considerable discussion of teaching practices, it is contended that greater historical and philosophical examination of the beliefs, interests, and intentions that guide practices can foster improvements in teacher education. A traditionalist, conceptual-empiricist, and reconceptualist view of curriculum provides a framework for examining teacher intentions, conceptions of theory, and models of teaching that underlie teacher education programs. Implications of the criticism are the need for greater dialogue concerning the beliefs and academic interests of teacher education, examination of the notion of practice in teacher education, and rethinking the role of teacher decision-making in preservice and inservice programs.

The Status of Philosophy of Education in the Curricula of Preservice Teacher Education Programs in Canada.

Abstract: Philosophy of education is alive and well in Canada today. Data derived from teacher education institutions in the spring of 1977 indicated that as a component in the curricula of preservice teacher education programs it is (a) organized and approached from three perspectives: historical, analytic, and normative; (b) compulsory as a separate subject in I8 institutions, a constituent of a general foundations course in 9, a foundational option in 15, a free elective in 2; (c) required in initial programs because of its potential to clarify educational concepts and/or give perspective and direction to the entire program; not required either because of inadequate preparation on the part of the candidates or because of a belief in the mechanical nature of teaching; (d) allotted from one to five semesters; (e) perceived by instructors as extremely important, by students as irrelevant. Experimental programs are being designed to bridge the apparent gap between the theoretical and practical aspects of the curriculum.

Self-Concept Research: The Gap Between Social Theory and Educational Practice.

Abstract: This inquiry focusses upon recent concerns with student self-concept as an illustration of the difficulties in relating social science research to educational policy and practice. Early research into self-concept is reviewed, and the subsequent impact upon schooling is traced. A more critical review of the research tradition and its recent development then reveals significant gaps in understanding between science and pedagogy. Current observations of the school system suggest that these gaps have in turn led to failures in reform practices. Finally, the worlds of the teacher and the scientist are contrasted, and the possibilities for better communication are explored.