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1 – 10 of 631Cathy Nutbrown, Julia Bishop and Helen Wheeler
– The purpose of this paper is to report on how early years practitioners worked with the ORIM Framework to support work with parents to promote early literacy experiences.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to report on how early years practitioners worked with the ORIM Framework to support work with parents to promote early literacy experiences.
Design/methodology/approach
Co-produced Knowledge Exchange (KE) was used to develop and evaluate work with parents to facilitate their young children’s literacy. Information was gathered in discussion groups, interviews with parents and practitioners and feedback from all the parties involved.
Findings
Practitioners and families engaged with each other in the further development of an established literacy programme, and families demonstrated “ownership” of the co-produced knowledge after the end of the project.
Research limitations/implications
Project design in co-produced research and KE is necessarily flexible. The focus is on practitioners’ knowledge and ownership of the process, sharing knowledge with parents and enhancing children’s experiences.
Practical implications
Practices that can enhance parental engagement in their children’s early literacy are varied and multiple and ORIM can be used flexibly to plan, develop and evaluate innovative and community – (and family –) specific practices.
Social implications
Where parents have more knowledge of children’s early literacy development they are in a better position to support them; for learning communities there are implications in terms of future development of work with families to support early literacy development.
Originality/value
This paper contributes an original approach to the co-production of research with early years practitioners. It also identifies specific issues around the ethics of ownership in co-produced research.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine the ways assemblaging communities work to support, hinder or disrupt literacy pedagogy in one English Language Arts (ELA) classroom…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the ways assemblaging communities work to support, hinder or disrupt literacy pedagogy in one English Language Arts (ELA) classroom. Through an expanded understanding of community based on the concept of assemblage, this paper discusses the ways in which one teacher’s critical literacies instructional practices emerged, configured and ruptured through the assemblaging communities’ that affected her enactment of critical literacies pedagogy. A focus on assemblaging communities recognizes the de/re/territorializing power of the evolving groups of bodies that produce a classroom and pedagogy in particular ways.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on observational field notes and informal exchanges, this qualitative study uses post-structural and post-human theory to examine the assemblaging communities that produced the enactment of critical literacies pedagogy in a seventh grade ELA classroom. Assemblage theory is used to analyze data to examine the assemblaging communities that de/re/territorialized in Ms T’s teaching in relation to critical literacies pedagogy. This analytical orientation allowed for a nuanced look at communities as evolving, de/re/territorializing formations that, in this study, created tensions for enacting critical literacies pedagogy.
Findings
Assemblaging communities are always producing classrooms in particular ways, demonstrating the complexities and realities of enacting literacy pedagogy. Through analysis of the data, the rupture between the assemblaging communities that produced the enactment of critical literacies pedagogy and the assemblaging communities that produced test prep (and altered critical literacies) became apparent. Ruptures like this must be attended to because enacting critical literacies pedagogy is never done neutrally and without attention to the assemblaging communities that are always de/re/territorializing pedagogy, teachers may not be equipped to respond to the unexpected ruptures as well as material realities produced from these.
Practical implications
Educators can use the concept of assemblaging communities for recognizing the territories that shape their literacy pedagogy. By foregrounding assemblaging communities, researchers and educators may be more appropriately equipped to consider the real-time negotiations at play when enacting critical literacies pedagogy in the classroom. Enacting critical literacies pedagogy is never done neutrally, and attention to the assemblaging communities that are always de/re/territorializing pedagogy, teachers may be more equipped to respond to the material realities that are produced through their pedagogical actions.
Originality/value
This study suggests assemblaging communities as a way to productively move forward a perspective on communities that foregrounds the moving bodies that produce communities differently in evolving ways and their de/re/territorializing forces that create material realities for classrooMs Assemblaging communities moves the purpose from defining a community or interpreting what it means to looking at what it does, how it functions and for this study, how assemblaging communities produced critical literacies pedagogy in one classroom.
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The purpose of this paper is to describe Karen refugee women’s experience of resettlement and the factors which structured community capacity to support their mental health and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe Karen refugee women’s experience of resettlement and the factors which structured community capacity to support their mental health and well-being.
Design/methodology/approach
A postcolonial and feminist standpoint was used to bring Karen women’s voice to the knowledge production process. Data were collected through ethnographic field observation, in-depth semi-structured individual and focus group interviews with Karen women as well as healthcare and social service providers.
Findings
Three interrelated themes emerged from the data: Karen women’s construction of mental health as “stress and worry”; gender, language and health literacy intersected, shaping Karen women’s access to health care and social resources; flexible partnerships between settlement agencies, primary care and public health promoted community capacity but were challenged by neoliberalism.
Research limitations/implications
Karen women and families are a diverse group with a unique historical context. Not all the findings are applicable across refugee women.
Practical implications
This paper highlights the social determinants of mental health for Karen women and community responses for mitigating psychological distress during resettlement.
Social implications
Public health policy requires a contextualized understanding of refugee women’s mental health. Health promotion in resettlement must include culturally safe provision of health care to mitigate sources of psychological distress during resettlement.
Originality/value
This research brings a postcolonial and feminist analysis to community capacity as a public health strategy.
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The rapid advancement of technology poses many social challenges including the emerging issue of technology-facilitated abuse (TFA) and violence. In Australia, women from…
Abstract
The rapid advancement of technology poses many social challenges including the emerging issue of technology-facilitated abuse (TFA) and violence. In Australia, women from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds are found to be more vulnerable to domestic violence (DV) and abuse, including TFA. This chapter presents a snapshot of CALD women's technology-facilitated domestic abuse (TFDA) experiences in Melbourne through the eyes of a small group of DV practitioners. Findings show CALD women experience TFA similar to that of the mainstream, with tracking and monitoring through the use of smartphone and social media most common. Their migration and financial status, and language and digital literacy can increase their vulnerability to TFDA, making their experience more complicated. Appropriate digital services and resources together with face-to-face support services can be a way forward. Further research should focus on better understanding CALD women's perceptions of and responses to TFDA and explore ways to improve engagement with and use of community media channels/platforms.
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Michele Biasutti and Eleonora Concina
The aim of this article is to examine the perspectives, experiences, roles and values of Italian primary school principals regarding the inclusion of migrant children.
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this article is to examine the perspectives, experiences, roles and values of Italian primary school principals regarding the inclusion of migrant children.
Design/methodology/approach
The method of the study is qualitative and consists of a semi-structured interview, which was carried out with 17 primary school principals and examined using content analysis.
Findings
The following six categories emerged: (1) school organisation and services, (2) projects and activities for inclusion, (3) teaching methods and strategies, (4) assessment, (5) networking and (6) challenges. The findings highlighted the complexity of the principals' role; they have to take on several tasks to foster a positive school experience for migrant students. A student-centred approach was considered relevant for intercultural education to promote inclusion and well-being. Curriculum activities were designed according to student needs.
Research limitations/implications
The number of participants was limited, and they all worked in a small area of northeast Italy. Future research should examine the perspective of other school stakeholders such as teacher coordinators, the Commission for School Inclusion, teachers and tutors.
Practical implications
The findings could be used as a framework for defining a model of the organisation of the school useful for discussing the relevance of the activities and for comparing schools in different contexts. The development of reflective practice to analyse the activities inside the schools could be considered.
Social implications
Stakeholders could consider the findings before making decisions and developing policy actions countrywide.
Originality/value
The key factors included the awareness of the school principal role in managing the school and of the importance of connecting their school with the local community and external agencies.
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Jose G. Clavel and Mauro Mediavilla
This paper aims to focus on how reading for pleasure is transmitted within the family. Using data taken from the Programme for International Student Assessment test of 2009, which…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to focus on how reading for pleasure is transmitted within the family. Using data taken from the Programme for International Student Assessment test of 2009, which dealt in depth with the reading proficiency of students, the authors show that children of parents who read for pleasure are better readers. Within the extensive research and published results on reading performance, the authors focused on the transmission of parents’ reading attitudes to their children.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, the authors have opted for an approach of “difference in differences”, applied to a population that represents all 15-year-olds from five countries (Germany, Denmark, Hungary, Italy and Portugal). To support this study, the authors chose as a response variable the difference between reading performance and maths performance of each student, taking into account five plausible values for each student. The authors have several explanatory variables, among them what we call the “treatment”, which is the parents’ enthusiasm for reading.
Findings
The calculated estimations clearly indicate that there is a positive effect for four out of the five countries analysed, ranging from 4 points for Italy to 6.5 points for Germany and Portugal. As for the significance of the effect, with the exception of Hungary, the result is reliable and robust. It should also be noted that the variable that indicates the existence of a reading habit by children (daily reading for pleasure) is seen as a factor that positively affects the difference between competence in reading and mathematics in four out of the five countries analysed.
Originality value
The results show positive effects on children whose parents read for pleasure, and this fact should be used to further encourage parents to promote their own reading time for pleasure. In view of the already quantified trend in international reports that adults are reading less, it seems crucial to involve educational authorities in reversing this phenomenon, knowing the impact that adult reading habits have on the reading competence of young people.
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Potchara Chinnasee, Suchitra Sukonthasab and Nattaporn Lawthong
The purpose of this study is to develop a reliable test metric that can ascertain health literacy as it relates to hypertension in the population of Thailand.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to develop a reliable test metric that can ascertain health literacy as it relates to hypertension in the population of Thailand.
Design/methodology/approach
One thousand five hundred patients from hypertension clinics in hospitals under the Ministry of Public Health, Thailand were recruited to this study. The test was developed and divided into three latent variables and four observed variables for health literacy concepts. Indexes of Item-Objective Congruence (IOC) from seven experts and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the entire questionnaire were evaluated for content validity and reliability. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis with LISREL also analyzed for construct validity.
Findings
The result illustrates that the Item-Objective Congruence was 0.68, and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.87. The result also shows that Barlett’s Test of Sphericity was 3129.31 (p < 0.01), and the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy was 0.83. The model was fit to empirical data (Chi-square = 0.02).
Originality/value
This study concludes that the Thai Hypertension Health Literacy Assessment Tool (THHLA) created as a result of the study is valid and reliable. The test can be used to evaluate health literacy for hypertension patients in Thailand.
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Aysel Sultan, Doris Bühler-Niederberger and Nigar Nasrullayeva
Smartphones play an integral part in many children's lives. Their constant presence in various contexts and the multitude of affordances they present have a tremendous effect on…
Abstract
Smartphones play an integral part in many children's lives. Their constant presence in various contexts and the multitude of affordances they present have a tremendous effect on how childhoods are lived today. One important aspect is the way children's interaction with smartphones can affect relationships and particularly generational relations. In this explorative study, we investigated Azerbaijani children's interaction with smartphones in the family and at school using the sociomaterial and relational approaches. Thinking relationally, we followed children's stories to unravel how smartphones can mediate different types of behavior and assist children in negotiating their place in generational order with the adults in their lives. Analyses suggest that smartphones can both present children with bargaining power to negotiate pleasure and fun as well as means to reinforce the generational order by children themselves. The findings point out that children often transfer social norms and expectations placed on them to the ways they use smartphones.
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Yonnas Addis and Solomon Abirdew
Smallholder farmers have always been profoundly the first to be impacted by climate change, and therefore, farmers understanding of climate change and accessibility to alternative…
Abstract
Purpose
Smallholder farmers have always been profoundly the first to be impacted by climate change, and therefore, farmers understanding of climate change and accessibility to alternative adaptation strategies are crucial for reducing the effect of climate change. The purpose of this study is to assess the perception of farmers to climate change, adaptation strategies and determinants of adaptation choice in central Ethiopia.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used data from randomly selected 240 farm households. Descriptive statistics were used to describe farmers’ perceptions of climate change and adaptation strategies. Also, a multivariate probit model was used to identify the major factors affecting farmers’ choice of adaptation strategies to climate change in central Ethiopia.
Findings
Smallholder farmers perceive climate change in the past two decades in response; the majority (91.47%) of farmers used adaptation options. Improved crop varieties and input intensity, crop diversification, planting date adjustment, soil and water conservation activities and changing of the crop type were used as adaptation options in the study area. A few of these strategies were significantly confirmed a complementary and supplementary relationship. The study identified sex, family size, agroecology, climate information, crop-fail history and formal extension service as significant determinants for farmers’ adaptation choices as these variables significantly affected more than two farmers’ adaptation strategies simultaneously.
Research limitations/implications
Farmers’ choice of adaptation was highly constrained by institutional factors and all these identified factors can be possibly addressed through a better institutional service provision system. It is, therefore, recommended that local administrators should explore the institutional service provision system for a better farm-level adaptation while considering demographic characteristics as well.
Originality/value
This study identified factors affecting farmers’ several adaptation strategies at a time and provides information for the policymaker to make cost-effective interventions for better farm-level adaptation practices.
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Finn Lannon, Roisin Lyons and Christina O'Connor
This perspective article responds to the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) as a significant opportunity for growth among family businesses, highlighting the need for…
Abstract
Purpose
This perspective article responds to the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) as a significant opportunity for growth among family businesses, highlighting the need for future research to attain a clear picture of the next generation of family business successors.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a literature review of current technology adoption within family businesses. The authors offer some research insight to spur critical thinking and discourse around the impact of AI on family business successors.
Findings
Family businesses are initially skeptical of AI technology. However, its use and adoption are crucial for the survival of the family business. To leverage this technology, the authors need to investigate the role of the family business successors as “Gen AI.”
Originality/value
It is challenging but necessary to develop policies and educational support for successors to ensure the survival of family businesses worldwide. The authors propose four key areas of future research.
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