The focus of this paper is circle time, a widely used method in primary schools in Ireland and elsewhere. It involves children sitting in a circle with their teacher using method-specific techniques and strategies for self-esteem enhancement, promoting positive relationships and development of social skills. Qualitative research was undertaken in…

Professionalism is a focus for student learning in many disciplines. It is known, furthermore, that interpersonal interactions between staff and students constitute an informal curriculum that has a significant influence on students. But the origins of this informal curriculum are not fully apparent. This article offers a multiple case study that…

This paper appraises a simulation activity which forms part of the postgraduate social work curriculum offered at the University of Strathclyde. It shows how simulations that are based on activities that are as close as possible to actual "real-life" situations can be applied as a teaching strategy so as to enable students to integrate…

In this article, the authors examine the literature on parental involvement highlighting the equity issues that it raises in educational practice. They begin with a brief historical overview of approaches to parent involvement and the ways in which "neodeficit" discourses on parents permeate current education reform efforts. Next, they address how…

El Salvador has an unfortunate history that includes a military regime and a civil war that together created a legacy of violence in which the country still struggles nowadays. Salud Escolar Integral (SEI) was created in 2005 by universities, federal governments, a corporate sponsor, and sport associations as a program to combat youth violence…

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how an understanding of the Good Language Learner models described in the SLA literature can be used to tailor and implement a program of learning strategy training and self-regulatory practices in the classroom to empower L2 learners in an EFL context. The paper begins by reviewing the various…

This conceptual model introduces a process to help school counselors use data to drive decision making and offers examples to implement the process. A step-by-step process is offered to help school counselors and school counselor supervisors address educational issues, close achievement gaps, and demonstrate program effectiveness. To illustrate…

The major problems facing urban residents particularly women are poverty, poor food security, growing urban population, hunger and lack of formal employment. Due to lack of employment, the majority of women in urban centres are involved in urban agriculture. The major focus of this research was to establish to what extent women are being empowered…

Increasingly, women's experience of online life seems to run counter to the optimistic expectations of the cyberfeminists of the 90s and the utopian fervour of the present. Female journalists and internet users find themselves at the receiving end of a level of verbal abuse online previously unthinkable in the public sphere. Women are showing…

Background: Very little research has examined the relationship between resilience, risk, and the service use patterns of adolescents with complex needs who use multiple formal and mandated services such as child welfare, mental health, juvenile justice, and special educational supports. This article reports on a study of 497 adolescents in…

This is a sequel to previous theoretical papers (Gamliel, Reichental, & Eyal, 2007a, 2007b) that proposed a Model of Knowledge in Volume 33 of this journal. The study examines the effects of digital education on intergenerational empowerment and social interaction among participants in the Israeli Multigenerational Connection Program (MCP).…

At-risk student bodies in public school districts have very different cultures of learning from mainstream learning communities. Policies and practices in schools tend to isolate these student bodies for convenience in administration and instruction, and little consideration is given to whether these experiences of isolation from the larger…

It is essential for teachers to provide a setting where student interaction is fostered as a mediational tool for learning, thus expediting the natural transfer of language and knowledge among students (Cummins, 1979). Doing so provides students a way of learning in an additive environment (Soltero, 2004). Could such a classroom have the potential…

The UK Coalition Government has recently introduced a number of education policies that aim to reform initial teacher development in England. It has argued that the training of new teachers will be improved by giving greater priority to the development of "key teaching skills". This narrowly practical and overly managerial approach to…

The aim of this study is to analyze the core values embedded in the philosophy of Basic Education in Oman. Those values are used to develop a standard to guide the administrative work and performance related to teaching and learning in secondary schools in Oman. 449 school administrators (principals, their assistants, educational supervisors and…