Career Development Program for Refugee and Migrant Youth

The Career Guidance for Refugee and Migrant Young People project is an initiative of the South Metropolitan Migrant Resource Centre funded by the Department of Education and Training. It aims to develop, pilot and evaluate a career development and planning program that specifically meets the learning levels and needs of refugee youth with low levels of education, cultural life skills and English language ability

Using Peer Review to Promote Writing Development in ESL Classes

The aim of this Alternate Plan Paper was to explore whether peer review promote writing development in ESL classes. Recent literature on peer review presented conflicting results in relation to its use in ESL writing classes. Some studies reported that peer review had positive effect on students\u27 academic performance; others argued that peer review could not be trusted as teaching technique. However, most of the reviewed literature argued in favor of peer review. Carr (2008) stated that peer review is an important teaching strategy in which students read and make comments about their peers\u27 written work. Carr (2008) also stated that peer review gives students an opportunity to learn about their own writing abilities and disabilities. In accord with Carr\u27s view, some participants in this study stated that peer review helped them learn about their writing weaknesses and strengths. It also helped them improve on their writing abilities. This study also provides some suggestions regarding the use of peer review in ESL classes

The Effect of Biographical Variables on Self-Efficacy of Management Accounting Students

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether biographical variables such as Gender, Race, Home District, School (urban/rural) and Language proficiency play any role in the Self-efficacy of Cost and Management Accounting (CMA) students and to assess whether Self-efficacy. A descriptive, longitudinal, and mixed-methods approach was used in this paper. In the current study, the quasi-experimental design used for the pre-test and post-test control groups was non-equivalent. The population targeted was CMA students. A census survey was performed. The comparative analysis between the variables revealed no significant difference. However, females, Africans, Urban Home District, Urban School, and English Second Language learners scored more in the post-test. The paper recommends that the implementation of General Education modules into the curriculum be instituted. Additionally, current learners appear to have very poor General Education skills, and respondents themselves believed that self-efficacy can have a positive impact on academic performance

The Experiences of Minority Immigrant Families Receiving Child Welfare Services: Seeking to Understand How to Reduce Risk and Increase Protective Factors

Wide recognition that families in the child welfare system experience multiple stressors has resulted in the development of a range of prevention and intervention strategies at individual, family, and policy levels.1 This article reports on a research study with minority immigrant families. The aim was to understand stressors they perceived as contributing to child welfare interventions, and services they found helpful or unhelpful. Using the conservation of resource (COR) theory, the findings highlight the erosion of resources that increases their vulnerability. Themes that emerged were: loneliness, betrayal, hopelessness, and financial and language struggles. Application of the COR theory combined with contextual insights from participant perspectives can guide policy and practice to focus on resource gain and prevent resource attrition

Abstracts from the Twelfth Annual Conference on Ethnic and Minority Studies

In an attempt to record a sense of the formal sessions of the 1984 Conference, we asked the Chairs to assemble abstracts and discussant comments for their sessions. Although we are pleased with a response greater than in 1983, we are aiming for one hundred percent in 1985

A Review of the "Digital Turn" in the New Literacy Studies

Digital communication has transformed literacy practices and assumed great importance in the functioning of workplace, recreational, and community contexts. This article reviews a decade of empirical work of the New Literacy Studies, identifying the shift toward research of digital literacy applications. The article engages with the central theoretical, methodological, and pragmatic challenges in the tradition of New Literacy Studies, while highlighting the distinctive trends in the digital strand. It identifies common patterns across new literacy practices through cross-comparisons of ethnographic research in digital media environments. It examines ways in which this research is taking into account power and pedagogy in normative contexts of literacy learning using the new media. Recommendations are given to strengthen the links between New Literacy Studies research and literacy curriculum, assessment, and accountability in the 21st century

Mapping New Directions: Higher Education for Older Adults

Based on surveys and focus group discussions, explores what, where, why, and how adults age 50 and up learn, how they pay for it, and how their needs are served. Suggests ways for higher education to adapt their outreach efforts, programs, and services

Master\u27s Thesis and Field Study Abstracts, July 1996-June 1998

This publication, the fourteenth in a series which began in 1957, contains the abstracts of Master\u27s Theses and Field Studies completed by graduate students of St. Cloud State University. The bulletin contains those theses and field studies completed during the period from July of 1996 through June of 1998. A bound copy of each thesis or field study is on file in the Learning Resources Center, which houses the library on this campus. The library copy of each thesis and field study is available for use on an interlibrary loan basis. Copies of this bulletin may be obtained from the Office of Graduate Studies, 121 Administrative Services, St. Cloud State University, 720 S. Fourth Avenue, St. Cloud, Minnesota, 56301-4498

CULTURALLY AND LINGUISTICALLY COMPLEX CLASSROOMS, IN-SERVICE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT, AND THE MEDIATION OF MAINSTREAM ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONAL SUBJECTIVITIES IN THE NORTH CAROLINA PIEDMONT

This dissertation study employed participatory methods of qualitative inquiry to understand how, in the setting of the North Carolina piedmont, a district-initiated multi- tiered professional development program mediated mainstream elementary school teachers’ professional subjectivities in relation to culturally and linguistically complex classrooms. Bringing a Vygotskian framework for understanding the cultural nature of human development (Portes & Salas, 2011) to participatory fieldwork (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995; Wolcott, 2009), the study sought to understand what a cohort of elementary educators took away from a multicultural in-service teacher education program sponsored by a local university and how, five years later, the experience of that in-service learning mediated their current professional subjectivities with linguistically diverse classrooms. Findings included the potential need for in-service training models aimed at fostering teacher capacity with student diversity to reexamine its assumptions about the “funds of knowledge” teachers potentially bring to staff development. Likewise, the study suggested that in-service teacher learning is mediated by the lived experiences of the participants as well as the local contexts and circumstances of schools and schooling

Educational Considerations, vol. 35(1) Full Issue

Educational Considerations, vol. 35(1)-Fall 2007-Full issu