A Decade of Transition

The MONEE project Regional Monitoring Report of the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre is a unique source of information on the social side of the transition taking place in the 27 countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Each year’s Report contains an update on the social and economic changes affecting people in the region and includes a wealth of data in a detailed Statistical Annex. The present Report provides a review of the first 10 years of transition, exploiting the fact that data are now available on many issues that cover the entire 1990s. The core chapters examine the record of the decade in four key areas affecting human welfare: income inequality and child poverty, health, education, and child protection. An introductory chapter analyses key economic and demographic trends. In each case, the Report summarizes developments to the end of the decade, discussing both the outcomes measured with statistical data and the policy options.economic monitoring; economic transition; educational policy; health; juvenile justice;Baltic States; Central Europe; Eastern Europe; Russia;

Teaching Artists Research Project

There have been remarkable advances in arts education, both in and out of schools, over the last fifteen years, despite a difficult policy environment. Teaching artists, the hybrid professionals that link the arts to education and community life, are the creative resource behind much of this innovation. Their best efforts are redefining the roles the arts play in public education. Their work is central to arts organizations' strategies for civic engagement and diverse audiences. Excellent research has shown that arts education is instrumental to the social, emotional, and cognitive development of thousands of young people. But little is known about teaching artists. The Teaching Artists Research Project (TARP) deepens our understanding of world of teaching artists through studies in twelve communities, and it will inform policy designed to make their work sustainable, more effective, and more meaningful. A dozen study sites were selected where funding was available to support exploration of the local conditions and dynamics in arts education: Boston, Seattle, Providence, and eight California communities (San Francisco/Alameda County, Los Angeles, San Diego, Bakersfield, San Bernardino, Santa Cruz, Salinas, and Humboldt County). A thorough literature review was conducted, and NORC conducted stakeholder meetings and focus groups, identified key issues and began designing a multi-methods study that would include surveys for both artists and program managers as well as in-depth interviews of stakeholders -- teaching artists, program managers, school officials, classroom teachers and arts specialists, principals, funders, and arts educators in a wide variety of venues.There are no professional associations and no accreditation for teaching artists, so a great deal of time was spent building a sample of teaching artists and program managers in every study site. The survey instrument was developed and tested, and then fielded on-line in the study sites sequentially, beginning in Chicago, and ending with the southern California sites. To assure a reliable response rate, online surveys were supplemented by a telephone survey. Lists of potential key informants were accumulated for each site, and interviewers were recruited, hired, and trained in each site. Most of the interviewers were teaching artists themselves, and many had significant field knowledge and familiarity with the landscape of arts education in their community. The surveys collected data on some fundamental questions:Who are teaching artists?Where do they work? Under what terms and conditions?What sort of education have they had?How are they hired and what qualifications do employers look for?How much do they make?How much experience do they have?What drew them to the field? What pushes them out?What are their goals?Qualitative interviews with a subsample of survey respondents and key informants delved deeply into the dynamics and policies that drive arts education, the curricula and pedagogy teaching artists bring to the work, and personal histories of some artists. The interviews gathered more detailed information on the local character of teaching artist communities, in-depth descriptions and narratives of teaching artists' experiences, and followed up on items or issues that arose in preliminary analysis of the quantitative survey data. These conversations illuminated the work teaching artists believe is their best and identified the kinds of structural and organizational supports that enable work at the highest level. The interview process explored key areas with the artists, such as how to best develop their capacities, understand the dynamics between their artistic and educational practice, and how to keep them engaged in the field. Another critical topic explored during these conversations was how higher education can make a more meaningful and strategic contribution toward preparing young artists to work in the field. The TARP report includes serious reflection on the conditions and policies that have affected arts education in schools, particularly over the last thirty years, a period of intense school reform efforts and consistent erosion of arts education for students. The report includes new and important qualitative data about teaching artists, documenting their educational background, economic status, the conditions in which they work, and their goals as artists and educators. It also includes new insights about how learning in the arts is associated with learning in general, illuminating findings from other studies that have suggested a powerful connection between arts education and positive outcomes for students in a wide range of domains

“Contemporary Latinx Media” Digital Humanities Research Project

As part of the “Contemporary Latinx Media” Digital Humanities Research Project, students explore and analyze different aspects related to the representation of Latino/as in contemporary digital media. Using the digital platform Scalar, the students produced a digital research essay as the final project of the course

Whānau Advisory Group research project

This report examines the impact of the Whānau Advisory Group, an initiative that aspires to foster quality engagement between schools and their Māori communities in order to improve Māori student achievement. Executive summary The success of the Whānau Advisory group initiative across diverse communities and contexts is determined by a set of key components including a core group of committed whānau with diverse skills and experiences and, the total support of the school’s principal. These components, in particular, provide the necessary platform for the ‘Whānau Advisory Group’ to progress, guided by realistic aims and objectives thereby providing a strong basis for recruiting and encouraging other whānau and community members to participate. While whānau members of the Whānau Advisory Group are both directly and indirectly involved in strategic decision-making as whānau or through positions of governance on boards of trustees, there is little evidence of a correlation between the Whānau Advisory Group and Māori educational achievement. However, schools claim a positive connection between Whānau Advisory Group and Māori achievement but based on anecdotal evidence. Nonetheless, an improvement in Māori student educational achievement was definitely seen to be influenced by the Whānau Advisory Group. The report emphasises the positive contribution of key whānau with skills and experiences to attract other whānau to the initiative, based on their standing and mana within a school’s community. Without these core members the Whānau Advisory Group would not succeed according to the initiative’s wider aims. Consequently, Whānau Advisory Group success factors, engagement strategies and narrative evidence of Māori student achievement in addition to the support of the Ministry of Education and local Iwi rūnanga are recognised as effective pathways for establishing and sustaining the Whānau Advisory Group initiative. Finally, while the report also documents areas of limitations and the various contexts in which the seven Case Study schools are located, the overall findings support the Whānau Advisory Group initiative as a worthwhile intervention to address the goals of Ka Hikitia - Accelerating Success 2013–2017 and Māori educational achievement

Moko – A Research Project

Moko colours the lives, and the skins, of all the people involved in the making of this book “Mau Moko”, which began as the Marsden project, “Ta Moko – Culture, Body Modification, and the Psychology of Identity”, 2001-2005. We proposed to study the origins, significance, technology and practice of Ta Moko from the pre-contact period to contemporary times, and to explore how this important art form has become a dynamic and positive assertion of being Maori in our changing world

The wordpress project :|bapractical action research experience

Tesis (Profesor de Inglés para la Enseñanza Básica y Media y al grado académico de Licenciado en Educación)The aim of this study is to promote and implement the use of social media resources in English-as-foreign-language (EFL) classrooms. In addition, the investigation intends to advance our understanding of this issue through examining the perspectives and a digital-immigrant teacher experiences. According to identity and the socio-cultural theory literature, we realized that there are teachers who are seeking to be innovative in their practices by using social media tools. This study pretends to portray that Internet and different social media tools, especially WordPress, are becoming essential for teaching purposes. The results reflect that social media tools were helpful for this teacher and what were her perceptions about the process and the implementation of Social media tools (SMT), in her EFL classroom.El objetivo de este estudio es promover e implementar el uso de los medios de comunicación social en las clases de inglés como lengua extranjera. Además, esta investigación pretende avanzar en nuestra comprensión de este tema a través del examen de las perspectivas de una maestra considerada como inmigrante digital, y sus experiencias. De acuerdo con la literatura sobre identidad y la teoría sociocultural, nos dimos cuenta de que hay maestros que buscan ser innovadores en sus prácticas mediante el uso de herramientas en línea. Este estudio pretende retratar que Internet y sus diferentes herramientas, especialmente WordPress, se están volviendo imprescindibles para propósitos docentes. Los resultados reflejan que las herramientas de los medios de comunicación social fueron útiles para esta profesora y cuáles son sus percepciones sobre el proceso y la implementación del proyecto en su clase