1,497 research outputs found
âLook at them! They all have friends and not meâ: the role of peer relationships in schooling from the perspective of primary children designated as âlower-attainingâ
This paper explores the peer relationship experiences of 23 primary-school children who had been designated as âlower-attainingâ. It is written against the backdrop of the mental health crisis among young people in Britain. Using John Macmurrayâs principles of equality and freedom as underpinning positive personal relationships, it investigates how âlower-attainingâ children experience their peer relationships in a climate where attainment in mathematics and English is politically prioritised over the nurturing of positive relationships. We drew on the recent literature pertaining to peer relationships in general; and peer relationships among âlower-attainersâ in particular. We build on the assumption that positive personal relationships support creative learning and high attainment. Using 107 extended individual and paired/triad activity-interviews as well as lesson observations every term over six school terms, we carried out research in four sample primary-schools. Our findings illustrated the high value put on friendships by sample children, despite a strong emphasis in schooling on individual competition. The children described instances of feeling troubled by their relationships; and their âlow-attainmentâ status appeared to be linked to some, if not many, of their troubles. They sometimes felt excluded from the main body of their classes due to emphasis on high-attainment. We conclude by proposing a greater emphasis on collaboration and the nurturing of relationships in schooling, which in turn could support these childrenâs creative learning and attainment
Parity of participation? Primary-school children reflect critically on being successful during schooling
Nancy Fraser describes parity-of-participation in social interaction as an important component of social justice. In this paper, we explore the participatory experiences of primary-school-children who have been labelled âlower-attainersâ in mathematics and/or writing. The paper explores justice drawing on the perspective of these pupils, in relation to how they perceive success in their school learning. We link the concept of participation to the three components of social justice outlined in Nancy Fraserâs definition: a) distribution of wealth; b) recognition of status; and c) representation of voice. Our findings indicate that children who do not excel in attainment in prescribed subjects may experience obstructions to parity-of-participation within schooling which are beyond those encountered by all children. We conclude that injustices in all three senses (above) are being experienced by specific children and these injustices need urgent confrontation
'My life is like a massive jigsaw with pieces missing'. How 'lower-attaining' children experience school in terms of their well-being
âLower-attainingâ children are known to encounter negative experiences in school, including experiencing feelings of upset, shame and inferiority. Using extensive interview and observation data from the first two years of a five-year longitudinal study of 23 âlower-attainingâ children (age 7â9), we draw on Seligmanâs theory of well-being to identify the childrenâs experiences of school in terms of their emotions, relationships and sense of achievement. Our analysis finds that on balance, these children are experiencing threats to their well-being in relation to their perceived lack of attainment and its associated shame, in an increasingly performative educational culture. We conclude that such threats are hampering the well-being of these children, which may cause both immediate and longer-term damage
Systemic threats to the growth mindset: classroom experiences of agency among children designated as 'lower-attaining'
In this paper, the authors consider how Carol Dweckâs concept of growth mindset has been misconceptualised. They explore the proposition that agency is an important aspect of growth mindset and that the effects of hard work by children is reduced when agency is limited. They draw on qualitative data from 84 interviews with 23 participant children who had been designated at the end of their Year 3 as âlower-attainersâ in mathematics, English or both. They explore their experiences of this designation across the first two years of the five-year project. Their findings suggested that participants displayed ample capacity for action, curiosity, engagement and creative learning. However, classroom rules sometimes mitigated against children benefiting from these capacities. Children narrated adopting the performance orientation suggested by Dweck, which could lead to a reduced sense of competence, which itself led to less agentic classroom behaviours
Persevering for a cruel and cynical fiction? The experiences of the 'low achievers' in primary schooling
This paper is significant in its exploration of the experiences of children designated as âlower-attainingâ in British primary schooling. It is underpinned by Nancy Fraserâs conceptualisation of a global shift from government via nation-state welfare structures to governance through supra-national financialised neoliberalism. Within this context, we take the innovative path of investigating how âlower-attainingâ children explain perseverance with hard work at school within neoliberalismâs âcruel and cynical fictionâ of social mobility. Our extended interviews with 23 âlower-attainingâ children over two years provide findings which indicate â with a startling vividness â that these particular children experienced loneliness at school and blamed themselves for being inadequate and inferior. Fear appeared to be an essential component of their schooling system and sometimes elicited from them anger as well as humiliation. In particular, these children feared being assessed and sorted according to attainment. We propose that these factors often led the âlower-attainingâ children to experience schooling as at least uncomfortable. And yet they came to accept as fact the fiction that they were inadequate; and to perceive that perseverance in conforming to schoolingâs rules was their only chance of not slipping out of the race altogether
What Does an Exemplary Middle School Mathematics Teacher Look Like? The Use of a Professional Development Rubric
A School University Research Network (SURN) committee composed of current mathematics teachers, central ofïŹce math supervisors, building administrators, mathematicians, and mathematics educators researched numerous sources regarding best practices in mathematics instruction. The resulting professional development rubric synthesizes their findings and can serve a professional development role by providing teachers and administrators with a tool to develop clarity and consensus on best mathematics instructional practices, and how these practices are implemented in the classroom. It is also being used as a tool for cooperating teachers in their supervision of student teachers and as a reïŹective method for self-evaluation
A discrete slug population model determined by egg production
Slugs are significant pests in agriculture (as well as a nuisance to gardeners), and it is therefore important to understand their population dynamics for the construction of efficient and effective control measures. Differential equation models of slug populations require the inclusion of large (variable) temporal delays, and strong seasonal forcing results in a non-autonomous system. This renders such models open to only a limited amount of rigorous analysis. In this paper, we derive a novel batch model based purely upon the quantity of eggs produced at different times of the year. This model is open to considerable reduction; from the resulting two variable discrete-time system it is possible to reconstruct the dynamics of the full population across the year and give conditions for extinction or global stability and persistence. Furthermore, the steady state temporal population distribution displays qualitatively different behavior with only small changes in the survival probability of slugs. The model demonstrates how small variations in the favorability of different years may result in widely different slug population fluctuations between consecutive years, and is in good agreement with field data
Sense of competence, autonomy and relatedness during primary-secondary transition: children express their own experiences
This paper contributes a greater understanding of the importance of a sense of
competence, autonomy and relatedness to children experiencing the primarysecondary schooling transition, drawing on the perspectives of the young people
themselves. We address how the perspectives of transitioning children can further
substantiate and illuminate Ryan and Deciâs Self Determination Theory (SDT; Ryan
and Deci, 2019). SDT claims that satisfaction of a personâs needs for competence
(attainment and confidence), autonomy (self-direction and capacity to critique) and
relatedness (feeling affectively bonded to others) allows them to achieve âpositiveexperience and wellness outcomesâ (p.219). We draw on data from two research
projects, one a survey study of 288 transitioning children; and one a life-history study of
23 transitioning children. Our findings illustrated the potential benefits of policymakers
giving priority to a wider range of conceptions of competence beyond attainment in
mathematics/English, in order to support transitioning childrenâs sense of competence
including their self-confidence. Findings also highlighted the need to nurture childrenâs
capacity to recognise and direct their own schooling trajectories more autonomously,
directing their energies into engagement with learning and relationships rather than
into riling against controls or seeking to avoid humiliation and punishment. Most
positively, our data manifested childrenâs high levels of relatedness to both peers
and teachers as they transitioned to new secondary schools. And above all, our data
emphasised and exemplified the need for relatedness to accompany childrenâs strong
sense of competence and autonomy during transition
Photorespiration: metabolic pathways and their role in stress protection
Photorespiration results from the oxygenase reaction catalysed by ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/
oxygenase. In this reaction glycollate-2-phosphate is produced and subsequently metabolized in the
photorespiratory pathway to form the Calvin cycle intermediate glycerate-3-phosphate. During this metabolic
process, CO2 and NH3 are produced and ATP and reducing equivalents are consumed, thus
making photorespiration a wasteful process. However, precisely because of this ine€ciency, photorespiration
could serve as an energy sink preventing the overreduction of the photosynthetic electron transport
chain and photoinhibition, especially under stress conditions that lead to reduced rates of photosynthetic
CO2 assimilation. Furthermore, photorespiration provides metabolites for other metabolic processes, e.g.
glycine for the synthesis of glutathione, which is also involved in stress protection. In this review, we
describe the use of photorespiratory mutants to study the control and regulation of photorespiratory pathways.
In addition, we discuss the possible role of photorespiration under stress conditions, such as
drought, high salt concentrations and high light intensities encountered by alpine plants
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