Understanding teachers’ working experiences: capturing data on teachers as professionals, learners and change-makers in low resource contexts

When we picture a school, many of us will see a teacher, standing at the front of a classroom. When our children are at school, it’s their teachers we turn to with concerns. When we think back to our own school days, we think fondly about our favourite teachers, those who really stood out. Teachers have always been at the heart of education, at least in the popular imagination. It is particularly odd, then, that in much of the education research and policy discourse in low-income countries over the past 20 years teachers have been side-lined and presented as passive, generic (and often negative) inputs. While children’s engagement with education systems is increasingly framed in constructivist terms, with much attention given to the interrelation between their ideas and their experiences, these terms have been far less evident in research and policy around teachers’ engagement with these same systems

Translating the genomics revolution: the need for an international gene therapy consortium for monogenic diseases

Letter to the Edito

Maximizing the potential of early childhood education to prevent externalizing behavior problems: A meta-analysis

Early childhood education (ECE) programs offer a promising mechanism for preventing early externalizing behavior problems and later antisocial behavior; yet, questions remain about how to best maximize ECE's potential. Using a meta-analytic database of 31 studies, we examined the overall effect of ECE on externalizing behavior problems and the differential effects of 3 levels of practice, each with increasing specificity and intensity aimed at children's social and emotional development. In short, we found that each successive level of programs did a better job than the prior level at reducing externalizing behavior problems. Level 1 programs, or those without a clear focus on social and emotional development, had no significant effects on externalizing behavior problems relative to control groups (ES=.13 SD, p<.10). On the other hand, level 2 programs, or those with a clear but broad focus on social and emotional development, were significantly associated with modest decreases in externalizing behavior problems relative to control groups (ES=-.10 SD, p<.05). Hence, level 2 programs were significantly better at reducing externalizing behavior problems than level 1 programs (ES=-.23 SD, p<.01). Level 3 programs, or those that more intensively targeted children's social and emotional development, were associated with additional significant reductions in externalizing behavior problems relative to level 2 programs (ES=-.26 SD, p<.05). The most promising effects came from level 3 child social skills training programs, which reduced externalizing behavior problems half of a standard deviation more than level 2 programs (ES=-.50 SD, p<.05)