Urban Literacy Leadership: Examining One Principal’s Vision and Practice: A Sociocultural Investigation of One Principal’s Practice

School leadership research offers prescriptions for strong instructional and culturally relevant leadership for diverse and urban adolescent populations, yet little evidence describes how school principals impact adolescents’ in-school reading experiences. This qualitative inquiry sought to understand how one urban secondary principal perceived and enacted his role in a school’s effort to teach reading. It also investigated how staff and students perceived his actions. Framed by sociocultural perspectives of reading and a distributed leadership perspective, data analysis revealed that the principal made time and nurtured relationships to grow teacher capacity, support and participate in independent reading, and attend to individual readers and teachers. This study affirms the importance of context in shaping urban adolescents’ reading experiences and raises implications for the urban school principal’s role in their literacy instruction.

Am I an Autonomous Language Learner? Self-Perceived Autonomy in Trinidad and Tobago: Sociocultural Perspectives

This book explores sociocultural elements and conditions that enable individuals to see themselves as autonomous learners in formal educational settings. This engaging and original book is set at a university context in Trinidad and Tobago. Using an in-depth Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, the author brings to life the stories of students majoring in Spanish at university. In order to understand the learners’ autonomy and agency, the author focuses on social dimensions of language learner autonomy. The book aims to understand the contextual and sociocultural teaching and learning practices which are conducive to students constructing the identity of autonomous language learners.

POTENSI INTEGRASI KEARIFAN LOKAL DAYAK DALAM PEMBELAJARAN ILMU PENGETAHUAN ALAM DI SEKOLAH DASAR KOTA PALANGKA RAYA

The focus of the study was to identify the nature of worldview held by candidate science teacher, and explores the relationship, if any, between their worldview and their conception of nature of science. In addition, the implication of this relationship for science teaching and learning are discussed. Participants were 30 Dayak prospective science teachers. Their conception of nature f science and their worldview specific to humans’ relationship with the natural world were assessed using a questionnaire in conjunction with follow up interviews. The results show that 70% of the participant, irrespective to their cultural backgrounds, hold the nature centric worldview, while 30% of them have the anthropocentric worldview. And the interview result confirm that participants possessed narrow view about the nature of science, where they described science as based on facts only, core on observation, no creativity and tentative due to the change of facts. The study suggests the need to for incorporating sociocultural perspectives and nature of science in the curriculum.

Cognitive and Sociocultural Perspectives: Approaches and Implications for Learning, Teaching and Assessment

The primary role of educators is to best serve and support students’ learning. To this end, the epistemological beliefs they hold are immensely influential, governing (both explicitly and implicitly) educators’ assumptions about how students learn, which determines the curriculum design and instructional methods utilized to support that learning. Over the years, two prominent and influential epistemological theories have developed – the cognitive perspective, which focuses on learners’ mental processes, and the sociocultural perspective, which focuses on learners’ participation in social practices within a particular context – with each providing their own unique contributions to the field of education. Using the example of the learning goal of students’ mastery of English for passing the TOEFL, the purpose of this paper is to explore how these two perspectives view knowing and learning, and the implications of this for motivating engagement and assessing learning. By drawing on and utilizing a synthesis of the cognitive and sociocultural perspectives, educators can align their learning outcomes with the most pedagogically-appropriate approach possible, to best support overall student learning and academic success.

Reablement in need of theories of ageing: would theories of successful ageing do?

The reablement approach is becoming a popular social and health-care model in many Western countries, providing support strategies for older people experiencing impairment. Reablement programmes have been criticised for a lack of theories, explicating the understanding of the problem that it is intended to address, i.e. ageing and impairment in old age. We need to discuss the inherent theories in intervention programmes to question taken-for-granted assumptions about not only what works, but also how these assumptions affect the sociocultural models of ageing. Theories on successful ageing have been suggested as underpinning reablement. This article aims to present and discuss theories of successful ageing compared to key principles, components and outcomes in reablement. A medical and epidemiological, a psychological and a sociocultural theoretical approach to successful ageing are included. Contemporary reablement programmes mirror medical and psychological theories of successful ageing, including models of ageing that are associated with continuity, optimisation, selection, individuality and goal orientation. Most reablement programmes do not address sociocultural perspectives on ageing. As older people experience impairment in a pertinent liminality within and between the sociocultural values of the third and fourth age, it is important for reablement programmes and practice to consider the theoretical assumptions and underpinning theories of ageing and how to help older people balance between optimising capacity and accepting losses in their everyday life.

DESISTANCE AND VICTIM PROTECTION IN ROMANIA: COLLABORATION BETWEEN PROBATION AND PRISON FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE PROGRAMME ‘REDUCING THE RISK OF RELAPSE’

Criminologically, the psychosocial and educational perspectives on the person who commits acts of aggressiveness, including sexual abuse, are based on several theoretical models of intervention, which are included in the bio-pathological, psychological and sociocultural perspectives. This is the very premise of the assisted desistance as a succession of stages developed within the criminal trial, and taking risk management as the fundamental principle applied in the custodial and probation system. Firstly, this article starts from a case study conducted in the Romanian probation system, which is presented at the “Fifth International Conference Multidisciplinary Perspectives in the Quasi-Coercive Treatment of Offenders. Probation as a field of study and research: From person to society” (2016). Secondly, it reflects the collaboration between prison and probation in the primary and secondary desistance using the programme ‘Reducing the Risk of Relapse’ (RRR) after prison, which uses the complementary ‘risk, needs and responsivity’ (RNR) model with the “Good Life Model” (GLM) based on combining the principle of individual responsiveness with that of social responsibility. Our arguments are – in the sense of highlighting the importance of individualizing the sanction – focusing on the contextualized narrative identity, from secondary desistance to ensure the continuity of the post-sentence rehabilitation and the protection of the crime victim.