Formal School Settings Research Articles

Children of Migrant Fathers: The Effects of Father Absence on Swazi Children's Preparedness for School

This article investigates the effects of prolonged father absence of Swazi migrant workers on their young children's preparedness for a formal school setting. As the role of formal schooling gains importance in Swaziland, so too does the impact that the home environment has on the formal schooling of Swazi children. The disruption of family life because of migrant labor may affect the development of Swazi children, and possibly their cognitive preparedness for school. Formal education as it is known today is not indigenous to Swazi society. At independence, most African countries inherited educational systems designed by Europeans who applied Western criteria. An important consequence of this is that institutions of formal learning today remain based on cultures which are quite distinct from those of Africans. Western formal education strives for change and creates discontinuities. By contrast, traditional education strives for continuity between generations, whereby parents and older relatives teach youth about their accumulated knowledge, ways, and traditions. Felix Boateng stresses that the success of traditional African education is in its ability to promote intergenerational communication. Even though traditional education may often be conducted using such abstract messages as proverbs, the intended lesson is always pertinent to a child's immediate environment.1 Traditional education is less verbal and less theoretical, placing more emphasis on active participant observation than does imported European education, which relies on curriculum and an abstract examination system often in conflict with the child's immediate surroundings. For instance, John Gay and Michael Cole's research in Liberia reveals that Kpelle children begin formal schooling using cognitive constructs, language patterns, and a knowledge base that hinder their learning certain mathematical concepts using Western-biased methods. The significance of traditional learning at

The Education of a Balinese Dalang

The dalang is the Balinese shadow-master, narrator, and puppeteer who presents the stories of wayang parwa-the shadow theatre of the area -via narration, song, dramatization, puppet manipulation, music, and humor.1 Pedalangan is the lore, technique, and religious-philosophical knowledge this artist must master. Although he most frequently performs shadow puppetry, a dalang is also needed as narrator in genres which do not involve puppets, including sendratari (dance drama), kecak (monkey chant), and legong (a classical court dance traditionally done by prepubescent children). This article focuses on the education of a dalang, drawing on my experiences of studying in both formal school settings and informal village situations. By informal I mean traditional study under the guidance of an older teacher who is usually a relative. This informal study contrasts with the institutional programs in which pedalangan has been taught since 1974 via developed curricula and formal degrees. Although my discussion will be colored by my personal experience of each of these paths, it should give insight into how a contemporary Balinese gains knowledge of pedalangan.

Social Competencies as a Pathway to Successful Life Transitions

Learning disabilities have been examined most carefully in the academic setting; however, learning disabilities is a lifelong condition that impacts individuals outside the academic environments. Since the formal school setting accounts for so little of a person's life experiences, it becomes important to understand the nonacademic manifestations of learning disabilities. Impaired social competency is one of these common manifestations exhibited by young adults with learning disabilities. This article describes post-secondary outcomes of young adults with learning disabilities, specific areas of social problems encountered, and the results of an assessment of social competencies in adults with learning disabilities. The authors recommend that secondary and post-secondary curricular experiences include greater attention to improving social competencies.

Second Language Acquisition Theories and Teaching Practice: How Do They Fit?

AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-TWO, MY DAUGHTER then a college senior was diagnosed as suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder, a learning disability characterized, in her case, by short attention span, easy distractability, poor motor coordination, poor handwriting, and inconsistent spelling.' Results of the WoodcockJohnson Psycho-Educational Battery indicated above average verbal ability and reading aptitude, but a severe deficit in visual perceptual speed, and below average scores in math and written language aptitude. All other abilities tested, such as broad cognitive ability, reasoning, memory, and knowledge aptitude, were well within the average ranges. You may wonder about the relevance of my daughter's learning disability to the topic of this paper. Of interest is that, as a result of that learning disability diagnosis, my daughter received a waiver for requirements in mathematics and foreign languages. Still more interesting is, however, that my daughter-whose psychological test profile indicates apparently little talent for learning a foreign language--is functionally trilingual. She has native fluency in English, rates probably a terminal on the ILR Scale in German, and about a 1 + in Spanish.2 When she was diagnosed as lacking foreign language learning aptitude, she had already fulfilled her language requirement and was enrolled in a third-year Spanish composition course with which she did, however, have major problems. A superficial examination of the facts reported may lead one to doubt the construct and predictive validities of the psychological tests used to determine learning disabilities. How, after all, can an individual who has acquired a functional proficiency in two nonprimary languages be suddenly considered as lacking in foreign language learning aptitude? A closer look at my daughter's second language learning history may provide some explanation for the apparent inconsistency. My daughter acquired German as a tongue. That is, the language spoken to her by her mother up to about age seven was predominantly German. In addition to the input she received from her mother in the US, she spent an average of about six weeks annually in Germany during her early childhood. Since the age of seven, English became with rare exceptions the exclusive language in the home. My daughter did, however, continue to spend intermittent summer vacations with German relatives. The two times she attempted to German as a foreign language in high school and college she did not do particularly well. At the time I gave the fault for her mediocre performance to the teachers whoin my opinion--were unable to deal with her superior conversational fluency within the constraints of a grammar-oriented classroom. My daughter's efforts to learn Spanish started in high school, but she dropped the course because she found the highly analytical grammatical approach boring. She then took the first two semesters at the university, completing both courses with a grade of C. After her year of elementary college Spanish she spent one summer in an intensive study program in Mexico, and the following summer holding summer employment in Costa Rica. To make a long story short, my daughter has been successful in acquiring three languages in a predominantly natural acquisition environment but has considerable problems learning a language in a formal school setting where the instructional goals, activities, and tests emphasize analysis and mastery of the grammatical code. Her experience has led me to reexamine The Modern Language Journal, 75, i (1991) 0026-7902/91/0001/017 $1.50/0 ?1991 The Modern LanguageJournal

Meaningful assessment activities

Planning and organizing the young child's curriculum and classroom environment is an essential component in the early childhood education program. Every fall in the USA millions of children begin and continue to participate in formal school settings. These children are all unique and differ in cognitive and social maturity.

Sunshine and skin cancer: a school-based skin cancer prevention project.

Over 50 percent of the cancers diagnosed in the U.S. are skin cancers. The incidence in Arizona far exceeds the national average for all types of skin cancers, currently having the second highest incidence and prevalence in the world. Results from skin cancer prevention programs elsewhere have suggested that awareness, attitudes, and behavior could be changed by educational efforts with eventual decreases in measurable outcomes such as morbidity and mortality. Sensible sun habits develop early in life. Most health educators agree that the ideal place to begin to teach values regarding health choices is with school-aged children. We have evaluated a primary skin cancer prevention education program in a controlled situation. The target population was chosen in a formal school setting and represented pre-adolescents and early adolescents, who were just beginning to develop "sun-worshipping" tendencies as a part of their increasing preoccupation with appearance. Two unique comprehensive "Sunshine and Skin Cancer" curricula comprised of six units about the sun, its benefits and disadvantages, the skin, cancer and skin cancer, and sun damage prevention were developed. The curricula were very well received by the school system, teachers, children, and the community, and have received local, national, and international attention. This program was shown to significantly change the knowledge and the self-reported behavior (p less than .001) of the children with respect to skin cancer prevention. Steps are being taken to integrate this curriculum into all Arizona middle schools.

Teaching Purposeful Reading to Aboriginal Children

In many aspects of formal education we expect Aboriginal children to think, learn and behave as white children. This is an unreasonable expectation because Aboriginal children in their home lives are seldom equipped with those skills which are necessary at school. Worse, teachers often don’t understand what skills are required in school learning because they are so fundamental to the task, and because white children display these skills so easily.This paper looks at the reading process from this point of view and identifies areas where Aboriginal children need to be taught specific skills before they can read with purpose. Suggestions as to how to teach these skills are included.The major aim of this paper is to look at ways in which teachers of Aboriginal children can improve reading ability. I believe that our teaching methods could be improved by concentrating on what I see as being the crucial difference between Aboriginal and White Australian (yolngu and balanda) children in the formal school setting. That is, that yolngu children do not expect to and do not participate in the school program in an active purposeful self-conscious way, but rather participate passively in the school learning process in the same way as they participate passively in their day-to-day home life. What I intend to do is talk first of all about this particular idea and then later about things that I hope or believe teachers can do about it.

Population education in the United States.

The most significant expansion of population education in the U.S. has occurred over the past 5-year period. The environmental movement of the 1960 decade established a foundation on which population education quickly developed in the 1970 decade and gained acceptance in the population establishment and among funding agencies. During the years 1970-1976, several private organizations became actively involved in the population education field. Several viewpoints and population education approaches are now evident in the U.S. These approaches stress different aspects of the issue: extension of family planning, individual and social awareness, demography, behavioral objectives, value analysis, environmental strategy, and inquiry. Although these approaches are diverse, the U.S. has provided a basic framework for population education. Research in population education has consisted of little more than review studies, knowledge and attitude surveys, and several studies on the appropriateness of population education in the formal college school setting. Further research is needed to identify the goals, objectives, and strategy of population education, and these studies would have to be linked to the cognitive and moral development of the student.

The Yoruba Language and the Formal School System: A Study of Colonial Language Policy in Nigeria, 1882-1952

This paper is the report of a rather broad examination of colonial language policy in Nigeria from 1882 to 1952 as it affected the role and status of the Yoruba language in the formal school system in Western Nigeria. Role of the Yoruba language here means the variety of functions expected of or carried out with the use of the language in the development of the curriculum in the formal school setting. I define status to mean the degree of acceptance and/or the prestige accorded it there. Curriculum is used broadly to describe a rounded program of learning and living whose vital impact touches the individual and group needs, interests, and abilities of children, and which is necessary for the transmission, renewal, and improvement of the culture of a society. Furthermore, for purposes of consistency and clarity I prefer the term mother tongue to vernacular. The definition of mother tongue varies with the writer; sometimes it appears as synonymous with, sometimes as an alternative to, vernacular. Still, it is less objectionable than vernacular, which can denote an inferior local language relative to that

Investigating the Enhancement of Students’ Engagement with Learning Activities through the lens of Self-Determination Theory

Self-Determination Theory (SDT) posits that, within formal school settings, students’ satisfied needs for a positive teacher-student relationship, perceived competence and autonomy may be utilised to predict their engagement with learning activities. The current research was seeking insights through the research question: What does prior SDT-embedded research reveal to be the strongest sociocultural motivational influences upon students’ self-reported engagement with learning in science and other subjects? The findings from an adapted meta-ethnographic review (MER) revealed that, whilst SDT emphasises the importance of autonomy as a basis for students’ engagement with learning, the motivation to exercise autonomy within science (and other curricula subjects) is a potential outcome cumulatively influenced by the students’ perceived competence and quality of the teacher-student relationship. These findings present the three SDT constructs as hierarchical, in that there is an emergent order of influence from the teacher-student relationship quality (SDT: relatedness) and perceived competence (SDT: competence) upon the quality and persistence of students’ motivated desire to be autonomous during learning activities (SDT: autonomy). The findings are significant, in terms of the proposed hierarchy, and enhancing research practitioners understanding of students’ motivation to engage with science learning activities. The findings are presented such that it may be further applied and modified by academics and practitioners as part of their classroom-based research agendas.

Some Effects of Deprivation on Intelligence, Achievement, and Cognitive Growth

Many assumptions have been made concerning the probable effects of extended periods of non-schooling. A typical assumption is that basic learning such as the attainment of verbal concepts, reading comprehension, and arithmetic reasoning can be acquired more readily in a formal school setting with a teacher trained in educational methodology. However, a review of the literature indicates that the above assumption, so often taken for granted, rarely has been empirically assessed. This lack of psychological research on the effects of non-schooling stems from the -national trend of universal school attendance.