Relevance Of Curriculum Research Articles

Writing For Their Lives: The Non-School Literacy of California's Urban African American Youth

This article reports on an investigation into the literacy practices of urban African American youth, many of whom were found to be unmotivated to engage in school-based literacy events because they do not see the relevance of the school curriculum to their lives or, based on prior experiences, they actually fear having to write in school. The voluntary out-of-school literacy practices of two African American high school students are analyzed and their writings critiqued. Conclusions are drawn about the complex and provocative these youth use literate behaviors and strategies to gain voice in and make sense of their social worlds. Recommendations are offered for using African American and youth culture as bridge to writing development. NON-SCHOOL LITERACY PRACTICES An emerging line of research has attempted to explore and explain the nature of youth and adult and literacy experiences that take place in an array of social settings outside of schools. Pioneers in this field include researchers such as Heath (1980, 1982, 1983), Scribner and Cole (1981, 1988), and Street (1984, 1993), whose work has contributed to framework for viewing literacy in conjunction with specific practices and functions of use inside particular social contexts. A number of subsequent studies have also operated within and contributed to this framework (Camitta, 1993; Dyson, 1993; Farr, 1994; Goodman & Wilde, 1992; Guerra, 1992; Heath & McLaughlin, 1991, 1993; Lee, 1991, 1993; Mahiri, 1991, 1994a, 1994b; Moss, 1994; Shuman, 1986; Taylor & Dorsey-Gaines, 1988). Based on the findings of cross-cultural research, Street (1984) argued that literacy is ultimately political and that it has different implications within different sociocultural contexts. As he claimed, what the particular practices and concepts of reading and writing are for given society depends upon the context (p. 1); moreover, these concepts are already embedded in an ideology and cannot be isolated or treated as 'neutral' or merely 'technical' (p. 1). These contentions are echoed by Scribner and Cole's (1988) research, conducted among the Vai people of Liberia, which illuminates and critiques the frailty of the evidence for generalizations about dependency of certain cognitive skills on writing, and.. .the restricted model of the writing process from which hypotheses about cognitive consequences tend to be generated (p. 58). Their findings challenged the restricted models of writing that are reflected in the formulations of theorists who narrowly define literacy and value school-based literacy as the only authentic type. As they note: The assumption that logicality is in the text and the text is in the school can lead to serious underestimation of the cognitive skills involved in non-school, non-essay writing, and reciprocally, to an overestimation of the intellectual skills that the essayist text necessarily entails....It tends to promote the notion that writing outside of the school is of little importance and has no significant consequences for the individual. (p. 61) Heath's (1983) research focused on literacy practices in different sociocultural settings in the United States. Heath found that the residents of two different working-class communities-one White and one Black, located only few miles apart-had a variety of literate traditions that were interwoven in different with oral uses of language (p. 234). She noted, however, that neither community's with the written word [prepared] it for the school's ways (p. 235). Shuman's (1986) analysis of the everyday oral and written narratives of workingclass adolescent girls as part of the unofficial school curriculum provides additional understandings of the that school and youth cultures both intersect and disconnect. As she argues: ...oral fight stories, written diary accounts, written petitions, letters, and playful forms-are part of single community's repertoire. …

Relevance Of The General Education Core Curriculum To Career Goals Of College Of Agriculture Students

This study determined the relevance of the general education core curriculum to student career goals, as perceived by upper level undergraduate students. The objectives were to determine: 1) the relevance of the general education requirements to student career goals; 2) if differences existed in students' perceptions of the requirement by curriculum grouping; 3) if a relationship existed between age and students' perceptions of the requirements; and, 4) if selected variables explained the variance in student perception of the requirements. The population included all upper level students in the College of Agriculture. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Spearman rho correlation coefficients, analysis of variance, inferential t tests, and step-wise multiple regression. The students perceived the core curriculum was relevant to their career goals and they preferred a core curriculum that was broader in scope and allowed them greater flexibility. Students from various curriculum groupings differed in their perceptions of the relevance of the core curriculum and their career goals. No relationship existed between age and students' perceptions of the requirements. None of the variables studied explained a significant proportion of the variance in students' perceptions of the relevance of the requirements. Since the fall of 1987, the Louisiana Sate University (LSU) has required that entering students complete a general education or core curriculum component of 39 semester hours in six major areas. The implementation of a required core curriculum has caused much concern among students and faculty on this campus, and across the country, as the issue of the core curriculum is again receiving national attention. The issue is of special interest to agricultural teacher education because of changes such as the implementation of the Holmes Model for teacher education at many universities. Under the Holmes Model, students are entering master's level

Teaching to Difference: Working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students in Urban Schools

The following paper was presented to a group of teachers, curriculum advisers, school support centre personnel and review officers at a one day conference organised by the Metropolitan West Region of the Queensland Department of Education. The time allocated for this session was 35 minutes. I therefore decided to focus on what I consider to be the two major barriers to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student participation in schooling: recognition and valuing by teachers of children's identity and language. For other factors contributing to children's participation, such as curriculum relevance, parent/community involvement in decision-making, I provided participants with handouts which I had developed during the past four years or so.

Assessment Approaches and Cognitive Styles

The outcomes on multiple‐choice tests and performance‐based assessments for field‐independent and field‐dependent students were examined. A substantial interaction between cognitive style and assessment approach was found. Results suggested that performance‐based assessment tended to favor field‐independent subjects. Dependent on the purpose and intended use of assessment, this finding may raise concerns for validity based on either fairness or curriculum relevance.

Problems with the fourth-year curriculum of students entering surgical residencies

Because of concerns about the relevance of the fourth-year curriculum of students entering surgical residencies, this study was undertaken to analyze the curriculum, electives, and grades and to compare the students' elective choices with previously documented preferences of surgical educators. Computer profiles of all fourth-year students at New York Medical College who entered surgical residencies during a 3-year period were reviewed. The records of 115 students (92 male, 23 female), who were placed in 68 categorical and 47 preliminary positions, comprised the study. Four-week rotations in internal medicine, neurology, and ambulatory medicine were mandatory. An average of 5.1 electives per student, along with time for vacation and interviews, filled the remainder of the year. Students were statistically significantly more likely to receive honors grades in electives. Students, especially those in preliminary positions, frequently selected electives in their eventual specialty choice. Program directors interviewing prospective candidates for residency should view elective grades with care. Students often take electives that duplicate or do not enhance their career choices. Elective grades are inflated and may be based on subjective evaluations. This issue should be investigated further, and the major surgical education organizations should propose meaningful changes.

The Current State of Marketing Education: Perceptions of Marketing Academicians and Doctoral Students

The current status and future of marketing education has been discussed widely in the popular and academic literature in recent years. Unfortunately, though many groups have offered their opinions, very few empirical studies have reported the actual perceptions and opinions of marketing academicians and doctoral students. This study reports the results of a survey of marketing academicians and those currently enrolled in a marketing terminal degree program. The findings provide insight into the allocation of faculty work activity, career development, marketing education research, and the relevance of the marketing curriculum to students. The authors conclude with a series of recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of marketing education.

The Improvement of Teaching and Curriculum Relevance Through Institutional Self-Renewal

Schools of Social Work have a responsibility to improve teaching and curriculum relevance through what has been called institutional self-renewal. Their survival and growth often depends on these actions. This study identifies how one school of social work surveyed its major social service environment to obtain perceptions regarding: its interactions with the social service community; the relevance of the knowledge and skills acquired by students; the appropriateness of its curriculum and continuing education program; and its sensitivity to ethnocultural and gender related issues. Implications for other schools of social work are identified.

Economic determinants of academic failure and school desertion in the Guatemala highlands

Guatemala's four major indigenous (i.e. ethnic) groups provide the setting for a model explaining elementary schooling discontinuity in terms of economic characteristics that might affect availability and quality of teaching facilities, perceptions of curriculum relevance, expectations of longterm gains and enhancement of employment alternatives through formal education, and children's opportunity cost. Least-squares coefficients and elasticities are estimated separately for academic failure and school abandonment for each indigenous group. The levels of statistical significance show that the model explains academic failure better than it explains school desertion. These levels differ among groups for the seven variables in the model, thus implying that a national indigenous policy that fails to incorporate in its structure features unique to each group may be inadequate.

Preschool Teacher Uses of Video Technologies

Abstract This project was undertaken for the purpose of identifying media design and presentation features that facilitate the acceptance and use of video materials by preschool teachers who teach children with special needs. Information about teachers' awareness of, their preferences for and their uses of video materials and equipment was gathered from interviews, questionnaires and classroom observations. Teachers previewed a sampling of Sesame Street video segments and indicated the segments they thought were useful. The following design features figured prominently in the teachers' selections: segment length, production format, musical lyrics, curriculum relevance, content emphasis, interactivity, perceived interest to children, meaningfulness and simplicity of explanations. The results of a prototype videodisc tryout indicate that the teachers had no difficulty integrating video segments into their teaching routines.

Curriculum relevance for street children

(1992). Curriculum relevance for street children. The Curriculum Journal: Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 277-290.

Academic libraries and curriculum development in Nigeria

Study of the following questions : What content potentials do academic libraries possess which would help them in the task of curriculum development ?, Why should academic libraries be part of curriculum development efforts?, What is the relevance of a well-planned curriculum to performance levels of students of higher education institutions as well to lecturers and researchers?

Changing the Role of University Curriculum: A Working Example

ABSTRACT Suggestions to improve the social relevance of university curriculum have emphasised interdisciplinary team work, linking theory and practice, and provision of social context. As an example of how a program embodying these proposals could be developed, the Master of Environmental Science degree at Monash University is discussed. This program begins with coursework to promote breadth, through background and understanding of a variety of disciplines, to provide a framework for integrating this information, and to allow candidates a degree of specialisation in their areas of interest; multidisciplinary team work focussed on practical projects and individual theses serve to integrate and extend aspects of the coursework. An indication of the success of this curriculum approach was sought through a survey of graduates designed to provide insight into what the graduates saw as being important about the program, and how the degree related to their jobs. The program was valued for the breadth of perspect...

Perspectives on History Education in England

THE CRISIS IN HISTORY has been generally acknowledged and widely discussed by historians and history educators in the United States over the past ten or fifteen years. A variety of studies and reports focusing on the status of history in high schools have suggested that the discipline is in disarray at the pre-collegiate level. Statistics concerning declining numbers of undergraduate history majors, a shrinking population of graduate students in history, and dismal employment prospects for academic historians have supported the perception that history has lost ground, that indeed the future of history teaching is, at best, uncertain. These concerns are not unique to the American context. To some extent, at least, the problems of history education must be viewed as modern problems. The development of the social science disciplines and their subsequent translation into high school courses have certainly contributed to history's situation. Certain social, political, and economic developments during the second half of the twentieth century and the directions they have dictated, e.g. a search for curricular relevance and a demand for courses in special subjects such as career education, consumer education, multicultural studies, and women's studies have also reduced history's importance as the central focus of the social studies curriculum in this country and elsewhere as well.2

A Description of Analysis for The Identification of Potential Sources of Bias In Dual Language Achievement Tests

In response to the instructional and evaluation needs of bilingual programs, many dual language tests and basal readers have been developed by commercial publishers and public school educators. However, creating a Spanish language test which is equally comprehensible, useful and fair to Mexican, Puerto Ricans, and other Hispanic students of varying educational and social backgrounds, is as difficult as creating a test in English to serve American, British, and other English speaking students equally well. Most dual language tests are translations or adaptations of material which was originally written in English. Many are developed under the assumption that dual language tests are equivalent in content, difficulty, reliability, curricular relevance, and other features. In an effort to examine these assumptions, a series of studies of test bias in dual language achievement tests was conducted. This paper discusses one of the studies, a content analysis of the CTBS, and its Spanish adaptation, the CTBS Español. The analysis includes a comparison of the objectives, vocabulary and content across the English and Spanish tests, and between the tests and the bilingual basal readers used by the sample.

Environmental education for relevance in developing countries

Summary The phrase, ‘education for relevance’, has been batted about the Third World for decades, and indeed some startling individual, but usually short lived, successes have been achieved. Yet relevant education has successively lost the battle for curricular prominence to academic education imported from the West. Schooling, which takes and will continue to take the lion's share of education monies in developing countries, remains bookish, oriented toward entrance requirements for higher education and biased toward a model urban environment. A brief review of attempts to achieve curricular relevance in schools in Third World countries and the reasons for their limited success forms the first part of this paper. The second part of the paper explores the role of environmental education in placing the school in its own local community and the real socioeconomic environment that surrounds it. Particular reference is made to issue-based environmental studies in schools as an attempt to bridge the gap between purely academic education and the stated desire of educator-politicians for relevance in education.

Pupil participation and curriculum relevance

AbstractSome results of formative research carried out in primary schools in rural India have been presented. The relationship between the lesson content and the participation of the pupils has been investigated. The spontaneous participation of pupils in teacher‐directed classrooms is shown to be correlated with the time spent by the teacher in relating the content of the textbook to the natural experiences of the pupils. The use of an experiment or a teaching aid is also found to be useful in drawing participation from the pupils. The results of the study are relevant for teachers working in a traditional, teacher‐dominated sytem of education.

Emphasising local relevance in a university public relations curriculum— the Universiti Sains experience

Designing a curriculum for an emerging discipline like public relations poses a serious challenge for local academics, especially because the course content is culture-specific. It is easy enough to yield to the temptation to reproduce what has been taught in the West, where public relations first made its debut, but this can only be done at the expense of alienating the discipline — and the profession — from the local needs of practitioners and clientele. A locally relevant curriculum for university PR courses also has to take into consideration that it is not simply a bookish course but one that contains a very important practical element.

How America Got its Foreign Language Gap

The President's Commission on Foreign Language and International Studies said that Americans' incompetence in foreign languages is scandalous, and recommended required undergraduate studies in international studies. The commission urged that the federal government spend $178 million more than the $67 million appropriated for foreign languages and international studies at all levels for fiscal year 1979. Obviously, the commission is going well beyond any mere residual embarrassment there might be, from the time a United States interpreter made President Carter look like a complete fool during a state visit to Poland, earlier in his tenure of office, by mistranslating Carter's words into broken, suggestive Polish that had some Poles rolling in the aisles with derisive laughter. In Warsaw the vogue for a while was American jokes, it was reported. That incident was only symptomatic of the continuing, widespread degeneration of language study in this country. How did we get where we are? I have a theory. When curricular relevance came to the fore at colleges and universities during the period of anti-Vietnam War protests, too many administrators knuckled under to student demands to do away with foreign language degree requirements. The administrators had hidden agendas for doing so, however. They were as much (if not more) concerned about serious enrollment declines, and the prospects for more of the same, as they were about relevance in their colleges' curricula.

The Quality of Standardized High School Mathematics Tests

An analysis was made of the educational and psychometric quality of standardized mathematics tests aimed at high school students. Trained raters judged most of such instruments available in the United States. Tests were categorized into four areas: general mathematics (N=322), applied mathematics (N=26), algebra (N=122), and geometry (N=52). Results showed many tests to be low in common types of validity and reliability. General mathematics had, as a rule, tests with higher ratings than did the other content areas. Several implications were drawn from the study. Researchers in mathematics education should carefully analyze all aspects of tests to find those congruent with a given research need. Test developers should make renewed efforts to enhance the technical quality and curricular relevance of their products.

Evaluating dietetic technician training programs: Labor market conditions and curriculum relevance

Evaluating dietetic technician training programs: Labor market conditions and curriculum relevance