Global Education Review (Mercy College, New York)
Not a member yet
347 research outputs found
Sort by
Perceptions of Preschool Stakeholders on the Impacts of English as the Dominant Language in Early Childhood Education and Care Centers in Yoruba-Speaking States, Nigeria
Full text linkThe study investigated the perceptions of stakeholders on the assumed impacts of English as a dominant language in some selected ECECC in Yoruba-speaking states. 617 stakeholders, 247 preschool teachers, 204 School owners/heads, and 166 parents and community members across the seven states, were randomly selected for the study. Four research questions were raised and answered. A validated questionnaire titled \u27Perception of Preschool Stakeholders on the Impacts of English as Dominant Language in ECECC was used to elicit information from the respondents. Data was collected and analyzed using descriptive statistics. Findings revealed that above-average parents and community members (64%) believe that using English in ECECC will prepare children for future educational activities and global relevance. A notable number of school owners/heads (89%) opined that using English in ECECC prepares children for external examinations and competitions, 86.5% indicating that English language instruction boosts school enrollment. A significant proportion of ECCDE teachers (65%) believe that important educational concepts from local languages can lose their meanings when taught in English. And the majority (183) of the ECCDE teachers in the states indicated that only English is used for classroom activities. It is obvious that all the stakeholders who participated in the study placed a high level of worth on the use of the English language due to the assumed impacts. There is a need to re-orientate stakeholders on the fact that children have more to gain when their mother tongue is used in the preschool classroom during the teaching and learning activities
‘They have tried to silence me.’ : Beyond policy bordering: early childhood educators forging activist identities in the borderlands
Full text linkThe roles of early childhood educators in England have been marked, in recent times, by prescriptive occupational standards, surveillance, and responsibilisation. Over the last thirty years, early educators have been discursively positioned through workforce policy in multiple, competing, and everchanging ways. In addition, ideal professional identities have been institutionally shaped and bounded by qualifications criteria, regulatory requirements, and by intersections with broader (and at times, authoritarian) policy reforms. This constitutes a process of policy bordering (Archer 2022), which delineates professional identity territory, creating a space for a particular version of professional identities whilst closing down others.
In response to this bordering process, a more dynamic, generative perspective recognises spaces for expressions of educator agency. Analysis of empirical data suggests such borders are, in fact, permeable with educators expressing their individual agency through these boundaries. Early childhood educators appear to be exploiting cracks and fissures in the borders to disrupt authoritarian demands upon them and exercise their personal power (Gallagher, 2000). Drawing on professional life story interviews of educators (n=18), this paper offers novel conceptualisation and analysis of borderland narratives, revealing how early educator agency and activism are asserted in interstitial spaces. By considering the role of borders (conceptual or otherwise) as sites of struggle, where the right to become is contested and negotiated, the borderlands concept illuminates the spaces of political possibilities (Brambilla, 2014), in which alternative professional subjectivities are enacted
Constructivism in the Shadow of Centralism: The transformative potential of international programmes in early childhood education in Poland as an escape from authoritarianism
Full text linkThis study examines the role of international education the Primary Years Programme (PYP), in mitigating authoritarian tendencies within Poland\u27s early childhood education (ECE) system. Employing qualitative content analysis of legislation and media reports, the research examines how these programmes apply constructivist theory and seeks to provide an option to overly centralised education systems. The study shows that such international programmes promote active learning where the students are of great importance as opposed to authoritarian classroom cultures that often rely on pedagogical dictators. Results show that the Polish education system is gradually incorporating more topical and constructivist facets, especially in the context of early childhood education institutions, a trend that is being registered in legal reforms. The application of dual curricula within international schools is also noteworthy as it combines international and local educational requirements. This method offers an alternative approach that is less rigid and beneficial as it would not totally resist the internationalization of education. The study ends with a positive assessment of externally oriented programmes providing necessary mechanisms for educational reform in Poland in the prevailing conditions of change in the teaching environment
What Happened to the Creative in the Creative Curriculum?
Full text linkThis empirically-grounded commentary questions the basis for New York City Public Schools’ (NYCPS) adoption of the Teaching Strategies products—the Creative Curriculum (CC) and Teaching Strategies GOLD—as the mandated curriculum and assessment systems for early childhood education (ECE) programs administered by the New York City Public Schools. In an analysis shaped by our hybrid positionalities as early childhood educators, parents, policy makers, and researchers, we argue that this decision is a local case of neoliberalism’s simultaneous narrowing of educational quality and a transfer of public funding into private hands under the guise of the free market. Our commentary, which is augmented by examples from our research and practice, begins with an overview of New York City’s (NYC) ECE system, contextualized within national systems issues in ECE. This provides important framing for discussing the evolution of NYC’s ECE curricula and assessment as the city expanded its public preschool programs. We end by considering how U.S. ECE was ensnared by the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), sounding a call to action for scholars, advocates, and educators to mobilize against a (seemingly) unassailable GERM through organizing and coalition-building.
Juntos effort to preserve children’s bilingualism in English-dominated language landscape
Full text linkThis paper presents a collaborative effort between a Head Start lead teacher and an educational scholar, focusing on a Head Start classroom in a non-traditional migration area in Pennsylvania. The joint initiative, called Juntos, was undertaken to support children\u27s bilingualism in a context where English is the dominant language. The classroom is located in a semi-rural region, a historically White-dominated area that has undergone significant demographic changes in recent decades. These changes have led to cultural, economic, and linguistic tensions between original residents and new immigrants. Such tensions are evident in the Head Start classroom, where approximately 95% of the students come from Spanish-speaking households. English has historically dominated this region, shaping both the educational system and societal perceptions. Despite the growing Spanish-speaking population, these structures have not adapted to accommodate this shift, resulting in English remaining the primary language of instruction, with Spanish-speaking students often placed in ESL programs. Consequently, school readiness has become synonymous with English proficiency.
In this local context, a bilingual lead teacher strives to foster bilingualism among her students while ensuring they meet school readiness criteria, even though her classroom is not designated as bilingual. Her efforts, in collaboration with a researcher, have resulted in students becoming proficient in both English and Spanish. This ethnographic study documents her resistance to the hegemony of English as the language of education and seeks to amplify and advocate for the voices of bilingual early childhood educators in linguistically diverse regions where language dominance persists, with the goal of empowerment and representation
Developing a Diagnostic Instrument for Scientific Giftedness in the Context of Design-Based Research (DBR)
Full text linkIdentifying and fostering gifted students is crucial in educational science and psychology. Giftedness diagnostics must be based on profound domain-specific concepts and acknowledge the variety of talents to enable a successful individual education. Growing challenges like digitalization, decarbonization, demographic changes, and pandemics increase the need for creative and productive professionals in STEM fields. Educational practitioners are expected to identify and foster these talents, confronted with the discourse between academic science and psychology about giftedness. Due to the lack of domain-specific diagnostic instruments, the individual expression of giftedness is often neglected during diagnostic procedures in educational practice and general intelligence tests are used instead. To address this problem, this paper presents the development process of a domain-specific diagnostic instrument for scientific giftedness. To bridge the gap between theory and practice and incorporate knowledge from various fields, the development process is integrated into Design-Based Research (DBR). Therefore, we theoretically examine how the principles of DBR and test development can be connected. We present our research approach and check how the planned development process can lead to a test instrument suitable for practice and further knowledge about giftedness diagnostics. The project demonstrates that DBR is suitable for developing didactic interventions but can also lead to innovations in psychometrics and improve giftedness diagnostics in practice through additional quality criteria.
Design-Based Research for Integrating Child Rights Education into Religious Education in Germany: A pioneering research paradigm for linking teaching research with lesson design
Full text linkDesign-Based Research (DBR) has emerged as a widely accepted methodological framework in educational research worldwide, as it is a sustainable research paradigm for overcoming the frequently observed gap between research and educational practice (Reinmann, 2022; Tinoca et al., 2022). I use The Rights of the Child and the School Subject of Religious Education (CRE4RE) project as an illustrative example of DBR’s potential to help close the theory-practice gap in the area of children\u27s rights education (CRE) in religious education (RE). To do so, I link classroom research and lesson design. The first part of the paper provides an overview of the three interdependent project phases, which are based on the three steps of the research process model by McKenney and Reeves (2019). In the second part, I transfer a teaching module into practice to demonstrate how children\u27s rights perspectives can be successfully integrated into RE. Finally, I identify project-specific opportunities and challenges in the use of the DBR approach to point out further design-based research perspectives, which favor a sustainable practical transfer of the double theory-practice output. I transferred a prototyped learning module into RE and tested and empirically evaluated it in a sample of N = 88 children and found substantial differences in the empathy scale’s mean values, which also differed by gender. The article shows how a DBR approach can be used to integrate CRE into RE, thereby also highlighting the forward-looking significance of the research paradigm for RE and for the interlinking of teaching research and lesson design
Current motivation, self-efficacy, cognitive load, and hands-on performance of secondary school students during bystander-cardiopulmonary resuscitation training: A comparative interventional study between two teaching models
Full text linkThe implementation of educating “Basic Life Support (BLS) competences” in German schools is particularly affected by the often reported “implementational gap” –limited transfer of empirical findings into practice. This Design-Based Research (DBR) study evaluates two different methodologies for BLS teaching, generating implications for transfer. Students (N = 136) of a secondary school (11-13 years) were assigned to different methodological approaches. A test group (TG) received intervention implemented into regular biology lessons (10 units; n = 48); the control group (CG) participated in a basic instruction (2 units; n = 68). Both large-scale methods – subject-matter teaching (TG) and project activity (CG) – were compared regarding current motivation, self-efficacy, constructivist instruction, cognitive load, and practical skills. Data from n = 125 students (TG=48; TG=68) could be included into analysis (Mage=11,16; SD=.45; 55.2% female). Probability of success and interest increased, anxiety perception decreased (no group-interaction effect), whereas challenge perception remained constantly. Self-efficacy overall improved from before to after intervention, with TG reporting higher social self-efficacy and less negative outcome expectancies. No differences were found for practical BLS performance. MANOVA (after intervention) showed higher values for anxiety in TG, and for self-efficacy, CG has higher values for negative outcome expectancies (post hoc analysis). For cognitive load and constructivist instruction, no differences between groups were found. In conclusion, both methodological approaches seem to have their own pedagogical justification. Schools’ implementation processes may benefit from combining (subject-matter) curriculum content with BLS information or content to facilitate time and resource-saving realization
Empowering Education: A closer look at grants driving change in the Mercy University School of Education
Full text linkMany colleges and universities are increasingly relying on grant funding to supplement their efforts to educate and support their growing diverse student populations. Mercy University has a long history of preparing excellent teachers and educational professionals. This article explores how the School of Education at Mercy University has secured and employed federal, state, and local grants to not only strengthen their endeavors to prepare future educators, but to drive innovative change through unique programming and mentoring support
Bridging the gap between theory and practice
Full text linkIntroduction to part one of the special issue, "Bridging the gap between theory and practice.