Search

Research related to the integration of the demands of work and family highlights the difficulties teachers experience in handling their careers and private lives. The goal of this study is to examine the arguments they use to explain what might make work-family integration easier for them. A questionnaire has been administered to 728 teachers in Israel and Switzerland, two countries dealing with teachers’ work-family relations. Through a qualitative analysis of the types of arguments advanced by teachers, the reconstruction of their reasoning (for the topical and endoxical components) has been performed. Results reveal that the support of family and institution are advanced as critical aspects in both countries. Implications in shaping teachers’ attitudes towards work-family integration are discussed.

In this paper, we intend to consider different understandings of inclusive education that frame current public and professional debates as well as policies and practices. We analyze two – somewhat opposing – discourses regarding inclusive education, namely, the “inclusion for some” – which represents the idea that children with special needs have a right to the highest quality education which can be delivered by specially trained staff, and the “inclusion for all” – which represents the idea that all children regarding their diverse needs should have the opportunity to learn together. To put the two discourses in a dialogical relation, we have reconstructed the inferential configurations of the arguments of each narrative to identify how the two definitions contribute to position children with and without special needs and their teachers. The results show the possibilities to bridge the two narratives, with respect to the voices they promote or silence, the power relations they constitute, and the values and practices they enact or prevent.

Cet article s’intéresse aux préjugés « flagrants » et « voilés » manifestés par 1858 élèves de collège et de lycée en France au moyen d’une enquête par questionnaire. Une première analyse descriptive permet de repérer les facteurs sociaux et scolaires pouvant influencer la perception par les élèves de l’investissement des enseignant·e·s autour de questions liées à l’immigration. A partir de modèles multivariés, les analyses montrent que lorsque les élèves déclarent que leurs enseignant·e·s abordent les thématiques liées au racisme, aux discriminations et à la diversité culturelle, les attitudes intolérantes baissent. L’analyse causale met en exergue l’existence de facteurs externes facilitant l’appropriation des interventions des enseignant·e·s par les élèves.

In this paper, we reflect on teacher education and professionalization from the perspective of a socio-cultural approach. The goal is to have a greater understanding of some controversies, challenges and complexities related to the implementation of inclusion and to connect it to teacher education and professionalization. Firstly, we discuss key assumptions of a socio-cultural approach, as a theoretical framework for reflecting on teacher training and professionalization and the implementation of inclusive education. Next, we present some international principles and values that constitute the normative framework for inclusive education. This is used as a basis for defining competencies and practices that are necessary to ensure adequate learning and developmental opportunities at school. Finally, we present a specific model of teacher training to highlight the potential contribution of a socio-cultural approach in considering the status and role of inclusion and special needs education.

Selles artiklis keskendume õpetajaharidusele ja õpetaja professionaliseerumisele, käsitledes neid teemasid sotsiaal-kultuurilisest vaatenurgast. Soovime paremini mõista mõningaid vastuolusid ja probleeme, mis tekkivad kaasava hariduse rakendamisel, ja seostada need teemad õpetajakoolituse ja professionaliseerumisega. Esiteks anname ülevaate sotsiaal-kultuurilise käsitluse lähtealustest, mis loovad teoreetilise raamistiku õpetajakoolitusele, õpetajate professionaliseerumisele ja kaasava hariduse rakendamisele. Seejärel tutvustame mõningaid rahvusvahelisi põhimõtteid ja väärtusi, mis moodustavad kaasava hariduse normatiivse raamistiku. Sellele raamistikule toetuvad oskused ja praktikad, millega tagatakse kõikidele lastele sobivad õppimis- ja arenguvõimalused. Viimases osas tutvustame õpetajakoolituse erimudelit, et näidata, milliseid võimalusi pakub sotsiaal-kultuuriline käsitlus kaasava ja erivajadustega laste hariduse staatuse ja rolli tugevdamiseks. Full text

In kindergarten, children are usually engaged with both verbal activities and non-verbal activities, often requiring the manipulation of physical objects. During technical tasks (e.g., problem solving), children can use argumentation as one of the languages of science that mediates how they interact with the surrounding world. In this paper, we focused on technical tasks in kindergarten in order to understand to what extent activities requiring the manipulation of physical objects also leave space for argumentation. The study involved 25 children engaged in three problem-solving activities requiring the manipulation of Lego® and some recycled materials. To analyze the non-verbal (embodied) side of the argumentative activities, we firstly identified the argumentative structure of each exchange involving the participants. Then, we focused on segments of “incomplete” argumentative dialogues (i.e., presenting only some elements typical of children’s argumentation) by appealing to multimodal representations (speech, gestures, and physical objects). The findings of the study showed that even apparently incomplete exchanges can have an argumentative function generated by non-verbal elements of the interactions. Investigating the role of embodied argumentation during technical tasks in kindergarten can allow teachers to recognize and further develop children’s argumentative resources.

Il presente studio mira a evidenziare le pratiche di socializzazione narrativa che si sviluppano all’interno di interazioni conversazionali spontanee tra genitori e figli. L’analisi dei processi di argomentazione messi in atto durante i dialoghi a tavola tra membri di famiglie italiane mostra il ruolo della giustificazione come modalità sociale e linguistica nel processo di socializzazione discorsiva dei bambini. Le capacità argomentative di genitori e figli vengono dunque messe in evidenza attraverso lo sviluppo di strategie discorsive costruite nel qui e ora dell’interazione verbale a tavola. Si tratta di narrazioni che si situano all’interconnessione tra sviluppo individuale e socializzazione collettiva, occasioni in cui genitori e figli “fanno famiglia”. The present study aims at highlighting the practices of narrative socialization that emerge within everyday conversations between parents and children. The analysis of argumentative processes during dinnertime dialogs among Italian family members shows the role of the justification as linguistic and social modality in the process of children’s discursive socialization. The argumentative capacities of parents and children are highlighted through the development of discursive strategies that are created in the here-and-now of dinnertime verbal interactions. These are narratives located at the interconnection between the individual and collective socialization and occasions that allow parents and children “doing family.”

The increased and stable presence of immigrant children in preschools and in primary schools in Italy in the last twenty years, makes more and more important the study of the attitudes and behaviours in teachers, parents and children. As it is known, attitudes and behaviours can strongly influence school experience (relationships and achievements) of children from native as well as from immigrant families. Several international studies and surveys showed that children from immigrant families are more likely to drop out from school much before getting a diploma or a professional qualification (Anisef et al., 2010; Brunello & Rocco, 2012; De Witte et al., 2013). The reason for it can be found in their socio-demographic conditions, their insufficient knowledge of the host country language and the inadequacy of educational policies for immigrants. Furthermore, the co-existence in the same school of immigrant children and autochthone children creating a constant intercultural and interethnic contact puts forward the need to handle prejudice development, in view of the social integration of the immigrant children. In this paper we present a study exploring the relationship between personality, educational style and prejudice of parents in native and in immigrant families regarding immigrant children’s social integration. Results show important relations among these parents’ characteristics, together with differences between native and immigrant families. These findings could provide a contribution in implementing adequate intervention programmes supporting the school integration of immigrant children.

In this article, using a multidimensional methodology, we explored the role of materiality in the everyday lives of eight Italian families. Focusing on spaces and objects, we analyzed how people "use" material frames and boundaries in expanding their individual and collective experiences at home. We employed a composite design including different sources of data: audio and videotaped home tours, visual ethnographic notes and photos, observations of everyday family activities, home-mapping and observational tracking of actions at regular intervals. We used discourse and conversation analysis to investigate family members' talk-in-interaction concerning materiality. The findings show that spaces and objects are expansions of participants' everyday activities: they are presented as flexible in their use, multifunctional and affectively connoted. We also present implications for the methodological design and its potential for capturing how family doings create both a sense of life and the affordances of everyday experiences at home.

Background: In the field of science education, adults often set up practical-based activities with the idea of stimulating children's reasoning and approaching science in a playful way. Although the potential role of objects in stimulating social practices has been considered in the literature, how teachers work on semiotic aspects of argumentation is still less explored. Purpose: In this paper, the purpose is to identify how practice-based experiences settled up by teachers shape children's argumentation in science education. Sample design and methods: We analyzed argumentation in science tasks involving a total of 39 children (6-7 years old) and their three teachers, coming from two different classrooms of cycle 1 (Harmos, grades 3-4) recruited in the French speaking-part of Switzerland. The tasks were video-recorded and then transcribed. Through the lenses of the pragma-dialectical approach, we selected the argumentative discussions emerging during the experiences and we performed a qualitative analysis of these interactions, by looking at different semiotic resources: speech, gaze direction, deictic gestures, and position of physical objects. Results: The findings show that teachers play a crucial role in sustaining children's argumentation by the integration of different semiotic resources during the activities. Conclusion: As argumentation in classroom evolves through the mobilization of various communicative tools, the present study can contribute to strengthen the interplay between different channels of interaction during science education at primary school.

According to the intercultural paradigm, prejudice reduction is a way of promoting positive interactions among people and preventing discriminatory behaviours. This paper focuses on the role of teacher interventions in reducing student prejudices. We carried out a quantitative survey, which was administered to middle and high school students in France, to identify the role played by individual, school and sociocultural variables on ‘flagrant’ and ‘subtle’ prejudices. The findings show that when students perceive that their teachers are discussing racism and discrimination during formal education, manifestations of both types of prejudice decline. In addition, this perceived engagement creates a multiplicative effect on intergroup contacts among students, and this is an important condition for decreasing prejudice. The study highlights the potential of formal education to deconstruct stereotypes and encourage interculturalism, even in a context which is quite hostile to any reference to cultural identities. It also underlines that intercultural practices can start at the micro level without any formal institutional support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]