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In this qualitative study, 11 mothers of toddlers with autism participated in interviews to investigate how they perceived their roles and their competency to support toddlers' social learning in the context of both professional-implemented and parent-mediated early intervention models. The authors conducted a thematic analysis with multiple layers of independent coding. Four resulting themes highlighted challenges and contributors to parent self-efficacy. First, related to child characteristics, challenges were most prominent in the early period as participants adjusted to the diagnosis and reached to connect when social difficulties emerged. Second, having a peripheral role in early intervention challenged participants' confidence in their abilities, while receiving guidance to assume an active leadership role supported their sense of efficacy for facilitating toddlers' social learning. In a third theme, participants described specific and general examples of their expertise. Fourth, participants considered the transactional context of parent-child interaction and largely viewed their toddlers' independent wills, natures, and preferences as strengths upon which to build social engagement. The results support the need for early interventionists to promote and leverage family capacity for facilitating toddler learning as social challenges begin to appear for toddlers with autism.

In this article, we introduce the special issue focused on diverse perspectives to discourse analysis for education policy. This article lays the foundation for the special issue by introducing the notion of a third generation of policy research--a strand of policy research we argue is produced at the intersection of education policy and discourse analysis. We also very briefly discuss discourse analysis writ large, noting that there is no single definition or orientation. Then, we present the six articles included in the special issue, highlighting the ways in which they offer contemporary understandings of the varying applications of discourse analytic perspectives to the study of education policy. We conclude by discussing key policy and methodological implications, as well as future directions for policy scholars working at the intersection of education policy and discourse analysis.

To date, relatively little research has examined the perceptions of children and parents involved in university-assisted partnership programs. In this paper, we present findings from a case study of a university-assisted community school (UACS) afterschool program wherein we interviewed participating students and their parents. We also completed participant observations at the school site and included the perspectives of the two central administrative staff (i.e., the school principal and the afterschool program coordinator), as this served to deepen our understanding. Our findings highlight how the students and parents positioned the UACS afterschool program as being significantly different from the regular school day, while also noting how the program positively shaped the children's lives. Further, we highlight how the administrative staff positioned the university as central to the afterschool program; in contrast, the students and parents did not mention the resources that were bound to the university. We conclude with implications for practitioners and scholars engaged in university-assisted partnership work.

A central challenge to addressing what becomes taken-for-granted in method in educational research is socialization into the field. During graduate training, students and their mentors are challenged by unique projects. Here, authors, two early career scholars and a faculty mentor, offer a critical interrogation of socialization experiences related to methods of anonymizing and masking, questions of responsibilities to varying publics, and the good that research might, or might not, do in the world by sharing a co-constructed narrative based on interactive interviews which took place over six months. The authors identify saddle points, or points of stillness, within these conversations that offer, but do not dictate, considerations for teaching practices of anonymizing and masking as part of qualitative research training and socialization.

This paper introduces a framework for reflexively generating a digital research workflow; that is, a qualitative research design that intentionally considers the consequences of using digital tools and spaces in meaningful ways. This framework articulates how considering technological consequences should be, and already are, a part of engaging in methodological reflexivity. While there is vast literature on reflexivity in qualitative research, little has been written about technological reflexivity. We propose four categories of consequences that should be closely considered when adopting digital tools and working within digital spaces in qualitative research designs. To conclude, we illustrate these consequence categories by drawing upon an example of a digital research workflow for transcription that we created in the context of a series of studies into how patient-centered communication skills were demonstrated by learners in the health professions at an American university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this methodological paper, we respond to the call to advance a disability justice agenda within social science research. To do so, we invite readers to engage with the intersections of discursive psychology and disability theories. Specifically, we forward new possibilities for methodologically and theoretically leveraging discursive psychology to study disability, ableism, and anti-ableism as they unfold in everyday life. To do so, we offer a general overview of core concepts from some disability studies perspectives and point to the possibilities of discursive psychology engaging at the level of theory and methodology with these perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poetic inquiry as a form of arts-based research can penetrate the complexity, ambiguity, and multidimensional nature of representing participant emotions. This methodological approach allows researchers to explore the sensitive intersection of competing emotions without flattening the layered and often conflicting experience of participants' embodied experiences. In this article, we share participant-voiced poems generated from interviews with family caregivers of Alzheimer's patients and invite readers to sit with how these poems transcend mere descriptions and instead offer an emotive experience that defies words alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The language that school professionals use to describe disabled students can reveal and perpetuate ableist assumptions. Professionals' language choices can also challenge ableist attitudes to help create more inclusive, equitable learning environments. This tutorial seeks to guide speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and other school professionals to identify ableist language, understand the ableist ideologies that such language reveals, and develop strategies to implement ways of communicating with and about disabled students that align with an anti-ableist stance. We offer a brief description of ableism in schools, describe models of disability and their varying alignments toward ableist ideologies, and identify ways in which language can reflect and perpetuate ableism. Using Individualized Education Program goals as an example, we examine the ways in which ableist language can manifest in school practices. Finally, we provide suggestions to guide SLPs and other school professionals to examine and change their language to better align with an anti-ableist stance. Conclusions: School professionals' language use is not neutral and may reveal and maintain ableist assumptions about disability and disabled students. While dismantling ableism requires systemic change, we suggest that individual professionals can use language in ways that resist ableism and powerfully impact their students' educational experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the beginning of the federal Race To The Top grant competition, Value-Added Measurement (VAM) has captured the attention of the American public through high-profile media representations of the tool and the controversy that surrounds it. In this paper, we build upon investigations of constructions of VAM in the media and present a discourse analysis of the policymaking process within the meetings of Tennessee's Teacher Evaluation Advisory Committee (TEAC), a 15-member panel appointed by the Tennessee governor to develop a new teacher evaluation policy under Race to the Top. The data included audio recordings of public meetings from March, 2010 through the end of the committee's work in April, 2011. As we analyzed the talk of the TEAC, we oriented to the particular version of VAM worked up within these conversations in relation to a descriptive metaphor in which VAM is compared to a "sentinel of trust." We present examples to illustrate three patterns in the construction of VAM as the sentinel of trust within teacher evaluation: (1) VAM alone defines effectiveness; (2) VAM is the only objective option; and (3) concerns about VAM are minimized. We discuss the implications of this way of thinking and talking about VAM and contrast it with other possibilities, including those constructed by teachers, researchers, and the media.

With roots in community development and the work of Dewey, a compelling case has been made for universities to be involved in urban school reform. Further, with increasing demands placed on universities to become responsive to community needs, university partnerships with K-12 schools are one means by which institutions of higher education have become involved in local educational issues. One particular type of community-school-university involvement approach is a University-Assisted Community School (UACS). Much of the research related to such school-university partnerships has focused on describing what a UACS "looks like," with little attention given to the day-to-day experiences of those that work within a UACS. In this paper, we present findings from a qualitative study examining the experiences of teachers and staff who have participated in the development of and/or taught at a UACS afterschool program. Findings highlighted (1) the challenges and transitions associated with being a pilot effort; (2) the felt differences between universities and schools as they relate to on-the-ground implementation; and (3) the potential of the UACS model as a collaborative vehicle for accomplishing tasks that neither institution can accomplish alone. We point to implications related to school--university partnerships and directions for future research.