Special Needs Education, eLearning and the Reflective ePortfolio: Implications for Developing and Assessing Competence in Pre-Service Education.

This paper reports on the use of an eportfolio for assessing aspects of a Post-Graduate pre-service teacher education programme specifically in the context of special needs education in Northern Ireland. Participants were challenged to develop their individual eportfolios by selecting and presenting evidence for assessment drawn from diverse sources. The rationale for using eportfolios for assessment purposes was to offer students the opportunity to demonstrate competencies by documenting and reflecting upon academic and pedagogical learning during a one year Post Graduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) programme.

Education, gender, and state-level disparities in the health of older Indians: Evidence from biomarker data

Using new biomarker data from the 2010 pilot round of the Longitudinal Aging Study in India (LASI), we investigate education, gender, and state-level disparities in health. We find that hemoglobin level, a marker for anemia, is lower for respondents with no schooling (0.7 g/dL less in the adjusted model) compared to those with some formal education and is also lower for females than for males (2.0 g/dL less in the adjusted model). In addition, we find that about one third of respondents in our sample aged 45 or older have high C-reaction protein (CRP) levels (>3 mg/L), an indicator of inflammation and a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. We find no evidence of educational or gender differences in CRP, but there are significant state-level disparities, with Kerala residents exhibiting the lowest CRP levels (a mean of 1.96 mg/L compared to 3.28 mg/L in Rajasthan, the state with the highest CRP). We use the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition approach to explain group-level differences, and find that state-level disparities in CRP are mainly due to heterogeneity in the association of the observed characteristics of respondents with CRP, rather than differences in the distribution of endowments across the sampled state populations.

Sex Education: Challenges and Choices

Noting public concern about sexual exploitation, abuse and sexualisation, we argue that sex education in the United Kingdom needs revision. Choice is a feature of current sex education policy and, acknowledging that choice can be problematic, we defend its place in an approach to sex education premised on informed deliberation, relational autonomy, a particular view of personhood and moral literacy. We argue, however, that choice and the approach outlined must be located in the realities of young people’s lives.

‘Making Older People Equal: Reforming the Law on Access to Education and Other Services’

Age-based discrimination in the supply of goods and services (including educational services) has only very recently been outlawed in the United Kingdom by the Equality Act 2010, the relevant sections of which have not yet been brought into force. This paper critically considers the Act and its implications, as well as the current proposal for an EU Directive on Goods and Services.The greatest immediate potential of the Equality Act lies in the general prohibition against age discrimination and the scope of the exceptions to it. The paper argues that exceptions permitting service providers to discriminate against older people (i.e. negative exceptions) should be very specifically set out in the reforming legislation.There should be no general defence to a claim of age discrimination based around the concept of ‘reasonableness’, which would not be consistently interpreted by courts and tribunals in a way that steers clear of traditional ageist assumptions and stereotyping.The paper argues that service providers should be permitted to discriminate in favour of older people (i.e. make positive exceptions) if the reason for doing do so satisfi es legislative criteria which are designed, amongst other things, to meet the particular needs of older persons or to promote social inclusion. Under this proposal, preferential treatment such as age-related concessionary fees for adult education courses and programmes would be lawful.

Teachers' and teacher educators' lives: the role of emotion

This paper reports research which focuses on ways of enhancing understandings by teachers of the key role that emotions play in their personal professional growth. It combines the narrative, autobiographical accounts of teachers attending part-time masters degree programmes in England (Continuing Professional Development and School Improvement) and Northern Ireland (Personal and Social Development) with an interrogation of the underlying values which affect the practices of their tutors. It reveals the effects of powerful and often unacknowledged interaction between personal biography and professional and social contexts upon teachers in schools and higher education.