Student-teachers' perspectives on positive and negative social processes in schools

In recent years, the Standards for Qualified Teacher Status in England have placed new emphasis on student-teachers' ability to become integrated into the 'corporate life of the school' and to work with other professionals. Little research, however, has been carried out into how student-teachers perceive the social processes and interactions that are central to such integration during their initial teacher education school placements. This study aims to shed light on these perceptions. The data, gathered from 23 student-teachers through interviews and reflective writing, illustrate the extent to which the participants perceived such social processes as supporting or obstructing their development as teachers. Signals of inclusion, the degree of match or mismatch in students' and school colleagues' role expectations, and the social awareness of both school and student-teacher emerged as crucial factors in this respect. The student-teachers' accounts show their social interactions with school staff to be meaningful in developing their 'teacher self' and to be profoundly emotionally charged. The implications for mentor and student-teacher role preparation are discussed in this article.

Religious schools, social values, and economic attitudes: evidence from Bangladesh

This paper uses new data on female graduates of registered secondary secular schools and madrasas from rural Bangladesh and tests whether there exist attitudinal gaps by school type and what teacher-specific factors explain these gaps. Even after controlling for a rich set of individual, family and school traits, we find that madrasa graduates differ on attitudes associated with issues such as working mothers, desired fertility, and higher education for girls, when compared to their secular schooled peers. On the other hand, madrasa education is associated with attitudes that are still conducive to democracy. We also find that exposure to female and younger teacher is associated with more favorable attitudes among graduates.

Teaching assistants and pupils' academic and social engagement in mainstream schools: insights from systematic literature reviews

The last 20 years have seen a huge expansion in the additional adults working in classrooms in the UK, USA, and other countries. This paper presents the findings of a series of systematic literature reviews about teaching assistants. The first two reviews focused on stakeholder perceptions of teaching assistant contributions to academic and social engagement. Stakeholders were pupils, teachers, TAs, headteachers and parents. Perceptions focused on four principal contributions that teaching assistants contribute to: pupils’ academic and socio-academic engagement; inclusion; maintenance of stakeholder relations; and support for the teacher. The third review explored training. Against a background of patchy training provision both in the UK and the USA, strong claims are made for the benefits to TAs of training provided, particularly in building confidence and skills. The conclusions include implications for further training and the need for further research to gain an in-depth understanding as to precisely the manner in which TAs engage with children.