'We don't learn democracy, we live it!' : consulting the pupil voice in Scottish schools

As the education for citizenship agenda continues to impact on schools, there is a need to begin the discussion around examining the kind of initiatives that can push it forward. In Scotland the proposals should, it is argued, permeate the curriculum throughout the school. Yet there is the fear that the responsibility of all can become the responsibility of none. This paper examines, through case study research carried out by the authors, initiatives in schools designed to take forward the citizenship agenda in the light of children's rights. The first two relate to firstly the impact of pupil councils in primary schools and secondly the impact of discussing controversial issues in the primary classroom. The third outlines the impact on values and dispositions of developing more participatory, democratic practice in the classroom. The paper concludes by calling for both more initiatives of this type and more evaluation of their worth

Investigating perceived dispositions of Turkish preservice early childhood education teachers

This study aimed to explore the changes in developing perceived dispositions of preservice early childhood education (ECE) teachers influenced by student teaching experience. A convergent mixed-method research design framework was used to collect data for the study. The study sample comprised 86 preservice teachers enrolled at a public university in Ankara, 14 university supervisors responsible for the student teaching experience, and 86 cooperating teachers from public and private schools who were assigned to preservice teachers during their student teaching experience. The results revealed that preservice ECE teachers' teaching dispositions increased after the student teaching experience

Activating teaching dispositions in carefully constructed contexts : Examining the impact of classroom intensives

The current policy stance in Australia which seeks to produce ‘classroom ready’ teachers requires that pre-service teachers (PSTs) be assessed against national professional standards that articulate minimum skills and knowledge required of beginning teachers. There is no mention within these standards of affective qualities (e.g. humour, passion, inspiration) or thinking dispositions (e.g. curiosity, reflection, creativity) that enable good teaching and professional learning and which capture the complexity that is inherent within good teaching. This study focuses on the research of a team of teacher educators in a regional Australian university who believe that a focus on dispositions is central to effective teacher education. They have embedded a ‘Dispositions for Teaching Framework’ within a Master of Teaching (Secondary) program to allow PSTs’ various thinking dispositions to be activated within carefully constructed professional learning contexts. The context in this study was a Classroom Intensive experience at a P-12 School in regional Victoria where PSTs participated in structured classroom observations over a two day period. The key research questions were: Did the Classroom Intensive experience activate the dispositions in the PSTs? Were some dispositions activated more than others? How could evidence be collected of these dispositions in action? A variety of research methods enabled a complex data-set to be collected. It was identified that the Classroom Intensive experience provided a rich professional learning context which activated all five of the thinking dispositions in the framework, and that these dispositions are not discrete but interconnect and rely upon each other. © Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2016