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IJHSS.NET

Vol. 1, No. 1

January 2015

International Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences

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AAJHSS.ORG Vol 1, No 1 – January 2015 Table of Contents Cognitive and behavioural frequencies of justice and care on moral dilemmas between males and females Dr George Varvatsoulias

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Viewing the influences of ‘the global’ on education in Ghana from the lens of Human Rights Approach Moses Ackah Anlimachie

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“Senso-Math” Mathematical Facilitators in Integration and Professional Contribution Dina Hassidov

27

Preschools:

Training,

Television program format preferences and aggression of football fans Vehbi Gorgulu, Yonca Aslanbay, Gul Bursa and Ayse Gul Yucel

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The Effectiveness of Vocabulary Learning Strategies on English language Acquisition of the Saudi Learners Dalal A. Bahanshal

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Sources and Means of obtaining Psychoactive Substances among Adolescents in Public Secondary Schools in Uganda: A Qualitative Approach.

Aloysius Rukundo and Dr. Grace Kibanja

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International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences p-ISSN: 1694-2620 e-ISSN: 1694-2639 Volume 1, No 1, pp. 1-9, ©IJHSS

Cognitive and behavioural frequencies of justice and care on moral dilemmas between males and females Dr George Varvatsoulias Newham College University Centre, Stratford Campus, London, UK Abstract Moral reasoning refers to individuals' cognitive, emotional and behavioural understandings regarding everyday practices and relationships with others. Moral reasoning touches upon personal beliefs of human interaction the way these are cultivated through mores, principles and values in given societies. The objective of this empirical research was to question males' and females' moral orientations on justice and care. To this aim, participants were distributed dilemmas in a form of stories in which they were asked to offer their personal consideration. It was found that male participants have responded in relation to a justice-based orientation, while females to a care-based one. The interpretation of the findings showed that males tend to reply on moral dilemmas in association with the moral reasoning of justice, whereas females in association with care.

Keywords: moral reasoning, dilemmas, justice, care.

Introduction According to Tangney & Dearing (2004), the idea of moral reasoning is concerned with the appearance of dilemmas in everyday life. Researchers are interested in discussing moral reasoning by focusing on how people think, feel or react on moral dilemmas (Paxton et al., 2012). They argue (Piaget, 1952; Ford & Lowery, 1986; Gilligan & Attanucci 1988; Kagan & Lamb, 1990; Killen & Hart, 1995; Crandall et al., 1999; Nunner-Winkler, 2008) that people are guided by selfregarded aspects about how they should behave on given circumstances. The issues claimed, not only refer to why people decide to do things of moral content in their lives, but also how they decide to do it. Among the more sophisticated moral developmentalists, Arnold (1989) and Blasi (1980) consider that it is a link between moral thinking and moral action (Petrovich, 2011).

Although, as it is understood, there are various appreciations about moral reasoning, they nonetheless converge at similar points, such as the connection between moral reasoning and behavioural choices (Blasi, 1980; Bazerman & Gino, 2012), as well as moral reasoning and altruistic behaviour in relation to evolutionary explanations of group selection in human societies (Varvatsoulias, 2013; 2014).

Kohlberg’s cognitive-developmental theory on moral reasoning (1969, 1984) was presented with research on male participants. According to his estimate, there are three stages concerned with the development of moral reasoning. He named (1984) the first as ‘preconventional’ (0-9yrs), based on avoidance of punishment and reward gaining. He called (1984) 1

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the second ‘conventional’ (9-20+yrs), referring to gaining or avoiding approval, as well as to the dipole of duty and guilt. The third stage was called from him (1984) ‘post-conventional’ (20…yrs), in relation to how one understands the right or wrong along with personal moral foundations, whether these refer to social or cultural criteria. Kohlberg’s account on moral reasoning is acknowledged that laid the foundations of an understanding of moral orientation as mature and non-mature, regarding the forms they are associated with (Gibbs, 2014).

Following Kohlberg, Gilligan (1982) pointed out a different understanding on moral reasoning which was referred to both genders. She considered that males tend to understand moral reasoning in relation to justice, whilst females in relation to care (Skoe, 2010). Although the understanding on the ‘ethic of justice’ was first referred by Kohlberg (1969), Gilligan was basically influenced by Walker (1984), who thought of gender differences in moral reasoning as modest as inexistent; for, according to his research (1984), little evidence was found to support the opposite as true (Walker, 2013). To Kohlberg’s ‘ethic of justice’, Gilligan (1982) introduced the ‘ethic of care’. She could not ‘bear’ the ‘male theorists’ of ‘male moral reasoning’, which included women as well. Gilligan (1982) ‘revolted’ against the idea that females are ‘deficient in moral development’, contending that in previous experiments, participants were only or mainly males (Rummery & Fine, 2012).

Although, at first sight, there seems to be a different methodological as well as theoretical background, both, Kohlberg and Gilligan, launch their research from similar starting points. The difference is that Gilligan’s one is presumably concerned with differing gender frameworks in tendencies of moral directions (Crandall et al., 1999; Proios, 2014). According to Tagney & Dearing (2004), Gilligan’s description of the ethic of care, implies that her discernment can be called ‘theory of moral reasoning’, in contrast to Kohlberg’s consideration of ‘feelings of sympathy and concern appreciation’, for she construes the cognitive-behavioural elements as interpreting different developmental orientations in moral reasoning (Graham et al., 2012).

Gilligan & Attanucci (1988) revised the method set by Kohlberg (1984) and proposed a followup orientation between male and female moral reasoning, the main argument of which was that both men and women use justice and care in their everyday practices when dealing with issues of morality in their social interactions (Cam et al., 2012).

The rational of this study is that Kohlberg raised the issue of moral reasoning by using standardized dilemmas on only males, whilst Gilligan & Attanucci raised the same issue on both genders without the use of standardized dilemmas. The hypothesis for this study is that gender differences, in response to moral dilemmas, are found to exhibiting a moral orientation towards justice-based reasoning for men, whereas towards care for women.

Method Participants Three hundred and twenty-seven participants were recruited for this type of study. Participants came from a relevant demographic background similar to the researcher’s (Greeks living in London). Their responses collected to form the analysis. Participants' age range was 17 to 58 years.

Design The current study was designed to examine the two categorical variables of gender and moral orientation. A 2x2 Chi-Square (χ²) analysis was employed for the reason to compare an actual observation following the occurrence and/or distribution of an event (in this case that event was the 'distribution of dilemmas') (McQueen & Knussen, 2006). The design was an association 2

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between moral reasoning and gender. It was a within-participants design. The IV (independent variable) was 'gender' and the DV (dependent variable) was 'frequencies on justice and care'.

Materials Three moral dilemmas were presented to participants each one containing four standard questions to be answered (Appendix 1).

Procedure Participants were interviewed at home. It was explained to them that the experimenter was interested in what people consider, when they face moral dilemmas. The dilemmas were presented to them one at a time and in random order. After participants have read each dilemma, were asked if they had any query; if they understood them clearly, whilst also, asked to answer each dilemma one by one, by responding in every question of it, whether briefly or in full.

Participants were also encouraged not to answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ or ‘I don’t know’, so their answers not to have a limited value. They were asked to answer honestly and that there was no right or wrong answer. According to ethical considerations, they were told their responses will be recorded and the reason for that is the experimenter to be able to recall what participants have said. They were also told that their responses will be treated anonymously and they can withdraw from the interview at any time. After completion of the interview participants were thanked for their time, they have been debriefed about the study and asked if there were any questions left unanswered.

When the interviews were completed, were transcribed in detail, so to be ready for content analysis. Content analysis of both interviews consisted of highlighting any statement in the participants’ answer that seemed to be indicative with the understanding of moral orientation. The highlighted statements were coded as ‘Justice’ (J) or ‘Care’ (C), according to the criteria provided by Lyons (1983) (Appendix 2).

The highlighted statements measured through using inter-rater reliability to ensure that the data have not been influenced by personal interpretation or knowledge of the hypothesis. In inter-rater reliability there was kept ‘blind’ the gender of each participant and were rated as ‘agree’ or ‘disagree’ by another fellow student researcher. After the inter-rater reliability measures, the responses of each dilemma were coded whether as indicative of justice (justice predominant in coding) or care (care predominant in coding) or both (justice-care), i.e. neither predominant.

After the responses were coded, were put in the SPSS, in order to be edited for chi-square analysis.

Results The overall frequency of dilemmas coded as justice, care or justice-care mixtures for both genders were collated and put to the SPSS. Descriptive statistics Table 1 Justice-based orientation Males 103 Females 68

Care-based orientation 41 115

Total number of participants was 327. Males have scored 103 for ‘justice’ and 41 for ‘care’, whilst females scored 68 for ‘justice’ and 115 for ‘care’.

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Table 2 120

100

80

60

REASONIN

40

Count

care 20

justice male

f emale

GENDER

In relation to both tables, the scores as they appear in both genders support the hypothesis tested. Males tend to score higher in ‘justice’, whereas females higher in ‘care’.

Inferential statistics There was employed a 2X2 chi-square (χ²) analysis to discover whether there was a significant association between gender and moral reasoning.

Table 3 Value Degrees of Freedom Cramer’s V Chi-square 38.158 1 .342 This suggested χ² (df(1), n=327)=38.158 (38.16), p<.001, Cramer’s V=.342.

This means that there is a significant relationship between moral reasoning and gender.

The hypothesis is two-tailed. Cramer’s V analysis (.342) has showed that the strength of the effect size for χ² is medium. Although 12% is a relatively small chance, the relationship between moral orientation and men and women is significant, meaning that the hypothesis is supported.

Discussion The results support the hypothesis predicted. Males tend to react on moral dilemmas through justice-based orientations, while females through care-based ones (Juújårvi et al., 2010). The hypothesis is two tailed and its direction medium. The strength of it implies that there is a significant association between moral reasoning and gender. The results show that the hypothesis examined fits with the theory of moral reasoning in relation to genders. Males exhibit justice on moral dilemmas, whereas females exhibit care. Gilligan’s and Attanucci’s (1988) revision on Kohlberg’s male-oriented moral reasoning is maintained.

An alternative explanation of the results, in connection with Kaufman’s argument (1989), shows that females are influenced by the way they respond on moral dilemmas, i.e. in view to emotions and moral ethics; whilst males tend to behave according to demand characteristics, such as the social balance, the social understanding of fairness and justification and the idea of social upheaval if common-sense rules are not obeyed.

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A possible weakness of the results is the looseness of using qualitative data to subjective opinions. In other words, as Gilligan (1977) argues, a precarious relationship between subjectivity and data is in use, when these are collected from friends or an environment which is of a similar background with the experimenter’s, i.e. people of similar beliefs, people of similar understanding of morality, people of similar demonstration of knowledge on academic issues or moral dilemmas (Abramson, 2012).

An improvement, according to Kaufman (1989), could be to be examined in such a study wider ranges of ages –divided by different decades, ethnic backgrounds, different cultural understandings, in relation to the moral orientation or reasoning, as well as different family and demographic backgrounds, such as upbringing in urban or rural areas, different educational status, single mothers, people whom the parents have passed away during their childhood, or divorced couples. According to Hogg & Vaughan (2005), there could also be examined different classifications on the aspect of ‘moral dilemma’, focused on differing social statuses, on considerations of prejudice and discrimination, along with the social framework, within which the individual lives, plus taking into account the factor of a low to moderate income of a family’s earnings (Sinno et al., 2014).

Eisenberg (1986) claims that, future studies should ask to revise the understanding of moral orientation on the ethics of justice and care. Although, Eisenberg et al., (1989) argue that Gilligan’s assertion that women are inclined to rely more heavily on an ethic of care, implies some consideration of feelings of sympathy and concern, she nevertheless does not take into account the aspect of moral decision which is related to behaviour, as well as to the emotions of a person. Tangney & Dearing (2004) consider the latter as an integral part to understanding moral reasoning. Otherwise, Gilligan’s theory, Tangney & Dearing posit, seems to be a general interpretation of how males and females feel about moral dilemmas with no appreciation of reasons, such as why the individuals are emotionally directed to weigh across either of justice or care (Rynes et al., 2012).

In relation to that, Baumrind (1986) and Walker (1986) have argued that a mere understanding on moral reasoning should not only be focused on gender differences of justice and care, but also in the nature and the substantive content of the prerequisites that preface them, such as attributes for and/or against pro-social/anti-social behaviour. In explaining the latter, Walker (1984) contends that there is actually little evidence about gender differences in the level of moral reasoning. According to Walker’s account, that little evidence lacks any systematic consideration about moral emotion (Malti & Krettenauer, 2013).

Tangney and Dearing (2004), by expanding Walker’s consideration on moral emotion, argue that there are two main issues which should be included in the discussion on moral reasoning among genders. The first is the issue of motivation, which they claim ‘it has been ignored up today’ (p. 133). The other issue relates to the ‘critical loss of information about potentially competing motives operative in a given situation’ (pp. 133-134). The latter questions whether there is a potential weight of empathy associated with shame, when moral dilemmas appear and people are called to form or justify an opinion.

In order to have a theory on moral reasoning which will examine and also interpret the aspect of emotional involvement in a moral dilemma, Blasi (1980) points out that such an orientation should be considered in relation to an individual’s moral decisions and behaviour.

According to Blasi (1980) there are three broad factors which include the understanding of emotional involvement in a moral dilemma: the moral standards, the moral background and the moral orientation of an individual. Moral standards, Blasi argues, refer to moral norms and 5

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conventions. Moral background discusses, for Blasi, the acquisition and expression of accepted rules and ethical directions in an environment. Moral orientation represents, according to Blasi’s account, an individual’s knowledge on the culturally defined social information(Kang & Glassman, 2010). According to Skoe & Gooden (1993), the research on moral reasoning has been largely processed today. Tavris (1992) postulates that, the understanding of Kohlberg and particularly the understanding of Gilligan and Attanucci’s expands the knowledge about the ethics of justice and care.

Conclusion The research, replicated in this study, gives weight to the methodological criticism, both Gilligan and Attanucci have addressed, in respect to gender differences, i.e. males exhibit a justice orientation on moral dilemmas, while females a care-based one. However, according to White & Manolis (1997), there is an immediate need today these ethics to be expanded towards a systematic integration of how people tend to reason at higher levels of moral thought through a range of moral cognitive and moral emotional factors. In such a direction, a study on moral behaviour should not only be examined as an understanding of morality, but fervently more as a universal aspect of the human behaviour within given societies and intercultural settings.

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Proios, M. (2014). Relationship between discrete emotions and moral content judgment in sport settings. Ethics & Behavior, 24(5), 382-396. doi:10.1080/10508422.2013.869746 Rummery, K. & Fine, M. (2012). Care: A critical review of theory, policy and practice. Social Policy & Administration, 46(3), 321-343. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9515.2012.00845.x Rynes, S., Bartunek, J., Dutton, J., Margolis, J. (2012). Care and compassion through an organizational lens: Opening up new possibilities. Academy of Management Review. doi:10.5465/amr.2012.0124 Sinno, S., Schuette, C., Killen, M. (2014). Developmental social cognition about gender roles in the family and societal context. In Leman, P. J. & Tenenbaum, H. R. (Eds.) Gender and development (pp. 133-154). Hove, Sussex UK: Psychology Press.

Skoe, E. E. A. (2010). The relationship between empathy-related constructs and care-related moral development in young adulthood. Journal of Moral Education, 39(2), 191-211. doi:10.1080/03057241003754930 Skoe, E. E. & Gooden, A. (1993): Ethic and care in real-life moral dilemma content in male and female early adolescents. Journal of Early Adolescence, 13, 154-167.

Tangney, J. P. & Dearing, R. L. (2004): Shame and Guilt. New York: The Guilford Press.

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Tavris, C. (1992): The mismeasure of woman. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Varvatsoulias, G. (2013). Kin selection and inclusive fitness in evolutionary biology and psychology, Part I. Could they be related to New Testament explanations of altruistic behaviour? European Journal of Science and Theology, 9(4), 139-154.

Varvatsoulias, G. (2014). Kin selection and inclusive fitness in evolutionary biology and psychology, Part II. Could they be related to New Testament explanations of altruistic behaviour? European Journal of Science and Theology, 10(1), 27-42.

Walker, L. (1984): Sex differences in the development of moral reasoning: A critical review. Child development, 55, 677-691.

Walker, L. (1986): Sex differences in the development of moral reasoning: A rejoinder to Baumrind. Child Development, 57, 522-527.

Walker, L. J. (2013). Exemplars' moral behavior is self-regarding. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 142, 27-40. doi:10.1002/cad.20047 White, J. & Manolis, C. (1997): Individual differences in ethical reasoning among law students.

Social Behaviour and Personality, 25, 19-48.

Appendix 1 A. Betty, in her late thirties, has been married to Erik for several years. They have two children, 8 and 10 years old. Throughout the marriage Betty has been at home, looking after the house and the children. For the last few years Betty has felt increasingly unhappy in the marriage relationship. She finds her husband demanding, self-centred and insensitive as well as uninterested in her needs and feelings. Betty has several times tried to communicate her unhappiness and frustration to her husband, but he continually ignores and rejects her attempts.

Betty has become very attracted to another man, Steven, a single teacher. Recently, Steven has asked Betty for a more intimate, committed relationship. Imagine you are Betty: What are the conflicts for you in this situation?

What would you do?

Do you think that is the right thing to do?

How do you know?

B. William, a 26 year old man, had decided to live on his own after having shared an apartment with a flatmate for the last three years. He finds that he is much happier living alone as he now has more privacy and independence and gets more work and studying done. One day his father, whom he has not seen for a long while as they do not get along too well, arrives at the doorstep with two large suitcases, saying that he is lonely and wants to live with William. Imagine you are William: What are the conflicts for you in this situation?

What would you do?

Do you think that is the right thing to do?

How do you know?

C. Sartre [1957] tells of a student whose brother had been killed in the German offensive of 1940.

The student wanted to avenge his brother and to fight forces that he regarded as evil. But the student's mother was living with him, and he was her one consolation in life. Imagine you are that student:

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What are the conflicts for you in this situation?

What would you do?

Do you think that is the right thing to do?

How do you know?

Appendix 2 Justice-Based Criteria for identifying moral reasoning 1.

REASON and LOGIC 2.

EXPLICIT PRINCIPLES 3.

IMPARTIALITY 4.

FAIRNESS 5.

AUTONOMY 6.

RIGHTS/OBLIGATIONS 7.

GOVERNS RELATIONS AMONG EQUALS 8.

COMPETITION (CONFLICTING INTERESTS) 9.

SELF-RELIANCE Care-Based Criteria for identifying moral reasoning 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

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EMOTIONS RESPONSIVENESS TO SITUATIONS PARTIALITY COMPASSION, SYMPATHY OR EMPATHY INTER-CONNECTEDNESS RESPONSIBILITIES GOVERNS RELATIONS AMONG UNEQUALS COOPERATION (COMMON INTERESTS) TRUST

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International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences p-ISSN: 1694-2620 e-ISSN: 1694-2639 Volume 1, No 1, pp. 10-26, ©IJHSS

Viewing the influences of ‘the global’ on education in Ghana from the lens of Human Rights Approach Moses Ackah Anlimachie Department for Educational Research, Faculty of Educational Sciences University of Oslo, Norway Abstract The impact of globalisation on education at the national level in Ghana has been remarkable. In view of this, researchers and scholars have tried to understand its features and influences from various academic lenses. This is because the term, „the global‟ and its impact on „the local‟, especially, as regarding educational evolution and development tend to defile a single theoretical basis for its understanding. This in turn gives its dynamic nature. This paper however attempts to explain the features and influences of „the global‟ on national educational policies and programmes in Ghana. By so doing, the paper situates Ghana‟s educational evolution and orientation in the human rights approach as it uncovers the features and influences of the global on her educational policies and programmes. The explanation the paper gives seeks to deepen the understanding of the workings of „the global‟. Importantly, its dialectic with „the local‟ to provide clue as to how „the local‟ will be better informed and positioned in order to maximise the gains that accrue from globalization. The paper concludes by suggesting how Ghana and Africa can maximise the positives of globalisation.

Keywords: globalisation, education, human rights, evolution, policies, programmes, Ghana, Africa.

Introduction The impact of globalisation on education at the national level in Ghana has been remarkable. In view of this, researchers and scholars have tried to understand its features and influences from various academic lenses. This is because the term, „the global‟ and its impact on „the local‟, especially, as regarding educational evolution and development tend to defile a single theoretical basis for its understanding. This in turn gives its dynamic nature. This paper however attempts to explain the features and influences of „the global‟ on national educational policies and programmes in Ghana. By so doing, the paper situates Ghana‟s educational evolution and orientation in the human rights approach as it uncovers the features and influences of the global on her educational policies and programmes.

Notwithstanding, the huge literature that exist on education and globalization discourse, specific examples on the Ghanaian context is limited, especially, when view the dialectic between the global and the local from the lens of human rights. The paper, therefore, narrows down to the Ghanaian context as it seeks find answers to the following questions; to what extent has the global educational paradigm shape educational evolution in Ghana? In what ways does Ghana educational trajectory 10

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mimic that of the global in the rights approach to education? And in what ways can Africa and Ghana, in particularly, maximize the positives of globalization in education. As a methodological approach the paper uses a theoretical analysis of existing literature on the subject to answer the thesis of the paper. The choice of Ghana as the context for this paper is very significance for the following reasons; First, there are geographical and gender dichotomy in educational opportunities and experiences in Ghana. There is inequity in access and quality in education between the rural the urban areas of Ghana. Furthermore, gender inequity in access, attendance, completion rate, and achievement at all levels of education in Ghana is glaring. And also, the recent global educational policy dissemination and Ghana educational policy orientation are very much ingrained in human rights perspective. Hence the choice of Ghana, therefore, elicits explanations which deepens the understanding of the workings of „the global‟ and its dialectic with „the local‟ to provide clue as to how „the local‟ will be better informed and positioned in order to maximise the gains that accrue from globalization.

The paper is structured into five sections. The first section espouses the concept of globalization and its dialectic with the „local‟. The second discusses the theoretical framework which views education as human rights issue. The third briefly highlights on Ghana‟s economic, educational challenges and the inequalities that exist in her education. The fourth section situates the emergence of Ghana‟s education in the perspective of human rights and points out some of the influences of the „global‟.The fifth section juxtaposes Ghana‟s educational policies on the global MDGs and EFA goals to see the interplay between the global and the national in policy making. In the final leg, the rights/ justice approach was further used to discuss two key specific educational programmes in Ghana in the as it further unfold the impact of the global on the local. This paper concludes by suggesting how Ghana and Africa can maximise the positives of globalisation.

Concept of globalization and its dialectic with the local According to Arnove (2013), in Arnove et al. (2013) globalization is “the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happening are shaped by events occurring many miles away” (p. 2.). It is a borderless phenomenon and its tentacles transcend through distance and time. It diffuses and spreads vertically and horizontally. This means it breeds both equal and unequal relationships or positive and negative relationships Educational globalisation can thus be defined as the spread of knowledge, ideas, paradigms and theories programmes, polices practices, personnel and funding cross borders through policy borrowing, hybridization, replacement, reinforcement, convergence, diffusion and adoption with the view of improving educational systems locally (Meyer, Boli, Thomas and Ramirez (1997); Silova, 2012).There is, therefore, reciprocal relationship between education and globalization. Education functions as a fuel for globalization and globalization also dictates the pace of education (Lauder et al. 2006).

The dialectic of the „global‟ and the „local‟ has been well debated in literature by several schools of thought. They are the hyper globalists, transformationalists and skeptists. According to the hyper globalist school of taught, the nation/state has been rendered powerless by the global. For the skeptists they hold the stance that the nation/state is untouched and still remains the driving force.

However, the transformationalists hold a middle view. For them, globalization has transformed the nation-state (Lauder et al. 2006; Crossly & Watson, 2003).Whatever the perspective may be, the effect of globalization on the nation -state is very real, especially, when it comes to educational policies and funding in Africa and Ghana.

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Theoretical/Analytical Framework The paper used the social justice/human rights conceptual framework. According to the theory every human being, no matter the race, socio-economic background has the right to education of reasonable standard. It is premises on the goal that education should prepare the individual for social, economic and political participation. It should enhance cohesion and socialise the young that rights are naturally and sacredly inherent in the individual and that the rights to education is the individual greatest assets independent of any other person (Tomasevski, 2003; 2005).

The justice approach to education and development emerged as a remedial reaction to the failure of the economic growth theory and its counterparts in the human capital and capability theories. They fail to achieve the much touted trickledown effect. But rather widened the gap between the rich and the poor (World Bank, 2000; 2001). The global focus on education and development fromthe1950s therefore shifted towards making more direct interventions in the socio-economic lives of the poor in the periphery areas. Conditional cash transfer programmes became fashionable and Africa and South America became the experimental sites of these programmes (Arnove et al., 2007) The rights approach to educational discourse was formalised following the UN General Assembly proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the year 1948. On the specific provisions on education, Article 26 of the declaration states among other things that: Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stagesâ&#x20AC;Ś Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms...(UN,1948 Article 26,) The rights/justice approach to education was further reinforced by the 1959 Declaration of Rights of the Child. It declared that every child is entitled to receive free compulsory elementary education.

This was on the basis of equal opportunity without any discrimination. Significantly, it advocated for a special provision for children with special needs in order for them to fully participate. . Another relevant impetus which is also ingrain in the social justice theory is the Economic Cooperation of West Africa States (ECOWAS) protocol on Education and Training which Ghana is a signatory to.

The protocol seeks to eliminate all forms of discriminatory acts against females. This is aimed at ensuring equity and full access to education at all levels. The rights approach to education was further invigorated by the World Declaration on Educational for All, Jomtiem (1990) & Daker (2000). It aims at ensuring that every child has access to and complete free compulsory primary education by the year 2015. It also aims at eliminating gender disparities and improving all aspect of the quality of education for all. These sum up into the MDGs 2- Education as an anti-poverty tool: targeting the poor (UNESCO, 2014).

In Ghana, the rights approach, especially girls education, has been championed by local NGOs like the 31st December Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x;s Movement and Federation of International Women Lawyer (FIDA) Ghana chapter. Through seminars, workshops, fora, discussions, and lectures these organizations rallied support from all sectors of the society including professionals, politicians, NGO's trade unions, churches, women's groups, traders, autonomous indigenous groups, traditional rulers for the rights approach to education( FIDA-Ghana, 2014). These activities culminated into the 1992 Constitution granting Free Compulsory Basic Education for all.

The Contrasting Views and Criticisms of the Rights Theory The rights approach, from the ensuing literature, tend to place more priority on the intrinsic value of education as it sees human rights as ends in themselves. This view contrasts that of the human capital approach which is more tilted towards the maximisation of economic returns (materialistic 12

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outcomes) in education as it sees human beings as input factor for economic production and growth. This means that people such as the disable whose economic productivity may be seen as unlikely to bring the needed return in education may be relegated to the background (Robeyens, 2006).To the human rights theorists, the dignity of every individual is paramount and must be attained and preserved through education no matter the perceived returns. The right to education for every child also implies that the government must mobilise the needed resources to offer a reasonably quality education for every child at all cost (UNICEF, 2003). This view also goes beyond the human capability theory as it makes it mandatory for the government to find the needed investment into education; it is not an option like the case of the capability theory, but a must.

Robeyens (2006) criticises the justice theory as being overtly rhetorical. Many governments from developing countries have pay a lip service of largely granted every child a right to education, but still many children in their countries are out of school. He posits further that the justice theory is obsessed and fixated with the issue of enrolment, at the expense of completion rate.

Notwithstanding , the justice theory was used by this paper because it sees human beings as the ultimate ends of educational goals (Tomasevski, 2003) and it addresses the issue of inequity and inequality in education like those dichotomy that has been highlighted in the case of access to and quality of education in Ghana.

In view of the above, the paper examines Ghanaian educational evolution in terms of policy and programme from the justice approach. This is done by reviewing some previous studies in line with international policies and programmes in education. The paper does not intend to play down the credibility of these studies but, seeks, to draw attention on issues in the context of Ghana that have not be given the needed attention; especially as far as how Ghana should be positioned to maximise the gains on globalisation.

Educational Challenges in Ghana and its dichotomy There are many challenges confronting the education sector in Ghana. Some are lack of funds, poor infrastructure, lack of teaching and learning materials, ill-equipped laboratory, lack of quality teachers, poor motivation, poor professional development, and poor monitoring and evaluation.

These challenges are microcosm of Ghanaâ&#x20AC;&#x;s current economic predicaments. According to the International Monitory Fund (2014), Ghana continues to face significant domestic and external vulnerabilities. It cited large fiscal deficit, slow growth, rising inflation, weak revenue performance, rising cost of debt servicing, large depreciation of the local currency, and weak export performance as some of the evidence. These have serious implications on funding of equitable quality education in Ghana.

More worryingly, there is a dichotomy in access of educational opportunities in Ghana between the privileged and the less privileged. First, there is north and south divide in access to educational opportunities. The northern regions of Ghana, which constitute the largest geographical area is very deprived as compare to the regions in the south. Most of the active economic activities and educational institutions, especially the tertiary ones are mostly concentrated in the southern part.

The southerners are therefore more able to access education than the northerners. There is also a gender dichotomy as men dominate women in enrolment; completion rate and pursuing of technology base programmes. Lastly, there is a rural and urban dichotomy. The urban centers have more schools which are relatively better equipped in terms of infrastructure and teachers than the rural areas. For example, the proportion of the population which has never attended school in the rural areas (33.1%) is more than two times that of the urban area (14.2%). There is also a marked difference between males (9.1%) and females (14.3%) who have never attended school.

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Evolution of education in Ghana and the global Colonization and its impact on education and development in Ghana Formal education was introduced in Ghana in the 16th Century by two main groups, Merchants and Christian Churches from Europe mostly Dutch, French and English who came into Africa for the purpose of trading and evangelism. The Merchants aimed at training mulato children for employment as administrative assistants or soldiers whilst the Christian Missionaries was aiming to create an independent native church with a staff of well-educated local assistants, which was finance

by Charity Groups Abroad (Foster, 1963). Hence the type of education placed more emphasis on literacy and numeracy at the expense of vocational and technical training (Adu Boahen, 1975).

Ghana became British colony following a British proclamation of the existence of the Gold Coast Colony on July 24, 1874. Between 1821 and 1840 the British Crown authorities took control of the education system by financing a number of government schools, including one for girls. Both government and church-funded schools existed side-by-side and were based on the public „monitorial‟ schools system then in England (Foster, 1963:49). Education became the privilege of a small minority, largely elite, male and urban and residing in the South of the country. In general, the social demand for education remained low. However, between the period 1911 and 1937, the enrolment of pupils in government and aided schools increased from around 18,000 to 44,000 (Foster, 1963).

Like that of the pre-colonial education system, the colonial educational system also placed much emphasis on literacy and numeracy acquisition. The aim then was to train people in arithmetic and communicative skills to facilitate trade. There was no attempt on industrialization hence vocational training was not given much attention. This colonial legacy in education still persists in 21st century Ghana as evident in the poor vocational and technical education in Ghana (Adu Boahen, 1975). The effect is that the country continues to be a mere exporter of primary products even after independence (Adu Boahen, 1975; Kay & Hymer). Colonialism - the genesis of globalization in Africa has fiercely been blamed as the bean of not only Ghana but African‟s socio-economic systemic failure as it laid a very week foundation upon which the development trajectory of Ghana and Africa has been erected. This position was further reechoed in the recent 23rd Ordinary Session of the African Union Assembly of Heads of State and Government held in Malabo, on 26 June 2014 by the president of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Mbasogo. He argues that the neo-colonial domination of Africa had impeded development and has now metamorphosed into unfair pricing and western-imposed barriers to trade (Guardian Africa Network, 2014). However, in sharp rebuttal Barack Obama has told African leaders to stop making excuses for ongoing economic problems in their countries, and to look for solutions within rather than blaming the past. This position seems to be supported by the example of the South Africa who got independence very late yet have recorded significant successes, especially in education.

Post- colonial era and education After independence in 1957 the focused was on making Ghana an industrialized country. A robust programme dubbed „The Accelerated Development Plan for Education‟ was therefore set into motion in the mid- 1950s by the first president of Ghana-Dr. Kwame Nkrumah (Little, 2010). The aim was to provide rapid development of education at all levels. University of Science and Technology, and Polytechnics were established to trained high technically skilled manpower for industry. At the secondary school level several model Senior Secondary Schools were established across the nation, and they were fairly distributed. Also in order to bridge north-south divide the government introduced the northern scholarship as part of the program to increase access of the 14

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poor communities in the northern regions of Ghana to Secondary School .This scholarship covers boarding and feeding fees of students that hail from the three northern regions of Ghana. At the basic level, education was made compulsory and free and it was geared towards access. There was also an introduction of free text books at the primary and secondary levels. Many teachers‟ training colleges were established to produce qualified teachers for the basic schools. „The Teacher Trainee Allowance‟, a cash transfer policy, was also introduced in the mid 60s to attract more academically brilliant students into teaching. The Ghana education trust fund and the Cocoa Marketing Board were established in the 60s to provide funding for education in Ghana (Kay & Hymner, 1992). The results were positive as there were increases not only in infrastructure, but also in enrolment and access at all levels. For example, the enrolment at basic level increased by approximately 150% by 1965 (Kay & Hymner, 1992). Also, many middle level personnel as well as teachers were turn out to fill gap in education and industries that were created by the exit of the British. The Accelerated Development Plan for Education and the Education Act of 1960 were birthed out of relatively wider consultations with stakeholders and with support from foreign experts. This may account for the success story. However, a number of challenges emerged. First, there were inadequate numbers of teachers to cope with the rapid increase in enrolment in the basic schools and the enrolment also outpaced infrastructure expansion. These affected the quality of education (Pimpong, 2006).

Therefore, before 1970s Ghana educational policies had an orientation that seemed to be consistent with human capital approach of investing in people in order to produce a knowledgeable and skillful manpower to drive the wheel of socio-economic development. This in a way created inequality in development as well as in educational experiences between the rural and the urban milieu as most of the major infrastructures, school, teachers and factories were cited in the core centres of Accra, Tema,Takrodi and Kumasi. However, latter remedial programs like the introduction of the „Teacher Trainee Allowance‟ and the policy of equitable distribution of model senior secondary schools countrywide, the northern scholarship and free basic school education are good examples of the justice approach to education as it expanded access in education. Another significant feature of the early post-colonial education system was that the nation has sufficient autonomy on the choice and the direction of policies and programmes as compare to recent times. This was due to the fact that education was mostly funded internally with little foreign support.

In 1966, the first military government (NLC) instituted the Kwapong Educational Review Committee which brought into the middle school system a two-year pre-vocational continuation classes (continuation schools) based on the industrial and farming needs of the country (Poku, Aawaar , Worae, 2013). This was envisaged to prepare the middle school graduates for the world of work. The academic track system was still based on the British system. However, this policy failed woefully as the students in those schools were keen to enter into secondary schools rather than vocational schools. The reason for the failure may be attributed to lack of sufficient consultation with stakeholders, including students and teacher before the rolling out of the policy. The, total expenditure in education during the NLC regime declined and there was also marked drop both in the school aged children in schools and trained teachers (Poku, Aawaar & Worae, 2013). This may be attributed to the unstable political, and the fact that the government refused to cooperate with the international players.

In 1978, Ghana introduced full structural adjustment policies supported by the Bretton Woods institutions. Public funding to education was massively cut and there was an increasing burden on parents to fund education. The effects include a further drop in enrolment and trained teachers. For examples, the high score of 75% of school enrolment for 6-14 years old and the 90.8% of trained teachers in schools recorded in 1965 dropped to 69.9% and 72% respectively in 1979. Ghana‟s GNP 15

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per capita fell by 23% between 1975 and 1983 (Poku, Aawaar & Worae, 2013). Severe economic hardships and harsh revolutionary zeal of the military regime in 1981 caused many trained teachers in both primary and secondary schools to leave the country.

Another reform occurred in 1986/87 that shaped the structure of basic education in Ghana even up to today. The reform changed the basic and secondary education system from 17 to 12 years, with six (6) years of primary school, three (3) years of junior secondary school (JSS), and three years of senior secondary school (SSS). Basic education was reduced from eleven (11) to nine (9) years, but still in tandem with the British educational system (Poku, Aawaar & Worae, 2013). The reforms was intended to prepare the products from the JSS for further education, skill training, and to pursue self- determined paths of interest to enable them play a functional role in the society as informed, participatory citizens, and economic producers to improve the quality of their lives, the reforms was not successful for want of sufficient resources for practical work at the JSS level (Ministry of Education, 1996).

In recent times, the government‟s commitment towards achieving her educational goals line with the global (MGDs and the EFA strategies) has been expressed in several policy frameworks documents, text and reports including:  Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy ( GPRS I) 2002 – 2004 & ( GPRS II) 2006 -2009  The Government‟s White Paper on the report 2004  Meeting the Challenges of Education in the 21st Century. (The report of the President‟s Commission on Review of Education Reforms in Ghana, ERRC, October 2002).  Education for All (EFA, UNESCO, Dakar, 2000) – international paper  The Education Strategic Plan (ESP) covering 2003-2015 & 2010-2020 One of the three main thematic areas of the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS I & II ) is the development of the nation‟s human resources base through the creation of competent manpower for development of the country whereby education is seen as an obvious impetus of meeting the MDGs by aligning its educational policies to the EFA strategies (Ministry of Education, 2005).

In 2004 the Government of Ghana White Paper on Education Reform outlines a new portfolio of major reforms and objectives aims to link schooling to the job market through alliances with private and public sector agencies. The innovation of the Reform is the inclusion of Kindergarten Education to the main stream of basic education in Ghana in line of the EFA strategy of improving early childhood education. The Reform also proposes that the medium of instructions in Kindergarten and Lower Primary were to be Ghanaian language complimented by English, where necessary (Ministry of Education, 2005). This is also in line with the EFA action plan and the 2008 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous people which advocate for the rights of indigenous people and children to be taught in their mother tongue at least in the early stages of their education. The implementation of the reform objectives culminated in the Ghana Education Strategic Plan (ESP).

From this historical accounts, Ghana educational evolution has been continually shaped by a number of policy makers (mostly motivated by change in governments) and donors working together and compromising their original intentions in order to develop policies and programmes that are compatible to the Ghanaian context. Her history points to the fact that there were greater successes in policies and programmes that were based on wider consultations and inclusion of all 16

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global partners. Another feature found is that Ghana educational evolution is ingrained in the human rights approach as most of her policies seek to widen the frontier of education by hooking every child anywhere in the country, especially the marginalized, into at least basic formal education.

The Accelerated Education Plan of the 60s and the FCUBE show that even before Jomtiem (2000), Ghana had committed herself to universal access to basic education. However, it must be noted that the issue of quality which is also pertinent to the rights approach to education has not been sufficiently addressed for want of sufficient resources.

The Interplay between Ghana and the global in policy making strategies The major stakeholders that shape educational policies at the national level according to Dale (2007), include public consultations, parliamentary debates, governing parties, commissions and councils, trade union representatives, employer organizations, professional associations, sectors of civil society, bilateral cooperation and international organizations. At the international level the major players are the UN and its specialized agencies, The World Trade organization(WTO), The World Bank and the International Monitory Fund, multinational corporations/organizations, regional and professional, organizations, International NGOs, bilateral cooperation, national governments, research institutions, and individuals (Crossley & Watsson, 2003). Comparisons of the two suggest that there is a reciprocal relationship between the national and the global as each has a stake and interest in the other. However, the global seems to have the upper hands as it can amass resources more than the local. For example, being the first UN agency, UNESCO through its long standing in championing the course of universal basic education and functional literacy, has had a profound influence on global educational policies and thinking, especially as a right issue (Crossley and Watsson 2003). According to Crossly & Watsson (2013), there is a strong collaboration among donor organizations and national government with respect to educational development. For example the association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA), which was founded as Donors to Africa Education, brings together national, international and private donor agencies to formulate policies and these policy directions are then disseminated through several publications.

Globalization, therefore, plays important role in national level policy making in term of funding and technical expertise as nations response to the global changes in order to become competitive and also ( in the case of developing countries) to attract more funding from donor agencies (Jacobi 2012; Carnoy, 1999).

Dale (2007), suggests that the national education policy makers and planners interact with the global through two main general policy mechanisms. These are the traditional approach to policy making and planning which includes: Policy borrowing and Policy learning. The second one is externally induced mechanisms such as Policy Harmonization as evident in the EU- Bologna declaration; Policy Dissemination as seen in the OECD indicators- PISA; Policy Standardization as exemplifies in the UNESCO EFA goals; Policy Interdependence as evident in the global commitment in fighting climate change, global warming and terrorism. The last one is Policy Imposition as seen in the IMF and the World Bankâ&#x20AC;&#x;s structural adjustment policies such as cost sharing, full cost recovery and privatization in education. The mechanisms of influence of the global on the local come in the form of policy advice, technical assistant, common policies and architecture for educational system, indicators, ranking, declarations, recommendations, guidelines, conventions, regional agreements, loans linked to programmes and policies and conditioned aid (Jacobi 2012; Dale, 2007).

In terms of Policy Option and target setting, Ghana educational policy and reform goals are greatly influenced by international and sub-regional policy frameworks and declarations. Ghanaâ&#x20AC;&#x;s participation in, and endorsement of, international agreements like the EFA, the Declaration on the Rights of the Child, the Beijing Declaration on Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x;s Rights, the Lome Convention; the African 17

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Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and; the Convention on the Rights of the Child have greatly inform her educational policy strategies and goals. This means that the government tries to draw a balance between local interests and the bilateral and multilateral negotiations it had taken part in, as a guide to her policy making. The broad policy goals of Ghana Education Strategy Plan (ESP) lay strong emphasis on increasing access, equity and quality in education in consonance with the MDGs 2 and the EFA frammwork. The specific strategic goals relating to basic education are: to provide equitable access to good-quality child-friendly universal basic education, by improving opportunities for all children in the first cycle of education, that is, kindergarten, primary and junior high school levels (Government of Ghana, 2010). The specific targets stated in the ESP 2003-2015 are that: children everywhere, boys and girls alike will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling by 2015; to eliminate gender inequalities by 2015; and to eliminate gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005(Government of Ghana, 2003). From the above, we can say that education is viewed by both the global and local policy makers as welfare and right issues as they are premises on access, equity and quality.

In term of strategies the Ghanaâ&#x20AC;&#x;s ESP is greatly shaped by the global goals. The UN seeks to achieve the MDG2 & EFA targets by promoting EFA policies within a sustainable and well integrated sector framework clearly linked to poverty elimination and development through: ensuring the engagement and participation of civil society in the formulation, implementation and monitoring of strategies for educational development; developing responsive, participatory and accountable systems of educational governance and management; implementing an integrated strategies for gender equality in education and; enhancing the status, morale and professionalism of teachers in order to achieve the MDGs (UNESCO, 2000). Further, Johannesburg, 1999 also identified good practices and successful policies that are more appropriate to the African context to include: policies that seeks to accelerated access, with particular reference to policies of equity and female enrolment, including affirmative action; community involvement in school decision-making and administration; employment of teachers in their own community of origin; curriculum reform toward locally relevant subjects; the use of mother tongue as the language of instruction; evaluation based on an action-research paradigm and; management/statistical information systems in planning among others(UNESCO, 2000). Similarly, in the Ghana the guiding participles and strategies on basic education ,for example, is to eliminate gender and other disparities that arises from exclusion and poverty; cater for excluded children in mainstream schools whenever possible; improve the quality of learning and teaching, and to promote the culture of lifelong learning at all levels and for all ages ; develop an effective, efficient and properly rewarded teaching service; devolve delivery and fiscal systems of 1st and 2nd cycle of education to District Assemblies; ensure periodic review of education grants and allowances; and to strengthen monitoring , accountability management and planning in the education sector (Government of Ghana, 2010).

Furthermore, the principle of consensus building in decision making at the global level has influenced Ghana policy making process in recent times. According to Verger (2014), policy making in education is a complex process that seeks to include regional interests and views of all major stakeholders in international education, including businesses and private institutions. It involves several underground preparation and consultations. As evident by the deliberations of the SecretaryGeneralâ&#x20AC;&#x;s High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda: The deliberations of the Panel were informed by the broad consultative process â&#x20AC;Ś This includes national and global thematic consultations under the aegis of the United Nations Development Group (UNDG), regional consultations undertaken by the Regional Commissions, consultations with businesses around the world under the guidance of the UN 18

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Global Compact, and the views of the scientific and academic community as conveyed through the Sustainable Development Solutions Network â&#x20AC;Śmore than 5000 civil society organizations and 250 chief executive officers of major corporations who shared their valuable ideas and views during a series of consultations, both in person and online (UN, 2013) Likewise, the Dakar Framework of Action (2000) was birth out of amalgam of ideas and reaffirmation of international stakeholders to commit themselves to the ten (10) EFA goals. Also, in the Johannesburg 1999 Regional Conference on EFA for Su-Saharan Africa, governments and representative of civil societies as well as the international development partners and agencies came together to reaffirm the EFA goals for Su-Saharan that education is a basic rights and a basic need for all African children hence the need of stakeholders to play their respective role in achieving the MDGs and EFA goals. Ghanaâ&#x20AC;&#x;s policy making process has also been greatly influenced by the high level of consultations and consensus building that occurs at the global level. For example, the 2006 educational reform process started with initiation of policy by Government (Ministry of Education). This was followed by District and Regional consultation meetings to gather inputs from the local people. This was followed by national forum where all stakeholders including international players converge to discuss and make inputs. An improved draft was then approved by cabinet. This was laid in parliament for the representatives of the people to make some inputs. Here Parliament Special Committee on Education was very active. The document went to cabinet for final considerations and the presidency issued a white paper on it to become the final policy document.

As a follow up to the recommendation of the 2006 reform Ghana Education Strategic Plan was drawn to cover the period 2003 to 2015, According to Government of Ghana (2010), the two volumes of the Ghana ESP are the outcome of year-long discussions and consultations between numerous stakeholders in the education sector, particularly those in District education offices, those in NGOs and our development partners. This interaction has provided assurance and confidence in the plan. Also, as a further followed up of the ESP, Ghana has set up Education Sector Annual Review (ESAR), which provide the opportunity for all stakeholders in the sector to work together and participate in the review of the education sector performance annually. This is to ensure the involvement of all stakeholders in the review and pool of resources to ensure harmonisation of programs and activities for the realization of the goals and objectives of the education sector. This is also to enhance accountability and transparency with the education sector (Government of Ghana, 2010). Therefore, as Haddad (1995) observes education policy making process in Ghana like that of the international level take into account the interests and inputs of the various stakeholders in education both at the national and international level. Hence the policies tend to enjoy high level of popular support which is key to its successful implementation.

In term of the policy implementation process the influence of the global on Ghana is very evident.

UN ant its specialized agencies and donor countries, have supported decision-makers in Ghana to develop solid and relevant education policies and strategies (such the GPRS, ESP the School Feeding Programme among others) and in managing their effective implementation. These supports come in the form of technical assistance in education policy analysis, the design of education sector development plans, and donor mobilization in support of educational priorities. The support also come in the form of institutional capacity-building in policy formulation, sector analysis, educational planning, policy simulation and dialogue, resource projections, sector management, programme monitoring and evaluation, and development cooperation (UNESCO, 2014). In Ghana, the implementations of educational policies are, therefore, highly supported and dependent on aid and loans from the global, hence they have a say in the direction of education in Ghana. The Ministry of 19

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Education (MOE) is responsible for the formulation and implementation of educational policies in Ghana. The Ministry ensures that the national policies on education harmonise with the overall national development goals taking into cognizance the international paradigm on education. A minister of State of Cabinet Status heads the Ministry. The MOE is followed by the Ghana Education Service (GES) on the management structure which is the main agency for implementing approved pre-tertiary education policies and programmes under the GES Council, in accordance with the GES Act 1995 (ACT 506) (Republic of Ghana, 2002). The feature of Ghana educational policy evolution is, therefore, greatly influenced by the global through policy imposition, borrowing, harmonization and dissemination.

Discussion of some specific educational programmes in Ghana The Directive Principles of State policy in Ghana envisages that basic education should be free, compulsory and universal and higher education should be made progressively free (Ministry of Education, 2008). This principle is rooted firmly in the rights approach and it is influenced by the numerous international declarations on education as a rights. Although there is no tuition fees at all level of public education, however, other fees, including hidden ones, made the issue of affordability the main blockage to access. Due to the dichotomy in the Ghanaian society as highlighted earlier, the Ghanaian educational programmes tend to focus more on the problem of access and equity.

Two major examples of educational progrmmes that have been introduced to address the issue of access and equity in basic level are discussed below: The Free Compulsory Universal Education Policy (FCUBE) The 1992 Republican Constitution of Ghana promulgated free compulsory universal basic education. According the specific provision (Article 38 (2) ), states that the government “shall within two years after Parliament first meets after the coming into force of this Constitution, draw up a programme for implementation within the following ten years, for the provision of free, compulsory and universal basic education” (Constitution of the Fourth Republic of Ghana, 1992).

This provision added new impetus to the human rights approach to education Ghana.

The main objective was to improve access to basic education, especially of girls, improve the teaching process, learning outcomes and school management through better planning, monitoring and evaluation (Pimpong, 2006). The five strategic and integrated elements designed to remedy these four deficiencies of access, equity quality and relevance were infrastructure development, management reform, curriculum change, community participation and improvement of quality of personnel who support basic education at all levels ( Little, 2010).

The successes of the programs are that gross enrolment ratio (GER) in primary education has improved steadily. Prior to the FCUBE, between 1987 and 1991, the GER in primary education was averaging 77% and it fell to 73% in 1995. By 2001 it had increased to 80%, but however, decline again to 78% in 2003 (Little, 2010). An evaluation of educational progress undertaken by the World Bank suggests that between 1988 and 2003 there was a ten per cent (10%) increase in enrolment at the basic level, a reduction in dropouts and an increase in girls‟ enrolment. Primary school graduate rates of illiteracy in English also declined from 66% to less than 20% while school infrastructure and the availability of textbooks and other learning materials increased remarkably over the same period (World Bank, 2004). Notwithstanding, many children were still not in school since the FCUBE only covers tuition. The schools were permitted to charge other fees up to a ceiling amount approved by the District Assemblies [Local Governments in Ghana] (Little, 2010). The abuse of this arrangement led to the proliferation of all kinds of fees. In order to eliminate that government in early 2000s 20

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introduced the capitation grant policy. This grant was to pay for all the other fees. The capitation grant r pushed the enrolment figure further up. The programme was mainly founded by donor support.

The FCUBE unfortunately, does not seem to have produced the overall expected outcome so far.

One of its important goals of making educational planning and management more effective has not been achieved. Poor monitoring and evaluation persists and this has been blamed on the poor performance of public Junior High Schools (JHS) in the Basic Certificate Examinations (BECE) as compared to the well monitored private schools. Generally, the achievement level of pupils at the JHS level, especially, in public schools has been abysmal and the trend keeps deteriorating. For example only 46.93 per cent of out of the 375,280 candidates who sat for the 2011 BECE met the criteria for placement into SHSs and Vocational Institutions in Ghana. Also, between 2001 to 2011 the performance of pupils who sat for the BECE dropped from 60.40% to 46.93% (Government of Ghana 2013). There is also a problem of supply of qualified teachers to cater for the increasing number of students. The student to trained teacher ratio in primary school worsen from 43: 1 to 63:1 and that of the Junior Secondary School 23:1 to 26: 1 between 1997 to 2006 (Little, 2010).

The dropout rate remains high as only few students end up at the SHS level.

Increase in access seems to have compromised the quality of education in Ghana. This has brought about increasing in the number of private basic schools across the nation. From the human capital point of view it may be argued that privatization of basic education in Ghana seem to be a better remedial strategy to the low quality of basic education in Ghana as it is yielding a positive results in term of pupilsâ&#x20AC;&#x; educational achievements express in examination scores, hence may give Ghana the highest returns in terms achievement and possibly increase the completion and progression rates among students than public education as evidenced by the far better performances of private basic schools than the public ones in the BECE every year. However, as argued by Tomasevski (2003) human beings are the ultimate ends of educational goals and not the returns. Privatization may deny many people the rights to education and the cost of that will be unbearable in the future. What the government and stakeholders need to do is to expand infrastructure, teaching and learning materials, and motivate teachers to accept postings into deprived areas. There must also be an establishment of special monitoring and evaluation units within Ghana Education Service (GES). These will improve the quality. Privatization may not be the answer for quality given the inequalities that exists in the access to educational opportunities in Ghana.

The Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) The Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) was birthed through the New Partnership for Africa Development/Hunger Task Force Initiative (NEPAD/HTFI) with the support from Dutch government. The School feeding programme was introduced in 2005 as a follow up to the FCUBE (MOE, 2012). It was basically targeted at the poor communities, especially, the rural areas and urban slums. It aims at not only increasing enrolment, but more importantly attendance and retention. The programme can be describe as a success as it has not only increase the enrolment and retention levels, but it has also expanded from an initial number of 69,000 beneficiary students in 2005 to 697, 496 by the end of the first phase of the programme in 2010 (Lynch, 2013). At the beginning of the 2013/14 academic year the coverage rate figure stood at 1,600, 000 pupils from 49,920 public schools (Modern Ghana, 2013). However, the programme is now bedeviling with funding problems following the withdrawal of the Dutch government support in 2011 (Modern Ghana, 2013). From the justice perspective government has an obligation to her people to provide the means to

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education no matter the cost. The government must therefore look for more innovative ways of raising funds to sustain the programme as its impact has been very positive.

Funding, Aid Dependency and Vested Interest in Ghana’s Education Educational policies and programmes in Ghana are largely donor funded. Perhaps one of the positive impacts of Globalization on education in Ghana has been the inflows of funds and technical assistant into the education sector. However, there seem to be overreliance on external support at the expense of raising and prudent use of resources. The evidence is that any time there is a delay or a withdrawal of such funds it triggers a stunt in the implementation of educational programmes in Ghana. As noted by Samoff (2013), perhaps there is an internalisation within Africa countries, including Ghana that improvement and change can only flourish on external support.

The donor organizations and countries have vested interest and expectations. For example, the over liberalization of the Ghanaian economy through Structural Adjustment Programmes(SAPs) was as a result of conditionality attached to grants and aid accessed by the country (Pimpong, 2006). This has led to the influx of foreign goods and the gradual the collapse of local industries due to unfair competition from the West, as well as privatization of key state- own industries most of whom are now controlled by foreign and multinational companies. One of the effects is the current problem of graduate unemployment in Ghana. Bonal, X. (2014, September 15) in a Globed lecture at the University of Oslo summarizes the negative effects of „ the global‟ as evident in the impact of SAPs on Africa countries to include decrease in educational funding at the expense of debt servicing, increase in the opportunities cost of education, increase in dropout rates as a result of increase user-fees, decrease in staff recruitment and salaries which further worsens the teacherstudent ratio, and even more alarmingly, the emergence of a new retreat towards the economic function of education. Another concern observed by Pimpong (2006) is that most often Ghana must use the funds from aids and loans to fulfill goals set by the loaning agency. These goals may not be aligned with the goals of the nation. Although being aware of these hidden agenda most often government accept, and even request for them as they want to be seen doing something having the next elections in mind. The impact of the global on the education is therefore very real when it comes to funding of education in Ghana in recent times, even to the extent that donor partners have to make inputs into the national budget of the country. As observed by Meyer, J. W. et al. (1997), the local is indeed gradually ceding its power and sovereignty to the global. From the rights perspective loans and aids into educational programmes is good only when it seeks to broaden the frontier of access and quality. However, it must be resisted if it comes with strings that seek to espouse neoliberal agenda such as privatization, cost sharing and full cost recovery in education.

The Current State of Affairs in Ghana: Success and Challenges After many years of educational trajectory in Ghana masterminded by the global, the nation has chalked some modest gain, especially, in access and equity in education at all levels. The Gross Enrolment Rate (GER) for primary school has improved from 76% in 1987/88 to 80% in 2002, 88% in 2005, 95% in 2008 (Ghana Statistical Service, 2010). The GER gender gap in favour of boys decreased from 10% in 1996/97 to 7% in 2012 (UNICEF, 2013). The literacy rate has increase from 54% in 2000 to about 72% in 2010 (Ghana Statistical Service, 2010). The number of out-of-school children (aged 6 to 11) fell by 46% from 513,000 in 2006 to 278,000 in 2011 and the completion rates increased at both Primary and JHS, now at 112.4 and 70.1 respectively. Gender parity is almost achieved at the Primary level, with a GPI of 0.99(Government of Ghana, 2013). Overall Ghana has attained the EFA on gender parity in primary education and is on the verge of attaining that of the access by the end of 2015. These improvements are attributed to the strategies adopted in line with 22

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‟the global‟ such as the EFA and MDG goals and the inflow of support from donor countries and the UN specialized agencies.

However, there is a still serious challenge which further needs attention. Ghana is still far a way in achieving parity at the secondary and higher educational levels. For example, at the Junior High School (JHS) the GPI is 0.93(Government of Ghana, 2013). Also, the country has not been able to achieve her specific targets on equity in access, quality and outcome. For example, many more children (about 23%) [of the population aged three (3) years and older have never been to school (Ghana Statistical Service, 2010). The inequality between the rural and the urban; and male and female in terms of access still persists. According to 2010 Census report, the proportion of the population which has never attended school in the rural areas (33.1%) is more than two times that of the urban area (14.2%). There is also a marked difference between males (9.1%) and females (14.3%) who have never attended school. Also the quality of education is low. The quality in education is very low due to lack of adequate infrastructure, resources and personnel. For example, the number of core textbooks per pupil stands at 1.2 and 0.9 for Primary and JHS public schools respectively which is still some way off the target of 3 (Government of Ghana, 2013). Also achievement level has been very low as evident in the dwindling performance of pupils in the Basic Certification Examination (BECE). For example, the performance of pupils who sat for the BECE dropped from 60% to 47% for the period 2001 to 2011(Government of Ghana, 2013) and many of the schools who are in rural areas are among the poorly performed schools. Given the above challenges and the inequities, the human rights approach to education will continue to be appropriate in the Ghanaian context as she revamp her strategies in addressing the trends of the new challenges.

Discussion of the research findings Our discussions so far show that Ghana educational evolution, policies and programmes are dictated by the global educational paradigm as evident in the MGD2 and EFA goals which approach is tilted toward the justice approach to education. Our discussions further show that the quest of achieving access, equity and quality have been the cardinal principles of Ghana‟s quest to meet global targets of EFA. Funding of education in Ghana has been on major challenge in achieving access, equity and quality although this is the area where the impact of global partners has been felt. Notwithstanding, the fact that the country seem to be donor dependent, the role of global partners in supporting education in Ghana is still crucial. However, for Ghana to maximise the positives of globalisation requires a new approach to cooperation. The first of this should be t a deliberate effort of forming stronger equal partnerships. This should first start with rallying support for stronger sub-regional and regional integration and cooperation in education. Educational standardization and unification across Africa will induce efficiency and massification of education and knowledge production. This will create the needed wealth to fund education in Africa. A united and stronger Africa will be able to strike a better and fair deal for the individual states in Africa in the global competition, than the individual countries within Africa. However, there is the need for further studies as how a borderless Africa can be achieved, given it diversity and history of colonial history and its current neo-colonial nature which is hindering educational cooperation and integration in Africa.

Conclusion Education programmes and policies in Ghana have largely been shaped by global issues especially, the world‟s paradigm‟s shift to education as human rights as espouse in the Educational for All goals. The dichotomy between the relatively privileged and the less privileged in the Ghanaian society as regards access to educational opportunities tend to give credence to this approach. The 23

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policies and programmes in Ghana are mostly geared towards achieving at least universal access to basic education. The genesis of the global influence on the Ghanaâ&#x20AC;&#x;s education is traced to colonization and latter to global cooperation and internationalisation and its several declarations on education as a rights. In recent times, funding of education in Ghana has been the arena in which the impact of the global is being felt most. Ghana educational evolution in the past was greatly influenced by global stakeholders through policy imposition and borrowing. However, in recent times, policy dissemination base on wide sectorial approach seems to be the main driver. The discussions so far further widens the thesis of this paper: thus, having identified the features and influences of globalisation on national educational policies how should Ghana or Africa position herself within the global community in order to minimize the negatives and maximize the positives of this intricate relationships and dialectics between the global and the local? Given the characteristics of globalization that have been highlighted in this paper, especially, it borderless nature; suggests that it is difficult for a country to thrive individually in this globalised world. As postulated by Lauder et al. (2006), the nation state must reinvent itself, but a new global framework.

The way forward for Ghana and for that matter Africa is therefore the need to push for more economic and educational cooperation within Africa. A united Africa, where all social, economic and political boarders are nonexistent such that member states have access to a wider and even market as well as educational opportunities will ensure that globalization breeds a new form of relationships where there will be no losers but all winners.

References Arnove, R. F., Franz, S., &. Torres, C. A. (2013). Education in Latin America from Dependency and neo-liberalism to Alternative Paths to Development. In: Arnove, R. F., C. A. Torres & S. Franz (Eds) Comparative Education. The Dialectic of the Global and the Local. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Adu Boahen, A. ( 1975). Ghana: Evolution and Change in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Longman Group Ltd. Africa should stop blaming history for its economic problems' â&#x20AC;&#x201C; is Obama right?. (2014, July 30).

Guardian Africa Network: Retrieved from: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/30/-sp-obama-africa-colonial-excuses-poll [Accessed 26.09.2014] Bonal, X. (2014, September 15). Competing Paradigms in Education and development [PowerPoint Presentation]. Oslo: GLOBED lecture, University of Oslo Crossley, M. and K. Watson (2003). Comparative and international research in education: globalization, context and difference. London: Routledge Falmer Ozga, The Routledge Falmer Reader in Education Policy and Practice. London: Routledge, (pp.4864) Dale, R. (2007), Specif ying Globalization Effects on National Policy. In: Lingard, Bob and J. Ozga, The Routledge Falmer Reader in Education Policy and Practice. London: Routledge, (pp.4864) Declaration of Rights of the Child (1959). Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/malaysia/1959 Declaration-of-the-Rights-of-the-Child.pdf ECOWAS Protocol on Education and Training (2003). Retrieved from http://documentation.ecowas.int/download/en/legal_documents/protocols/Protocol%20o n%20Education%20and%20Training.pdf Foster Philip, Education and Social Change in Ghana, 1965 Government of Ghana (2003), Education Strategic Plan, 2003 to 2015, VOLUME 1.

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Policies, Targets and Strategies, Ministry of Education, Accra. May, 2003.

Retrieved from: ttp://planipolis.iiep.unesco.org/upload/Ghana/Ghana%20Education%20Strategic%20Plan. pdf Declaration of Rights of the Child (1959). Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/malaysia/1959 Declaration-of-the-Rights-of-the-Child.pdf [Accessed on 24.09.2014 ECOWAS Protocol on Education and Training (2003). Retrieved from http://documentation.ecowas.int/download/en/legal_documents/protocols/Protocol%20o n%20Education%20and%20Training.pdf [Accessed on 09.24. 2014] Government of Ghana (2013), Education Performance Sector Report, August, 2013 Government of Ghana (2010), Education Strategic Plan 2010 to 2020, VOLUME 1. Policies, Strategies, Delivery and Finance. Ministry of Education. December, 2010. Retrieved from :http://www.moe.gov.gh/docs/ESP%202010-2020%20Vol%201%20Final Haddad and Demsky (1995), Educational policy-planning Process: and applied framework; Paris, 1995 UNESCO: IIEP. Retrieved from: http://www.unesco.org/education/pdf/11_200.pdf on 15.11.2014 International Monitory Fund (2014) .IMF Staff Concludes Visit to Ghana. Press Release No. 14/439. Retrieved from: http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2014/pr14439.htm [on 29. 09. 2014] Jacobi, A. P. (2012). Implementing Global Policies in African Countries: Conceiving lifelong Learning as basic education. In: Verger, A., M. Novelli and H. K. Altinyelken Global education policy and international development: New agendas, issues and policies. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 119-136 Lynch A. (2013). Inaction or In Action, The Effectiveness of The Ghana School Feeding programme: The Case of Ntranoa School, Cape Coast, Ghana (Masters‟ Thesis, University of Limerick, Ollscoil Luimnigh Retrieved from: http://www.ul.ie/ppa/content/files/Amy_Lynch.pdf [Accessed on 09.24. 2014] Less than 50% pass BECE; GES says it is normal. (2011, August, 27). Myjoyonline Retrieved from : http://edition.myjoyonline.com/pages/education/201109/73676.php [Accessed on 24.09.2014] Pimpong, E. (2006). Interactions between education, economy and politics: a case of Ghana’s Educational system from a historical perspective. (Master‟s thesis, University of Bergen. Retrieved from: http://brage.bibsys.no/xmlui/handle/11250/167511 [Accessed on 09.24. 2014] Ministry of Education Ghana [MOE] (2012). Education they say is Equalizer of Life‟s Chances.

Retrieved from http://www.ghana.gov.gh/index.php/2012-02-08-08-32-47/features/4593education-they-say-is-equalizer-of-life-s-chances [Accessed on 24.09.2014] Ministry of Education Science and Sports (MoESS) (2008) Education Sector Performance Report 2008, Accra: MoESS Meyer, Boli, Thomas and Ramirez (1997). World Society and the Nation-State. American Journal of Sociology, 103 (1), 144-181. Retrieved from: https://vpn1.uio.no/+CSCO+00756767633A2F2F6A6A6A2E77666762652E626574++/st able/10.1086/231174 Lauder, J., P. Brown, J-A. Dillabough and A.H. Halsey. 2006. Education, globalization and social change. Oxford University Little, A. W. (2010). Access to Basic Education in Ghana: politics, policies and progress. Project 25

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Report. CREATE, Brighton, UK. Retrieved from: http://www.create-rpc.org/pdf_documents/PTA42.pdf [Accessed on 09 22, 2014] Robeyens, I. (2006). Three models of education: rights, capabilities and human capital. Theory and Research in Education, 4(69), 69-84.doi:10.1177/147787850606083 Samoff, J. with B. Carrol. 2013. Education for All in Africa: Not Catching Up, but Setting the Pace. in: Arnove, R. F., C. A. Torres & S. Franz (Eds) Comparative Education. The Dialectic of the Global and the Local. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Silova, I. (2012). Contested Meanings of Educational Borrowing. In Steiner-Khamsi, G. and F. Waldow (Eds.) Policy Borrowing and Lending in Education. London: Routledge, UNESCO EFA global Monitoring Report (2003/4). Retrieved fromhttp://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0013/001325/132513e.pdf [on 09. 28. 2014] Tomasevski, K. (2005). Girlsâ&#x20AC;&#x; education through a human rights lens: What can be done differently? what can be made better? : Right Action. www.odi.org.uk/rights Retrieved from http://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinionfiles/4349.pd [Accessed on 09. 28. 2014] Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948): Retrieved from http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ [Accessed on 25.09.2014] Word Bank World Development Report (2000/2001). Attacking Poverty: Oxford University Press.

New York. Retrieved from: http://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/eventspresentations/703.pdf [accessed on 24.09.2014] World Bank (2004) Books, Buildings, and Learning Outcomes: An Impact Evaluation of World Bank Support to Education in Ghana. Washington DC: World Bank, Operations Evaluation Department (OED). Retrieved from :http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTISPMA/Resources/Training-Events-andMaterials/report_28779_basic_education.pdf [Accessed on 07.10.14]

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International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences p-ISSN: 1694-2620 e-ISSN: 1694-2639 Volume 1, No 1, pp. 27-37, ©IJHSS

“Senso-Math” Mathematical Facilitators in Preschools: Training, Integration and Professional Contribution Dina Hassidov Western Galilee College, Akko, Israel Abstract The “Senso-Math” program promotes early childhood mathematical knowledge in preschools.

This paper reports on the rationale behind the development of the program, gives a description of the activities and process of the program, and describes the training of special facilitators who visit preschools to present the program to the children and foster a love and knowledge of basic mathematical concepts. This paper then gives a report of a five-year study that followed 500 “Senso-Math” facilitators during their training and subsequent teaching experience in the preschool alongside the regular preschool teachers. The facilitators activated 10,000 three-to-sixyear-old children in various demographic sectors (Jewish Orthodox, Jewish immigrants from the Caucasus, and Druze). Forty-nine of the facilitators were interviewed in depth to examine their professional development, including their change in attitude to mathematical education in preschool, and to assess the contribution the program has had to preschool mathematics education. The results of the study indicate that, overall, the program effected a positive trend in their attitude regarding preschool mathematics education, although there were significant differences in attitude among the various demographic sectors studied.

Keywords: mathematics, pre-school, training, integration.

1. Introduction The global trend today is to favor access to mathematics at increasingly younger ages. In essence, children are daily engaged in mathematics from birth (Early Childhood Mathematics, 2002), and the modern approach is that preschool math practice should develop that early awareness so as to cultivate mathematical thinking at an early age. Studies have shown that preschool children have the ability to build concrete, sometimes even abstract, mathematical processes, and that the earlier that children are exposed to the experience, the greater the child’s later mathematical development (Curriculum, 2009). Indeed, preschool math practice helps in shaping the child’s future cognition, mathematical thinking, general thinking, and cognitive abilities (Baroody, 2000).

Studies have also shown that the volume and quality of math practice during preschool predict a child’s success in math in elementary school (Clements & Sarama, 2006). New teaching principles for mathematics include developing quantitative, critical and creative understanding, directing towards thinking and understanding, and encouraging mathematical discourse and metacognitive processes (NCTM, 2000).

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Neuroscience research also demonstrates the importance of preschool math activity. Clements (2001) showed that the structure and organization of the brain of developing preschoolers is affected by their learning experience, and complex activities lead to increased brain development.

Another factor affecting preschool learning is the learning environment, which has changed from the traditional one, where the teacher transmits knowledge, to the modern one, where learning is active and constructivist (Cobb, 1996). In this new environment, the teacher serves more as a facilitator or mediator who encourages learning by enabling opportunities and interesting activities for the students to engage in, and the student takes on the responsibility for building their learning experience from the knowledge available. This change has led to a transformation in the teacher’s role and responsibilities, with its attendant difficulties.

It is therefore clear that preschool professionals must be equipped with knowledge regarding teaching mathematics to preschoolers.

1.1 The preschool teacher as a teacher of preschool mathematics The argument arises whether specially trained facilitators to promote mathematics education are necessary and whether the regular preschool teacher is not able to fulfill the task. Studies conducted in recent years indicate that teachers assigned to teaching mathematics in the preschool find themselves incapable for the job. While this may stem from negative personal experiences vis-à-vis mathematics, it may certainly be based on a lack of professional knowledge due to the absence of appropriate mathematics-for-preschool training in colleges (Tirosh, & Graeber, 1990; Ben Yehuda & Ilany, 2008; Guo, Justice, Sawyer, & Tompkins, 2011).

Regular preschool teachers are, in effect, director-administrators of an educational organization and pedagogical leaders promoting learning, which in itself is a complex process.

They spend much time directing and coordinating the activities of their teams, which include teachers’ aides, substitute teachers, teachers on call, and teachers who offer special help to new immigrant and children with special education requirements, auxiliary manpower, such as psychological services, social workers, and more. Being administrators, they also have to deal with such things as budget planning and coordinating between the various teaching auxiliaries that visit the school.

Pedagogically, preschool teachers are responsible for translating the educational policies of their district and local inspector and organizing the educational environment according to the policies of the Ministry of Education, keeping in mind their own specific “clients” and their personal pedagogical beliefs. In this framework, they must allocate long- and short-term goals, plan an annual curriculum and devise lesson plans, and organize meeting with staff, parents and other stakeholders throughout the year. They determine the educational content that will be used throughout the year and how the assistant teacher’s aides will divide the many and various tasks.

It can be seen that “merely” being a preschool teacher and facilitator of learning entails much effort and responsibility, and it can be assumed that a substantial proportion of preschool teachers would have difficulty being a quality teacher of mathematics alongside their role as educational administrator of a very active organization.

Furthermore, despite extensive training in preschool pedagogy, the preschool teacher does not necessarily possess a deep understanding of mathematical education by the preschool teacher. In fact, teaching mathematics is a specialized job that requires skills and knowledge that the regular preschool teacher does not have: In order to encourage mathematics learning in the preschool, teachers must know how to encourage free play to foster mathematics learning and to plan an environment that will encourage mathematical investigation with illustrative and investigative tools and accessories. The children’s interaction with these items form a large part of the basis 28

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that learning the required pre-math concepts require, and teachers must be able to observe this interaction and know whether mathematical thinking is developing or not, and whether intervention is necessary to guide the learning. They must also invest much time and energy in furnishing the classroom with appropriate materials and devising lesson plans (Klein, 1996(.

Since teachers’ attitudes influence children’s attitudes towards mathematics (Philippou & Christou, 1998; Plucker, 1996), it seems clear that overburdening preschool teachers with the additional task of creating and enabling positive experiences in foundation mathematics for young learners is counter-effective to the goals in question.

2. The development of the “Senso-Math” program Educators realized the need to develop appropriate assistance programs not only to strengthen the preschool teachers’ sense of competence regarding teaching mathematics in preschool, but to improve the math experience for preschoolers in general. The “Senso-Math” program was developed to fit this need. Alongside developing the pedagogical materials, one of the main goals was to train special “facilitators” who would supplement mathematics teaching in preschool. These facilitators would then be integrated into preschools or other areas of education.

The “Senso-Math” program recognizes that a child’s mathematical development is generated early in life. In fact, even before children set foot in elementary school, they have already acquired a wide, informal knowledge base of mathematical concepts, and everyday activities can instill in them mathematical ideas. Early childhood mathematical training is based on this concept: developing children’s intrinsic thinking skills and intuitive learning, thus helping them to develop more complex ones on a meaningful level, by creating an interesting, focused learning environment to foster mathematical development. When small groups of children are guided by specially trained adults whose role it is to mediate the surroundings and create a representational mathematical world, the children’s mathematical development can be supported and encouraged, especially if they are allowed to work in a stimulating social situation that allows them individual attention while encouraging them to think, relate to others, develop language skills and face intellectual challenges.

The Senso-Math Preschool Mathematics program was designed for children aged 3-6 years of age. Its unique program familiarizes preschool children with the mathematical aspects of the world around them in fascinating and enjoyable ways. A trained facilitator visits the preschool once a week to encourage natural learning through experiential activities with specialized pedagogic materials that engage the different senses—touch, sight, hearing, etc. Using interesting, engaging objects from the child’s immediate surroundings combined with focused mathematical content, the program provides a comprehensive learning experience that develops the child’s curiosity and mathematical intuition in an enjoyable, unthreatening manner. The sessions also include motoric activities to allow the acquisition of knowledge through movement.

Through the varied, challenging activities in the Senso-Math program, children receive a positive, successful experience in the world of mathematics and acquire a solid foundation in the basic mathematical concepts required for formal learning, allowing them to continue in their formal studies with the confidence necessary for future success in learning mathematics (Klein, 2008).

The “Senso-Math” program was developed by D. Hassidov, M. Klugman, and J. Oberman (article submitted to the Department of education, in publication) based on this understanding that a change was needed in teacher-training methods, and realizing the need for a comprehensive preschool mathematics program that takes into account the unique character of

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preschool learning and provides an enrichment program beyond the regular instruction formally offered in the preschool.

The members of this professional-scientific group are senior members of the educational profession with widespread, extensive experience in all stages of education—mathematics education in particular. They have years of experience in training educators in the country’s universities, teachers’ colleges, and development centers under the auspices of the Ministry of Education or other administrative bodies and integrating new educators pedagogically into various educational frameworks. They have many years of experience in promoting programs and projects connected to various educational systems, including teaching mathematics in all grades and to all ages of children in formal and informal classes in Israel; developing mathematical programs and instructional materials; and managing and promoting formal and informal educational systems.

2.2. Program curriculum and contents The “Senso-Math” program is based upon the definition of the Israel Ministry of Education’s new curriculum for mathematics in early childhood (Curriculum, 2009), and aims to give preschoolers the chance to experience math as it occurs in their daily world. It includes diverse and dynamic graded exercises and unique, specially developed learning materials that combine sensory and motoric activities. The activities develop sequentially throughout the years until kindergarten, preparing children with the mathematical topics required for first grade.

Thirty teaching-learning sets were developed covering three learning styles (creative, structured, and daily environment) for coordinated with the ten topics in the curriculum of the Israel Ministry of Education. The program aims to cover three years of schooling (pre-nursery, nursery, and kindergarten), preparing the children for first-grade mathematics. The specially designed activities and materials encourage transcription and reflective mathematical discourse and are intended to provide a rich mathematical learning environment and to assist the development of mathematical thinking. The program is designed to allow teachers to customcreate activities based on the individual needs of their pupils.

A kit for each child was also developed; some of the material is intended to be sent home for activities involving the parents.

2.3. Initial testing The pedagogical and mathematical rational of the “Senso-Math” teaching kits were initially tested in 20 preschools and validated through observation, data collection, and accompanying research. They were then were further revised to enrich the curriculum framework. After final approval by the Israel Ministry of Education, several hundred preschools were chosen to integrate this program of “facilitated preschool mathematical education.”

3. The “Senso-Math” program system A specially trained facilitator visits the preschool once a week, where she works with groups of 8-10 children at a time, leading them through a 40-to-45-minute session of enjoyable activities using materials and ideas that invite mathematical exploration and learning in an experiential, multi-sensory, dynamic way. The activities relate to mathematical problems from everyday life, or to topics concurrently being taught in the school (holidays, daily routines, etc.). Mathematical concepts cover counting, numbers recognition, ordering numbers, comparing numbers, sorting, combining and dividing, adding and subtracting, patterns and templates, geometrical shapes and spatial sense, organizing data, describing data graphically, and measurement, and match with the Department of Education recommendations for prerequisites for first grade.

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The facilitator encourages the children to think about the activity and express themselves orally. By experiencing these activities in a personal way, the child has a chance to assimilate what he has learned and build a firm, base of mathematical concepts and basic operations.

Groups are small enough so that each child receives individual attention and has the opportunity to express himself. The child can also work independently while still benefitting from group support and feedback (Klein, 2008(.

Materials: The program comprises approximately 30 learning units. The learning material is found in the “mathematical learning center” kit that the facilitator brings with her, in the individual “First Fruits” kits that are furnished for each child, and in the “Curiosity Box” that remains in the preschool all year.

The facilitator’s kit is the facilitator’s “toolbox” and include equipment and other items to teach the 30 topics covered in the program. It includes teaching guides for her and learning material for the children. The children’s kits include individual items that the child can use according the facilitator’s instructions. Some of the material offered in the children’s kit is designated to be used at home with the parents.

At the end of each unit, the children take home a page for their parents with a summary of what they have learnt and suggestions for additional activities.

4. Facilitator training Five hundred women took part in the initial facilitator training program. They were academicand college-educated, and their suitability for the program was determined through personal interviews and appropriate certification. Training took place throughout the country in groups of up to 25.

Each participant attended 128 academic hours in over 20 sessions that spanned two years.

Forty hours of training focused on integrating administratively into the preschool, and 88 hours of content training focused on mathematical education in early childhood, and hands-on experimentation and application of the “Senso-Math” program in preschools. The “Senso-Math” “facilitator’s kit” was used during the training. This eventually serves as an activity center in the preschool, and participants were instructed as to its use. The content training included several areas—methods of teaching and learning, mathematical education, and cognitive abilities of preschool children—based on the premise that the program will work better if the theoretical concepts behind it are clear to the teacher. Early childhood development, music, movement, storytelling, puppet shows, and more were also included. Modeling and demonstrations showed the facilitators how to coach preschool teachers in teaching mathematics. Training included practical experience in preschools, with 15 hours of one-on-one professional guidance when the facilitator began her actual work in a class. Upon completion of the course, the women were qualified to work independently to promote and enrich preschool math.

5.

Study of facilitators’ experiences and attitudes This study was therefore carried out to determine the worthiness of the program on preschool mathematics instruction, the changes in attitude that the training afforded the women.

In particular, the study intended to address the following objectives: 1. Did the training affect the participants’ motivation to work and their responsibility to their own professional development?

2. Did the training affect the participants’ conviction of the necessity of mathematics learning in preschool?

3. Did the training affect the participants’ confidence in teaching mathematics?

4. To what extent does the program gives facilitators appropriate tools and means for preschool mathematics teaching?

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5. Are participants’ attitude dependent on their socio-economic group?

6. What effects did the program have on mathematics instruction in the preschool, and what were the preschool teachers’ attitudes to the introduction of the facilitator into their classes?

5.1 Population Of the 500 participants in the initial “Senso-Math” program, 49 were chosen (randomly) to take part in this study. Each participant had a diploma or training certificate from a teachers’ college or other school of higher education (average years of education was 14.5), and were mathematically oriented and with the ability to work as mathematical facilitators in preschool.

Although they all had background in early childhood education, none of the participants had ever worked in preschool education.

The average age was 34 years old (SD = 8.48). The women were of heterogeneous marital status (38 married, 5 single, 6 divorced/separated), with an average of 2.55 children. They came from diverse socio-economic and demographic sectors from around the country: 15 were orthodox Jewish from the center of Israel, 15 were secular new immigrants from the Caucasus living in Haifa, and 19 were Druze from Galilee area.

5.2. Methods Research methods were mixed (both quantitative and qualitative), as quantitative data would supply statistical information, whereas qualitative data would give more information regarding the participants’ reaction to the process it underwent, and how it affected them. The quantitative data was gathered using the Likert psychometric scale, which is a fixed-interval scale for quantitative assessment, and where 5 indicates “strongly agree” and 1 indicates “strongly disagree”. Means were calculated and the significant standard deviations were calculated using Cronbach’s (alpha) to test internal reliability and examine how the data reflected the correlation between various variables (e.g. age, number of children, or total number of years studied with the participants’ satisfaction with the program). Multivariate regression analysis was used to control the influence of other factors on employment prospects.

Data collection was done in three phases: The first phase was before the training course began, the second was at the completion of the course, and the last one was done a year later.

Data were collected through a questionnaire that had been developed by the researchers, and through semi-structured interviews. Fifteen facilitators (who were not included in the study group) validated the questionnaires.

The questionnaire included 22 statements to ascertain the participants’ attitudes to teaching mathematics in preschool and to the “Senso-Math” training program. The statements were rated from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very great extent). Negative statements have been marked. After filling in the questionnaires, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the study participants to clarify their approach to the statements on the questionnaire. Relevant background information was also collected at this time (age, education, place of residence, occupation, socioeconomic status, etc.). The final interview (a year after completion of the program) also assessed the employment status of the participants to evaluate the long-term benefits of the program.

5.3 Questionnaire The questionnaire comprised the following sub-sections.

Statements about attitudes toward learning mathematics: It is important that children start learning mathematics in preschool; Children of preschool age can learn mathematics; If the basics of mathematics are learned before first grade, the child will develop a positive attitude towards the subject; Anyone can learn mathematics; Anyone can enjoy learning mathematics.

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Statements about professional confidence: Anyone who aspires to succeed can do it at any age; Unemployed women should be concerned about their professional development; Teaching mathematics in preschool requires readiness, knowledge, and professional maturity; The training gave me professional confidence; The training encouraged me to pursue my professional aspirations; I am considering making mathematics teaching my main profession.

Statements about self-confidence in teaching mathematics: The training gave me confidence to teach mathematics; The training encouraged me to start teaching mathematics in preschool; I see my future in teaching children mathematics; I feel I can incorporate the “SensoMath” program into the preschool; Had I not participated in the “Senso-Math” program, I would not have confidence to teach mathematics.

Statements about evaluation of the program: The “Senso-Math” facilitators’ kit helped me in mathematical guidance in the preschool; The “Senso-Math” activity pages helped me in mathematical facilitation in the preschool; The course was conducted professionally; The training gave me tools to facilitate mathematics in preschool; The training gave me tools to teach mathematics in preschool; I would recommend participating in the “Senso-Math” program to a friend.

5.4 Results 5.4.1 Employment status at the beginning, at the end and a year after the study. One aim of the study was to assess whether participation in the program helped participants find employment. At the end of the study, 69% of the subjects were working compared with 66% at the beginning of the study. A year later, 75% were working, of them 10% of them in the “SensoMath” program and the rest in other educational fields. However, according to average scores, it cannot be unequivocally concluded that participating in the training will encourage women to try to fulfill professional ambitions and concentrate on teaching mathematics.

5.4.2 Differences in attitudes between married and unmarried participants. A second aspect was to examine the differences in attitudes between married and unmarried participants.

Statistical studies revealed that marital status did not significantly affect attitude either toward the “Senso-Math” program or the notion that math should be taught in preschool. In fact, most of the participants agreed that math should be taught in preschool.

5.4.3 Attitudes toward teaching mathematics. The average rating of the statements pertaining to the participants’ attitude to teaching mathematics was close to 4 and above, indicating that most thought that preschool mathematics education was important (average 4.65), that they had developed a positive attitude to the profession (average 4.51), and that they believed that anyone can learn math (average 4.15). As can be seen in Figure 1, the statement that received the highest average score is “It is important that children start learning mathematics in preschool” (average 4.65), while the least important statement is “Anyone can enjoy learning mathematics” (average 3.88).

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Figure 1. Attitudes of participants towards learning mathematics 5.4.4 Developing professional confidence. Regarding statements about professional confidence, the statement that received the highest average score was “Anyone who aspires to succeed can do it at any age” (average 4.40), whereas the statement “I am considering making mathematics teaching my main profession” received the lowest score (average 2.45). This suggests that the training encouraged the facilitators to begin teaching mathematics in preschool (average 3.67), gave them the ability to integrate the “Senso-Math” program into the preschool (average 3.57), and made them appreciate that teaching preschool requires readiness, knowledge and professional maturity (average 3.79). Statements reflecting average self-confidence and responsible approach to professional development (“Unemployed women should worry about their professional development.”) received a high average score. See Figure 2.

Figure 2. Professional development of participants 5.4.5 Self-confidence in teaching mathematics. An interesting anomaly showed up in the ratings of the statement “The training gave me confidence to teach mathematics” (average 3.17) which showed that the participants believed that the training gave them more confidence, compared to that of “Had I not participated in the “Senso-Math’ program, I would not have confidence to teach mathematics” (average 1.72), which shows the opposite trend (see Figure 3).

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However, subsequent interviews with the participants revealed that they had misunderstood the question because it was a “negative statement” and therefore rated it incorrectly.

5.4.6 Program evaluation. The results indicated that the participants believed that the “SensoMath” program and materials had value in considerably improving their ability to teach mathematics in preschool. In general, most of the statements relating to the program and accompanying kit won high scores—above 4. Participants showed satisfaction with the teaching tools that training gave them (average 4.15), with the training for guiding mathematics in preschools (average 4.18), with the teaching materials (average 4.19), and with the facilitator kits (average 4.30). They felt that the training was conducted professionally (average 4.19). Most indicated that they would recommend the program to a friend (average 3.96).

Figure 3. Self confidence in teaching mathematics of participants 5.4.7 Differences in attitude between participants correlated to various demographic and social conditions. This study also aimed to investigate the difference in attitudes towards teaching mathematics between various groups of participants, taking into account demographics, employment status, age, education, and number of children. A comparison of the attitudes towards teaching mathematics between the sectors showed that Caucasians and Druze expressed a more positive attitude than the Jewish Orthodox participants. In addition, the highest satisfaction from the program was expressed by the new immigrants from the Caucasus (average 4.69), whereas the lowest satisfaction was expressed by the orthodox participants (average 3.36).

Regarding attitudes towards the “Senso-Math” program among employed and unemployed women, results indicated that there was no significant difference between them. (The statement regarding recommending the program to a friend was used to indicate the level of satisfaction from the program.)

Interestingly, results showed that the higher the education, the lower the satisfaction from the program was, the more negative the attitude towards the program was, and the less they believed in professional development. The qualitative findings support, strengthen, and clarify the quantitative findings.

This seems an interesting trend. Perhaps educated women are more critical in general, and this criticism is expressed by the attitudes they expressed towards the program.

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5.4.8 Evaluation of facilitator presence in the preschool classroom. In addition to the questionnaires regarding the attitudes of the facilitators, an assessment was carried out to study changes that occurred in the preschools.

In preschools where facilitators were integrated, the mathematical learning environment become rich and diverse. Reports from both the facilitators and the preschool teachers indicated that the teachers benefited from a professional colleague (the facilitator) who came once or twice a week, and who had the responsibility for teaching mathematics to the children. Teachers received training in how to teach preschool math from the facilitators, but also learned by observing the facilitators’ activities in the class (modeling). Facilitators reported that the teachers often observed their activities with the children and repeated them during the week when the facilitators were not in attendance.

The involvement of the facilitators also affected the teachers’ attitudes towards teaching preschool mathematics. As one of the facilitators reported during her interview, “The teacher told me that since I had begun coming to the preschool, her attitude towards teaching mathematics changed. She told me that she is integrating daily mathematical activities into her program.”

The program also impressed upon the teachers how crucial professional understanding and training are on teaching mathematics to preschool children. One of the facilitators observed: “In the beginning, the teacher objected to having me in her preschool teaching mathematics. After several months, though, we were collaborating nicely. The teacher told me that now she realizes that teaching mathematics in the preschool is a very important area and that I, the facilitator, have received training that she lacks.”

The introduction of facilitators into the preschools gave new prominence to mathematical instruction: because the facilitators were engaged for the express purpose of teaching mathematics, this aspect of preschool education became standard and not merely reduced to when the teacher found sufficient time to do so.

6. Discussion and conclusion Changes in curriculum guidelines in Israel and abroad regarding the need for mathematics instruction in preschool imposes a heavy responsibility on preschool teachers. The “SensoMath” program, which was developed as an answer to this demand, offers resource material and specially trained facilitators to allow preschool children to experience math in a unique learning program.

This study showed that undergoing the training program led to a successful area of employment for participants, as the majority of those surveyed had, a year later, been successfully integrated into mathematics teaching in preschools, and indicated that the “SensoMath” training had contributed to their professional development and given them confidence to facilitate mathematics teaching in preschool. Moreover, teaching mathematics in preschool became a key area of interest to them that was intriguing and challenging. Furthermore, they recognized that children should and can learn mathematics in preschool (see figure 1).

The study also indicated that once teachers and facilitators collaborate nicely, the addition of the facilitators in the preschool class becomes accepted as a positive contribution to the learning environment. The teachers realized that mathematics teaching is a profession in itself.

Finally, the study revealed that the training and the materials provided by the program were of a professional caliber that considerably contributed to the participants’ and, subsequently, to the preschool teachers’ and children learners’ success.

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The overall results of the study indicate that this program effects a positive change in attitude in the participants regarding, among other things and notwithstanding demographic factors, the necessity of preschool mathematics education, and gives participants a viable career alternative while introducing a positive and much-needed method of increasing preschoolers’ knowledge of basic mathematics.

7. References Baroody, A. J. (2000). Does mathematics instruction for three-to-five-years old really make sense? Young Children, 55(4), 61-67.

Ben-Yehuda, M., Ilany, B. (2008) The Development of Mathematical Thinking in Young Children: Theory, Research and Practice in Training Teachers. Machon Mofet Publications, Tel Aviv, Israel (In Hebrew).

Clements, D. H. (2001). Mathematics in the preschool. Teaching Children Mathematics, 7(5), 270275.

Clements, D. H. & Sarama, J. (2006). Young children mathematical mind. Scholastic Parent & Child, October 2006, 30-37.

Cobb, P. (1996) Accounting for mathematical learning in social context of the classroom. An invited address presented at ICME, 8, July, Seville, Spain.

Curriculum for the education of mathematics in early childhood (core mathematics program), (2009). The Department for the Development of School Curricula, Israel Ministry of Education, http://cms.education.goc.il/EducationCMS/Units/Tochniyot_Limudim/KdamYesodi.

Early childhood mathematics: Promoting good beginnings. (2002). A joint position statement of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). Retrieved April 27, 2009, from http://www.naeyc.org/about/positions/pdf/psmath.pdf Guo, Y., Justice, L. M., Sawyer, B. & Tompkins, V. (2011). Exploring Factors Related to Preschool Teachers' Self-Efficacy, Teaching and Teacher Education: An International Journal of Research and Studies, 27(5),961-968.

Klein, P. S. (2008). A Study in Preschool Education. In P. S. Klein and B. Y. Yaakov (Eds.), The Committee to Assess Teaching Methods in Preschools. The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Jerusalem.[Hebrew] Klein, S. P. (1996). Early intervention: Cross-cultural experiences with a mediational approach. New York and London: Garland Publishing.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). (2000). Principles and standards for school mathematics. Reston, VA: NCTM. Philippou, G. N. & Christou, C. (1998). The effects of a preparatory mathematics program in changing prospective teachers’ attitudes towards mathematics. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 35, 189-206.

Plucker, J. (1996). Secondary science and mathematics teachers and gender equity: Attitudes and attempted interventions. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 33, 737-751.

Tirosh, D. & Graeber, O. A. (1990). Evoking cognitive conflict to explore pre-service teachers’ thinking. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 21(2), 98-108.

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International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences p-ISSN: 1694-2620 e-ISSN: 1694-2639 Volume 1, No 1, pp. 38-46, ŠIJHSS

Television program format preferences and aggression of football fans Vehbi Gorgulu, Yonca Aslanbay, Gul Bursa and Ayse Gul Yucel, Faculty of Communication Istanbul Bilgi University, Turkey Abstract In this study, relations between television program format preferences of football fans and manifestation of aggressive behavior are examined. Data is collected with a sample of television football show viewers in Turkey. Results revealed fanship, aggression and format preferences during hours of football television program viewing are all interrelated. The significant preference of fan audiences for belligerent football shows among the other major types of football program formats available on Turkish television stations was found to be in correlation with aggression trait. Aggression was found to increase the hours of viewing. As a vicious circle, the hours of viewing the sports television programs further elevates fanship.

Keywords: audience research, football programs, format choice, aggression, fanship.

Introduction Television is a suitable medium that combines show elements with informative content and further suggests that the mass consumption of televised sports have created a more complex feel and appetite for sports (Rinehart, 1994, p.28). Though Internet allows the rapid transmission of short sports news, television is still the leading media in the context of sports by offering the â&#x20AC;&#x17E;being thereâ&#x20AC;&#x; experience to the audience.

Research on television viewing has gone beyond the limits of television viewing functions and lifestyle attributes and started to proliferate in 1980s with the work of Bantz (1982). Previous researches concentrated on general associations between individual motivations and viewing patterns of regularly scheduled, live and purely entertainment sports program types offered on television (Gantz & Wenner, 1995). The focus of this study is football television program audience, representing an essential segment of television viewers (Gantz et al., 2006).

The extent of the research presented in this study is Turkey, where football has been a commonly shared public concern throughout its history (Berument & Yucel, 2005). There is a settled structure in soccer industry, along with high number of football supporters. Sert (2000) explains that football has a strong association with the more general term sports as it turned out to be a lifestyle with the rapid emergence of football culture through televisualization of sports beginning from 1960s in Turkey. Thus, the national interest in football is as old as the history of the Turkish republic itself. By taking Turkish football audience as a case study, this study aims to explore the complex relationship between football television program format preferences, 38

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aggression and fanship, since fan violence has been a common concern in countries where football fandom is dominant. The present study, thus, aims to assess the potential impact of football media consumption patterns on triggering aggressive behavior among fans.

In line with this aim, researchers spotted 51 football programs broadcasted on 21 television channels in Turkey. Football news programs, football entertainment programs and the rising amount of belligerent football programs are determined to be three major formats broadcasted on analog and digital Turkish televisions. Within the scope of this study, researchers assume that there are significant positive relationships between fanship, aggression and time spent for football show viewing, as well as football television program format choice.

Understanding the relation between television viewing, football fanship and aggression Exploring the impact of personality traits on broadcasting media preferences is a rising trend in audience studies. A recent study of Mindset Media (Bulik, 2010), analyzing self-reported data from about 25,000 television viewers across more than 70 television programs, revealed that the increased likelihood that a group of individuals who watch a particular television program will tend to have one or more common personality traits. In the context of television program format preferences, Shim and Paul (2007) study revealed positive correlations between personality traits and choice of different television program genres. In parallel, Anderson and Bushman (2002) explain that individual factors sex, beliefs, attitudes, values, long-term goals and scripts compose an individual‟s readiness to aggress as cognitive, emotional and personal variables that interact with environmental and situational factors. Previous research explained also that higher levels of team identification relate to state verbal aggression towards opposition players and officials (Wann, Carlson & Schrader 1999, p.280), higher levels of anxiety (Wann, Schrader & Adamson 1998) and tendency to commit acts of violence as a result of the intense loyalty felt towards football teams (Wann, Culver, Akanda, Daglar, Divitiis & Smith, 2005).

Especially in countries such as Turkey, where the football has a privileged position in national sports culture, football-related violence is not rare (e.g. BBC, 2000; Vanguard, 2012). Thus, examining the relationship between aggression and sports television program format preferences of individuals stands as a key area for investigation to evaluate personal dynamics of sports television viewers as audience.

One of the most studied interpretive communities is composed of fans. In sports literature, there are various explanations of the term, fanship. Anderson (1979) defines fanship as the conservative enthusiasm of an individual towards a particular interest. It is suggested that fanship is similar to social identity, in which an individual's self-concept is formed by her knowledge on the membership experience of a social group together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership (Tajfel, 1978).

Gwenllian-Jones (2002) draws a distinction between fans and “ordinary” audiences by asserting “fans are viewers who do not merely watch television programs, but also write fan fictions and cultural criticism, produce fan art, scratch videos, websites and so on” (p. 175).

While this assertion applies to fans in general, this study specifically focuses on the relationship between football fanship and sports television program format preferences since fanship is considered as a relevant construct in the context of television program viewing. Grossberg (1992) argues that sensibility differentiates fans from general viewers that fans respond to shows of those they are fan of with more affect than the general audience. In their study, comparing television sports fans with fans of other programming genres, Gantz et al. (2006) found out that sports fans are more likely to strongly endorse feeling of excitement as they tune in to watch since they care about the outcomes of plays and discussions. Study of Peterson and Raney (2008) 39 http://aajhss.org/index.php/ijhss

revealed that unfolding nature of suspense is a strong predictor of mediated sports enjoyment.

Covering the literature, this study has four sub questions under two main research questions.

How the „extent of football television program viewing‟ and „football show format choice‟ are explained by two different constructs; „fanship‟ as an extension of interest in football and „aggression‟ as a personality trait.

Method Data collection procedure and participants The data for this study was collected by an online survey with a sample of television football show viewers in Turkey. The survey instrument was pilot tested before the actual fieldwork. Participants were recruited for the study via an e-mail containing a summary of the study‟s goals and the URL for the online questionnaire. The sample is chosen judgmentally based on their extent of football program viewing. A total of 180 respondents participated with the survey. Following the removal of multiple submissions, submissions with missing data, and minors, the final sample included 150 respondents actively viewing television football shows.

Hence this homogenous sample of viewers gives important cues about the main problematic of the current study.1 Profiling has always been a significant component of audience studies. It has been questioned why people watch television or certain type of programs on television. Wenner (1998) states that demographic characteristics of sports audience play a significant role on how much sports television programs they are exposed to. According to Wenner (1998) gender is a significant demographic characteristic since women tend to watch sports less on television.

Cooper and Tang (2009) underline the fact that age influence media usage and demographic characteristics are related to overall television viewing motivations of individuals. The findings of the study shows that majority of participants are male (90%) within an age range of 18 to 61 and average of 25.7 years. Since the participants are selected all among viewers, no significant difference was found between different ages and sexes about their extent of football show viewing. The sample highly supports their teams through consumption of licensed products (µ= 4.01)2, 15.3 % of participants have combined tickets for football matches and 10% have club membership.

Internet penetration rate in Turkey reached 47.2% by 2012 (TUIK, 2013) and the IPSOS KMG Report (2009) on Internet use in Turkey revealed that 58.5% of Internet users prefer reading news online on a daily basis. Findings reveal television is still one of the primary media of news source with its dominant business models and practices in Turkey. The results specifically show Internet is the most effective medium (µ= 5.53) and television (µ= 4.29) is the second in terms of respondents‟ preferences in reaching news about both on football and other issues. Findings about viewing football games point out to be mostly watched on the television (µ= 4.77). All participants watch football shows via television and they have certain preferences on formats. The decision of what to watch on television is generally taken by the participants themselves freely (µ= 3.91), not by the other members of the household. Participants of the research watch also 3.04 hours of television per day while they spend 3.42 hours per week watching football shows.

1

Considering the complexity of the constructs studies, including aggression and fanship, the results must further be probed by qualitative research as conducting in depth interviews.

2 The scaled questions were measured by 1-6 points Likert scale, that 1 = definitely disagree.

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Measures and Results This study utilized a cross-sectional design comprising several self-report measures. The structured online questionnaire contained 28-itemed aggression scale as personality trait (Buss and Perry, 1992; Evren, Çınar, Güleç, Çelik & Evren, 2011) and 11-itemed fanship scale (Reysen & Branscombe, 2010). The aggression scale was translated into Turkish, reliability-tested and was found compatible with the original version (Buss and Perry, 1992) by Evren et al. (2011). In this study, reliability analyses have revealed Cronbach‟s alpha score of .907 for both aggression (µ= 3, 19) and fanship scales (µ= 4, 10).

All analyses were performed using the SPSS 21.0 statistical program. Separate regression analyses were carried out to explain relationship between fanship, aggression, preferred football show formats and hours of football program viewing. Pearson correlations, regression coefficients and F-statistics are reported in Table 1 & 2.

Table 1: Television Football Program Viewing (N=150) Independe Dependent df F Adj. R2 nt Variable Variable

B

SE

t

Sig

Fanship

Football news show format

149

4,221

,021

,186

,090

2,054

,042

Fanship

Football belligerent show format

149

3,788

,018

,204

,105

1,946

,054

Belligerent football show format

Aggression

149

12,579

,073

,154

,043

3,547

,001

Hours of sports television program viewing

Fanship

149

20,398

,115

,105

,023

4,516

,000

Aggression

Fanship

149

8.072

,052

,228

,113

2,841

,005

Note: All items above were rated on a six-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (never) to 6 (always).

The number of hours audience spends for football show viewing was questioned via ratio scale.

This study shows that fanship, aggression and format preferences during hours of football television program viewing are all interrelated. Aggression triggered by fanship is significantly related with the belligerent and football entertainment program format preferences.

On the other hand, only belligerent format significantly raises the aggressiveness that in turn predicts more hours of sports television program viewing. As a vicious circle, the hours of viewing the sports television programs further elevates fanship. Findings are, thus, in line with the argument that fans respond to television programs with more affect (Grossberg, 1992).

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Table 2: Correlation matrix (N=150) Fanship Fanship Football news program format Football belligerent program format Aggression Hours of sports television program viewing

Football news program format

Football belligerent program format

Aggression

Hours of sports television program viewing

1

,167*

1

,158*

-,038

1

,228**

,014

,281**

1

,348**

,116

,168*

,174*

1

Higgins et al. (2012) define “belligerent broadcasting” as a style that offers content with intense expressions of anger. Belligerent broadcasting is relevant within the context of sports television shows, that offer talk-show content including aggressive and intense discussions before and after the football matches, confronting representatives of rival teams or covering football related scandals. As opposed to football entertainment and football news shows, belligerent football shows are mostly marked with the high tension felt between hosts through expressions of belligerence, filled with “loud and angry voices” (Brownstein, 1995). In this context, the findings of the current study both shed a light to modes of football television show viewing and augment to the literature of audience reception studies about television content fostering aggressive behavior.

Conclusion and discussion Communication scholars examine continuously changing television program formats within the rapidly evolving media environment and the role of audiences in shaping the most attractive forms. Predicting audience behaviors are substantial also for media professionals as television is still the most widely viewed screen worldwide (The Nielsen Company, 2010). For instance, television viewing is the most commonly reported activity in the U.S., taking up just over half of all leisure time (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011). Similarly, in Australia, people spend about half of their free time watching television, and across several countries in Europe, television takes up about 40 percent of people‟s leisure time (European Commission, 2003).

Watching television is also reported to be the major leisure activity in surveyed OECD countries, including Turkey (OECD, 2009).

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The extent of this study is Turkey, where the overall population exceeds 76 million (TUIK, 2014) and countrywide football fanship in total is estimated to be 92% (MarketingTurkiye, 2012). This study, focusing on a niche area through specific assumptions augments to the previous discussions by not only adding up the television viewing in terms of a geographical trend, but also as a case study contributing the global studies of football fanship and television consumption.

Existing literature sheds light on general TV viewing dynamics. Past research that explored the aggression in television content (Glascock, 2013) and viewer aggression from various point of views (e.g. Eyal & Rubin, 2003; Rubin, Haridakis & Eyal, 2009; Haridakis & Rubin, 2009) indicate, aggressive human behavior is always related with the selection of aggressive media content. On the same path, findings of the current study offer football fanspecific insights on relations between television consumption patterns and aggression of fans.

These insights imply that sports fanship represents an important avenue for behavioral media studies to explore how level of attachments impact on television consumption patterns and how television consumption patterns trigger aggression that potentially is manifested as violence.

Hence the results of this study call for further questions. Gender differentiations in such area of research would also make a significant research question in the context of fandom as previous research proved that media content may have varying effects on men and women (Gantz & Wenner, 1995; Oliver, 2000; Zillmann & Bryant, 1984, 1986; Zillmann, Hezel, & Medoff, 1980). A majority of previous research focused on gender portrayals through media coverage (e.g. Stern & Mastro, 2009; Hardin, Simpson, Whiteside & Garris, 2007; Huffman, Tuggle & Rosengard, 2004). A comparative exploration of patterns of television consumption and audience aggression among male and female football fans would potentially be linked to the analysis of media coverage from gender equity perspective, to find out if television program format preferences are shaped by approaches to different gender categories and whether the effect of the media content on the audience is actually a consequence of gender-biased content.

Leisure activities via media are â&#x20AC;&#x17E;experiential in natureâ&#x20AC;&#x; (Madrigal, 2006, p.267) and are largely shaped by media content, media formats and information technologies (Altheide, 1997).

Considering the vicious circle of relationships presented in the findings of the current study, the consequences of belligerent format reception in more interactive new media environments during leisure times by fans are also potential area of research. The changing process of viewing via complementary basis of these new media, that are personalized to the individual as sources of football related content and viewing experiences in a broader and virtually-connected arena must further be probed. Such probation is necessary to reveal how new media formats shape fan behavior patterns, which also involves media consumption.

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International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences p-ISSN: 1694-2620 e-ISSN: 1694-2639 Volume 1, No 1, pp. 47-56, ©IJHSS

The Effectiveness of Vocabulary Learning Strategies on English language Acquisition of the Saudi Learners Dalal A. Bahanshal King AbdulAziz University Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Abstract It is widely believed that vocabulary knowledge is so closely tied to language mastery. This tends to be one of the greatest challenges language learners encounter during their long journey in language acquisition. The challenge is due to the great number of words that learners suppose to comprehend and master as to be able to understand, communicate and use the target language (English) effectively. One of the effective avenues that has been found to greatly impact vocabulary acquisition are vocabulary learning strategies (VLS). Therefore, the aim of this qualitative study is to investigate the strategies prioritized by Saudi 2nd high school students when learning English vocabulary. It is proposed that VLS would aid Saudi learners, of all levels in general and high school level in particular, to acquire a vast number of vocabulary which consequently will motivate them to become avid, lifelong learners. The findings show that Saudi high school English learners employed some strategies, yet unconsciously, more than others.

Guessing word‟s meaning from contexts, using dictionaries and memorizing new words seem to be the most preferable ones. Other strategies such as note taking and seeking help from others were less adopted.

Keywords: Vocabulary acquisition; vocabulary learning strategy (VLS); Saudi English learners.

1. Introduction: Language words are the bridge humans cross to learn new ideas and meaningful concepts. In light of that, it is believed that vocabularies of any language, either native language, second or foreign, are crucial as they are tools speakers use to convey and express the world around them.

Gutt (2000) mentions that the powerful form of communication is the linguistic one as humans are capable of conveying semantic symbols to verbal expression which involves the mental description of images, sounds and words and that make language and communication as two sides of the same coin. Thereby, some people look at languages as a matter of words as through words, new concepts are acquired and through the needs of expressing ideas and emotions words are created. Considering the importance of words to any language, Stubbs (1986) stated that “when people think of a language, they think almost invariably of words” (p. 99). In sum, we conclude that vocabulary has a large role to play in determining the success or failure of language learning.

In the field of foreign language learning, in this case English, there are many factors that have great effects on learners‟ achievement such as teachers‟ teaching styles or proficiency, students‟ learning styles, students‟ background, attitudes and motivation. One of the greatest challenge 47

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that has been found to hinder the learning‟s achievement of English learners is the sheer number of vocabularies learners have to master in order to access the language content and show a clear understanding of its component. Many studies which are conducted on the domain of second and foreign language acquisition reveal that vocabulary knowledge is the single best predictor of language achievement (Richards, 1980; Allen, 1983; Laufer, 1986; Nation, 1990 & 2001). On a study conducted by Horwitz (1988) investigating learners‟ perceptions towards vocabulary learning, she found that 25% to 39% of her participants agreed or strongly agreed that achieving a foreign language depends mainly on learning its vocabulary.

Up until quite recently, language teachers used limited techniques to improve learners‟ vocabulary acquisition. Trusting vocabulary pivotal role, a demand has been raised for decision makers, course designers and teachers to pay great attention to vocabulary teaching by providing ample time to teach vocabulary explicitly. Thus, lacking particular vocabulary knowledge will negatively influence learners‟ production and comprehension of the target language (TL) and therefore learners will lose a tool of communication. (Coady & Hucking, 1997) contended that the size of vocabulary learners acquire is an indicator of general language ability which is crucial for all aspects related to language such as reading, writing, comprehension and communication.

For that, choosing which vocabulary to be taught should be made in accordance with specific aims and tasks set forth by course designers and language experts considering words students need as to gradually reach the lesson objectives.

Coming to know that language learners will not be able to master all or most TL words, teaching learners various and effective strategies that facilitate vocabulary learning should be a high priority of all language teachers. However, due to the limited time and the huge number of words language learners must acquire, language teachers will be confronted with some problems in choosing the words their students need to learn. Therefore, focusing on training students on how to use useful strategies merits the time spent in such effective tasks.

2. Significance of the study Realizing the significance of vocabulary in any language learning context, the present study attempts to identify VLS preferred and employed by Saudi high school students and discuss the impact of their preferences of their English vocabulary learning.

It is, therefore, anticipated that the data analysis will expose the least and the most frequently VLS implemented by the Saudi English learners. Considering the study findings, teachers can design lesson plans and construct practical strategies which prompt VLS as to motivate less able students and assist high proficient ones.

3. Definitions of Terms Language learning strategies (LLS) have been recognized as very important processes when learning a second or a foreign language. Chamot & Kupper (1989) defined LLS as “techniques which students use to comprehend, store, and remember information and skills” (p. 9).

O‟Malley & Chamot (1990) asserted that LLS are mostly applied in vocabulary learning tasks.

Therefore, research to date has shifted its interest to vocabulary learning strategies (VLS) rather than LLS bearing in mind that VLS are part of LLS (Nation, 2001). Recognizing the importance of VLS to language teaching and learning, many scholars have made great effort to define them and therefore many taxonomies have been presented (Schmitt & McCarthy, 1997; Nation, 2001; & Gu, 2003). Cameron (2001) defines VLS as “actions that learners take to help themselves understand and remember vocabulary” (p. 92). Takac (2008) demonstrates VLS as “specific strategies utilized in the isolated task of learning vocabulary in the target language” (p. 52).

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Nation (1990) proposed three helpful strategies which facilitate learners‟ vocabulary acquisition namely; guessing from context, using mnemonic techniques, and using word parts. On a wider classification, Oxford (1990) has developed another system which categorized VLS into four groups. First, Social Strategies (SOC) that rely on interacting with others for the purpose of improving TL. Second, Memory Strategies (MEM) that connect new materials to other knowledge that are already existed in the learner‟s mind. Third, Cognitive Strategies (COG) enable learners to engage more mechanical means such as repetition and content analysis rather than activating the mental process. Finally, Metacognitive Strategies (MET), (memory and cognitive), are advanced ones that involve learners consciously in the learning process which requires making decision, monitoring the learning progress and evaluation of the best way to master TL. 4. Literature Review Long time ago, Scrivener (1994) has drawn attention to the fact that vocabulary is a powerful carrier of meaning. Considering such leading role, an interest on vocabulary acquisition has grown rapidly (Cameron, 2001; Farhady, 2006; Snow & Kim, 2007; Celik & Toptas, 2010; Wanpen et al., 2013). Many researchers believed that the heart of mastering any foreign language is through knowing most of its words as vocabulary is the key element for reading, writing, speaking or understanding. It is to say that the learning of any skill will suffer if learners do not acquire sufficient vocabulary items. Lending support to that, scholars like (Laufer, 1992b; Haynes & Baker, 1993; Hu & Nation, 2000) found that the most significant factor that obstructs proficient reading is neither the lack of adequate reading strategies nor of grammatical knowledge, but rather the lack of sufficient vocabulary. Cobb (1995) reported his experience with Omani students where he found that most college students are facing difficulties with reading English text. He stated that the major weakness on students‟ reading level was due to their limited vocabulary items. As a consequence of inadequate vocabulary items, students may encounter difficulties in clarifying their meanings, expressing themselves and verbalizing their thoughts (Al-Hazmi, 2007). Encountering such difficulties, many students will lose interest in the language and become less motivated, hence it is imperative to note that all learning activities are filtered through students‟ motivation.

From reading some of the related literature and getting to know how difficult it is for learners to acquire most of the language vocabularies, the researcher proposes that teachers ought to pay great attention to the basics of VLS and teach their students how to adopt and utilize some various strategies effectively not only to facilitate their vocabulary learning but to aid the mastery of all language skills as well. This in line with Takeuchi (2003) who asserted that the importance of VLS has given it a leading role along with other strategies in relation with language skills that learners need to acquire. Many studies have also shown that apart from curriculums, teachers‟ styles or teaching methodologies, learners‟ strategy is a crucial factor that affects TL vocabulary learning. Hence, learners should be well trained to acquire various VLS which will limit the learning burdens and frustration caused while vocabulary learning. Providing learners with effective vocabulary instructions will help them to become more autonomous and make their learning process less challenging (Biemiller, 2001; Marzano, 2004; Carlo, August, & Snow., 2005; Beck & McKeown, 2007).

What is it that makes successful vocabulary learning so deciding? In fact, it is the various VLS which are acquired by learners to enhance their vocabulary acquisition. However, far too little attention has been paid to VLS used by Saudi high school English learners. Investigating some of these strategies will be of great significance not to Saudi students only but to others who share similar language difficulties. One of the early qualitative studies that aimed to investigate VLS and their relationship with the variables of English learners is a study conducted by Wen and 49

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Johnson (1997) where they found that metacognitive and psycholinguistic strategies are frequently employed by Chinese students majoring in English. Similarly, Gu & Johnson (1996) aimed to establish VLS used by Chinese university learners of English and the relationship between VLS and English learning outcome. The results showed that Chinese university learners use a variety of metacognitive vocabulary strategies.

In one of the early longitudinal experiment conducted by Cohen & Aphek (1980) result showed that memorizing the unknown words was one of the strategies applied by most of the students.

However, their findings contrast with this study finding as most of the participants showed negative reaction towards memorization. One possible explanation for these contradictory reports is that Saudi English teachers are not paying much attention to memorization strategy as a helpful means to acquire English vocabulary. In the same vein, Kim (2006) conducted a study investigating the most used VLS by Korean college students. The result revealed that more practical strategies are often favored over more complex ones. The study participants confirmed that it is easier for them to guess the meaning when the unknown words occur in a rich context and that also helps them to retain the correctly-guessed words.

Investigating the Arab context, Medani (1989) set out to examine the use of VLS by some average and low Arab English learners. The findings of this early study showed that there was considerable strategy variation between good and low learners as the former implemented a wide variety of strategies, whereas the latterâ&#x20AC;&#x;s tendency was to apply fewer or no strategies in most cases. In sum, the literature leaves us in no doubt that vocabulary has a prominent role in language achievement. Surely enough, it is toiling and challenging for English teachers to teach vocabularies in contexts such as the Saudi one where there is no authentic settings for students to practice TL outside the classroom. Therefore, careful planning from educators and teachers is required to provide powerful vocabulary instructions and effective VLS that lead learners to take control of their own learning and gradually gain achievement, proficiency and most importantly confidence.

5. Subjects and Setting The 30 female participants who joined this study are Saudi 2nd high school students who have studied English for 6 years starting from grade 6 at the elementary stage. The study was undertaken in two public high schools in the southern and eastern regions of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Most of the students in these two regions come from families of average or low income.

A big number of schools in these two regions as well as the others, northern and western, are provided with computer labs and built in data show in many classes. Teachers of all subjects, where English is no exception, are requested to implement technology in their teaching but many teachers prefer not to do that and that could be ascribed to their limited knowledge of technology. Regarding English, it is taught 4 days a week where each class lasts 45 minutes.

Communicative teaching approach is not preferred by many teachers, however, teachersstudents approach is still the dominant one. Each English lesson has a variety of different language skills; reading, listening, writing and speaking. Vocabularies are taught as part of the lesson with no concentration on different learning strategies.

6. Research Methodology 6.1. Data Collection This study aims to investigate some of VLS employed by Saudi 2nd high school students while learning English vocabulary. The theme of the study revolved around two research questions: 1-What VLS do Saudi 2nd high school students employ to prompt their English vocabulary learning?

2- What factors are affecting the participantsâ&#x20AC;&#x; choice of VLS?

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Answering the study questions, the researcher believes that it is best to employ the qualitative approach due to its connection with language acquisition. Supporting that, Ellis (2003) stated that “language is grounded in human experience and in human embodiment” and human experience “represents the world in a very particular way” and that is qualitative analyses (p. 65).

In this study, questionnaires and interviews were involved to identify and describe VLS which are used by the participants.

6.1.1 Questionnaires As a first step, the study data was gathered through questionnaires as they are considered to be one of the easiest and convenient method to be employed in a study. It is also believed that questionnaires are effective for accessing the participants‟ point of view (Brace, 2004). The questionnaire was designed in 2 parts where the first part requested some information about the participant such as name, age and contact details. Participants were told that the first part is an optional one but if they choose to respond, guarantees were granted to all that their information will be kept secret and will only be used for the purpose of this study. The second part of the questionnaire, had 15 questions rounded about strategies participants employ while learning English vocabulary. The first 13 questions which put down to investigate the frequent use of VLS where chosen according to the researcher's long experience in English teaching as well as to the remarks of some English teachers‟ colleagues. All 30 2nd high school students were encouraged to choose one response that best describes their usage of VLS from the 5-pointscale; never, seldom, sometimes, often and always. Such formation makes it easy for the researcher to control and see the participants‟ responses clearly and therefore draw the expected results. The last two questions were open-ended questions which give participants some space to shed the light on other strategies they have tried but not mentioned by the researcher and to express their views towards English learning in general and vocabulary learning in particular.

6.1.2 Interviews The second form of data collection are the interviews which were conducted after the questionnaire analysis to gain more understanding and build on narratives that are grounded on the participants‟ perceptions towards the study theme (Liu, 2004). Among the thirty participants, ten interviewees were chosen randomly. Interviewees‟ questionnaires were studied carefully in order to set different questions for each according to their questionnaires‟ responses. Even though the interview questions were different, they are still related to VLS. The interviews were recorded and later analyzed by comparing interviewees‟ responses to each question and that helped to identify the similarities and differences among participants towards the use of VLS. 6.2 Data Analysis As a basis of this study, Oxford (1990) VLS categorization were utilized and their frequent usage by the study‟s participants was examined. Through analyzing the data, the findings proved that even though Saudi 2nd high school students were not fully aware of VLS and the best way to apply them, they employed cognitive and determination strategies more than social and metacognitive ones. The most and least used strategies used by the study participants will be explained in details.

7. Result and Discussion 7.1 Guessing Context and Clues Searching A close examination of the data instruments; questionnaires and interviews, the results reveal that Saudi 2nd high school students use some of VLS unconsciously and neglect the others as not being aware of their existence. The most common strategies which were found to be employed by the study participants are determination and social. Guessing and searching for clues within the context, which are under determination category, were shown to be the most used strategies.

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88% of the participants rely on the previous mentioned strategies while encountering difficult words or trying to answer exam question such as “What does the underlined word refer to”?. The results are consistent with the findings of Oxford & Scarcellat (1994) who found that the most useful strategy used by their participants was guessing from different given contexts.

Interestingly enough, while interviewing participants about the guessing strategy which they employed when coming across difficult words or unknown words in any English text, their answers were quite unexpected. They asserted that they have no knowledge what so ever that they are some effective strategies which provide great help to comprehend the meaning of TL words. Elaborating more, they said “if we complain to our teacher about the difficulty of some words and ask her about their meanings, she may provide the Arabic translation or say “just read the sentence in which the difficult word is located and you may understand what it means”. We have never been taught how to do this or if this is a strategy that lead to a successful word recognition”.

7.2. Dictionary Use Another determination strategy which was found to be used by almost more than three-quarters of the participants was the use of dictionaries. 79% of the participants had clearly stated that “it was only at the beginning of the academic year when our teachers requested to bring a bilingual dictionary to class yet we never used it”. When asking our teachers about the meaning of any word, she would say “you have your dictionary, so go home and check the word. There is no time to do this in the class because we have to finish the lesson”. Getting such replies, students never brought their dictionaries with them but they got the point of relying on it when they really need to know the meaning of certain words.

The findings of this study are in agreement with others as it is been reported by different research that despite the proficiency level of L2 learners, many of them rely on bilingual dictionaries to know words‟ meaning (Kent, 2001 & Jian et al, 2009). Gu & Johnson (1996) found that guessing and dictionary strategies were the most preferred ones by Malay English learners whereas notetaking, rehearsal and encoding were less adopted.

7.3. Seeking Others’ Help Another social strategy applied by the study participants is seeking others‟ help which is believed to be an effective strategy for vocabulary learning. The findings showed that 72% benefit from this strategy where others were reluctant to use it due to culture and social influences.

Discussing this issue with the participants who never asked for help, their reply came to no surprise. They confessed that “we are fully aware that asking others, except your teacher, for help such as an excellent classmate is the easiest and the fastest way to know the meaning of not only one word but sentences, in some cases. But, doing that you will be mocked by other students especially the weak ones and you will be ranked as a fool or a lazy person relying on others to get high marks. Therefore, we prefer not knowing the word rather than being mocked by almost the whole class”. We could say that somehow this result in line with Marchand & Skinner‟s (2007) who found that the majority of highly motivated L2 learners are apt more to seek others‟ help than the less motivated ones. Considering the realities, we could say that great responsibilities lie on the shoulders of English teachers as students should be taught different effective strategies directly which facilitate their learning and that will arise students awareness of VLS and then be able to apply them intentionally and consciously when needed.

7.4. Notetaking Waring (2002) confirmed that using books to take notes of important vocabularies or other language skills is very beneficial to language learners. Unfortunately, most of this study participants did not show much interest in this cognitive strategy where only 41% used notes to record words‟ synonym and antonym so as to be able to revise them before exams. However, fewer students, about 19%, used books‟ margin to write the Arabic translation of some difficult words. Other studies shed some light on this one. Ahmed (1989) surveyed different types of 52

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Sudanese learners and found that most of them prefer taking notes of the new items or writing notes for meanings or translations in books‟ margins. From what has been said, we could confirm that more often than not, teaching vocabulary items seems to be a source of frustration for students and teachers alike. One of the most helpful avenues to overcome this problem is to train students to incorporate various VLS while learning vocabulary and that will be through engaging students heavily in challenging activities that develop their skills and arouse their awareness of VLS. 7.5. Memorization Another strategy which is one effective means of vocabulary learning is memorization of the new words. Even though, oral memorization or written one is believed to be an effective strategy language learners could adopt, Saudi high school students showed negativity towards this strategy. Only 35% confirmed the importance of memorization especially with new words while others clearly stated that they practiced memorizing the words only at the beginning of the semester but later when their teachers neglected dictation and spelling they did not bother wasting their time studying the new words. One of the students who felt reluctant to memorize new vocabulary expressed her resistance by saying “I do not even know what are the best ways to memorize words. I tried many times but failed so I decided not to waste any time. I strongly agree that memorizing does not help because most of the memorized words seem to fly away”. However, about 56% participants proved that they rely on memorization only before the exam day. This finding is in line with Connell‟s (2004) who stated that “Memorizing word lists rarely works…what is important is that teachers have deliberate strategies for clarifying word meanings and that children have opportunities to use those words in context” (p. 2).

Answering the open-ended question “Is there any strategy that you use to learn new vocabularies which is not mentioned in the questionnaire?”, two helpful strategies were mentioned by the participants which are listening to English songs and watching English movies. In regard to the first one, 71% of the participants declared that “listening to songs expanded our English vocabulary and improved our pronunciation as well”. The researcher was anxious to know if this strategy was employed by the participants intentionally or not. Carrying on the discussion, the participants proved that they never knew that listening to English songs is an effective strategy that will help them to develop their English vocabulary, however, they listened to songs for fun and enjoyment. They said “loving the music and the song, we always repeat its words and sometime write each line till we are able to sing the whole song”. Saying more, “no matter how long is the song. If we like the song, we will keep on repeating its words no matter how much time it takes”.

Questioning the rest of the participants about this strategy which their peers found very effective, they interestingly replied “words of songs are not going to appear in the test paper why should we waste our time repeating words which we will not use and most importantly we do not like English music or songs”. Summing up the above, it can be concluded that repetition as a means of effective strategy is favoured by many students even though they do not apply it within their learning context.

Considering students‟ responses, teachers could benefit from the power of songs, rhythms or even plays by synthesizing some new vocabularies in short songs or poems and encouraging learners to repeat the lines till they master all the words then exciting challenges and competitions could be performed by all students.

Watching English movies as a means to learn English vocabularies seemed to be very effective to many participants. 63% of the participants mentioned that they started only watching movies because they liked the story and the actions with no intention whatsoever to learn vocabulary.

Adding more, some stated that “with time, we picked some words and sentences which we intentionally repeated in front of our classmates to show ourselves off. Witnessing the interests of others, motivated us to watch 53

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TV frequently in an attempt to grasp more and more English sentences and phrases”. As a reply to my last question “Did you know that this is a useful strategy to learn English vocabulary”? The participants‟ response came to no surprise as they confirmed that “at beginning we only watched for fun and wasting time. Later when we gain some sentences and noticed that our spoken English has improved, we deliberately free ourselves to watch at least one movie a day. But still we do not know how to employ this effective strategy in the learning of our English books”.

Arguing the effectiveness of this strategy as a means to acquire English vocabularies, participants who showed no interest mentioned that after school, their time to study all subjects is limited and if they want to watch TV their parents will not allow them. A very interesting response was professed by one of the participants who said “even if I know that watching English movies will elevate my learning of English vocabulary, how I could convince my parents who believe in books and teachers as the only means of conveying and presenting information”. Considering the realities, we suggest that special emphasis should be made from the teachers‟ side to raise students‟ awareness of more practical and applicable strategies that facilitate their learning processes.

8. Conclusion and Limitations The aim of this study was to examine the strategies that Saudi 2nd high school students employ to facilitate their learning of the English vocabulary. Base on the discussions of the study data and the reviewed literature, it is evident that VLS are strong factors that affect language achievement.

From the findings, we conclude that the vast majority of the participants successfully applied some VLS which prompt their vocabulary mastery. The discrepancy among participants in their use of VLS were very clear as some employed a variety of VLS, yet unconsciously, others were reluctant to use any as they believed that vocabulary learning will come with time. Therefore, it is the teachers‟ role to rise their students‟ awareness of VLS through challenging activities and intensive classroom practice which will provide opportunities for students to experiment the use of VLS in meaningful contexts. The primary suggestion of this study would be directed to syllabus designers and material developers to include explicit teaching of different VLS and train teachers of different language proficiency to design vocabulary lessons strategically and provide them with ample practice on how to apply VLS in their teaching and exercises.

One limitation of this study is that, it did not consider the participants‟ level of English proficiency and it seems to be more effective if two or three VLS have been taught to the participants and then the effectiveness of these VLS on their English proficiency could be tested.

Most importantly, teachers‟ perceptions towards the explicit teaching of VLS has not been considered in this study. Therefore, the research topic still call for many further studies not only within the Saudi context but in others where English is taught and spoken as a foreign language.

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Manuscript received on: 25 January 2015 Manuscript accepted on: 10 February 2015 Camera-ready copy received on: 15 February 2015 Paper published online on: 28 February 2015

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International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences p-ISSN: 1694-2620 e-ISSN: 1694-2639 Volume 1, No 1, pp. 57-67, ©IJHSS

Sources and Means of obtaining Psychoactive Substances among Adolescents in Public Secondary Schools in Uganda: A Qualitative Approach Aloysius Rukundo Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Uganda Dr. Grace Kibanja Makerere University, Uganda Abstract Using psychoactive substances is a rampant problem nowadays especially among adolescents in Sub Saharan Africa. The purpose of this study was to explore sources of psychoactive substances in public secondary schools in Uganda and to document the means through which students obtain those substances. We explored sources of psychoactive substances in public secondary schools and the means through which adolescents obtain those substances. The study was qualitative and exploratory approach, involving purposively sampled adolescent-participants. Data gathering was through focus group discussions (FGDs) using a focus group discussion guide. The data was analyzed through a thematic content analysis, a phase-by-phase manipulation of thematic categories of data to obtain common themes. The theme were “sources of substances in schools” and “means of obtaining substances by students”. Findings show that small shops,kiosks and bars around schools were the major sources of psychoactive substances talked about by most of the FGDs (83.3%). Most FGDs also rationalized that some “bold” students escape from schools to procure psychoactive substances. From the findings of the study it was concluded that businesses in school neighborhoods and premises plays a major roles as sources of psychoactive substances in public schools. Students employ a variety of means/strategies of obtaining psychoactive substances, and to a bigger extent they escape from school to access the substances. Based on the findings, the study recommended that there was need for collaborative partnerships between public schools and their neighboring communities in reducing students' access to psychoactive substances.

Keywords: Sources and means, psychoactive substances, school adolescents, public schools, Uganda.

Introduction The earliest stage of psychoactive substance use among students is being presented with the opportunity to use the substances (Benjet et al, 2007; Surujlal & Keyser, 2014). The sources and means through which adolescents in schools obtain the substances seem to provide proximal opportunities for adolescents to use psychoactive substances. While many studies world over have 57 http://aajhss.org/index.php/ijhss

explored prevalence of psychoactive substance use in schools, few of the them were able to establish the sources and means of obtaining such substances by students. Yet prevention strategies might rely heavily on such knowledge for effective control of substance use in schools. In addition, the studies that have tried to cover sources and means of obtaining psychoactive substances among school adolescents however allude to family environments and places of entertainment as viable sources of substances in schools (Donovan, 2004). This study hence was designed to explore extensively the sources and the means through which adolescents in schools obtain psycho active substances.

Literature In their study to investigate the rural context of illicit drug use among rural school adolescents, Pettigrew, Miller-Day, Krieger, and Hecht (2012) found that school adolescents obtained psychoactive substances from home and at parties. Pettigrew and his colleagues also found that adolescents obtained psychoactive substances during birth day celebrations, family get-togethers, and “beer parties”. At the parties, some substances –such as prescription pills, cocaine, or marijuana were offered to rural youth Pettigrew and his colleagues interviewed. And, most participants they interviewed agreed that alcohol and cigarettes were readily available to whoever attended those parties.

Elatedly, studies regarding substance use in Uganda and especially alcohol (e.g. UYDEL, 2008) have noted that most tribes have a culture of brewing alcohol in homes, exposing young people in those homes to alcohol consumption at a young age. In a similar case, the source above reveals that “unrecorded alcohol”, an estimate of alcohol that is not recorded nationally or internationally consists of home-made beverage alcohol productions. The same source also indicates that adolescents engage in binge drinking during public events, beaches and parties, at most of which local alcohol manufacturing companies sell it at discounted prices. Uganda Youth Development Link further continues to argue that urban schools and institutions of higher learning are surrounded by an array of bars that provide environment conducive for young people to use alcohol and other psychoactive substances.

In contrast to homes being sources of psychoactive substances, Hurt, Brody, Murry, Berkel, & Chen (2012) reported that interviews with adolescents‟ care givers showed those care givers did not keep alcohol in their homes, though they still believed their adolescents had access to substances in schools or in neighboring communities. To elaborate their assertions, Hurt and others recorded the following piece from one of their respondents: “I know there is so much going on in the school system and in the neighborhood : …I went in the liquor store and bought it before I was even 16, so they probably go in the stores themselves”.

The statement above points to yet another direction of sources of psychoactive substances in schools: shops and markets within school neighborhoods. Similar studies have also tried to link sources of psychoactive substances in schools to neighborhood environments of those schools. For instance, it has been articulated that disorganized neighborhoods harbor psychoactive substances that eventually find their way in schools (Barnes, Welte, Tidwell, & Hoffman, 2013; Onya, Tessera, & Myers 2012). In a similar study to investigate links between school violence and drug usage in schools, Ramorola and Matshidiso (2014) also established that communities around schools were the main source of psychoactive substances. They cite one of the participants in their study having said, “…the school is located inside a rough community; it is easy for learners to get anything illegal or 58

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prohibited in the school premises when they want to.” The assertion above also implies that communities serve as living conduits for drugs to schools. It remains clear that at the sources of psychoactive substances in schools at times determine the means of access among students.

According to Ramorola and Matshidiso (2014), access of psychoactive substances among adolescents is catalyzed by the societies that surround school premises. They argue that due to the fact that schools are in the midst of social places, students easily access psychoactive substances and spread them in school premises. To support their argument, the authors above reported as follows: “…just across the road about 15 to 20 meters from the school is a bottle store and most of the people who sell drug, „wunga‟ in particular, are there. So, during break time learners will just go there and pretend to be going to buy something or anything to eat yet they are going to access those drugs.”

Though there are few known studies that have documented means through which adolescents in schools obtain psychoactive substances, Kacwamu (2010) noted that adolescents “smuggle” those substances into school premises by hiding them in their properties where teachers cannot suspect, usually at the beginning of school terms. Kacwamu further elaborates that boarding students rely on day-scholars to obtain psychoactive substances from outside school premises. Other sources (e.g.

Pettigrew et al., 2012) suggest that students sneak out of school either at night or even during day time to access psychoactive substances.

In its report regarding the state of alcohol abuse in Uganda, UYDEL (2008) notes that premises and some persons within schools are conduits for PASU among adolescents in those schools.

Specifically, school canteens, security guards, non-teaching staff, and some teachers are means through which the students access substances. Such means hence are known for perpetuating PASU in schools. The same source also indicates that secondary school students, especially day scholars, both male and female, stealthily buy huge amounts of alcohol especially spirits (waragi) and smuggle them into school for sell to fellow students.

Objectives The present study was guided by two objectives: I) II)

To establish the sources of psychoactive substances used by students in public secondary schools; To establish the means of obtaining psychoactive substances by students in public secondary schools.

Methods Participants: School prefects were purposively involved in focus group discussions (FGDs). Where conditions were could allow six prefects namely; head prefects (head boy and head girl), entertainment, disciplinary, information, and sports were considered for discussions. These prefects were preferred on the basis of common experiences and being the ones that participate in solving issues related to substance use. But in a few cases where all of them were not available, the FGDs could proceed with at least three of them present.

Study Design and Sample: The study was based on a qualitative, exploratory design using purposive sampling. The study was conducted in four major geographical regions of Uganda that include western, eastern, northern, and central region. It was conducted among adolescents in public, coeducational schools, focusing of prefects as participants. Twelve focus groups were conducted, three 59 http://aajhss.org/index.php/ijhss

from each of the four regions of Uganda.

Measure: We used a focus group guide to generate data from student leaders(prefects), based on the questions: “what are the sources of psychoactive substances in your school?”, “what means do students in your school use to obtain psychoactive substances?”.

Ethical Consideration: Approval for data collection was initially sought from the Institutional Review Board of Mbarara University of Science and Technology. We later got clearance from the Uganda National Council of Science and Technology and from the office of the president of the republic of Uganda. The final permission to interact with students was obtained from respective heads of schools. Before the discussions began, written, informed consent was first obtained from the prefects using the adolescent consent/assent form. Explanations regarding study aim and objects, right to decline participating or withdrawing, and issues of confidentiality were articulated to the students prior to commencement of each of the FGDs. Data analysis was ongoing throughout the period of field work. Thematic content analysis, a phase by phase manual analysis of thematic categories of data that was ongoing during and after data collection. Thematic content analysis was preferred because it enabled scrutiny of conceptual similarities and discovery of patterns of themes, to identify what study participants talked about most and to collect related themes (cf. Mertens, 2005; Swahn, Harberlen, Palmier, & Kasirye, 2014). In the first phase, recordings of FGDs were played and listened to for at least twice and then summarized, a benchmark for preliminary coding of emerging trends. During the second phase, primary transcription of the interviews was completed and we substantively evaluated each transcript for accuracy and coherency. We then started a more categorical analysis, first in broader terms and then zeroing to specific categories. Final codes reflecting trends in study topic were then refined as frequencies and percentages.

Results We involved 70 prefects in FGDs, mean age of participants =18.51 (SD=1.49); majority were males and from senior five. Data from interviews was organized into themes and results of each theme were separately coded. The results originate from themes which were derived from the objectives a) sources of psychoactive substances in schools; and b) means through which adolescents obtain those substances. For clarity and anonymity purposes, each participant was assigned a unique identification code with three initials and Arabic numerals at the end (e.g. xxxx). Those codes were used during data analysis. The first letter in the codes is an initial that signifies the region of Uganda where that data was collected, the second letter in the codes is an initial that represents the name of the school in that region where that data was collected, the third letter in the code is an initial of the prefect‟s designation while the numeral represents the serial position of the participant in that FGD. Sources of Psychoactive Substances Used among Adolescents in Public Secondary Schools The first theme of discussion was about sources of psychoactive substances in public secondary schools in Uganda. Analysis of students‟ FGD talks regarding the topic revealed that the sources of psychoactive substances in those schools are diverse. A summary of participants‟ views regarding sources are presented in the graph below.

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Graph 1: Sources of psychoactive substances used among adolescents in public schools Source: Data from focus group discussions It emerged that small shops, kiosks and nearby bars around schools were culpable when it came to sources of substances in schools. Students mainly pointed to packaged substances as having their main source from those shops and bars. To confirm the argument regarding the sources above, a student emphasized: “There are bars nearby this school, even supermarkets” (WMB01, June 13, 2013). Other students argued that they get substances from big shops and specifically supermarkets.

One of the students elaborated: “If they don‟t go to town to big supermarkets to buy packed drugs, they go to small bars and shops around the school” (WMB01, June 13, 2013). To confirm the argument above, another student had this to say: “Kuber...yes, sometimes there are some supermarkets selling it-even alcohol” (WMH03, June 13, 2013). Another student was specific with the types of supermarkets in which some of the substances are sold: “Like Kuber, students in this school usually buy it from shops and supermarkets operated by Indians (ESD05, July 8, 2013). A participant from focus group four explained below the reasoning that students procure kuber from supermarkets: Now for me I have this experience: One time I also witnessed my friend who was telling me that they buy this Kuber and from this supermarket near Buganda pub. I think they are also sold in most shops near us (our school). (NGI04, July 1, 2013).

A student from another group argued in the same tune: “Slums like Kijungu-actually Kijungu are a source on its own. There are specific people who sell those drugs like marijuana and they are not always known by everybody and they are not common. (WMD04, June 13, 2013). The argument below by one of the participants in FGD one makes a bigger statement: “. . . because it is a risky job and since students are young, you find that those rare people 61

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who sell those drugs may not show themselves to students for business, so the students can get those drugs though their friends outside the school.” (WMG02, June 13, 2013) Students also mentioned their homes and especially those in villages around their schools as other common sources of the psychoactive substances they use. To confirm the suggestion, one of the students from FGD three had the following to say: For the case of boarders, you may find that if there is a visiting day like Saturday, you do phone your parents or relatives who are coming to visit you at school. Mm, maybe if someone who is visited at school boozes, he or she tells their parents to come with alcohol at school for her or him. (WME 05, June 14, 2013) As if to support the above argument, WMG 02 chimed in: “For example some parents in Isingiro, fathers consider it normal for their sons-mostly sons to booze because it is a cultural norm.”

Participants from group three also agreed that homes are sources of psychoactive substances in secondary school. The citation bellow describes students‟ opinions with regard to that matter: Some of them plant them at home and bring them at school and distribute to others. Drugs like [hesitation] like cocaine are planted at home to cure cows (the moderator interjects to correct the student that it is not actually cocaine but marijuana) [hesitation] Yeah, yes marijuana is grown by parents at home and students get a chance to use it and also bring some to school for their friends. (WFD08, June 24, 2013) As if to support WFD08, WFI07 was quick to supplement: Other students get those drugs from their own parents at home and since their parents were all that active in drugs, they narrate to their children how they used to indulge in PASU... „We used to take that stuff ‟ – and students get motivated to take those drugs as well. (WFD07, June 24, 2013) Like those in group four, students from other groups supported the above argument: “For the case of marijuana, I think they get it from the village because most of the students have [hesitation] they just come from very far distances. Yeah, so this is the main source of that substance (NGH05, July 1, 2013).

The most consistently mentioned sources of psychoactive substances talked about under this study were bars and shopping places, especially for alcohol and kuber. Students‟ arguments to this direction resonate with the geographical location of schools considered for the present study, given that the schools were situated in urban areas. Focus group discussions also suggest that to a wider extent, the sources of substances in schools relate to the degree to which specific substances can be easily obtained from the nearby communities.

Means of Access of Psychoactive Substances among Adolescents in Public Schools As a second topic of discussion for the FGDs, students were asked about the means through which students in their respective schools access or obtain psychoactive substances. The arguments accruing of those discussions are summarized in the table below.

Means/ways of access Frequency (FGDs) Percentage Escape from school 10 83.3 Friends/visitors 9 75.0 Day scholars 8 66.7 62

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Fix them in bags, pants, books, sports kits 5 41.7 Gateman/askari 3 25.0 Parties 3 25.0 Water containers 3 25.0 Smell it on another student 2 16.7 Stealing 1 8.3 Teachers 1 8.3 Use mobile phone 1 8.3 The N value represents the number of FGDs conducted during the study Table showing participants’ discussions regarding the means through which students in public secondary schools obtain psychoactive substances (N=12) Majority of FGDs rationalized that some “bold” students escape through school gates to buy the substances for themselves. Other students, it was discussed, ask for permission to buy other things but end up buying psychoactive substances. For some students, being sent home for school fees offers an opportunity for them to obtain the substances. “Such students hide the substances in their pockets and bags and smuggle them into school”, said WMB01. Escape from school with the aid of get men/women were also cited as other means through which students in schools obtain psychoactive substances. The gatemen do not only help students in a way of facilitating their escape from schools, but assist some students to smuggle psychoactive substances into school as well, according to focus group nine. The following arguments are included for elaborative purpose: Yes, other people specifically asikaris (gate men) help students to smuggle substances into school. Like when a student comes to school with a substance, he doesn‟t enter with it but gives it to a boda boda man who will give it to asikari after the student has talked to the asikari himself. The asikari then keeps it and then after the student returns to pick it and pays him some money. (EJS05, July 12, 2013) In some schools, students serve as agents for fellow students or people outside schools to acquire psychoactive substances. It is meant that students have partners outside school who either smuggle substances into the school or collude with the students to purchase the substances outside schools. And, according to the participants, some of the partners pretend to be parents or guardians as they supply students with the substances. The following quotations support the argument above: Actually there is a man who sells marijuana in town here. He moves around the town playing music [hesitation]. Mm [hesitation] playing a guitar. In other words, doing two businesses at ago: Selling marijuana and playing music around Gaa Gaa area. In case you need the thing he removes it from his shoes, drops it down and then the customer gives him the money and picks his „goods‟ [moderator asks the student to shade more light on why the man has to throw the “business” down]. Ok, the man throws it down because he is doing a secret mission (hesitation) because the business is illegal so he wants people not to notice what he is selling. (NAS06, July 4, 2013) Ok, there are student dealers especially waragi [hesitation] like here in this school we have a crew called „cheers‟. They drink waragi so much, yeah, and they bring it inside school by putting it inside their bags, since most of them are day scholars. For the case of cocaine, as I already told you there is a student in form five who is a dealer [moderator interjects to inquire whether the participant knew that student very well]. Yeah, he is my friend! Actually he tells me how he goes to the boarder (with Sudan) – sometimes he goes to Juba. Yeah, he tells me how the other dealers from other country bring to him the stuff and then he buys.

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He then leaves the boarder and comes back to Uganda and starts selling to fellow students and to other wealthy people. (ESG02, July 8, 2013) According to participants in some of the groups, students use a number of tactics such as fixing substances in bags, pants, books, sports kits and water containers to sneak some psychoactive substances, especially alcohol into school. Through girls‟ hand bags, participants in group three said, students smuggle psychoactive substances into school. That argument was augmented by the following citations from some of the participants from other groups: Like in this school there is this issue of containers –they are terming it as if it is-mm [hesitation] it is called in this school. Yeah, SWAG – they pretend to be carrying water and they are never – „oba interviewed?‟ by teachers or even watchmen or prefects, and through the process they bring in alcohol in those bottles. (WFE04, June 24, 2013) Alcohol is always packed in bottles and this gives those who bring it to school an advantage.

Ok, because they smuggle it into school because the staff (teachers watchmen, and school administration) may assume it is water in those bottles when actually it is alcohol. (ESI03, July 8, 2013) Teachers were also unexpectedly blamed for supplying substances to students: “You give the teacher money to go and get them-alcohol” (WME05, June 13, 2013).

From the students‟ assertions, it is plausible to conclude that students in schools rely on coordinated networks to obtain psychoactive substances. Various players including students and at times dishonest school employees collude in petty business-like manner to help students access the substances. It might be probable that schools where students commute on a daily basis between home and school are added advantage to the interplay of various mechanisms involved in the substance use saga among school adolescents.

Discussion Sources of Psychoactive Substances Used among Secondary School Adolescents It emerged that school adolescents mainly obtained psychoactive substances, especially packed ones from within the vicinity of their respective schools premises. Specifically, shops and kiosks around schools, and supermarkets were the most commonly mentioned sources. I partially explain this revelation in the context of the location of the schools considered by the present study. The schools considered for this study were located either within town centers or nearby suburbs where a lot of trade in uncensored substances could be taking place. Since traders within those proximities are not restricted in terms of the commodities they should deal in, it is probable that they sell psychoactive substances and target students in nearby schools as potential customers. Those sources therefore provide ready, nearer and perhaps cheap supply of those substances to students in those schools. The results are in keeping with other studies (e.g. Barnes et al., 2013; Onya et al., 2012) that have established that the characteristics of neighborhoods in which young people live contribute to their substance use behaviors.

The present study results also show that the second most mentioned sources of psychoactive substances were homes/villages/families and fellow students, and confirm previous findings (e.g.

Brook, Pahl, Morojere, & Brook, 2006). It is possible that some substances like marijuana, mirungi, and tobacco are locally grown in some parts of Uganda. Un-industrialized alcohol products especially locally made spirits also could have homes as their source. Most of the students in schools considered by the study being day scholars, they perhaps get access to the substances at their will as they commute between home and school. The study findings in part agree with Kacwamu 64

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(2010) in her proposition that students in Uganda get psychoactive substances from homes.

Kachwamu (2010) however pinpointed school parties as other sources of psychoactive substances, which the present student did not confirm. Unlike the present findings, Kacwamu (2010) did not allude to adolescents‟ friends as other source of psychoactive substance, as the present study results show.

Other literature from elsewhere also tends to suggest likewise. Wallace and Muroff (2002) and Pettigrew et al. (2012) point to availability of substances in families when they asserted that psychoactive substances are easy to obtain, and that their availability in homes and communities such as neighborhoods contribute to PASU in schools. The authors continue to elucidate that perhaps even more important than adolescents‟ perception of psychoactive substances being widely available in their communities is the extent to which those substances are widely available in their proximate environments. The researchers above assert that the proximate environments from which adolescents access psychoactive substances include the schools themselves, families and peer networks. In a similar tune, Ramorola and Matshidiso (2014) agree with Wallace and Muroff (2002) and hence concur with the present study findings and articulate that families are part of the sources of psychoactive substances in schools.

In contrast to homes being sources of psychoactive substances, Hurt, Brody, Murry, Berkel, & Chen (2012) reported that interviews with adolescents‟ care givers showed those care givers did not keep alcohol in their homes, though they still believed their adolescents had access to substances in schools or in neighboring communities. To elaborate their assertions, Hurt and others recorded the following piece from one of their respondents: “I know there is so much going on in the school system and in the neighborhood …I went in the liquor store and bought it before I was even 16, so they probably go in the stores themselves”. The statement above points to another important direction of sources of psychoactive substances in schools that has been described earlier in our study findings: shops and markets within school neighborhoods.

This study has unearthed a multiplicity of sources of psychoactive substances used by adolescents in public schools in Uganda. Though the sources of psychoactive substances appear to be many, it is imperative to understand that those sources are substance specific and the present findings do not stand in isolation. There are existing studies, though few, comparable to the present study results. It is also necessary to appreciate that knowledge of the sources of psychoactive substances is very important in planning interventions and developing preventive strategies in light of the prevailing circumstances in a given locality. Understanding the sources of psychoactive substances in schools could also be an essential benchmark in understanding the socio-dynamic of PASU (Yusoff, Sahril, Rasidi, Zaki, Muhamad, & Ani, 2014), such as means of access of the substances by students.

Means of Access of Psychoactive Substances among Adolescents in Public Secondary Schools The present results regarding means of access of psychoactive substances among adolescents show that students mainly escape from school to obtain those substances. The second-most means was thorough friends/visitors. Perhaps, being mainly day schools, public schools in Uganda do not put too strict or rigid controls of movements of students and entry of “visitors”. Linked to some other large extent, students reported that they obtained substances through day-scholars and through fixing them in their belongings. Though not directly related to known previous findings, the study results can be synonymous with Kacwamu‟s (2010) assertion that students smuggle substances into schools, specifically alcohol at the beginning of school terms, by hiding it in their properties where 65

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teachers cannot suspect. However, the partial difference between this study and the cited previous study is that during the current study, participants did not mention smuggling psychoactive substances into school at the beginning of terms.

The partial difference in results of this study and Kacwamuâ&#x20AC;&#x;s (2010) assertion could have arisen from the possibility that the current study was conducted in mainly day schools where students go to school on daily basis and therefore come with those substances any time they desire to bring them at school. On the other hand, the study results to some extent agree with Kacwamu (2010) that resident students rely on non-residents (day scholars) to obtain psychoactive substances. Again, this study confirms findings reported by Kacwamu (2010) that school surroundings play a big role in adolescent substance use.

There is also a notable partial disagreement of the present study results and other reports from previous studies. While UYDEL (2008) revealed that school canteens and non-teaching staff are conduits for psychoactive substances in schools, the current study does not allude to that. For all the 12 FGDs, means of access as being canteens and non-teaching staff (except for watchmen) were not mentioned. I may not conclusively assume that the difference in those revelations means that students in public schools in Uganda do not obtain substances through those means. Rather, I could attribute the results to the approach used by the present study. For the present study, only (a limited number of) prefects were included in FGDs, and it would be asserted that student-leaders might not often interact with support staff and people operating canteens in those schools. The study results however to lesser degree partially confirm some of the previously cited findings that school adolescents obtain substances via security guards and some of the teachers.

Conclusions This study underscores the role of businesses in school neighborhoods in encouraging substance use among students in public schools in Uganda. The study underpins small and big shops around schools as being equally responsible for supply and perhaps sustaining use of particular substances in schools. It was established that students employ a variety of means and strategies to obtain psychoactive substances, and students to a greater extent escape from school to access the substances.

Implication to Research and Practice The present study findings call for an integrated approach in prevention of substance use among students in schools. It is observed from the study that while designing monitoring and prevention scheme for drug use, school neighborhoods are to be brought on board. Specifically, involving business owners in school proximities could yield better substance use intervention results.

Further Research A more comprehensive study could examine the role of school environments in psychoactive substance use among students and design a model to limit students in schools from accessing substances.

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Benjet, C., Borges, G., Medina-Mora, M.E., Blanco, J., Zambrano, J., Orozco, R., Fleiz, C., & Rojas, E. (2007). Drug use opportunities and the transition to drug use among adolescents from the Mexco City Metropolitan Area. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 90(2-3), 128-134.

Brook, S.B., Pahl, T., Morojere, N.K., & Brook, D.W. (2006). Predictors of drug use among South African adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Health, 38(1), 26-34.

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Onya, H.E., Tessera, A., & Myers, B. (2012). Community influences on adolescentsâ&#x20AC;&#x; use of home-brewed alcohol in rural South-Africa. BMC Public Health 2012, 12:42. doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-12-642.

Pettigrew, J., Miller-Day, M., Krieger, J., & Hecht, M.L. (2012). The rural context of illicit substance offers: A study of Appalachian rural adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Research, 27(4), 523-550. doi: 10.1177/0743558411432639.

Ramorola, M.Z., & Matshidiso, J.T. (2014). The links between school violence and drug usage in schools: external or internal factor? J Sociology Soc Anth, 5(1), 11-18 Swahn, M.H., Harberlen, M., Palmier, J.B., & Kasirye, R (2014). Alcohol and drug use and other high-risk behaviors among youth in the slums of Kampala, Uganda: perceptions and contexts obtained through focus groups. International Journal of Alcohol and Drug Research, 3, 289-295. doi: 10.7895/ijadr.v3i4.171 Surujlal, J. & Keyser, E. (2014). Exploring differences in demographic variables and alcohol consumption amongst University student-athletes. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 5, 820-826. doi:10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n23p820 Uganda Youth Development Link (2008). State of Alcohol Abuse in Uganda, June, 2008.

Wallace, J.M., & Muroff, J.R. (2002). Preventing substance abuse among African American children and youth: Race differences in risk factor exposure and vulnerability. Journal of Primary Prevention, 22(3), 235-261.

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