Too often debate about the pros and cons of early schooling, including preschooling, focuses on age. But is age the most significant variable? How does the focus on age of entry align with current perspectives on development in early childhood? TO what extent does the debate take account of recent advances in teaching strategies and curriculum in early childhood? Too often it would appear that decisions concerning school programs are based on considerations which do not give attention to psychological and other evidence. To this extent the paper argues that the links between psychology and social change are tenuous. The paper undertakes a review of the issues from both developmental and educational viewpoints. In addition consideration is also given to the impact of social and cultural factors upon the movement; of children both from home to school and within school. Specifically the paper advances the view that a central concern in early education is the extent to which curriculum and strategies are able to meet individual needs.

The debate regarding age of entry to school goes back a number of years. It seemed to come to a head in the late 1970s, coinciding with the visit to Australia of Dr Raymond Moore, who put forward the somewhat extreme view that children should not start school before the age of about 8 to 10 years. Hisargument was based on a maturational view of development. Experiences must wait until the child is ‘ready’ and the brain has ‘matured’. In particular, he argued that exposure to early reading and the close work involved in the pre-school and early primary school could harm the developing visual system and lead to long-term visual defects, particularly short-sightedness.

Moore's position was of course contrary to the mainstream of thought in this area, and particularly the recognition, stemming from the work of Hebb and Piaget, of the importance of the early environment in laying the foundations for later development. It nevertheless had some popular appeal, and was taken up by various parent and teacher pressure groups who called for changes to school entry policies and specifically raising the age of entry to school to five years.

In this paper I put forward the view that a number of forces come to bear in educational policy decisions of the nature of age of school entry, and suggest that pressures exerted by community groups and parental expectations have a more direct influence on those decisions than the positions that researchers may propose. The debate in fact moves away somewhat from considerations of the psychological evidence on the optimal age of entry to achieving administratively workable policies, and to ensuring that educationalsystems create programs which are appropriate for young children.

In this paper we wish to put forward the argument that when one is considering the development of literacy in children, it is essential to consider both spoken and written language within the same integrated perspective. We also intend to argue that examining literacy from this perspective implies educators must meet the challenge of avoiding major discontinuities of experience for children. Further, given the large individual differences in children's development, we argue that the actual age of school entry is of little inportance. Of far greater importance is the provision of educational programmes that take account of the different experiences of individual children.

Integration of students with disabilities into regular schools has come to be one of the most pervasive and controversial issues in special education. The so-called “efficacy” research is beset with methodological problems and offers no clear answer to the debate. This paper reviews influences underlying integration, presents models for its implementation, and discusses their implications for both school organization and disabled students. Some alternative approaches to research are discussed.

This paper is based on Jenkinson, J.C. School and Disability: Research and Practice in Integration. Australian Education Review No. 26 Hawthorn, Vic. Australian Council for Educational Research, 1987, and is reproduced with the permission of ACER.

Although there appears to be little dispute regarding the philosophical principles underlying the policy of integrating disabled children into regular classes (mainstreaming), no such consensus exists about the effectiveness of its implementation. One possible method of identifying factors which may be related to the efficacy of the mainstreaming process is to examine the attitudes of principals and teachers towards the integration of disabled students. This is primarily because principals’ attitudes may influence their enrolment policies, while teachers’ attitudes appear to reflect their confidence in teaching a typical pupils (Hararsymiw & Horne, 1976).

Despite the critical importance of the teacher in any learning environment, there has been relatively little research into the characteristics of effective teachers of high ability (gifted) students. The majority of studies report the view of ‘experts’ rather than judgements made by the students themselves.

In this study, a modified version of the Student Perception of Teachers (SPOT) rating scale was used to measure the relative importance to gifted students of personal-social, cognitive and classroom management characteristics of teachers.

The sample consisted of two groups of high ability students in years 8,9 and 10 at government senior high schools in Western Australia. One group had been selected to participate in an academic extension programme and therefore the students were in special classes; the other consisted of students of similar ability, but attending the regular school programme.

Similarities and differences in the preferences of the mainstreamed and special groups are outlined, and findings compared with the results of two similar studies carried out in lsrael and the USA, but using only students in special programmes.

lmplications for the selection and training of teachers of high ability students are discussed.

A key assumption of the mainstreaming movement is that exposure of young children to their disabled peers provides opportunities for the formation of accurate views of the characteristics and attributes of children with disabilities. Essentially, it is argued that experience enables children to transcend labelling, stereotyping and stigmatization. Prospective data are reported on the mainstreaming of two preschool aged children with spina bifida, based on the content analysis of records of speech, collected over a school year, on 22% of the times when children had opportunities to interact socially. The data indicate that the children seemed to generate their own labels, disability terms and developmental mythologies, which endured across the year. The study highlights the limited attention that has been paid to the collection of data on the social-cognitive processes of children and their disabled peers in mainstreamed settings and emphasizes the scant consideration of evidence from psychology in the mainstreaming debate.