The catalan language in the educational system of Catalonia

Since the establishment of a democratic regime in Spain, not only does the Constitution recognize the multilingualism of the Spanish State but also, in certain autonomous regions, Catalan, Galician and Basque have been given joint official status with Castillian or Spanish. This article describes the introduction of Catalan into the education system of Catalonia. Previously the system had only taken Spanish into consideration, but the Statute of Autonomy of 1979 ensured the teaching of Catalan to all pupils, and Catalan is gradually becoming the medium of instruction. In a situation in which around half of the six million or so inhabitants of Catalonia have Catalan as their mother tongue which they use at home, and the other half — immigrants — are Castillian-speaking, the educational system lays down that all pupils should, at the end of compulsory schooling, be able to use both languages. It has thus faced complex problems which appear up to the present to have been satisfactorily resolved. The Catalan experience may therefore act as a reference point and a stimulus for other regions with minority languages.

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Zusammenfassung Seit der Einführung einer demokratischen Regierung in Spanien erkennt man in der Verfassung nicht nur die Mehrsprachigkeit des spanischen Staates an, sondern in gewissen autonomen Gebieten sind auch Katalanisch, Galizisch und Baskisch neben Kastilisch und Spanisch als offizielle Sprachen anerkannt worden. Der Artikel schildert die Einführung des Katalanischen in das katalanische Erziehungssystem. Bis vor kurzem erkannte das System nur spanisch an, aber das Autonomiestatut von 1979 garantierte den Unterricht in katalanisch für alle Schüler, und katalanisch wird allmählich die Unterrichtssprache. Da ungefähr die Hälfte der ca. sechs Millionen Einwohner zu Hause katalanisch spricht, und die andere Hälfte, größtenteils Immigranten, kastilisch, legt das Erziehungssystem fest, daß alle Schüler nach Beendigung des vorgeschriebenen Schulunterrichts beide Sprachen beherrschen sollten. Daraus resultierten enorme Probleme, die anscheinend inzwischen zufriedenstellend gelöst worden sind. Die katalanische Erfahrung könnte daher als Vorbild und Anregung für andere Regionen mit Minderheitssprachen dienen.

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Résumé Depuis l'établissement d'un régime démocratique en Espagne, non seulement la Constitution reconnaît-elle le plurilinguisme de l'état espagnol, mais aussi, dans certaines régions autonomes, un statut officiel conjoint avec l'espagnol ou le castillan a été accordé au catalan, au galicien et au basque. Le présent article décrit le processus de l'introduction du catalan dans le système scolaire de la Catalogne. Traditionellement ce système avait ignoré le catalan, mais le Statut d'autonomie de 1979 assura l'enseignement du catalan à tous les élèves, et le catalan devient progressivement le moyen d'instruction. Dans une situation où à peu près la moitié des quelques six millions d'habitants de la Catalogne a le catalan comme langue maternelle et familiale tandis que l'autre moitié, dans la plus grande partie des immigrés, est de langue castillane, le système scolaire propose explicitement qu'à la fin de la scolarité obligatoire tous les élèves soient capables d'utiliser les deux langues. Le système se trouve donc confronté à des problèmes complexes qui paraissent jusqu' à présent avoir été résolus d'une manière satisfaisante. L'expérience catalane peut donc servir de point de référence et de stimulant pour d'autres régions ayant des langues minoritaires.

     

Reading Comprehension and Predictability Effects on Sentence Processing: An Event‐Related Potential Study

Electrophysiology studies have identified two event‐related potentials that are modulated by predictive processes during language comprehension: the N400 and a frontal positivity. The N400 is smaller when words are presented within highly restrictive sentences, indicating reduced lexical retrieval costs. Violations of strong predictions generate larger frontal positivities, possibly reflecting inhibitory processes. More skilled comprehenders may exhibit enhanced predictive processing, but this possibility has seldom been investigated with event‐related potentials (ERPs). We analyzed the association between predictability ERP modulations and reading comprehension abilities. Twenty‐four undergraduate students were exposed to strongly and weakly constraining sentences, ending with an expected or unexpected final word. Their comprehension skills were assessed with a cloze task. Better comprehenders showed smaller N400s for expected words, and larger posterior positivities for unexpected endings, in strongly constraining contexts. These effects correlated with reading comprehension scores. The results suggest that better comprehenders take more advantage of predictions to reduce retrieval costs, and allocate more resources to postlexical integration processes.     

Preservice elementary science teachers’ argumentation competence: impact of a training programme

The recent literature has shown the importance of preservice elementary science teachers (PESTs) having a deep understanding of argumentation, as this factor may affect the nature of the class activities that are taught and what students learn. A lack of understanding of this factor may represent an obstacle in the development of science education programmes in line with the development of scientific competences. This paper presents the results of the design and implementation of a training programme of 6 sessions (12 h of class participation plus 8 h of personal homework) on argumentation. The programme was carried out by 57 Spanish PESTs from Malaga, Spain. The training programme incorporates the innovative use of certain strategies to improve competence in argumentation, such as teaching PESTs to identify the elements of arguments in order to design assessment rubrics or by including peer assessment during evaluation with and without rubrics. The results obtained on implementing the training programme were evaluated based on the development of PESTs’ argumentation competence using Toulmin’s argumentative model. Data collection methods involved two tasks carried out at the beginning and the end of the programme, i.e., pre- and post-test, respectively. The conclusion of the study is that students made significant progress in their argumentation competence on completing the course. In addition, PESTs who followed the training programme achieved statistically better results at the end than those in the control group (n = 41), who followed a traditional teaching programme. A 6-month transfer task showed a slight improvement for the PESTs of the experimental group in relation to the control group in their ability to transfer argumentation to practice.     

The Nature of Science and Citizenship: a Delphi Analysis

Research in Science Education - The relationship between science and society has, for many years, been the subject of debate in different fields, and various proposals have been made regarding the...     

The problem of the particular and its relation to the general in mathematics education

Research in the didactics of mathematics has shown the importance of the problem of the particular and its relation to the general in teaching and learning mathematics as well as the complexity of factors related to them. In particular, one of the central open questions is the nature and diversity of objects that carry out the role of particular or general and the diversity of paths that lead from the particular to the general. The objective of this article is to show how the notion of semiotic function and mathematics ontology, elaborated by the onto-semiotic approach to mathematics knowledge, enables us to face such a problem. This paper has been elaborated in the frame of the project I+D: MEC-FEDER: SEJ2004-06637/EDUC     

The Effectiveness of Concept Maps in Teaching Physics Concepts Applied to Engineering Education: Experimental Comparison of the Amount of Learning Achieved With and Without Concept Maps

A study was conducted to quantify the effectiveness of concept maps in learning physics in engineering degrees. The following research question was posed: What was the difference in learning results from the use of concept maps to study a particular topic in an engineering course? The study design was quasi-experimental and used a post-test as a measuring instrument. The sample included 114 university students from the School of Industrial Engineering who were divided into two equivalent homogeneous groups of 57 students each. The amount of learning attained by the students in each group was compared, with the independent variable being the teaching method; the experimental group (E.G.) used concept maps, while the control group (C.G.) did not. We performed a crossover study with the two groups of students, with one group acting as the E.G. for the topic of optical fibers and as the C.G. for the topic of the fundamental particles of matter and vice versa for the other group. For each of the two topics studied, the evaluation instrument was a test of 100 dichotomous items. The resulting data were subjected to a comparative statistical analysis, which revealed a significant difference in the amount of learning attained by the E.G. students as compared with the C.G. students. The results allow us to state that for the use of concept maps, the average increment in the E.G. students’ learning was greater than 19 percentage points.     

Adaptation of a computer programming course to the ESHE requirements: evaluation five years later

In the academic year 2010–2011, Spain finished the process of introducing the regulatory changes derived from the Bologna Declaration and the new European Space for Higher Education (ESHE). These changes have implied the updating of university degrees’ structure as well as the inclusion of the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). This paper describes the process of adaptation of two basic first-semester core subjects of computer engineering to one of the basic aspects of the ESHE, the adoption of the ECTS. The process described in the paper was developed in the framework of the pilot plan undertaken by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona between 2005 and 2010. The proposed course design implies a better coordination and integration of the contents of two different subjects that students follow simultaneously, and it is based on the combination of project-based learning and cooperative learning. After the experience finished, an extended quantitative and qualitative analysis of the academic results over the five-year period has shown an improvement in the students’ learning outcomes.     

THE CONFLICTING REQUIREMENTS OF TEACHING,RESEARCH, AND MANAGEMENT IN UNIVERSITIES

The activities of teaching staff members in universities have changed considerably over the last few years. The interests of the latter in some of these activities have also changed. This article analyzes the difficulties facing university teachers in their efforts to meet the demands made on them in modern universities. The proportional increase in resources means that teachers tend to devote them‐selves to activities that are more productive from a professional or a personal point of view while neglecting others. Universities should make changes in their organization and everyday functioning which would permit a more rational division of the necessary tasks. In addition, university administrations should increase the resources available to their universities in order to bring about such changes.     

Acculturative Stress and Depressive Symptomatology Among Mexican and Mexican American Students in the U.S.: Examining Associations with Cultural Incongruity and Intragroup Marginalization

This study examined associations of intragroup marginalization and cultural incongruity with acculturative stress and depressive symptoms among 155 undergraduate U.S. college students of Mexican heritage. Findings indicate that perceived interpersonal distancing by the family (intragroup marginalization) and perceived lack of cultural fit between the respondent and academic institution (cultural incongruity) had statistically significant direct and indirect effects on depressive symptoms via acculturative stress. Results also show that 39.7 % of the variance corresponding with depressive symptoms was accounted for by intragroup marginalization, cultural incongruity, acculturative stress, and other exogenous variables.     

School head teachers’ views of the drive towards educational innovation in Catalonia / La visión de los directores de escuela sobre el impulso de la innovación educativa en Cataluña

Abstract

Today, educational change and innovation are a clear priority in educational centres across the world. This article analyses the strengths and opportunities presented by the process of educational innovation taking place in Catalonia from the perspective of school head teachers, employing a quanti-qualitative methodology using 227 surveys and 29 semi-structured interviews. The results locate the innovation process in a phase characterized by efforts aimed at updating existing practice, resistance to change generated by the system itself, and a lack of systematic reflection on current practice. Two strengths of the process reported relate to its scale and transversality across the whole territory on the one hand, and the importance that collaboration between teachers and schools is having in order to facilitate innovation. Other aspects highlighted are: the need to invest more planning in innovation processes; the need for the Deparment of Education to reflect on its own role within the process; and, finally, the need to develop the role of technologies as facilitators of innovation and communication.