Do Worlds Have Corners? When Children’s Picture Books Invite Philosophical Questions

In this article, we want to present and analyse the picture book The World has no Corners (2006/1999) by the Norwegian author and illustrator Svein Nyhus. The book represents a new trend in Norwegian picture books for children by inviting the readers into a world of thinking and wondering about existential topics such as life and death, growing up and getting old, God, children’s relationship to nature, etc. The picture book does not give clear answers to the questions that are raised, but has a potential for exploratory dialogues between child and adult readers. In our analyses of verbal text and images—and the relation between these—we build on social semiotic theory by Halliday, Kress and van Leeuwen, reception theory by Eco and Iser, and aesthetic theory represented by Dewey and Rorty. Through analyses of some selected spreads, we want to show both the framework keeping the readers inside the text, and the indeterminacies inviting the readers to wonder and speculate about the questions raised. We also want to draw attention towards a special way of co-reading of the spreads. Compared with the process of reading picture books where the adults often confirm or correct the child readers’ way of putting their interpretation into spoken language, the co-reading between children and adults in this picture book seems to be rather existential and poetic as well as democratic. We will shed light upon this reading process, as we consider it as a way of the readers fortifying themselves into the world.     

Editor's Introduction

The responses which we received on the appearance of the first issue of Western European Education have been gratifying: they confirmed the need for a journal to help overcome the linguistic and geographic obstacles that tend to keep American educators unaware of the many interesting developments in modern West European education. The responses also welcomed the access — offered by this journal — to relevant sources and documents that are otherwise not available through bibliographic channels; and the readers seem to favor the policy that each issue be devoted to a selected theme and each article be introduced by editorial explanations. The layout of these introductions has aroused justified criticism, and we hope the present issue will show improvement in this respect.     

Reading medical English abstracts: a genre study of the interaction between structural variables and the reader's linguistico-conceptual competence (L2)

Study Objective: To investigate how structural variables influence readers’ construction of meaning from short-text samples of expository prose across different levels of background knowledge, text familiarity and L2 competence. Subjects: 36 Spanish-speaking medical graduates of different L2 proficiency—18 High Intermediate (HI) and 18 Advanced subjects (AD)—were randomly divided into 2 sub-groups of 9 subjects. Design: Rhetorical manipulations were performed on the published versions of three semantically different medical English abstracts (familiar and relatively unfamiliar topics). Each sub-group received one of either version and completed a reading test. A questionnaire elicited background information on the subjects. Self-generated comments on the abstracts were optional. Statistical Treatment of Data: The number of correct answers for each abstract was recorded. Between-group one- and two-way ANOVAs were applied. The questionnaires and self-generated comments were both qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed. Results: Both groups differed in their background knowledge and in their intensity of English reading. The AD subjects outperformed the HI ones in reading performance for all three abstracts together, and for the two relatively unfamiliar abstracts only. No difference was observed for the familiar abstract. In the well structured but relatively unfamiliar abstract, only L2 competence affected reading performance. In the relatively unfamiliar and poorly structured abstract, text structure, L2 competence and the interaction between both variables affected reading comprehension. Conclusions: Textual variables operate differently depending on the extent of the readers’ background knowledge and linguistic competence. Variables such as exposure to reading materials (in L1 and L2), background knowledge and L2 competence seem to outweigh the importance of structural variables.     

论“新青年”派的“平等”观念

从戊戌变法、辛亥革命,到五四新文化运动,构成了现代“平等”观念传播的高峰。以“新青年”派为代表的五四知识分子的“平等”观念有其历史的特点,帝制的颠覆使“平等”从异端的政治诉求部分地变为法律条文,开始进入城市知识分子的日常生活。比诸洛克的平等观念,“新青年”派通常在家庭伦理和男女平等要求上表现出更激进的面貌。但是,对待经济平等问题的分歧,则凸现了“新青年”派日后分裂的深层原因。自由主义者通常强调的只是法权平等,常忽略经济平等;激进的左翼则更加注重经济的实质平等,不满足于平等观念的思想启蒙,促使他们转向从事实际的社会变革。     

Les enseignants du second degré français et leur conception sur les causes et la fatalité de la réussite (ou de l'échec) scolaire

Can school increase its productivity? Which is the attitude of teachers to this issue? INRP and University of Paris 5 made conducted survey on the issue, by questionnaire. Among more than 2000 answers to the questionnaire, a sample of 988 has been extracted to accurately represent the heterogeneous spectrum of French secondary school teachers. Individual qualities are considered essential spectrum among the conditions for success. The majority of teachers does not expect school to be able to counterbalance individual differences. Implications of these attitudes for teacher training are then discussed.     

别样的青春：《青春之歌》里的大学叙事

＂十七年文学＂中的经典之作《青春之歌》向我们描绘了30年代北平大学生们富有激情的革命生活。这种讲述方式被当时的读者和评论界接受了。而30年代真实的大学生活真的如杨沫在小说里面所描绘的充满了革命与政治的色彩吗？本文在与另一部讲叙大学生活的经典小说《未央歌》的比较下,试图走近历史、逼近现实。     

An Introduction to the Special Issue: Consultation to Increase Educational Access and Improve Conditions for LGBTQ Youth

ABSTRACT

This article is the introduction for a theme issue of Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation entitled “Consultation to Increase Educational Access and Improve Conditions for LGBTQ Youth.” First, we discuss the need for consultation to support LGBTQ youth, the current state of consultation research related to LGBTQ youth, and the unique considerations and challenges for conducting research related to LGBTQ youth. Next, we introduce the articles in this special issue. Finally, we address notable gaps and future directions while encouraging researchers and journal editors to embrace the messiness associated with this type of research.     

论胡适在《新青年》的戏剧改良理论

《新青年》是最早关注中国现代戏剧改良的中国现代杂志。胡适虽不是戏剧家,但是他率先于1918年在第4卷第6号《新青年》上开辟了第一个中国现代戏剧文学研究的专号"易卜生专号",并发表了他的第一篇关于戏剧改良的文章《易卜生主义》。之后又于1918年10月15日在第5卷第4号《新青年》上组织了戏剧改良的第二个专号,发表戏剧理论文章《文学进化观念与戏剧改良》。这是胡适戏剧改良的两篇重要文章,文章提出了自由主义、写实主义戏剧观,以及戏剧进化论和悲剧观念。这些观点不仅对初期的文学革命产生巨大影响,而且对整个中国现代戏剧的改革和发展有着开创性的意义。但文章也存在着不可避免的局限性,从而左右着整个中国现代戏剧的发展和走向。     

Foster Youth Need Sex Ed,Too!: Addressing the Sexual Risk Behaviors of System-Involved Youth

ABSTRACT

The social, economic, and environmental determinants of health include employment, housing, and education; exposure to environmental factors like lead or access to healthy food; and poverty, racism and oppression. Many of these conditions can lead to Adverse Childhood Experiences that may put children and youth at risk for abuse or maltreatment leading to involvement in the child welfare or juvenile justice systems. All young people experience important developmental milestones on their path to becoming healthy adults, and while this time of change is full of promise, it can be a time of increased vulnerability or risk. For system-involved youth, navigating this time of change can be fraught with even more challenges or barriers. Without strong family and social networks, they may face increased risk of engaging in high-risk behaviors—such as unprotected sex and sex with multiple partners—as well as unintended pregnancy, HIV, and other sexually transmitted infections. Our study examined survey data to assess the overall sexual reproductive health behaviors for youth aged 14–21 in out-of-home care in an urban environment (n = 270; 60.7% male; 82% African American; 7.9% Latinx). Youth were recruited between 2012 and 2016; 76.4% of these teens had had sexual intercourse at some point in their lifetime. Of these, 86.0% were sexually active before the age of 16. Although there were numerous risk factors related to contraception and condom use as well as partner demographics, there were assets or strengths identified. A discussion of how these findings can be utilized to develop effective prevention intervention strategies is provided.     

江西苏区团报《青年实话》的改进与革新

《青年实话》是中国共产青年团苏区中央局的机关报,也是江西苏区的重要红色报刊。《青年实话》总体上办得不错,得到了读者的欢迎,但也出现过失实等问题,存在改进的空间和革新的空间。对此,读者和编者都很关注,或主动提出意见,或直接提出建议,出谋划策。     

青年志愿行动与城市社区建设关系研究

青年志愿服务行动以“奉献、友爱、互助、进步”为宗旨,在全国范围内蓬勃开展,城市社区成为青年志愿服务行动的主要阵地。本文阐述了青年志愿服务行动兴起的背景,及其与城市社区建设之问的良性互动关系,同时分析了进一步深化青年志愿事业存在的障碍,并提出了相应的对策。     

When writers visit schools: A symposium

Betty Miles, a member of the U.S. Editorial Board ofCle, asked eight other writers to reflect along with her on what it is like to talk with their readers in schools.The brief essays below are as varied as their authors' styles, but one theme runs through all of them: the importance of face-to-face encounters to writers, as well as to their young readers. These first-hand reports suggest, both explicitly and implicitly, ways of enriching author visits so that children's interaction with a real live author can enhance their interest in reading, and in writing.Betty Miles has written many picture books for young children and six novels for older readers, most recentlyMaudie and Me and The Dirty Book andThe Trouble with Thirteen. She and her husband live in Tappan, New York, where her three grown children went to school.     

Differential effects of three professional development models on teacher knowledge and student achievement in elementary science

To identify links among professional development, teacher knowledge, practice, and student achievement, researchers have called for study designs that allow causal inferences and that examine relationships among features of interventions and multiple outcomes. In a randomized experiment implemented in six states with over 270 elementary teachers and 7,000 students, this project compared three related but systematically varied teacher interventions—Teaching Cases, Looking at Student Work, and Metacognitive Analysis—along with no‐treatment controls. The three courses contained identical science content components, but differed in the ways they incorporated analysis of learner thinking and of teaching, making it possible to measure effects of these features on teacher and student outcomes. Interventions were delivered by staff developers trained to lead the teacher courses in their regions. Each course improved teachers' and students' scores on selected‐response science tests well beyond those of controls, and effects were maintained a year later. Student achievement also improved significantly for English language learners in both the study year and follow‐up, and treatment effects did not differ based on sex or race/ethnicity. However, only Teaching Cases and Looking at Student Work courses improved the accuracy and completeness of students' written justifications of test answers in the follow‐up, and only Teaching Cases had sustained effects on teachers' written justifications. Thus, the content component in common across the three courses had powerful effects on teachers' and students' ability to choose correct test answers, but their ability to explain why answers were correct only improved when the professional development incorporated analysis of student conceptual understandings and implications for instruction; metacognitive analysis of teachers' own learning did not improve student justifications either year. Findings suggest investing in professional development that integrates content learning with analysis of student learning and teaching rather than advanced content or teacher metacognition alone. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 333–362, 2012     

Advances in research on internal and external factors that guide adolescents’ reading and learning on the Internet (Avances en la investigación de los factores internos y externos que condicionan la lectura y el aprendizaje de los adolescentes a través Internet)

ABSTRACT

Articles in this special issue — How adolescents read and learn on the Web: internal and external factors — provide compelling new empirical evidence on a suite of internal and external factors that guide adolescents’ reading and learning from Web resources. This commentary first provides a brief overview of the findings and interpretations from each of the constituent articles. It then builds coherence amongst the findings and interpretations across the articles and in relation to the broader extant research literature. The organization differentiates which factors appear to promote and which factors appear to undermine different facets of reading and learning from Web resources. Finally, seven important future directions are discussed that emerged from analysing and synthesizing ideas presented across the articles in combination with the extant research literature. The hope is that the commentary stimulates research directions moving forward, with mindfulness towards developing conditions that support online reading for a host of different adolescent readers.     

Table of Contents

• The Opportunity for a College Education: Real Promise or Hollow Rhetoric?
  • By Brian K. Fitzgerald
  • Recent shifts in student financial aid policies and severe increases in tuition are mounting impossible barriers to a college education for low‐ and middle‐income students. The author, an adviser to the United States Congress and Secretary of Education, examines the disturbing reality of who's no longer coming to college.
• What Matters to Alexander Astin? A Conversation with Higher Education's Senior Scholar
  • To understand the key issues underlying student behaviors, attitudes, and the social context of education during the past 40‐plus years, we need to look no further than Alexander Astin.
• Preparing Spiritual Leaders: One Teacher Takes on the Challenge
  • By Judy L. Rogers
  • Launching a new course is daunting. Launching a course as heavily laden with emotional and cultural issues as spirituality is downright overwhelming but not impossible. Here is what the author learned.

• Departments
• From the Executive Editor—A Word About Learning Partnerships
  • Our new editor, Marcia Baxter Magolda, has a few words for readers.
• In Practice—Embedding Student Advocates: Assistant Deans Provide In‐College Service
  • By Nancee L. Buck and Rochelle Woods
  • What does it take to involve both academic and student affairs in creating a great learning environment for students? Here is how California State University Fullerton tackled this question.
• Campus Commons—Aging and Saging: Career End Signals New Beginning
  • By John D. Lawry
  • A new life as elder and mentor to students and colleagues begins at the end of a career.
• What They're Reading—“Dear Tom … Affectionately, John”
  • By Jean M. Henscheid
  • What could 200‐year‐old letters between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson possibly have to teach about today's higher education? A tremendous amount, the author argues.

     

An Analysis of the Three Translated Versions of Youth from the Perspective of Dynamic Equivalence

Inspired by Eugene Nida's dynamic equivalence theory,this thesis takes the translation of Samul Ullman's work Youth as a case study.It explores the three translated versions of Mrs.Zhang Aiqing,Mr.Huang Ren and Mr.Xu Hanlin respectively.These versions are analyzed at the levels of lexicology,syntax,rhetoric,semasiology and style.Then it points out that the same effect on the target language readers are as the original text has done on the source language readers,in other words,it proves the efficiency of dynamic equivalence in the translation of Youth.     

Table of Contents

• High‐achieving black collegians
  • by Sharon Fries‐Britt
  • How well do we understand the experiences of high‐achieving black students? The author says we have a lot to learn about their important roles in both our institutions and society at large.
• The search for a college commons
  • by Thomas Klein
  • How can we restructure our campuses to encourage the new kinds of learning we all know as so vital for the future of higher education? The author looks to the past for the answer.
• Listening to students: Richard J. Light talks to Charles C. Schroeder
  • What we can learn by simply giving students the chance to tell their stories and reflect on their experiences.

• DEPARTMENTS
• In practice—rainbow visibility: How one catholic university responded to intolerance
  • by Cheryl Getz and Evelyn A. Kirkley
  • When respect for the individual's dignity is threatened, education is often the best medicine.
• Campus commons—bulking up
  • by Lee Burdette Williams
  • How one university “mixes it with love and makes the world taste good.”
• Bottom line—imitate me
  • by William H. Willimon
  • Like it or not, example is the most potent instructor.

     

Wastage: Natural,built-in and imposed

Summary

• 1.Wastage is a characteristic of all forms of further education, full-time and part-time.

• 2.Wastage can be defined in more than one way, and the severest definitions obviously include amongst the wastage many students who have benefited from their participation in further education.

• 3.Failure rates from first to final year in English Universities are at least 10 per cent on the average, to which have to be added the group—some 5 per cent—who withdrew for reasons other than academic failure. This gives an average total wastage of 15 per cent, from first to final year.

• 4.Even in the relatively superior conditions of university life and teaching, precise prognostication is not possible; therefore, either some failures must be admitted or some who would succeed must be excluded. To eliminate failures altogether would mean applying selection procedures that would exclude large numbers of those who now succeed.

• 5.Wastage is a product of multiple causation. Hence, there are no simple or sweeping remedies. On the other hand, such success as is achieved remains unknown because it is not recorded and published.

• 6.Wastage in technical education can be classified into three sorts: natural, built-in and imposed.

• 7.Natural wastage is largely, if not entirely, irremediable (in the given conditions). It is valuable to identify it, important to estimate its size and sensible to devote to other causes efforts to improve the situation. It seems likely that natural wastage amounts to something like 25 per cent of the entrants to a five year part-time course—although there is no evidence of a convincing kind to support any particular figure.

• 8.Built-in wastage is a feature of part-time technical courses. It could very easily be much reduced. The place to begin is with craft courses which are not hedged in by so many Rules and such powerful vested interests as are the National Certificates. The steps to take are simple, and are within the competence of Principals and Heads of Department. The examination results now available annually should be used differently; in particular, the results in the ‘noncrucial’ years should not, in general, preclude students from passing on to the next year of the course. Gross built-in wastage on the average five-year course amounts to 70 per cent or so, having allowed an off-set for students who repeat a year.

• 9.It will be seen that 70 per cent built-in wastage plus 25 per cent natural wastage amounts to 95 per cent wastage over a five-year course. A success rate of 5 per cent in such courses is often exceeded—it may rise to 25 per cent, but a success rate even lower is by no means unknown, though the recording of some such instances by Lady Williams appears to have shocked many of her readers.

• 10.The advantage of going through a course may be quite real to a student who does not gain a certificate. Presumably this is truer of craft courses than of other courses.

• 11.Imposed wastage is remediable to some extent, though not perhaps as completely as might be hoped. At present there is much emphasis on selection, and it is most desirable that selection procedures should be improved.

• 12.Even more important as an antidote to imposed wastage is an improved teaching force: improved in numbers and quality. This is not to say that teaching in technical colleges is bad—far from it. There always have been excellent teachers in technical colleges and their numbers have grown hearteningly since 1945. Nor is it to say that the need is for more graduates or more teachers with second degrees—although such are most welcome. What is needed is greater total numbers of teachers and far more whose main interests are in their pupils, in the difficulties of their pupils, in teaching rather than in scholarship. Senior lecturers promoted to that position because they are good teachers, because they are educationists, are more important to a college than those elevated on the strength of the letters after their names. Both kinds are valuable. Some splendid fellows are themselves of both kinds.

• 13.In approaching any particular problem of wastage, it is necessary to know, or to estimate, how much is natural, how much built-in, how much imposed. Obviously the built-in wastage figure needs breaking down. It includes the out-and-out duds and slackers, a small number, probably no more than 2 per cent or 3 per cent over a five-year wastage of 70 per cent. It includes also the weak and doubtful who just don't make the grade—perhaps 7 per cent or 8 per cent more. And it includes a fair number affected by imposed wastage in its many forms—perhaps 25 per cent. The breakdown in a five-year wastage of 95 per cent in a part-time course might then take the form:

Where wastage in such a course amounts to 75 per cent of the first-year entrants, and on the assumption that natural wastage is at the same rate in all such courses, the total wastage might be classified as follows:

No validity is claimed for these figures. They are presented to sharpen the idea that an attack on wastage can only be made if it is known what is being attacked. For example on this analysis, in a five-year course with 75 per cent wastage, improved selection could only hope to affect a proportion of the imposed wastage plus the weaklings, i.e. a proportion of 25 per cent of the total wastage of 75 per cent. A somewhat higher proportion of this 25 per cent wastage could probably be prevented by improved teaching.

• 14.The need for enquiries and research into these problems is acute. Much information is available, and ready for analysis. On the other hand, on some problems nothing at all has been done and no information exists. For instance, no college, so far as is known, has systematically followed up the part-time students of one year who do not enrol for a succeeding year. Such an enquiry, done over one or two typical National Certificate and craft courses might be illuminating.

• 15.The price paid for a part-time system of education includes a high wastage rate. As long as part-time education goes on, wastage will be very high. As a route to a major qualification—professional or craft—part-time education is a wasteful anachronism; in its purely evening form it should be abolished immediately.

     

Empowering Adolescent Readers: Intertextuality in Three Novels by David Almond

In Skellig, Kit’s Wilderness, and Clay, David Almond employs various types of intertextuality to enrich his narratives. Through the use of allusion, adaptation, collage, and mise-en-abyme, he encourages his adolescent readers to seek out precursor texts and to consider the interrelationships between these texts and his own. By so doing, he demonstrates the respect he has for his readers and empowers them to become active makers of meaning.