A Quest for Equity? Measuring the Effect of QuestBridge on Economic Diversity at Selective Institutions

In response to growing income stratification in higher education, President Obama convened a White House Summit in 2014 where over 100 selective institutions committed to increasing the number of low-income students on their campus. One way colleges proposed to do so is through partnerships with college access organizations like QuestBridge, a nonprofit organization that aims to increase the percentage of low-income students at elite universities. While institutions purport that QuestBridge improved socioeconomic diversity, empirical research has not confirmed these claims. In this study, we estimate the effect of QuestBridge on overall access of Pell eligible students at partner institutions using quasi-experimental methods. We find no increase in the economic diversity of colleges after establishing a partnership with QuestBridge, except for colleges simultaneously partnering with QuestBridge and enacting no-loan financial aid policies. We also consider whether participation in QuestBridge increases institutional status through larger application volumes and increased selectivity, and discuss implications for research and practice in the area of stratification.     

Educational Background,Teaching Experience and Teachers’ Views on the Inclusion of Nature of Science in the Science Curriculum

The aim of this research is to ascertain teachers’ opinions on what elements of nature of science (NOS) and science–technology–society relationships (STS) should be taught in school science. To this end an adapted version of the questionnaire developed by Osborne et al. is used. Our results show that experts consulted by Osborne et al. and Spanish teachers confer similar importance on the provisional, experimental, and predictive nature of scientific knowledge based on some of the procedures used such as the drawing up of hypotheses and the analysis and interpretation of data. We also look into the relationship between the teachers’ views and their educational background. ¹ 1. In this article, Educational Background means the scientific training gained by teachers at university. Results suggest that philosophy teachers are more concerned with the inclusion of NOS and STS topics in science curricula than science teachers, although further studies will be necessary. Some suggestions concerning the university training of science teachers are also discussed.     

Individual Development Plans in the Swedish Comprehensive School: Supporting High Quality Learning and Equity,or Rote Learning and Social Reproduction?

In Swedish compulsory school, individual development plans (IDPs) are mandatory for all students up to 6th grade. The purpose is to summarize and facilitate pupils’ learning and tune instruction to national standards. In this study, 233 IDPs drawn up for 5th grade pupils were analyzed with focus on qualities that have been found to impact students’ learning and learner identities. The results show that the IDPs rarely display the qualities that would make them effective as tools for enhancing students’ learning, and that there is a gender difference in the quality of the documents, as well as differences regarding the pupils’ academic background.     

The Finnish “Recipe” Towards Inclusion: Concocting Educational Equity,Policy Rigour,and Proactive Support Structures

Borrowing the lens of Finnish education policymakers, this article aims at dissecting the Finnish conception of inclusion and its approach in constructing an inclusive “special” education system as set against the wider debates and practices that shed different lights on the meaning and viability of inclusion. The discussion explores the foundation of inclusion in Finland as a range of complementary and cohesive strategies aimed at the prevention of exclusion at a systemic level as driven by the equity agenda. Inclusive education is set in the tone of a common school culture, which celebrates diversity by seeing varied needs as the norm through the provision of individualised education and proactive support. Going against the grain of neo-liberal reforms, Finland has diverted from the accountability practices of standardised testing and rigorous school inspection, instead adopted a community-wide consensus on the educability of every child.     

Computer-Supported Collaborative Inquiry on Buoyancy: A Discourse Analysis Supporting the “Pieces” Position on Conceptual Change

This article describes in detail a conversation analysis of conceptual change in a computer-supported collaborative learning environment. Conceptual change is an essential learning process in science education that has yet to be fully understood. While many models and theories have been developed over the last three decades, empirical data to support them are scarce. The present paper aims to provide such evidence. To this end, the article first reviews seven proposed models of conceptual change before it recalls the main ideas behind the two different positions on conceptual change, the pieces (diSessa 2008) versus coherence (Vosniadou et al. 2008) positions. Then, the article presents and discusses how a close discourse analysis of asynchronous collaborative conversations between grade 5 and 6 students on buoyancy and relative density provides further empirical evidence of the knowledge in pieces position.     

International elite,or global citizens? Equity,distinction and power: the International Baccalaureate and the rise of the South

The 2013 UN Human Development report predicts the middle classes of ‘The South’ a five-fold increase by 2030. Globalisation has resulted in national conceptions of business: education and identity being in flux. Emerging middle classes of the South are already embracing international forms of education for instrumental reasons of advantage and distinction. The International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum continues to experience a strong growth in this area and appears to offer a globalised and international form of education, which may offer the chance of educating a global citizen, despite the fact that it is much valued for the relative advantage it may offer. This article reviews the data surrounding the rise of the South and explores the identity of the IB, as it exists in international schools, particularly the dilemma between its internationalist and the globalist outlook. The theory of Pierre Bourdieu facilitates a critical examination of the role of global citizenship education in this paradigm, and the instrumental role it may play in conferring symbolic capital and distinction on this form of social reproduction. Finally, Global Citizenship Education in IB curricula represents a pastoral (religious) component as is common in elite school systems, yet in its globalised form: secular and inclusive whilst equitable and distinct.     

A Brief Discussion on the Outlook on Life and Death——A Comparative Analysis of Emily Dickinson and Alfred Tennyson

Since ancient times,large numbers of poets throughout the world have elaborated their outlook on life and death through their works.Among them are Emily Dickinson and Alfred Tennyson,the outstanding poetess and poet in the 19th century,who have a unique and thorough meditation on life and death.From the comparative analysis of their view on life and death we could extract a good deal of spiritual treasure to provide a scientific guidance for people in modern society.     

Experts and exiles: organic intellectuals,education, and the “Indian Problem” in postwar Ontario,Canada

Abstract

This article brings the Italian activist and thinker Antonio Gramsci’s theory of organic intellectualism and the Canadian historian Ian McKay’s theory of liberal state-formation to bear on the “Indian Question” – or how best to yoke Indigenous children and young people to the modern Canadian state. From the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, often violent and disease-ridden “Residential Schools” were the primary means to this end. In the 1960s, a new approach was sought by the province of Ontario, culminating in the landmark education reform document, Living and Learning: The Report of the Provincial Committee on Aims and Objectives of Education in the Schools of Ontario (1968). Gentler forms of progressive educational “normalisation” informed by social science were pursued by the committee as a means of generating consent to a Canada now redefined as a postwar “Peaceable Kingdom”. This ostensibly kinder strategy nevertheless carried the colonial assumptions of the earlier period into the later one. This was made clear to the committee during the report’s preparation by Indigenous intellectuals advising them on Indigenous issues. They saw this liberal-technocratic approach for what it was – a novel form of neocolonial pedagogical violence. Though they were largely ignored by the committee, their dissent is instructive (as is the committee’s resistance to it) and allows us to put the darker corners of Canadian progressive education into historical perspective.     

Cell Phones in the Classroom: Teachers’ Perspectives of Inclusion,Benefits, and Barriers

Historically viewed as a disruption by teachers, cell phones have been banned from 69% of classrooms (Common Sense Media, 2009). The increased ubiquity and instructional features of cell phones have prompted some teachers to re-evaluate the ban and consider the benefits associated with allowing cell phones in the classroom. This study surveyed 79 teachers to determine their perceptions of using cell phones for classroom instruction. Findings indicated that the majority (69%) of teachers support the use of cell phones in the classroom and were presently using them for school-related work. Teachers identified student engagement and motivation as the primary benefits; barriers included lack of access and class disruption.     

Supporting Young Children’s Vocabulary Growth: The Challenges, the Benefits, and Evidence-Based Strategies

The complexity of words makes vocabulary development a multi-faceted process that presents challenges to early childhood educators, offers benefits to young learners, and must be supported through evidence-based strategies. All students, regardless of socio-economic status or background, need to make significant gains in receptive and expressive vocabulary at home and at school each year in order to support their growth in literacy. Students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and those students who speak English as a second language are particularly at risk of failing to make proficient vocabulary gains. The most effective way for early childhood educators to enhance the vocabulary development of all students is to implement evidence-based strategies for teaching vocabulary. A key finding in the research is that young children need to be actively engaged in vocabulary development if they are to remember new words and begin to grasp the multiple, nuanced meanings of words. Other effective vocabulary instruction practices include meaningful repetition; combining the enactive, iconic, and symbolic modes; and reading aloud in a dialogic style. In light of the trend in the research data that links the child’s vocabulary level to gains in reading comprehension, early childhood educators have a special obligation to teach vocabulary more effectively.     

Positioning and the Discourses of Urban Education: A Latino Student’s University Experience

Based on data collected from a year-and-a-half-long qualitative research project, this case study examines the early college experiences and identity negotiations of one urban-schooled Latino participant as he navigated a predominately White state university in his hometown. Recognizing the university as a figured world, this study highlights two emblematic personal encounters that positioned him in inferior ways. It also offers a counter-example of a rhetoric professor who positioned him in positive ways and contributed to his academic success. Implications are framed in an argument for the inclusion of identity studies and positioning theory in order to better contextualize urban-schooled Latina/os’ early college experiences.     

‘Language must be raked’: Experience,race, and the pressure of air

This article begins by clarifying the notion of what Stanley Cavell has called ‘Emersonian moral perfectionism.’ It goes on to explore this through close analysis of aspects of Emerson’s essay ‘Experience,’ in which ideas of trying or attempting or experimenting bring out the intimate relation between perfectionism and styles of writing. ‘Where do we find ourselves?’ Emerson asks, and the answer is to be found in part in what we write and what we say, injecting a new sense of possibility and responsibility into our relation to our words. But the language we speak and the lives that go with it are at the same time burdened with a past, and in the case of English, and in the American context especially, it is marked with a kind of repression relating to questions of slavery and race. These matters are implicated in questions of constitution, in both general and specifically political senses. Hence, inheritance and appropriation become causes of critical sensitivity, as do the forms of praise and acknowledgment that should meet them. The article explores ways of thinking through Emerson’s relation to these aspects of experience and seeks to find responses pertinent to today.     

“They make you invisible”: Negotiating Power at the Academic Intersections of Ethnicity,Gender, and Class

This Foucauldian case study examines the academic conflicts of Mexican American women and girls, how they negotiate those conflicts, and the identity effects of their negotiations. It extends Gloria Anzaldúa's (1999) work and builds upon those who have studied the schooling experiences of Mexican American women and girls. Similar conflicts for these women are found at all academic levels. The negotiation of these conflicts affected the identity of academia (transformation and reproduction) and the women (hybridization and colonization).     

“It’s Pretty Essential”: A Critical Race Counter-Narrative of Faculty of Color Understandings of Diversity and Equity in Doctoral Admissions

Using a short story fiction counter-narrative, this critical race study examines how faculty of color within higher education and student affairs doctoral-granting programs bring critical epistemologies to their decision-making in the student admissions process and work to decolonize the academy despite neoliberal pressures. Faculty of color depart from current accounts of faculty decision-making in doctoral education in two key ways—by disregarding standardized measures of success and by considering diversity throughout the entire admissions process—leading us to important insights about how faculty of color differ from white faculty in their perception of and in their emphasis on diversity, equity, and justice in the admissions process. The implications are both broad and specific for creating dynamically diverse campus climates in an era of persistent challenges to affirmative action. The findings speak to the ways that those concerned with educational diversity and equity can support diversity and equity efforts in a neoliberal, color-blind environment. In a world defined by such policy and practice and a country that determines options and opportunity based on race, this study centers the voices of faculty of color in their institutions and analyzes how identity and institutional logics influence behavior.

     

Focus,funding, phonics—What's the point?: A reply to Pressley and Allington

In this paper, we reply to Pressley and Allington's (1999) contention that research supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) in recent years has been narrowly focussed. We point out that their criticisms of this agency are opaque because they do not take account of the fact that research priorities of virtually all funding agencies are necessarily constrained by their unique missions. We also express our befuddlement over the apparent inconsistency, on the part of at least one of the co-authors, between the point of view expressed in this paper compared with the point of view expressed in a previous paper as to the weight given to phonological skills in early literacy instruction. Finally, we point out that Pressley and Allington's criticisms of recent intervention studies supported by NICHD are fraught with errors and misleading characterizations, and we use their criticism of an intervention study we have recently completed as a prime example.     

“Yes …, But I Was Drunk”: Alcohol References and the (Re)Production of Masculinity on a College Campus

In residence halls on college campuses, one may hear a (male) student say, “Yes I did vandalize the wall, but I was drunk,” or “I ‘had a few’ before I kissed that ‘butter face’.” Researchers and university administrators could point to these as examples consistent with the problems of student drinking. They could also read these utterances as problematic performances of masculinity. Both groups would be correct. Ethnographers would seek to understand the underlying patterns of these statements, and ethnomethodologists the usefulness of these statements for actors in situ. This ethnography reports the findings of a study of student ways of speaking on a residential college campus. Data show that students’ patterned ways of speaking, especially when making references to drinking, mitigate problematic student behaviors, such as urinating in a corridor of a residence hall. Although such mitigating statements are, at times, by themselves problematic, they (re)produce a much more troubling masculinity.