De Genève à Belo Horizonte,une histoire croisée: circulation,réception et réinterprétation d’un modèle européen des classes spéciales au Brésil des années 1930

L’organisation des classes homogènes selon le niveau de développement mental des élèves et celle des classes spéciales pour les enfants en retard scolaire eut lieu dans les écoles élémentaires de Belo Horizonte, au Brésil, pendant les années de 1930, dans le cadre d’une réforme du système d’éducation, à laquelle participèrent des spécialistes étrangers, et en spécial la psychologue russe Helena Antipoff (1892–1974). Le projet des classes spéciales alors établies et leurs transformations dans le contexte brésilien sont étudiés à partir de données documentaires publiées entre 1930 et 1940. Née en Russie, Antipoff a fait des études supérieures en France (1910–1911), comme stagiaire dans le laboratoire Binet-Simon, et à Genève (1912–1914), à l’Institut Jean-Jacques Rousseau, où elle exerça ultérieurement les fonctions d’assistante d’Édouard Claparède (1926–1929). Notre hypothèse est que les classes spéciales créées à Belo Horizonte le furent sur le modèle genevois, et constituèrent un important exemple de circulation et diffusion de connaissances au niveau international, ainsi que de construction de repères dans le domaine de l’éducation spéciale au Brésil. Ainsi, la division des classes par niveau intellectuel mesuré par des tests d’intelligence, l’idée de “l’école sur mesure” proposée par Claparède, le dialogue avec les méthodes suggérées par Alice Descouedres démontrent les relations avec le modèle genevois. En même temps, l’interprétation des résultats des tests comme manifestation d’une forme d’ “intelligence civilisée” et les adaptations des exercices d’orthopédie mentale pour développer cette intelligence demandée par l’école montrent les transformations du modèle dans le contexte brésilien.     

Latino Adolescents’ Ethnic Identity: Is There a Developmental Progression and Does Growth in Ethnic Identity Predict Growth in Self‐Esteem?

The current longitudinal study of 323 Latino adolescents (50.5% male; M age = 15.31 years) examined whether ethnic identity exploration, resolution, and affirmation demonstrated significant growth over a 4-year period and whether growth in ethnic identity predicted growth in self-esteem. Findings from multiple-group latent growth curve models revealed that exploration, resolution, and affirmation all increased significantly from middle to late adolescence for Latina girls. For Latino boys, only affirmation increased significantly. Furthermore, only growth in exploration predicted growth in boys' and girls' self-esteem. This research indicates that patterns of growth in ethnic identity vary by adolescent sex. Furthermore, findings underscore the need to examine the unique contributions of each ethnic identity component, rather than using a composite ethnic identity score.     

Argentine Publishers Open the Door to the Future

Argentine publishers are in the middle of an accelerated transition into the digital era. Print-on-demand, selling directly through publishers´ websites and e-commerce in general, are opening new roads for the book market. Mercado Libre, the biggest e-commerce platform in the region, is becoming the decisive player, where all bookstores, big and small upload their own sites. On the other hand, high costs of production and logistics are the challenges that this growing and vibrant market face today, where hundreds of new publishers enter every year, with many amazing and successful cases of specialized contents and audiences.     

Correcting for sample problems in PISA and the improvement in Portuguese students’ performance

The results of large-scale international assessments such as Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have attracted a considerable attention worldwide and are often used by policy-makers to support educational policies. To ensure that the published results represent the actual population, these surveys go through a thorough scrutiny to ensure their validity. One important issue that may affect the results is the occurrence of different participation rates across groups with heterogeneous average student scores. In this study, we illustrate how problems of representativeness of the samples may be corrected by the use of post-stratified weights. We use the case of Portugal, a country where we uncover a meaningful difference between the actual population and the PISA samples in terms of the distribution of students per grade and track of studies. We show that after post-stratification, the temporal evolution of the PISA scores is quite different from the one reported.     

Assessing efficiency in the Spanish public universities through comparative non-radial and radial data envelopment analysis

In this study we have used data from Spanish public universities to assess their efficiency in a longitudinal framework between 2008/9–2014/15. To carry out the analysis, two windows data envelopment analysis and intertemporal, non-radial and radial analysis methodologies were compared. The main results show a significant deterioration in university efficiency from the 2012/13 academic year for the three proposed frontiers, with both methodologies. Some factors may explain these results, such as the ageing of teaching force and its low replacement rate of 10%, and the lack of incentives for young researchers who wish to pursue a research career, influenced by the presence of endogamy, in hiring or promotion. Finally, the resources necessary for the good governance of the Spanish public university with the consequent accountability of these, in terms of teaching, research and its transfer to society, could become a strategic issue that should be taken into account by all the actors involved.

     

Using a Professional Development Program for Enhancing Chilean Biology Teachers’ Understanding of Nature of Science (NOS) and Their Perceptions About Using History of Science to Teach NOS

A number of authors have recognized the importance of understanding the nature of science (NOS) for scientific literacy. Different instructional strategies such as decontextualized, hands-on inquiry, and history of science (HOS) activities have been proposed for teaching NOS. This article seeks to understand the contribution of HOS in enhancing biology teachers’ understanding of NOS, and their perceptions about using HOS to teach NOS. These teachers (N = 8), enrolled in a professional development program in Chile are, according to the national curriculum, expected to teach NOS, but have no specific NOS and HOS training. Teachers’ views of NOS were assessed using the VNOS-D+ questionnaire at the beginning and at the end of two modules about science instruction and NOS. Both the pre- and the post-test were accompanied by interviews, and in the second session we collected information about teachers’ perceptions of which interventions had been more significant in changing their views on NOS. Finally, the teachers also had to prepare a lesson plan for teaching NOS that included HOS. Some of the most important study results were: significant improvements were observed in teachers’ understanding of NOS, although they assigned different levels of importance to HOS in these improvements; and although the teachers improved their understanding of NOS, most had difficulties in planning lessons about NOS and articulating historical episodes that incorporated NOS. The relationship between teachers’ improved understanding of NOS and their instructional NOS skills is also discussed.     

Mexican-Origin Youth's Cultural Orientations and Values: Do Older Sisters and Brothers Matter?

Family is an important context for cultural development, but little is known about the contributions of siblings. This study investigated whether older siblings’ cultural orientations and familism values predicted changes in younger siblings’ cultural orientations and familism values across 2 years and tested sibling characteristics and younger siblings’ modeling as moderators. Participants were 246 Mexican-origin younger (M_age = 17.72; SD = 0.57) and older siblings (M_age = 20.65; SD = 1.57) and their parents. Findings revealed that older siblings’ Anglo orientations and familism values interacted with younger siblings’ modeling: When younger siblings reported high modeling, older siblings’ Anglo orientations and values predicted increases in younger siblings’ Anglo orientations and values. Discussion highlights the importance of siblings in cultural socialization.     

A rapid screening measure for the identification of visuospatial learning disability in schools

Verbal and nonverbal forms of developmental learning disabilities have been reported. Whereas there are several instruments for evaluating children for the presence of verbal learning disabilities at school, no screening tool is available to identify children who have nonverbal learning disabilities. This study aimed at devising and validating a short screening questionnaire that can be used by teachers in primary schools to identify those children who need to be referred for clinical services because they have a visuospatial learning disability (VSLD). An 18-item Shortened Visuospatial Questionnaire (SVS) was derived from an earlier, longer version. Its validation procedure was twofold and was achieved by (a) verifying that children who had been identified with the SVS questionnaire as having a VSLD actually showed visuospatial deficits on psychometric evaluation and by (b) rating with the SVS a clinically identified population of children with VSLD. The results of the validation procedure showed that the SVS is a quick, reliable, and valid instrument that may be helpful in identifying children with VSLD in primary school.     

Ethnic‐Racial Identity and Friendships in Early Adolescence

The current study examined how adolescents' ethnic‐racial identity (ERI) informed the demographic diversity of their friendship network (Goal 1) and the extent of similarity between adolescents' and their friends' ERI (Goal 2). Participants were sixth and seventh grade students (N = 353; M_age = 11.88, SD = .73; 50% girls; 29% African American, 31% White, 13% Latino) in the Midwestern U.S. Results from longitudinal cross‐lagged models (Goal 1) indicated that having more diverse friendships at T2 was associated with greater T3 ERI exploration among all youth. In addition, boys who reported higher ERI resolution at T1 had more diverse friendships at T2. Furthermore, findings from longitudinal social network analyses (SNA; Goal 2) suggested that influence drove similarity between adolescents and their friends in ERI exploration and resolution.     

The impact of heating, lighting and people in re-using historical buildings: a case study

The impact of lighting, heating and people in re-using historical buildings are discussed for the case study concerning the ceremony room (i.e. the Giant Hall) of a mediaeval palace in Padova. The Hall has substantially four major problems for conservation: (i) the impact of heating, lighting and people when the room is used; (ii) many cracks on the oak panels of the coffered ceiling; (iii) the soiling by dust and soot particles deposited on the frescoes; (iv) the stained glass windows. A microclimate study was performed to know the impact of the environmental variables, and the use of the room, on the artworks preserved inside. The study has proved the impact of the lamps (both incandescence and compact fluorescent lamps) on the ceiling, the penetration of external air in the room, the heat and the moisture released by people, the impact of sunshine through windows and the scatter diagram of the daily cycles in temperature (T) and relative humidity (RH). During winter concerts, the strips of lead which are wrapped round the edge of the cut glass pieces in stained glass windows easily drop below the dew point and form condensation, starting corrosion. A discussion concerns the allowed variability, which should not exceed risk thresholds. A safe interval can be established within the area determined by the most frequent T and RH natural cycles. In fact, both of the cycles were compatible with the artefacts, or the artefacts were already damaged to allow the exceeding dimensional changes. Attention should be paid in the variability external to this area, especially approaching or exceeding a limit equal to twice the mode of the natural variability.