Situating Cognition and Crossing Borders: Resisting the Hegemony of Mediated Education

Advances in technology coupled with a changing social, political and economic climate is seeing a proliferation in the growth of mediated education. Recognizing that mediated education and the application of various technologies in mediated education is constructed from a particular cultural perspective, this paper proposes to challenge this perspective, arguing that we need to develop heuristic frameworks that help us think of meeting the needs of a culturally diversified population. Using the concept of communities of practice as an analytical lens it begins by making explicit the origins of mediated education and the implications this has had for culturally marginalized peoples. Arguing that mediated education, as it is constructed, is a form of neo-colonialism, it proposes to examine mediated education within the context Giroux's concept of border crossings. Implications for application are then explored.     

Student Plagiarism in Universities: What are we Doing About it?

Student plagiarism subverts the system of course evaluation, debases qualifications and offends against academic integrity. Research findings from the U.S.A. and the U.K. indicate the widespread nature of student plagiarism in universities. Opportunities for plagiarism among university students appear to be on the increase but there is evidence to suggest that official policies, procedures and responses on the part of some universities and academic staff may be inconsistent and inequitable. Universities need to be more proactive in: developing strategies to raise student awareness of the unacceptability of student plagiarism; developing and enforcing policies aimed at controlling student plagiarism; and setting up programmes to promote academic integrity. A continuum consisting of seven plagiarism behaviours linked to a suggested set of procedures and penalties can be used by academic staff to classify instances of plagiarism and deal with individual cases in a fairer, more consistent manner.     

The inherent impact of nonpromoted students on reading scores in a big city elementary school

Using data from a single urban elementary school, it is argued that (1) retaining low achieving students affects standardized reading scores in the subsequent year, and (2) that a failure to identify spurious gains can divert the change process in nonproductive or even dysfunctional directions.