Against the current: A grounded theory study on the estrangement experiences of a select group of Filipino gay older persons

According to Healthy People (2011), in order to understand the health concerns of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT), the oppression and discrimination that they have faced must be scrutinized. Among the many issues they face, their estrangement experiences are one of the most understudied. However, little is known about how it is experienced by the gay elderly population, hence, this investigation. This grounded theory purports to describe the process by which estrangement is experienced among the Filipino gay older adults. Strauss and Corbin’s Grounded Theory (1990) design was utilized. A total of 10 gay older persons were purposively chosen to participate in semi-structured interviews. Field texts were subjected to thematic analysis involving open, axial, and selective coding. The study generated The Sailing Model of Estrangement. Remarkably, three phases relative to estrangement emerged, namely: sequestering, striving, and surviving. Primarily, the sequestering phase involves the gay persons’ need to express self, search for acceptance, and its subsequent reactions. The striving phase typifies the struggle in dealing with estrangement leading to either feelings of depression, remorse and shame or positivity, hopefulness, and motivation. Finally, in the surviving phase, gay persons may either feel contented and fulfilled or sad, lonely, and remorseful as they acquiesce aging with estrangement. Findings of the study offer an understanding of how Filipino gay older adults employ coping strategies in response to estrangement.     

Search for Symbol Sense Behavior: Students in Upper Secondary Education Solving Algebraic Physics Problems

Research in Science Education - Students in upper secondary education encounter difficulties in applying mathematics in physics. To improve our understanding of these difficulties, we examined...     

Disentangling the relationship between working memory and language: The roles of short-term storage and cognitive control

This study investigates the relationship between working memory and language in young children growing up in a multilingual environment. The aim is to explore whether mechanisms of short-term storage and cognitive control hold similar relations to emerging language skills and to investigate if potential links are mediated by related cognitive abilities. A sample of 119 Luxembourgish 6-year-olds completed several assessments of working memory (complex and simple span), native and foreign vocabulary, syntax, reading, rhyme awareness, and fluid intelligence. Results showed that short-term storage and cognitive control manifested differential links with developing language abilities: Whereas verbal short-term storage was specifically linked to vocabulary; cognitive control manifested unique and robust links with syntax and early reading development. The study suggests that in young children the working memory system is composed of separate but interacting components corresponding to short-term storage and cognitive control that can be distinguished by the roles they play in supporting language acquisition.     

Facilitating Understanding of Movements in Dynamic Visualizations: an Embodied Perspective

Learners studying mechanical or technical processes via dynamic visualizations often fail to build an accurate mental representation of the system’s movements. Based on embodied theories of cognition assuming that action, perception, and cognition are closely intertwined, this paper proposes that the learning effectiveness of dynamic visualizations could be enhanced by grounding the movements of the presentation in people’s own bodily experiences during learning. We discuss recent research on embodied cognition and provide specific strategies for how the body can be used to ground movements during the learning process: (1) making or observing gestures, (2) manipulating and interacting with objects, (3) using body metaphors, and (4) using eye movements as retrieval cues. Implications for the design of dynamic visualizations as well as directions for future research are presented.     

Zivilgesellschaftliche Beteiligung in der Altersspanne von 13 und 32?Jahren �C Entwicklung, Bedingungsfaktoren, Kontexte

Being active in civic organizations can be expressed in multifarious forms of participation and commitment. With regard to individuals, the learning context it provides fosters personal development, sympathy for other perspectives, and social competencies in general and is, thus, particularly meaningful for young people in their second and third decades. With regard to organizations, civic participation strengthens the integration and dynamic adaptation of institutions to changing environments and, on a macro-level, raises social cohesion. The contexts of participation are various: not only in educational institutions and the world of work, but also in clubs, organizations and less formal groups, which are involved in social and political issues. Socio-structural and motivational factors, but also belonging to social networks determine the involvement in such forms of civic participation. Additionally, there is evidence of a mutual reinforcement of participation in different contexts. This is shown by the results of the DJI-Survey AID:A 2009.     

Vicarious learning from dialogue and discourse

This study examined learning in the domain of sentence parsing and syntax treediagram construction. The aim of the study was to assess whether subjects could learn vicariously from recordings of interactions between a previous student and a tutor.Four intervention conditions and a control condition were compared. Subjects in a dialogue group (DL) read printed tutorial notes and subsequently vicariously viewed dynamic (animated) recordings of tree diagrams being constructed by a previous student in the presence of a tutor.The discourse (DI) condition was similar except that subjects viewed recordings of tree diagrams being constructed by a tutor who concurrently verbalised instructional discourse.In a third condition (DO), subjects viewed tree-diagram construction animation clips which were not annotated with either dialogue or discourse. In a linear text (LT) condition, subjects were given only printed tutorial notes. A control (CO) condition involved pre and post testing without any intervention.Results indicated that the dialogue condition was as effective as the discourse condition. This provides support for contention that re-usable dialogue is a useful resource for the vicarious learner. Another finding was that un-annotated animated diagrams were surprisingly effective. Several reasons for their effectiveness are suggested from the literature on instructional animations.     

Predictors of Delinquent Behaviors Among Latino Youth

This study used an ecological framework to examine predictors of delinquent behaviors among 91 sixth-grade Latino youth. Both proximal and distal contextual factors were assessed to determine their impact on various forms of delinquency, such as violent behaviors, violent thoughts, substance abuse, and general delinquency (e.g., skipping school). Attitudes toward school, mobility (number of moves to new schools and neighborhoods), and exposure to community violence were distal variables, whereas attachment to parents and attachment to peers were considered more proximal variables. Environmental experiences or exposure to distressing community violence was the strongest predictor of delinquent outcomes. The results were discussed in terms of school officials' developing linkages with the community to promote safe environments for youth.     

Role strain,engagement and academic achievement in early adolescence

The present study was designed to investigate the relationships between role strains following the transition to secondary school and academic achievement. Academic engagement was hypothesized to mediate between role strain and achievement. The sample consisted of 749 students in their first year of secondary school. Four types of role strain were investigated: parent, teacher, school and peer. Parent and teacher role strains appeared to be negatively associated with academic achievement, as mediated through academic engagement. Parent and school role strain were directly and negatively associated with achievement. Results are discussed in the light of parenting practices and the developmental mismatch hypothesis.     

Metaphors we’re colonised by? The case of data-driven educational technologies in Brazil

ABSTRACT

This article discusses issues concerning the spread of data-driven educational technologies in Brazil. Here, as elsewhere, educational technology continues to be promoted optimistically as the bearer of a panacea for historically-rooted social problems. Whilst some of these technologies have indeed contributed to important widening-participation programmes in the last two decades, widespread advocacy of technological ‘solutionism’, reflected in gradually stronger policy demands for efficiencies to be improved through ‘innovation’, has supported a relentless marketisation of the country’s educational systems. As transnational corporations position themselves to take control of key areas of these systems, threatening to restructure the whole sector, data-driven educational technologies provide the latest example in a series of ‘new’ ideas offered in an ever-expanding market. Based on the notion of ‘conceptual metaphors’, which encapsulate specific ways of perceiving, thinking and relating with the world, this article examines key metaphors underpinning discourses surrounding data-driven educational technologies in Brazil. In particular, the article analyses ways in which these specific metaphors may be promoting perspectives that ignore difference and obscure broader questions concerning education, thus contributing to the reproduction of previously existing problems and supporting new forms of colonisation.