Continental Drift: A Discussion Strategy for Secondary School

The paper describes a discussion strategy for secondary schoolstudents. The strategy focus the various dimensions of Science, especially the internal sociological and philosophicaldimensions. Students are expected to learn more about Science, namely the role of controversy for scientific progress.The article contains key questions for the students and guidelines for the teacher and also an analysis of the strategyin terms of the construction of Science and of learning processes.     

La dictée et la rédaction de contes entre enfants du même age

In the pedagogical experiment reported below, carried out in a Kindergarden class with children aged between 5 and 6, the children themselves carried out reciprocal dictation and composing of tales. Some classroom observations show the conditions under which this task has been carried out. The following aspects have been analysed in connection whith collective reading, dictation and self-correction.     

Performance management and diversity in higher education: an introduction

Tertiary Education and Management -     

Completely illiterate adults can learn to decode in 3 months

The purpose of this case series was to explore whether adults who did not have the opportunity to acquire reading skills during childhood are able to do so rapidly if trained with an adequate literacy program. After 14 weeks of training with a new, optimized, literacy course based on cognitive research, six out of eight participants became able to read words they had never encountered, hence demonstrating that they were definitely engaged in decoding processes that allow autonomous reading. Moreover, they showed enhanced phonemic sensitivity and phonological memory. The latter finding implies that functional changes can take place rapidly outside the reading domain even when reading is acquired in adulthood. Thus, there is no major plasticity impediment preventing rapid eradication of illiteracy in adults.     

Practical Work in Science Education: Study of Different Contexts of Pedagogic Practice

Research in Science Education - The study investigates differentiated teaching practices of practical work in distinct social contexts and with different experienced teachers, at the level of the...     

The global politics of education: Brazil and the World Bank

This paper questions the cultural neutrality of modernizationand globalization policies that are imposed by major internationalmonetary agencies. The authors propose that the structuraladjustment policies imposed by the World Bank and InternationalMonetary Fund are predominantly guided by the concept of developmentalassociation. Guided by this concept, the dominant countries andagencies perceive all developing countries to be merely culturalvariations of the same problem that assumes all countries requirethe same solutions. Through an analysis of the failures of WorldBank programs in Brazil and other developing countries, the authorsargue for greater recognition of the problems inherent in imposingcosmopolitan and global solutions on local contexts. The authorsconclude that globalized solutions for local contexts areinappropriate when they are formulated out of ignorance of thelocal culture and context.     

The Distant Other

This study analyses the representation of immigrants in four Spanish national newspapers, El País, El Mundo, La Razón and ABC, between 1 June 2013 and 31 June 2014. Seven days per month were randomly selected, each corresponding to a different day of the week; 91 editions of each paper, 364 in total, were analysed. Of the 289 items relating to immigrants, 179 in which one or more photographs appeared in addition to text were chosen for analysis. Among the main results, two stand out: first, immigrants do not usually have an opportunity to communicate directly with readers and, secondly, the treatment of news items on immigration by the four Spanish newspapers is variable.     

The Politics of Playing Along: Radio and Regulation in Democratic Europe

The loss of localism has been a common trend in most radio markets in Europe and the United States. Deregulation of ownership led to a concentration phenomenon that has affected local radios in several western democracies. New forms of regulation have been considered as possible ways to stop the erosion of localism by applying rules to markets in the defense of diversity, pluralism, and the local dimension. This article analyses the local radio market in Portugal, by assessing the changes in the legislation and by examining the regulatory action that can, according to its remit, act preventively to avoid market forces to harm these principles.     

An analysis of Grade 11 learners’ levels of understanding of functions in terms of APOS theory

This article reports on a study of six Grade 11 learners’ levels of understanding of concepts related to the function definition and representation. Task-based clinical interviews were used to elicit the learners’ interpretations and reasoning when working with these function-related concepts. Indicators for Action–Process–Object–Schema (APOS) theory conception levels were formulated and used to categorise learners’ written and interview responses into conception levels of understanding of the function concept. According to the South African Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) curriculum, Grade 11 learners are expected to be operating at the object and schema levels after instruction. however, the results indicated that learners were operating at the action and process levels as their understanding was characterised by vague definitions of function-related concepts and memorisation of procedures for translating between symbolic and graphical representations.