Nurturing ‘buds of development’: from outcomes to opportunities in early childhood practice

The current future-focused, outcomes driven early childhood policy climate presents a danger that early years pedagogy will lose sight of the ‘present’ child. Increasingly policy support for early childhood education is built around an emphasis on preparing children for school and positioning it as a key element in enhancing society through preparing future citizens to become productive members of society. The measurable outcomes discourse, in emphasising product, renders invisible the critical contribution of the processes of everyday practice to children’s development. To challenge and counteract the strong outcome discourse early years professionals must have confidence in their pedagogy. However, research suggests that those working in the early years may lack the language and strategies for supporting their educational practice. Using the bio-ecological model of development and drawing on the capabilities approach this paper calls for a shift in policy and pedagogical discourse from measuring competencies towards enhancing capabilities, from assessing outcomes towards providing rich, day-to-day learning opportunities. Such a shift in narrative could weaken the neo-liberal, outcome language of early childhood policy and refocus on supporting an early childhood pedagogy that would explicitly reflect current understanding of what is most beneficial to children’s development and well-being and provide a powerful potential for change.     

Comparative education and education sciences: Variations on an old theme

where he teaches comparative education. Until 1988, President of the Comparative Education Society in Europe (CESE). Member of the World Council of Comparative Education Societies and Vice-President of the Spanish Comparative Education Society. Publications include: Fundamentos de Educación Comparada (1982, 1986), Problemas mundiales de la educación (1982, 1986), Sistemas educativos de hoy (1984, 1987), Primary Education on the Threshold of the Twenty-first Century(published in Spanish and French; 1986 and 1987) and Pedagogía prospectiva (1989). He has published numerous articles in scholarly journals of various countries.     

Gender Earnings Gap among Young European Higher Education Graduates

This paper examines the composition of the gender earnings gap among young European higher education graduates, with a particular focus on competencies controlling for individual background and job characteristics. The results show that much of the female worker’s earnings advantage can be explained by job characteristics. With respect to the competencies required at current jobs, we find that foreign language proficiency and computer skills play a large role in explaining part of the female earnings advantage. Additionally, estimation results by each one of the countries included in the analysis show that gender earning gaps are disparate in size as well as in composition.     

Mathematics education and learning disabilities in Spain

In the first part of this article, we describe the basic objectives of the math curriculum in Spain as well as the basic contents, teacher resources, and obstacles perceived in mathematics instruction. Second, we briefly describe the concept of learning disabilities (LD) as they are currently defined in Spain. As stated in the recent educational reform, a student with LD is any student with special educational needs. The emphasis is placed on the educational resources that these students need in order to achieve the curricular objectives that correspond to their age group or grade. Third, we comment specifically on the educational services model and the evaluation and instructional procedures for students with math learning disabilities. Finally, we describe some lines of research that have appeared in the last few years in Spain that have led to the development of new evaluation and intervention procedures for students with LD in computation and problem solving.     

Cross‐language relationship between Spanish and English oral reading fluency among Spanish‐speaking English language learners in bilingual education classrooms

This study examined whether oral reading fluency in a child's first language (Spanish) as assessed by Curriculum‐Based Measurement (CBM) was related to oral reading fluency in a second language (English) and whether Spanish oral reading fluency probes administered in the fall were predictive of English oral reading fluency outcomes for spring of the same academic year. A total of 68 bilingual education students across grades 1 through 5 were assessed in Spanish and English during the fall, winter, and spring. Results showed that reading in Spanish and English across grades and time periods correlated moderately high with the exception of fourth grade. In addition, Spanish oral reading fluency at the beginning of the year significantly predicted English reading outcomes at the end of the year. These findings suggest that CBM can be a valuable tool for evaluating the relationship between oral reading fluency in both the first and second language. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 44: 795–806, 2007.     

Bilingual Vine making: problematizing oppressive discourses in a secondary Chicanx/Latinx studies course

ABSTRACT

This article presents the critical digital literacy practices of Latinx bilingual youth in the United States enrolled in a secondary ethnic studies course. Despite the expansion of digital tools in classrooms, empirical studies on the pedagogical affordances of such tools, and how they enhance youth’s critical digital literacies and understandings of themselves remain scarce. The author relies on participant observation, interviews, and the analysis of writing within a unit that incorporated students’ twenty-first century language and literacy practices via Vine’s social media platform to explore issues of power and privilege within an exacerbated sociopolitical climate. Findings reveal the ways in which students drew on a range of fluid linguistic and literate practices to make meaning of themselves, problematize oppressive dominant discourses, and negotiate more desired identities and literacies. Attention to young people’s translanguaging and multimodal codemeshing practices on social media platforms can harvest critical insight about what constitutes twenty-first century critical digital literacies.     

Social interaction learning strategies,motivation, first-year students’ experiences and permanence in university studies*

Applying a structural equations modelling methodology, the study analyses the relationships and effects of self-regulated learning (social interaction learning strategies and motivation) and first-year university experiences on permanence in the sophomore year. The participants are 239 first-year students in different Engineering degrees at a public university in south-eastern Spain. Two alternative structural models are evaluated, showing the superiority of the model where first-year university experiences completely mediate the effects of self-regulated learning on permanence. Motivation and social interaction learning strategies show direct effects on first-year university experiences, and first-year university experiences, in turn, show direct effects on permanence; additionally, both motivation and social interaction learning strategies have indirect effects on permanence via first-year university experiences. The noteworthy theoretical implications of the results are discussed, as well as the teaching methodology and support services provided to first-year university students.     

Influence of family and socio‐demographic variables on students with low academic achievement

In this study we compare the distribution of parental educational styles and the scores reported both by parents and students for various family characteristics (acceptance, control, involvement, and expectations) and socio‐demographic factors (socio‐economic status, family structure, number of children, and order of birth of the children) in a group of adolescents with normal achievement (n?=?105) and in a group which present low achievement (n?=?205). Likewise, we examine which variables best predict academic achievement in the two groups and of adolescents. The results indicate differences in the distribution of parental styles in the two groups for the majority of the variables analysed. We also observed a differential pattern in the prediction of academic success. In the group of adolescents with normal academic achievement, socio‐demographic variables better predict achievement; for students with low achievement, family variables play a more important role in predicting achievement.