Socio-educational work with football fans in Germany: principles,practice and conflicts

The paper explores socio-educational fan work in Germany, focusing on the part played by fan projects in preventing football-related violence. It supplies an overview of the German model of repression and prevention since its beginnings in the 1990s. The work of fan projects in Germany is institutionalized under German social law. The article outlines the theoretical concepts of socio-educational work on which the fan projects are based and shows that fan projects play an important role in mediating the conflict interactions between clubs, fans and police. Insights into difficulties and conflicts are debated. Although fan projects are very successful, a systematic evaluation is lacking. Advantages, pitfalls and future prospects are discussed.     

Datenbank-Caching - Eine systematische Analyse m?glicher Verfahren

Zusammenfassung. Caching ist ein bewährtes Mittel, um die Skalier- und Verfügbarkeit von Systemen zu steigern sowie die Latenzzeit für Benutzeranforderungen zu verkürzen. Im Gegensatz zum Web-Caching, bei dem einzelne Web-Objekte irgendwo längs ihres Aufrufpfades in der Proxy-Kette vorgehalten werden, setzt Datenbank-Caching ausgewachsene Datenbanksysteme als Caches ein, um dort Satzmengen entfernter Datenbanken möglichst adaptiv verwalten und Anfragen darauf auswerten zu können. Verfahren dazu reichen von separat verwalteten materialisierten Sichten über überlappende, aber replikationsfrei gespeicherte Sichten bis hin zu Cache-Groups, in denen parametrisierte Cache-Constraints den Cache-Inhalt spezifizieren. Wir untersuchen anschaulich die verschiedenen Ansätze und ermitteln daraus eine Klassifikation, die den Lösungsraum zu enthüllen hilft. Im Mittelpunkt steht das Konzept der Prädikatsvollständigkeit: Ein Datenbank-Cache verwaltet vollständige Extensionen von Prädikaten, was ihm ermöglicht, Schlüsse über beantwortbare Anfragen zu ziehen.Eingegangen am 14. Januar 2004, Angenommen am 13. Februar 2004, CR Subject Classification: C.2.4, D.4.4, H.2.4, H.2.8     

Student activism in Greece: A historical and empirical analysis

This article is concerned with the historical origins of student activism in Greece and an analysis of present activism in nine institutions of post-secondary education. The empirical analysis was based on a sample of nearly 1500 students and revealed that activism mainly relates to the regional origin of the student. The findings are used to make some speculations on the likely future course of student activity.     

A framework to foster problem-solving in STEM and computing education

ABSTRACT

Background: Recent developments in STEM and computer science education put a strong emphasis on twenty-first-century skills, such as solving authentic problems. These skills typically transcend single disciplines. Thus, problem-solving must be seen as a multidisciplinary challenge, and the corresponding practices and processes need to be described using an integrated framework.

Purpose: We present a fine-grained, integrated, and interdisciplinary framework of problem-solving for education in STEM and computer science by cumulatively including ways of problem-solving from all of these domains. Thus, the framework serves as a tool box with a variety of options that are described by steps and processes for students to choose from. The framework can be used to develop competences in problem-solving.

Sources of evidence: The framework was developed on the basis of a literature review. We included all prominent ways of domain-specific problem-solving in STEM and computer science, consisting mainly of empirically orientated approaches, such as inquiry in science, and solely theory-orientated approaches, such as proofs in mathematics.

Main argument: Since there is an increasing demand for integrated STEM and computer science education when working on natural phenomena and authentic problems, a problem-solving framework exclusively covering the natural sciences or other single domains falls short.

Conclusions: Our framework can support both practice and research by providing a common background that relates the ways, steps, processes, and activities of problem-solving in the different domains to one single common reference. In doing so, it can support teachers in explaining the multiple ways in which science problems can be solved and in constructing problems that reflect these numerous ways. STEM and computer science educational research can use the framework to develop competences of problem-solving at a fine-grained level, to construct corresponding assessment tools, and to investigate under what conditions learning progressions can be achieved.     

Analysing support in inclusive education systems – a comparison of inclusive school development in Iceland and Canada since the 1980s focusing on policy and in-school support

ABSTRACT

This paper compares the systems of support in inclusive education in Canadian and Icelandic schools. The rationale for comparing these two support systems is grounded in the idea that they were developed in two countries with a long tradition of inclusive school development. They shifted the responsibility and the necessity of support for all learners towards the regular school, as it is embedded in the Salamanca Statement. The comparison is based on research findings from two comprehensive qualitative studies on inclusive education (Óskarsdóttir 2017. “Constructing Support as Inclusive Practice: A Self-Study.” Doctoral Thesis University of Iceland, Reykjavík; Koepfer 2013. Inclusion in Canada. Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt) and is focused on the role of support as an integral part of inclusive practices. A system of support can be considered an inevitable pillar of inclusive education, in order to remove barriers, to enable participation in educational and social activities and to ensure equitable access to learning. Although the organisation and implementation of support is contextualised and bound in different historical and political frameworks, this international comparison shows that both countries – with all its ambivalences and conflictual settings – emphasise a human-rights based understanding of inclusion. They on a cultural transformation process of schools to implement support for all pupils.     

Quality of instruction and achievement outcomes

This chapter reviews the fundamental assumptions, main results, and major problems of research on instructional quality and cognitive student outcomes. Although considerable progress has been made in this field of research, the present theoretical state, encompassing mostly simple process-product relations, is far from satisfactory. Findings from our own research demonstrate that it is both necessary and fruitful to expand the simple process-product paradigm by including cumulative, interactive, compensatory, and contextual effects.     

A pilot study on the effectiveness and acceptance of an educational game for teaching programming concepts to primary school students

Educational games are increasingly used in informal and formal educational settings for promoting active learning and gaining students’ interest in cognitively demanding subjects, such as programming. However, empirical studies that investigate the true impact of educational games on teaching and learning programming, especially to small aged students, are limited. This article presents the results of a pilot study that utilized the educational game Run Marco for teaching basic programming concepts to primary school students. Students’ performance was studied through specially designed worksheets, while their acceptance of the intervention was evaluated through a questionnaire that was based on the principles of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The results of the pilot study showed that the educational game supported students in comprehending basic programming concepts, while the results regarding the acceptance of its usage in the learning process were quite positive. However, the game did not succeed in raising students’ interest as expected and further research is necessary in order to study the reasons for this fact and make informed choices on designing and utilizing such games.     

Radical Constructivism, and the Sin of Relativism

The epistemology of relativism that is featured by the theory of radical constructivism is addressed. In particular, I examine several objections, all based on this epistemic position of relativism, that are often raised by critics of the theory: the charge of reality denial (which, it is often claimed, must lead ultimately to the epistemically problematic position of solipsism), the assertion of self-referential contradiction (a theory that rejects the notion of truth cannot itself claim to be true), and the accusation that the theory must lead to a position of ethical indifference. It is demonstrated that these objections do not hold: they arise, to a large extent, from the failure to distinguish properly between different knowledge domains – specifically, between the notions of cognitive and non-cognitive knowledge. Some concrete examples, specifically pertaining to the conflict between natural science and creationism, are addressed; and their relevance for science education is discussed.