Inner‐city femininities and education: ‘race’, class,gender and schooling in young women’s lives

This paper considers how urban, ethnically diverse working class girls’ constructions of femininities mediate and shape their dis/engagement with education and schooling. We discuss how girls generated a sense of identity value/worth through practices such as ‘speaking my mind’—which prioritized notions of agency and visibility and resisted the symbolic violences associated with living social inequality. However, we argue that this strategy was inherently paradoxical because it countered dominant discourses of the normative (middle class) female pupil and hence resulted in drawing girls into conflict with schools—a position that many girls came to ‘regret’. We illustrate how the girls’ attempts at resistance and transgression were constrained by gender‐ and class‐based discourses around moral worth, as girls struggled to be recognized as ‘good underneath’ and attempted to ‘change’ over the course of the project and their final year/s of schooling (to ‘become good’). This process, we suggest, illustrates the implication of reflexivity in the production of gendered and classed identities and inequalities, and illuminates how an internalization of multiple discourses of authority and surveillance of the self is integral to the production of the working class female educational subject.     

Protégé Perceptions of High Mentorship Quality Depend on Shared Values More Than on Demographic Match

Mentoring, particularly same-gender and same-race mentoring, is increasingly seen as a powerful method to attract and retain more women and racial minorities into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and careers. This study examines elements of a mentoring dyad relationship (i.e., demographic and perceived similarity of values) that influenced the perceived quality of mentorship, as well as the effect of mentorship on STEM career commitment. A national sample of African American undergraduates majoring in STEM disciplines were surveyed in their senior year. Overall, perceived similarity, rather than demographic similarity of values, was the most important factor associated with protégé perceptions of high-quality mentorship, which in turn was associated with higher commitment to STEM careers. We discuss the implications for mentoring underrepresented students and broadening participation in STEM.     

Feedback-seeking behavior in second language writing: motivational mechanisms

Focused on the effects of different type of feedback on learners’ written products, research on written corrective feedback (WCF) has cast second language writers as passive recipients rather than proactive agents in the feedback process. Revisiting the notion of WCF, this study introduces the notion of feedback-seeking behavior (Ashford & Cummings, 1983) to the field of second language writing and examines its motivational mechanisms using Dweck’s (1999) theory of mindsets and an overarching cost-value analysis framework (e.g., Ashford & Cummings, 1983; Anseel et al., 2015). Questionnaire data were collected from 128 foreign language writers from a major public university in the United States. Multiple regression and mediation analyses showed that a growth language mindset predicted the value of feedback, which, in turn, was a strong predictor of both feedback monitoring and feedback inquiry. A fixed language mindset, on the other hand, predicted the cost of feedback seeking, which, in turn, negatively predicted feedback monitoring. The findings offer new venues for second language writing research and pedagogy.

     

Physical activity and music to support pre-school children’s mathematics learning

In order to give all children equal opportunities in school, methods to prevent early differences are needed. The overall aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of two structured teaching methods: Math in Action, characterised by physical activity and music, and common numerical activities. Children (28 girls, 25 boys) were assigned to 1 of the 2 conditions during a period of 3 weeks (2 times a week for a 30-minute session). The results show that children who learn mathematics in an environment characterised by physical activity and music develop their mathematical abilities significantly more than children who learn mathematics through common number activities. We have also shown that children with different motor skill abilities benefit from learning mathematics in an environment characterised by physical activity and music.     

Experience-Driven Semantic Differentiation: Effects of a Naturalistic Experience on Within- and Across-Domain Differentiation in Children

Organized semantic networks reflecting distinctions within and across domains of knowledge are critical for higher-level cognition. Thus, understanding how semantic structure changes with experience is a fundamental question in developmental science. This study probed changes in semantic structure in 4–6 year-old children (N = 29) as a result of participating in an enrichment program at a local botanical garden. This study presents the first direct evidence that (a) the accumulation of experience with items in a domain promoted increases in both within- and across-domain semantic differentiation, and that (b) this experience-driven semantic differentiation generalized to nonexperienced items. These findings have implications for understanding the role of experience in building semantic networks, and for conceptualizing the contribution of enrichment experiences to academic success.     

Understanding higher education access: Inequalities and early learning in low and lower-middle-income countries

Globally, access to higher education has increased, but inequalities by socio-economic background remain. This article explores the relationship between early schooling opportunities (and learning) and progression into higher education in four low and middle-income countries. We analyse data from the Young Lives longitudinal study, following cohorts of young people from age 5 to 22 in four country settings: Ethiopia, Peru, Vietnam and India. We reveal wide variability in higher education participation between the four countries, with a common pattern of a very strong association between early learning and later higher education participation, even after allowing for a range of demographic characteristics. Whilst early learning is important in predicting later higher education participation, we also find that significant barriers to higher education participation remain for low socio-economic status groups, even if they initially show good levels of learning. We track the trajectories of children who have initial good levels of learning, and hence arguably the potential to progress to higher education, and assess the extent to which socio-economic background plays a mediating role in these trajectories. Pupils with initially good levels of learning at primary school age, but who are from poor backgrounds, fall back in terms of their relative attainment during secondary schooling years. This implies that socio-economic status continues to be a barrier to educational attainment throughout these children’s lives. We discuss the implications of these findings for policy initiatives aimed at narrowing inequalities in higher education access in poorer countries.     

Multiplicities in Motion: A Turn to Transliteracies

ABSTRACT

In an effort to draw attention to the mobile dimensions of meaning making, this article proposes a pedagogy of transliteracies, supporting educators and learners in critically reflecting on how people, media, and things are connected across space and time. Expanding on the New London Group’s (1996) multiliteracies vision of communicative and ideological multiplicities, we articulate the importance of moving from multi- to trans- to highlight the mobile and emergent aspects of meaning making. We work through a classroom example to consider the contours of literacies and learning practices for making meaning on the move. We argue that in a mobile and digitally networked world, a pedagogy of transliteracies draws much needed attention to people and things connecting, relating, and intersecting, and also to how these connections, relations, and intersections occur in unequal ways that support some learners and disenfranchise others.     

原野中的百合

I’m a novelist.My work is humannature.Real life is all I know.Don't everconfuse the two, your life and yourwork.You will walk out of here this af-ternoon with only one thing that no oneelse has.There will be hundreds of peopleout there with your same degree;therewill be thousands of people doing whatyou want to do for a living.But you willbe the only person alive who has sole     

Gender and Performance in Mathematical Tasks: Does the Context Make a Difference?

This study investigates how the context of mathematical tasks affects the performance of young children (ages 5–11). Subjects were 523 children from age 5 to 11. Three contexts of mathematical tasks (stereotypically boys’ contexts, stereotypically girls’ contexts and neutral contexts) are examined in three age groups (young, medium, and old). Boys’ and girls’ mean scores were compared for each age group in each of the three contexts. The data show that girls’ performance is affected by the context of the task while boys’ performance is not. The comparison between boys and girls in the three different contexts showed that in neutral contexts, the scores of boys and girls are similar. In (stereotypically) boys’ contexts, however, boys score significantly higher than girls. In (stereotypically) girls’ contexts, a significant interaction is found between age and gender, showing that the way girls are affected by such contexts depends on their age. The implications of these findings for gender-fair mathematics learning are discussed.     

What is Intended,What is Realized,and What is Learned? Teaching and Learning Biology in the Primary School Classroom

Within the framework of variation theory, 7- to 12-year-old students’ ways of understanding cellular respiration and photosynthesis were investigated against the background of their teachers’ teaching. Eighteen students were selected by the teachers and interviewed by the researcher. Lessons were observed and video recorded, and stimulated-recall interviews with the teachers were conducted. The students’ understanding of the function of oxygen and sugar in plants was described in four categories. The study concludes that young students can develop complex understanding if opportunities to learn are presented. The opportunities depended mainly on the language used by the teachers, such as metaphors, pointing out critical aspects of the object of learning. The study has implications for the relationship between teachers’ competence and students’ learning.