Matching Society Values: Students’ views of biotechnology

The rapid growth of biotechnology knowledge during the past decades has made it necessary to rethink the contents of the school curriculum and has provoked a consideration of the ethical and social issues related to the use of biotechnological applications. With the financial assistance of the European Union, the European Initiative for Biotechnology Education was set up to develop units for use in the member the countries, organize the translations of these between the many languages involved, organize in‐service courses for teachers, implement the materials in schools, as well as carrying out related research.

This paper gives some findings of Spanish researchers when identifying and exploring the different cultural contexts in which biotechnology teaching and learning is embedded, being mainly concerned with the emerging attitudes and values of the students regarding such issues. After gathering information through case studies during the implementation phase, a questionnaire was developed in an interactive way by teachers and researchers in various stages, based on what students said.

The results identify four main values: the “principle of the natural”, the “principle of the welfare”, the “principle of the technological solution” and the “principle of the individual decisions”. Their interaction and dichotomy are discussed, as well as the problems teachers face when having to deal with topics beyond those immediately related to science     

Mexican parents’ and teachers’ literacy perspectives and practices: construction of cultural capital

This article examines the relationships among the literacy practices engaged in by first-grade children and parents at home and the ways in which these practices are communicated, shaped, and fostered by teachers and administrators in two different sociocultural environments in urban Mexico. The differences observed between the home literacy experiences of children in a working-class and a middle-class community included transgenerational communication of assumptions regarding literacy and schooling, as well as attitudes associated with the parents’ own school experiences. Class-based expectations on the part of teachers not only shaped interactions with parents, but were also reflected in the way the national curriculum was delivered, with a greater emphasis on rote skills and traditional reading instruction in the working-class community. The authors argue that the school plays a role in the co-production of cultural capital in the home through its shaping of some of the literacy practices that children and families undertake.     

Evaluación de la percepción visual en el jardín de infancia

RESUMEN

Se presenta una batería de evaluación de la percepción visual en la edad preescolar, momento clave para subsanar cualquier trastorno y valorar sus posibles incidencias en el aprendizaje de la lectoescritura. Basándose en los planteamientos con los que Frostig elaboró su test de desarrollo de la percepción visual se intentan evaluar las siguientes funciones: reconocimiento de la forma, distinción figura-fondo, orientación de un objeto en relación con el observador, transposición o reproducción de ángulos y líneas, y coordinación visomotora. A la vista de los resultados obtenidos en la aplicación de este test en una población escolar de 184 niños de párvulos y 93 del primer curso de EGB, se elaboran unos cuadros y gráficos de referencia y se describe el nivel de eficiencia y el rendimiento mínimo exigible en cada grupo de edad.     

Representación espacial en los niños ciegos: una investigación sobre las principales variables que la determinan y los procedimientos de objetivación más adecuados

Resumen

El objetivo fundamental de este trabajo es el estudio conjunto de los principales factores que determinan el conocimiento y la representación del entorno en los invidentes, haciendo especial énfasis en las relaciones entre desarrollo y aprendizaje. El marco teórico se toma de la psicologia ambiental y de la psicología evolutiva del conocimiento espacial. El procedimiento consiste en el aprendizaje de un entorno desconocido, en un máximo de cuatro sesiones. El conocimiento espacial se evalúa mediante tres tipos de técnicas. Los resultados no muestran, en términos generales, grandes diferencias entre ciegos de nacimiento y ciegos tardíos, ni tampoco entre el espacio pequeño y el grande. Las diferencias más significativas son las debidas a la edad de los sujetos, y el aprendizaje también se revela como factor importante, aunque en nuestro diseño parezca estar subordinado al desarrollo. La investigaáón tiene implicaciones claras para la instrucción de la orientación, movilidad y conocimiento del entorno en los invidentes.     

La percepción visual y su relación con la lectura: datos evolutivos a través del Reversal Test

Resumen

Con el trabajo aquí presentado, nos proponíamos reducir el número de items perceptivos del Reversal Test (RO), 2.5 veces, sin perder sustancialmente información.

Se analizan también: a) La evolución de la variable perceptiva, b) Las diferencias perceptivas debidas al sexo, que no son significativa, c) Las diferencias por edad, dentro del mismo año natural: niños «jóvenes», niños «viejos», yd) Las relaciones existentes entre la variable perceptiva y la lectura, que van perdiendo intensidad a lo largo de los 6 años analizados.     

Clase social y situación dentro de la fratria: Interacción y efectos sobre el desarrollo del individuo

Resumen

En este estudio se analiza la influencia de la clase social, el número de hermanos y el orden de nacimiento sobre una serie de variables cognitivas y de rendimiento escolar.

Se ha realizado la investigación sobre una muestra de 507 alumnos de 1° de E.G.B., pertenecientes a los Centros Públicos de Valladolid y provincia. Las variables de rendimiento escolar se evaluaron a través de la opinión del profesor. La valoración, en cambio, de las cognitivas se realizó por medio de pruebas estandarizadas. Dentro de los efectos principales, y dejando aparte las diferencias marcadas por el medio social, obviamente esperadas, destacamos una fuerte influencia del orden de nacimiento sobre prácticamente todas las variables dependientes. Su interacción con la variable socio cultural es el resultado más destacable del presente trabajo. Dedujimos como hipótesis explicativa las diferentes pautas culturales que propician o no la estabilidad de los patrones educativos familiares.     

Variables involved in personal, social and school adjustment in a sample of preschool-aged children from different cultural backgrounds

The continuing incorporation of immigrant populations into the Spanish educational system poses an important challenge in that all participants must cooperate toward creating the best possible adaptation process at the academic level as well as on the personal and social levels. A number of different factors appear to influence children’s adjustment during the preschool stage, and these factors are especially relevant since many studies have shown that this is a key period for the prevention of future difficulties. The present study examines the variables involved in the adaptation of a group of preschool-aged children from different cultural backgrounds in Spain. The results indicate that preschoolers, regardless of their background, have similar performance and learning potential, with language proficiency being the factor that most clearly affects the other variables investigated. It was also found that children’s attitudes toward learning were related to the presence of behavioral difficulties and with the quality and type of parental child-rearing practices. These practices appear to be related to a number of difficulties immigrant children may experience on personal and social levels.     

Internet,Multimedia and Virtual Laboratories in a 'Third World' Environment

Electronic education faces similar difficulties in low-budget institutions throughout the world (many of them in common with developed nations), including mainly rejection or disinterest from staff and students, insufficient funds, outdated hardware, incompatible software and poor Internet access. Over the past five years, with low budgets and considerable limitations in the equipment available, the Universidad Estatal a Distancia in Costa Rica has produced multimedia courses and materials for use on the Internet, as well as designing virtual laboratories that can be run on cheap computers. The authors recount their experiences in the hope that these will prove useful to others. They explain how simultaneous production of traditional materials (mainly printed textbooks) and online courses, together with simple automatic evaluation and 'outsourcing', reduce costs significantly. They conclude that HTML and JAVA are currently the choice computer languages to reach the greatest number of users without need of a specific computing platform, powerful computers or expensive software.     

Deleuze,action research and rhizomatic growth

Deleuze and his colleagues, particularly Guattari, have had a profound impact on a number of fields of study. The authors argue that their work offers a range of images to help think about and write action research, a way that acknowledges and celebrates the complexities of the sites of action. The article has a divided structure, coherent with the style of Deleuze & Guattari. The authors present some Deleuzian ideas, particularly the concept of rhizomatic growth, and show how they might profitably be used to analyse and write accounts of action research, reflecting the multiplicities of practice, in this case within education. They have shown the potentialities of the ‘rhizome’ as a way to rethink the field of action research, imagining a new epistemology (in which the concepts work, rather than represent) and how the rhizome demands experimental forms of writing ourselves in action research. They show a cartography (of smooth and striated space) that is required to think rhizomatically about action research.