Inequality in language achievement growth? An investigation into the impact of pupil socio‐ethnic background and school socio‐ethnic composition

This paper investigates how pupils' growth trajectories in three language domains (reading fluency, spelling, and reading comprehension) are related to their own socioeconomic and ethnic background and to the socioeconomic and ethnic composition of their primary school. Using multilevel piecewise growth curve analysis, the growth trajectories of approximately 5000 pupils from 170 primary schools were estimated. The results indicate that a pupil's socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds have the largest impact on achievement and growth in reading comprehension and the smallest impact on reading fluency. Furthermore, school ethnic composition—but not socioeconomic composition—was related to pupils' achievement in all three language domains at the first measurement occasion, though none of the types of school composition was related to growth. The research findings therefore imply that to combat the deficits in language proficiency often found in ethnic minority pupils, priority should be given to investments in individual intervention programmes over policy plans to desegregate schools. Moreover, our study identifies the specific points in time during primary school at which intervention programmes are needed the most.     

The development of referential communication: Improving message accuracy by coordinating private speech with peer questioning

In this study, we examine the development of referential communicative regulation, incorporating the Vygotskian notion of private speech. From this perspective, private speech may serve a regulatory role when the child speaker is focused on what to say when speaking to others. In a longitudinal study carried out with 10 pairs of children with a mean age of 4.5, 6.5, and 8.5 years, we analyzed the relationship between the capacity of the child in the speaker role to modify messages, increasing their informative quality, the presence of private speech embedded in the messages, and the emergence of prior questions by the child in the listener role aimed at clarifying some aspect of the message. We found that the number of modified messages, the mean frequency of private speech in the messages, and the number of peer's questions all increase with age. Only in the case of the modified messages by the speaker did we find a triple interaction among age, use of private speech, and the presence of peer's questions. At 8.5 years, the presence of peer's questions and subsequent use of private speech appeared together for the majority of the modified messages. This was not the case at the ages 4.5 or 6.5. In line with Vygotsky's theses, private speech would play an important role to allow communicators to reflect on the quality of their communicative utterances, and to modify and improve them accordingly. In this process, the capacity to improve message accuracy by coordinating private speech with peer questioning clearly emerges with age.     

Print Media and PR

Sidney L. Jackson's Libraries and Librarianship in the West: A Brief History (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974---price not given, hardback)

Barbara Nykoruk (ed.) Authors in the News (Detroit, Mich.: Gale Research Co., 1976---$24.00)

Doug Newsom and Alan Scott's This is PRI The Realities of Public Relations (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1976---$12.95 1 with an instructor's manual available as well)

Richard Weiner's Professional's Guide to Publicity (Richard Weinter, Inc., 888 Seventh Ave., New York 10019---$6.95, paper)

Richard Weiner's Syndicated Columnists (hardbound, 154 pages, $20.00)     

Biographies

THE MAKING OF CITIZEN KANE by Robert Carringer (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985 -- $22.50)

ORSON WELLES: THE RISE AND FALL OF AN AMERICAN GENIUS (New York: St. Martin's, 1985 -- $19.95) by Charles Higham

ORSON WELLES by Barbara Learning (New York: Viking, 1985 -- $19.95)

CHAPLIN: HIS LIFE AND ART by David Robinson (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985 — $24.95)

FRANKLIN J. SCHAFFNER by Erwin Kim (Metuchen, New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, 1985 -- $35.00)     

Changing Technologies

SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS: THE FIRST QUARTERCENTURY OF SERVICE by David W.E. Rees (New York: John Wiley, 1990—$44.95, ISBN 0-471-62243-5, 329 pp.)

THE NEW COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES by Michael Mirabito and Barbara Morgenstern (Stoneham, MA: Focal Press, 1990—$24.95, paper, ISBN 0-240-80012-5, 244 pp.)

COMMUNICATION TOMORROW: NEW AUDIENCES, NEW TECHNOLOGIES, NEW MEDIA by E. W. Brody (New York: Praeger, 1990—$45.00/15.95, ISBN 0-275-93280-X hard, 0-275-93281-8 soft, 295 pp.)

HDTV: HIGH-DEFINITION TELEVISION by Stan Prentiss (Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Tab Books, 1990—$16.95, paper, ISBN 0-8306-3272-7, 232 pp.)

FIBER OPTICS AND CATV BUSINESS STRATEGY by Robert K. Yates, Nolwen Mahe, and Jerome Masson (Norwood, MA: Artech House, 1990—price not given, ISBN 0-89006-413-X, 159 pp.)

GLOBAL IMPACT: THE NEW TELECOMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES by Loy A. Singleton (New York: Harper & Row, 1989—$26.95, ISBN 0-88730-259-9, 270 pp.)

COMMUNICATION WHEN IT'S NEEDED MOST: HOW NEW TECHNOLOGY COULD HELP IN SUDDENDISASTERS, Report of the International Disaster Communications Project (Annenberg Washington Program, 1455 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington 20004—free on request, paper, no ISBN given, 129 pp.)

THE FUTURE OF TELEVISION (National Cable Television Association, 1724 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20036—free, paper, no ISBN given, 42 pp.)

COMPUTER A PPUCA TIONS IN FILM & VIDEO: A NE WSLETTER FOR EDUCATORS AND PROFESSIONALS (David Katz, ed.. Communications Development Center, Univ. of Wisconsin Extension, Radio Hall, Madison, WI—53706 price information not given, ISSN not provided)

SATELLITES & BROADCASTING 1990 by Marcia DeSonne (National Association of Broadcasters, 1771 N St. NW, Washington, DC 20036—price not given, paper, ISBN 0-89324-075-3, 42 pp.)

GENERAL MOBILE RADIO SERVICE NATIONAL REPEATER GUIDE (Personal Radio Steering Group, P.O. Box 2851, Ann Arbor, MI 48106—$10.00, paper, no ISBN given, 80 pp.)     

A Preliminary Discussion of Russian Émigré Materials at the Library of Congress

Materials at the Library of Congress (LC) by and about Russian émigrés take every form and are distributed throughout the library's many custodial divisions, classification schedules, catalogs, and Web pages. Identifying and locating these materials, whether in print, archival, or even digital collections, may require creative thinking and an understanding of the library's sometimes complex organization. The author attempts here to provide a preliminary overview of the library's Russian émigré collections and some guidance for beginning research on these collections. She includes examples as illustrations and inspiration for further research.     

Home Environment and School Learning

From a systematic search of educational, psychological, and sociological literature, 18 studies of 5,831 school-aged students on the correlation of home environment and learning in eight countries over a 19-year period were selected. Correlations (the units of analysis) of intelligence, motivation, and achievement with indexes of parent stimulation of the student in the home are considerably higher than those with indexes of socioeconomic status (SES); specifically the medians (and ranges) of 92 simple correlations of home environment and learning are .37 (and .02 to .82) and of 62 multipleregression-weighted composites are .44 (and .23 to .81). Jackknifed regression estimates indicate that gender and SES of the sample affect the sizes of the correlations and suggest priorities for future primary investigations. The analyses suggest that ability and achievement are more closely linked to the sociopsychological environment and intellectual stimulation in the home than they are to parental socioeconomic status indicators such as occupation and amount of education.     

Vigilance as a Response to White Complicity

Calls for vigilance have been a recurrent theme in social justice education. Scholars making this call note that vigilance involves a continuous attentiveness, that it presumes some type of criticality, and that it is transformative. In this essay Barbara Applebaum expands upon some of these attributes and calls attention to three particular features of vigilance that, while they may be alluded to in the aforementioned discussions, are rarely made explicit. These three features are critique, staying in the anxiety of critique, and vulnerability. Using the lens of Judith Butler's recent work and the discussions that her work has provoked, Applebaum examines these three features of vigilance and demonstrates how they are crucial for white people interrogating their complicity in systemic racism. Finally, she discusses how the expanded three features of vigilance can offer guidance to one of the enormously thorny questions that arises in the social justice classroom.