Globalized curriculum or global approach to curriculum reform in mathematics education

The mathematics education community has shown considerable awareness of the international status of their discipline. While internationalization of the discipline is not a new phenomenon, globalization is a relatively recent term in educational discourse. This paper presents a theoretical model towards the study of globalization and internationalization in mathematics education based on previous publication by the authors. Secondly, it identifies some key issues that have been discussed in the literature and that may require further discussion and research in the field. In particular it discusses the issue of similarity of mathematics education curricula around the world. The concept of a global curriculum is rejected in favor for more internationalized approach to curriculum reform based on collaboration between mathematics educators.     

A Qualitative Exploration of Romantic Partners’ Motives for and Content of Communication with Friends Following Negative Relational Events

The purpose of this study was to explore young adults’ motives for and content of extradyadic interactions with friends following a negative relational event in a romantic relationship. Focus group discussions with young adults revealed the following partner motives: improving affect, managing uncertainty, obtaining clarity, and entertainment. In turn, friends were motivated by issues of honesty, friendship quality, and a desire to protect or comfort their friend. Both partners and friends discussed the use of a variety of negative, neutral, and positive message content. Results provide an exploratory look at extradyadic interactions that may have important implications for relationship functioning.     

Training,Careers and Lives: a longitudinal study of a teaching dynasty

This paper is an account of a singular Anglo‐Welsh dynasty, the Adams family, the experiences of three generations of whose teaching members spanned 100 years of educational development in England and Wales, from the 1840s to the 1930s. It comprises first of all summarised biographical details of relevant members of the Adams family, of which a full history can be found in the writer's An Anglo‐Welsh Teaching Dynasty (Marsden, 1997). The second part of the paper offers generalisations drawn from this grassroots, longitudinal case study which provide critical comment on the work, personal lives and attitudes of individual members, in illustration of the living realisation of a century of educational effort. They hopefully serve to counter some of the attenuated and negative stereotypes of the teaching profession found in certain traditional histories of the profession and in some social theory imposed on educational history.     

Conditioned flavor preferences as a function of deprivation level: Preferences or aversions?

Rats tend to prefer flavors previously consumed under low deprivation to flavors previously consumed under high deprivation (Capaldi & Myers, 1982). We attempted to distinguish among possible associative explanations by determining whether this conditioning phenomenon was based upon conditioned preferences, conditioned aversions, or both. We compared preference for flavors presented exclusively under either high or low deprivation with preference for a neutral flavor. In Experiments 1A and 1B the neutral flavor was one that had been randomly paired with both high and low deprivation, whereas in Experiments 2 and 3 the neutral flavors had not been associated with either high or low deprivation. Our results strongly suggest that this conditioning phenomenon is based upon an actual increase in preference for the flavor consumed under low deprivation rather than on any form of aversion conditioning.     

University class size: Is smaller better?

This study investigates the relationship between class size and achievement at the college level. Recent meta-analyses have found a strong relationship between class size and student achievement, but few of the studies examined class size larger than 40 or university-age populations. This analysis examines a university's testing-center data-archives representing 305 sections from 24 different courses. Section sizes ranged from 13 to 1,006. A total of 16,230 test scores were analyzed. The results of this investigation reveal that at the college level, class size may be less important an influence on student achievement than some educators have thought.