THE IMPLICATIONS OF NATIONAL POLICIES IN THE UNITED STATES,BRAZIL, EL SALVADOR,AND PERU ON EARLY CHILDHOOD TEACHER EDUCATION

It may seem obvious but the world is filled with believers in the value of good care and attention to children during the earliest months and years. That belief is embedded in virtually all cultural traditions. Indeed, both common wisdom and hard scientific research evidence lead to the forceful conclusion that the earliest years of life are critical in the development of the intelligence, personality, and the social values and behaviors that will characterize later life... But if the value of the early years is so evident... why is there such neglect by families and social institutions? Among the reasons that might be offered are the following: Families living in extreme poverty or victimized by war and famine, may be so busy surviving that they cannot give the

loving attention to their children they would like to give. Families living in luxury may be too busy making money, or spending it, to give the needed time to their children. At the same time, some institutions that could help families to help their children take the position that the child development is best left to families. ‐‐Robert G. Myers, 1991     

Teachers' Prestige in Spain: probing the public's and the teachers' contrary views

We use the results of a public opinion survey we carried out in 2012 on a sample of the Spanish adult population to offer a plausible explanation of one of the main conundrums of primary and secondary school teachers' prestige, not only in Spain, i.e. that, contrary to public discourse and to teachers' perceptions, this prestige has not fallen in the last decades, but has remained middle to high. The estimates of teachers' prestige made by the public are the same (roughly, around 70 in a 0 to 100 scale) as those that were measured in the early 1990s. However, a clear majority of the public believes that teachers' prestige has fallen in the last decades, reiterating a cliché that is widespread in the Spanish public sphere, especially among teachers. We hypothesise that the perception of the falling prestige is much more a matter of a public space dominated by the media than of a public space that is more confined to everyday experiences and to the citizens' basic values. We support our hypothesis with pieces of empirical evidence related, on the one hand, to the association of that perception with media consumption variables in our survey, and, on the other, to media (negative) treatment of teachers' prestige. In our argument, we are also helped by a literature that is not usually dealt with in studies of teachers' prestige: that of media influence in the formation of public opinions regarding other people's opinions.     

Super twisting control of a parametrically excited overhead crane

The principal contribution of this note is to avoid the parametric resonance effect and attenuate the payload oscillations in an overhead-crane system subject to periodic variations in the base support. Considering an appropriate sliding output with relative degree one, we present the sliding mode control design based on the Super-Twisting Algorithm (STA), ensuring finite time convergence to the desired sliding surface for the linear periodic system with Lipschitz continuous matched and unmatched uncertainties bounded together by their gradients by known functions. The suggested approach also provides chattering phenomenon attenuation. Obtained results are verified experimentally.     

Determinants of possession of the ball in soccer

Abstract

In research on the importance of the possession of the ball in soccer, little attention has been paid to its determinants. Using data from 170 matches of the 2003 – 2004 Spanish Soccer League, we explain why differences in the possession of the ball among teams are so great. In particular, four variables are examined: evolving match status (i.e. whether the team is winning, losing or drawing), venue (i.e. playing at home or away), and the identities of the team and the opponent in each match. Results of linear regression analysis show that these four variables are statistically significant and together explain most of the variance in possession. In short, home teams have more possession than away teams, teams have more possession when they are losing matches than when winning or drawing, and the identity of the opponent matters – the worse the opponent, the greater the possession of the ball. Combinations of these variables could be used to develop a model that predicts possession in soccer.     

Syllabic Strategy as Opposed to Coda Optimization in the Segmentation of Spanish Letter-Strings Using Word Spotting

A word-spotting task is used in Spanish to test the way in which polysyllabic letter-strings are parsed in this language. Monosyllabic words (e.g., bar) embedded at the beginning of a pseudoword were immediately followed by either a coda-forming consonant (e.g., barto) or a vowel (e.g., baros). In the former case, the embedded word corresponds to the first spoken syllable, whereas it cuts across the syllable boundary in the latter case. Unlike a previous study in English using the same methodology (Taft & Álvarez, 2014), the embedded word was found to be easier to detect when followed by a consonant than a vowel, at least for low-frequency words. It was concluded that phonological recoding is more important in the parsing of Spanish words than English words, where maximization of the coda dominates instead.     

Promoting Gypsy children's behavioural engagement and school success: Evidence from a four‐wave longitudinal study

Low schooling, high non‐attendance and school dropout rates are critical phenomena within disadvantaged groups, especially among the Gypsy community. For example, in the UK, 10%–25% of Gypsy children do not attend school regularly and have significantly higher levels of overall absence from school (percentage of half‐day sessions missed) than pupils from other ethnic groups. In Portugal, available data on Gypsy children is sparse, yet data from one geographic region of the country reports high school failure (45%) and dropout rates (15%) among this population. The present study assessed the efficacy of a four‐year intervention to promote Gypsy children's behavioural engagement and school success. Gypsy communities were contacted and 30 children participating in the four waves were randomly distributed into control and experimental groups. Every school day throughout four years, 16 children in the experimental group were called at home and invited to go to school. The effectiveness of the intervention was evaluated in four waves (at the end of each of the four school years), assessing behavioural engagement (i.e. school non‐attendance, classroom behaviour) and school achievement (i.e. mathematics achievement, student progression). Findings show the efficacy of the intervention on promoting behaviour engagement and academic success without devaluing Gypsy people's culture.     

Cultural Humility in Physical Education Teacher Education: A Missing Piece in Developing a New Generation of Socially Just Physical Education Teachers

ABSTRACT

The increased pluralism in today’s United States society, including our public school student population, has called for physical education teacher education (PETE) programs to train teachers who can respond to the educational needs of students from diverse backgrounds. However, concerns have been raised with educator preparation programs’ ability to prepare teachers to address diversity in our schools. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to discuss the movement toward teaching for social justice in PETE with focus on preparing teachers for cultural diversity; this includes special attention to cultural humility as a missing component in physical education teacher preparation. We discuss the current state of diversity in PETE, leading to a discussion of social justice as a theme in teaching and teacher education in physical education. Next, we detail the underpinnings of social justice pedagogies in physical education and the need for infusing cultural humility in PETE.     

“Did you do your homework?” Mathematics teachers’ homework follow‐up practices at middle school level

Teachers’ homework follow‐up practices, the in‐class strategies teachers use to monitor their students’ homework assignments, have an impact on their students’ homework behaviors and academic achievement. The current study explored the perspectives of middle school mathematics teachers on the three domains of homework follow‐up: the practices used in class, the purposes of each practice, and the aspects that may influence this process. Data were collected from two data sources (i.e., focus groups and classroom observations) and were analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings showed that teachers monitored homework either using a single strategy or a combination of strategies (e.g., checking homework completion and providing individual feedback) linked to a specific purpose (e.g., promote students’ involvement). The teachers also reported that they were under certain constraints when they delivered homework follow‐up practices (e.g., pressure to follow the curriculum), so their practices’ effectiveness sometimes can be compromised. Implications for practice are discussed.