大学里的德里达

本文解读了德里达对康德和席勒论现代大学起源的著作的阐述,表明那些试图监督和掌控当代大学的理论立场本身也不知不觉地遭到了解构和颠覆.接着,文章考察了当今两个把文科当作现代大学守卫者和监督者的例子.两者都成为德里达辨别出来的解构置换类型的牺牲品.文章还讨论了德里达本人对现代法国大学的制度性干预背后的不同理由.该讨论引向本文的结论,即我们应该像为社会科学和自然科学的纯粹研究辩护一样为人文科学中的纯粹研究辩护,但不应该把经典文科提升到享受特权的优越地位.     

A Teacher's and Researcher's Experiences with Power and Representation within the Practical Argument Process

The purpose of this paper is to explore the tensions that erupted between the two authors during the final stages of their engagement with the practical argument process. These tensions arose when the 'researcher' constructed a representation of 'the teacher's' reality. In this paper, the researcher shares her representation and the teacher responds to her analysis. The teacher's response to the researcher's representation of her and her teaching suggests tensions arose between the teacher and the researcher over how the researcher constructed the teacher's practical argument. As the teacher and the researchers, we analyze our experiences with the practical argument process and our collaborative relationship. The result is an enlarged view of the place of story and practical argument within research collaborations. In addition, we learned the necessity of continuing dialog between researcher and teacher through the writing of the project. This ensures that, regardless of the research method, both collaborators are heard and their tales are told in the public representation.     

Misbehavior or Missed Opportunity? Challenges in Interpreting the Behavior of Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are increasingly being included in early childhood classrooms that include typically developing peers and in general education classrooms once they enter school. Many of these learners have the requisite academic skills to be successful, yet their social communication and behavioral challenges often impede their successful inclusion in general education settings. The challenges educators may experience when interpreting and responding to some behaviors exhibited by young students with ASD are explored and analyzed using an illustrative case vignette of a Kindergarten child with ASD. Recommendations for analyzing the communicative function of children’s behavior and for embedding social communication opportunities in inclusive classroom settings are described.     

Family and Reading in 41 Countries: Differences Across Cultures and Students

Family characteristics' links to literacy learning and their differences across macrosystems (economic and cultural contexts) were explored in multilevel analyses of the reading tests and questionnaire responses of 193,841 fifteen-year-olds across 41 countries. Students who had two parents, had higher family socioeconomic status (SES), were native born, had more books at home, had more cultural possessions at home, had more cultural communication at home, had no resident grandparents, or had fewer siblings (especially older ones) often had higher reading scores. However, country-level factors moderated these results. In richer countries, blended families (one parent and one stepparent) and cultural communication at home were more strongly linked to reading scores. In egalitarian cultures, SES had a stronger link to reading scores. In collectivist cultures, single parent status, SES, and resident grandparents had weaker links to reading scores. Thus, macrosystems are crucial to consider for understanding how family characteristics might impact reading achievement.     

Examining Differences in Students’ Beliefs and Attitudes: An Important Element of Performance-Based Assessment Systems for Teacher Preparation Programs

The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) program review process increasingly emphasizes the importance of performance-based assessment of early childhood teacher preparation programs. As part of the effort to address performance-based assessment requirements, the teacher educator program described in this study examined students’ beliefs related to developmentally appropriate practice, attitudes toward children, and perceived competencies at different points in the program and upon graduation. One hundred eighteen students and 78 recent graduates participated. Results suggest that students’ beliefs are more consistent with developmentally appropriate practices and with a progressive or child-centered approach at later points in the program. In general, participants felt they were more competent in what they know about early childhood practices than in how they implement the practices. Students nearing completion of the program and those who had graduated reported that they knew more about early childhood practices than students enrolled in early courses in the program, and graduates felt they were more competent to implement early childhood practices than students not enrolled in the program. Results are discussed in terms of implications for examining teacher preparation programs.     

EARLY CHILDHOOD TEACHERS: WRITING TO EXPLORE PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Abstract

This study examined the perceptions and practices of certified preschool teachers and children regarding play. A sample of 102 Pre‐Kindergarten regular (Pre‐K regular) teachers and 61 Pre‐Kindergarten with disabilities (Pre‐K with disabilities) teachers in an urban school district were surveyed. A sub‐group of 46 teachers and 72 4‐year‐old children were interviewed. In contrast to teachers in a previous study who did not have teacher certification, the teachers in the present study believed that play supported children's learning and development and indicated that play was an integral part of their curriculum. Approximately 30% of the teachers who were interviewed said they did not allow children's rough and tumble play either because they thought it was dangerous or it would promote aggression. All of the Pre‐K with disabilities teachers and half of Pre‐K regular teachers said they provided support for play of children with disabilities in their classes. Their reported support focused more on cognitive aspects of play than on social interactions. Children's ideas about play were similar to those in the 1987 study.     

First‐Generation Undergraduate Students' Social Support,Depression, and Life Satisfaction

First‐generation undergraduate students face challenging cross‐socioeconomic cultural transitions into college life. The authors compared first‐ and non‐first‐generation undergraduate students’ social support, posttraumatic stress, depression symptoms, and life satisfaction. First‐generation participants reported less social support from family and friends, more single‐event traumatic stress, less life satisfaction, and marginally more depression symptomatology than non‐first‐generation participants, but significant generation–gender interactions showed first‐generation women doing worse and first‐generation men doing better than others.     

Boundary as Bridge: An Analysis of the Educational Neuroscience Literature from a Boundary Perspective

Within the emerging field of educational neuroscience, concerns exist that the impact of neuroscience research on education has been less effective than hoped. In seeking a way forward, it may be useful to consider the problems of integrating two complex fields in the context of disciplinary boundaries. Here, a boundary perspective is used as a lens for analyzing the results of a systematic review of the educational neuroscience literature. Recurring vocabulary used within the literature suggests indirect use of boundary principles, including the idea of connections and bridges between disciplines, inter-, multi-, and transdisciplinarity, and reference to tools (boundary objects) and people that may be useful in the evolving field of educational neuroscience. Analyzing the educational neuroscience literature through the lens of boundary principles indicates that the boundary between the two disciplines may itself be a bridging mechanism useful for the creation of a new discipline and new knowledge.     

BookReviews

Teachers in American study-abroad programs usually receive little, if any, training before the trip, because ‘teaching is teaching’. The cultural differences between Chinese and American university classrooms, however, affect the students' ability to learn and the teacher's ability to teach in profound ways. Foreign teachers in China require at least a basic understanding of the educational, moral and political dimensions of their classrooms if they wish to maximize the learning potential of their Chinese students. Faculty teaching abroad should be prepared for the politics of their new university department, including management styles that can hamper efforts to acclimatize to the new setting.     

Minds Under Siege: Cognitive Signatures of Poverty and Trauma in Refugee and Non-Refugee Adolescents

The impacts of war and displacement on executive function (EF)—what we might call the cognitive signatures of minds under siege—are little known. We surveyed a gender-balanced sample of 12- to 18-year-old Syrian refugees (n = 240) and Jordanian non-refugees (n = 210) living in Jordan. We examined the relative contributions of poverty, trauma exposure, posttraumatic stress, and insecurity to variance in inhibitory control and working memory. We observed associations between poverty and WM, suggesting that, even in populations exposed to substantial violence and fear, poverty is a specific pathway to WM deficit. We did not, however, find associations between EFs and exposures to trauma. Careful distinction between childhood adversities may illuminate which neurocognitive pathways matter for measures of cognitive function.