‘Freedom can only exist in an ordered state’: harmony and civic education in Singapore

This paper uses the concept of stories of peoplehood to examine how the Singapore government has constructed a story of harmony and to consider how this story has influenced two important school subjects focused on civic education: Social Studies and Character and Citizenship Education. Stories of peoplehood, including constitutive, economic and political power stories, play a central role in the political project of people-making which involves defining the nature of membership in a political community and promoting a collective political identity. This study provides an alternative way of conceptualizing the goals and curriculum content of civic education and it also offers an example of how a nation state with a strong Confucian tradition has chosen to address the educational goal of living together through the promotion of values such as social cohesion and community relationships within a story of harmony. The study also shows how Singapore political leaders construct a narrow and limited discourse of harmony within the curricula and use it to legitimize policies that privilege particular groups, limit political freedoms, marginalize groups with less power or status, and circumscribe the kinds of actions a citizen can legitimately take.     

Studying parental involvement and university access and choice: An ‘interacting multiple capitals’ model

Capital‐embedded parental involvement in education is essential in enhancing university enrolment and maximising the educational potentials for equality and excellence. Previous studies in this field have mainly utilised Perna's ( 2000 , 2006 ) model, which defines parental involvement as social capital and identifies the additive influences of different types of capital (including social, economic and cultural capital) on university access and choice. Yet, little research to date theorises and disaggregates the interplay among various types of capital as well as the multiplicative capital effects on enrolment. This study addressed this gap. We proposed an ‘interacting multiple capitals’ (IMC) model and hypothesised that parental social capital could moderate the effects of cultural and economic capital on entry to university. To validate the model, a pilot survey was administered to 216 university students of Korean ethnicity in China and investigated the models of involvement adopted by Korean parents in the context of the increasing labour mobility of the Korean adult population. Moderated multiple regression analysis was employed and the results confirmed the hypothesis that capital effects upon university access and choice were multiplicative in nature, with social capital moderating the cultural capital influence on students’ educational aspirations. The study findings show that the interaction of various types of capital variables is sufficiently statistically significant to warrant future research and policy and practical discussion of how to promote parental involvement in university preparation and planning.     

“So, where do they fit in?” Teachers’ perspectives of multi-cultural education and diversity in Singapore

This qualitative study attends to six Singaporean teachers’ experiences of diversity and understanding of multicultural education to illuminate the influence of national policies and narratives on teachers’ perceptions and practice. These cases illustrate that, beyond reflection on identity and diversity, there is a need for teachers to examine how political, cultural, and economic principles have shaped their understanding of diversity and multicultural education. The authors discuss findings in light of socio-political constraints faced by Singapore teachers and forward implications for teacher education.     

Microfluidic wet spinning of chitosan-alginate microfibers and encapsulation of HepG2 cells in fibers

The successful encapsulation of human hepatocellular carcinoma (HepG2) cells would greatly assist a broad range of applications in tissue engineering. Due to the harsh conditions during standard chitosan fiber fabrication processes, encapsulation of HepG2 cells in chitosan fibers has been challenging. Here, we describe the successful wet-spinning of chitosan-alginate fibers using a coaxial flow microfluidic chip. We determined the optimal mixing conditions for generating chitosan-alginate fibers, including a 1:5 ratio of 2% (w∕w) water-soluble chitosan (WSC) solution to 2% (w∕w) alginate solution. Ratio including higher than 2% (w∕w) WSC solution increased aggregation throughout the mixture. By suspending cells in the WSC-alginate solution, we successfully fabricated HepG2 cell-laden fibers. The encapsulated HepG2 cells in the chitosan-alginate fibers were more viable than cells encapsulated in pure alginate fibers, suggesting that cross-linked chitosan provides a better environment for HepG2 cells than alginate alone. In addition, we found that the adhesion of HepG2 cells on the chitosan-alginate fiber is much better than that on the alginate fibers.     

Bromo-oxidation reaction in enzyme-entrapped alginate hollow microfibers

In this article, the authors present the fabrication of an enzyme-entrapped alginate hollow fiber using a microfluidic device. Further use of enzyme-entrapped alginate hollow fibers as a biocatalytic microchemical reactor for chemical synthesis is also deliberated in this article. To ensure that there is no enzyme leaching from the fiber, fiber surfaces were coated with chitosan. To confine the mobility of reactants and products within the porous hollow fibers the entire fibers were embedded into a transparent polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) matrix which also works as a support matrix. A vanadium-containing bromoperoxidase enzyme isolated from Corallina confusa was used as a model enzyme to demonstrate the use of these alginate hollow-fiber reactors in bromo-oxidation of phenol red to bromophenol blue at different dye flow rates. Stability of the entrapped enzyme at different temperatures and the effect of the chitosan coating on the reaction conversion were also studied. It was observed that molecules as big as 27 kDa can be retained in the matrix after coating with chitosan while molecules with molecular-weight of around 378 Da can still diffuse in and out of the matrix. The kinetic conversion rate in this microfluidic bioreactor was more than 41-fold faster when compared with the standard test-tube procedure.     

Rapid and cost-effective fabrication of selectively permeable calcium-alginate microfluidic device using ��modified�� embedded template method

In this paper, we have presented a non-lithographic embedded template method for rapid and cost-effective fabrication of a selectively permeable calcium-alginate (Ca-alginate) based microfluidic device with long serpentine delay channel. To demonstrate the versatility of the presented method, we have demonstrated two different strategies to fabricate serpentine long delay channels without using any sophisticated microfabrication techniques, in formal lab atmosphere. The procedure presented here, also, enables the preparation of a multilayered microfluidic device with channels of varying dimensions, in a single device without using any sophisticated micromachining instrumentation. In addition, we have also qualitatively studied the diffusion of small and large molecules from a Ca-alginate based microfluidic device and proposed a method to effectively control the out-flow of macro biomolecules from the crosslinked Ca-alginate matrix to create a selectively permeable matrix required for various biological and biomimetic applications, as mentioned in the Introduction section of this work.     

Assessing the quality and equality of Hong Kong basic education results from PISA 2000+ to PISA 2006

This paper seeks to examine the quality and equality of basic education of Hong Kong based on the first three cycles of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). Results from these three assessments suggested that the Hong Kong students have an outstanding performance in mathematics, science and reading. In particular, the performance of reading improves substantially in PISA 2006. As far as equality in education is concerned, the achievement gap of students from different socio-economic backgrounds in Hong Kong is relatively small compared with other countries. However, the academic performance variation between-schools suggest that, there is still academic segregation among secondary schools in Hong Kong although it has been reduced slightly in the PISA 2006.     

Meeting the highly qualified teachers challenge

The moulding of the future of a nation depends on the teachers and the education they provide in schools. Research evidence from the US. National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) confirms this to be the case. Quantitative analysis of data indicates that measures associated with pre-service teacher preparation are by far the strongest correlates of student achievement (Darling-Hammond 2000). The research report of Wilson, Floden, and Ferrini-Mundy (2001) also suggests a strong relationship between teacher preparation and teacher effectiveness. Other research studies similarly indicate that differences in teacher quality are the most crucial for student achievement when compared with variables such as class size, streaming, or the amount of homework (Anderson & Helms 2001; Mendro 1998; Powell & Anderson 2002; Rivkin, Hanushek & Kain 2001; Saunders & Horn 1994; Strong & Tucker 2000) as possible contributory factors. In the pursuit of improved student achievement, we therefore need to examine seriously the role of teacher variables, ranging from teacher qualifications and their subject matter knowledge, to what motivates them to take up teaching as a career and as a consequence, how they teach in classrooms.