The legitimation of OECD's global educational governance: examining PISA and AHELO test production

Although international student assessments and the role of international organisations (IOs) in governing education via an evidence-based educational policy discourse are of growing interest to educational researchers, few have explored the complex ways in which an IO, such as the OECD, gains considerable influence in governing education during the early stages of test production. Drawing on a comparative analysis of the production of two international tests – the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) – we show how the OECD legitimises its power, and expertise, and defines ‘what counts’ in education. The OECD deploys three mechanisms of educational governance: (1) building on past OECD successes; (2) assembling knowledge capacity; and (3) deploying bureaucratic resources. We argue that the early stages of test production by IOs are significant sites in which the global governance of education is legitimated and enacted.     

The effect of orthographic depth on letter string processing: the case of visual attention span and rapid automatized naming

The present study investigated whether orthographic depth can increase the bias towards multi-letter processing in two reading-related skills: visual attention span (VAS) and rapid automatized naming (RAN). VAS (i.e., the number of visual elements that can be processed at once in a multi-element array) was tested with a visual 1-back task and RAN was measured in a serial letter naming task that introduced a novel manipulation (some letter sequences formed frequent words). Spanish-Basque and French-Basque bilingual children were tested at early (30 children in 1st and 2nd grade), and more advanced (24 children in 3rd, 4th and 5th grade) stages of reading acquisition to investigate whether they would be differently biased towards multi-letter processing due to reading in two shallow (Spanish, Basque), or a deep and a shallow (French, Basque) orthography. The French-Basque bilinguals, who read in a deep orthography, were expected to rely on larger orthographic units in reading and thus to be more biased towards multi-letter processing in both tasks. This was expected to be reflected by: (a) a uniform distribution of attention across letter strings in the VAS task, and (b) a greater interference of the embedded words on letter-by-letter naming in RAN, leading to longer naming times. The expected group differences were observed in the more advanced readers, with French-Basque bilinguals showing a wider distribution of VAS across letter strings and longer naming times in RAN.     

(Re)-Constructing Citizenship: The Programa Integrar of the Brazilian Metalworkers' Union

This paper presents an initiative by the Brazilian Metalworkers Union, the Centro Nacional de Metalurgicos, which seeks to integrate vocational training with the construction of a new citizenship that represents a radical departure from the corporatist legacy of 'regulated citizenship'. The programme incorporates a strategic vision of the construction of citizenship of the workers through intervention in the development of public policy, principally in relation to policies concerning the creation of work, wealth and education, and in the unions' role in their negotiation. The Programa Integrar transcends the traditional Latin American adult education paradigms of human resource training and popular education, and it is argued that it is an example of an integrated education and training for civil society.     

An inquiry approach to science and language teaching

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of an inquiry approach to science and language teaching to further develop classification and oral communication skills of bilingual Mexican American third graders. A random sample consisting of 64 subjects was selected for experimental and control groups from a population of 120 bilingual Mexican American third graders. The Solomon Four-Group experimental design was employed. Pre- and posttesting was performed by use of the Goldstein-Sheerer Object Sorting Test, (GSOST) and the Test of Oral Communication Skills, (TOCS). The experimental group participated in a sequential series of science lessons which required manipulation of objects, exploration, peer interaction, and teacher-pupil interaction. The children made observations and comparisons of familiar objects and then grouped them on the basis of perceived and inferred attributes. Children worked individually and in small groups. Analysis of variance procedures was used on the posttest scores to determine if there was a significant improvement in classification and oral communication skills in the experimental group. The results on the posttest scores indicated a significant improvement at the 0.01 level for the experimental group in both classification and oral communication skills. It was concluded that participation in the science inquiry lessons facilitated the development of classification and oral communication skills of bilingual children.     

Prelinguistic sign mixity and flexibility in interaction

Based upon a reflection on the social origins of human psychological functions the authors propose an analysis of the transmission-appropriation of object uses by the 7 to 13 month old child through interaction with the adult termed baby-object-adult triadic interaction. The analysis is based on Peirce’s semiotics. Semiotic processes involved in the interaction are analysed with categories of icons, indexes and symbols. The authors show the great variety and flexibility of the signs used by the adult but also by the prelinguistic child. They also evidence different types of sign mixity. Peirce described a sign mixity which implies that the uses of signs is never pure but that a given sign may comprise elements of other signs and thus may belong to different sign classes. Here a second type of mixity is demonstrated which can be specified by the simultaneous occurence of sign configurations or estellas belonging to different semiotic repertoires. These may be implemented by the child or the adult or by both within the interaction.     

Examining the Process and Outcome of Career Counseling for Different Types of Career Counseling Clients

Using cluster analysis, we identified two types of career counseling clients: (a) Clients with moderate levels of career-related distress, discomfort, and uncertainty and (b) clients with high levels of career concerns, personal distress, and stigma about career counseling. The more distressed group expressed lower evaluations of a career counseling session and perceived their counselors as providing fewer action-oriented counseling skills than the less distressed group. No differences emerged in terms of client's perceptions of the therapeutic relationship. The practical implications and limitations of these results are discussed.     

由3-氨基-2-卤代-2-烯亚胺制备3-卤代喹啉

紫外光照射3-氨基-2-卤代-2-烯亚胺生成3-卤代喹啉,该反应对氯代衍生物是定量反应(>95％),溴代和碘代喹啉可以较高产率从反应粗产物中容易地分离出来,由于这一反应温和、简便、干净和快速,我们预期这一反应过程将被广泛应用。     

The Human Nervous System: A Framework for Teaching and the Teaching Brain

The teaching brain is a new concept that mirrors the complex, dynamic, and context‐dependent nature of the learning brain. In this article, I use the structure of the human nervous system and its sensing, processing, and responding components as a framework for a re‐conceptualized teaching system. This teaching system is capable of responses on an instinctual level (e.g., spinal cord teaching) as well as higher order student‐centered teaching and even more complex teaching brain teaching. At the most complex level the teacher and student engage in a synchronistic teaching flow that achieves the optimal teaching and learning experience.