Participation,financial support and the marginal student

This paper examines differences between the decision-making of marginal and nonmarginal students about participation in higher education (HE). We distinguish between two kinds of marginality: being ‘borderline’ on account of prior achievements in school and being ‘unsure’ after taking prior achievement into account. We identify a significant minority of students in their final year of schooling who are unsure about participation in higher education even though they have prior school achievements typical of entrants to HE. Being ‘unsure’ is found to be unrelated to socioeconomic background, but it is associated with significantly different attitudes towards the potential benefits and risks of participation, different levels of knowledge about financial support that is available and different approaches to information search about participation in HE.

Three Walks Through Fictional Fens: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on <Emphasis Type="Italic">Gaffer Samson’s Luck</Emphasis>

The paper discusses the children’s novel Gaffer Samson’s Luck (1984), by Jill Paton Walsh, from three different perspectives; those of a cultural geographer, a literary scholar and an English teacher. It is part of a larger research project on children’s perception of their place-related identities through reading and writing. The novel is used as a case study to develop a multidisciplinary approach, drawing upon theories of literature and reading, and a conceptualisation of space in cultural geography. Employing ideas from different disciplines, the paper offers an original interpretation of the text as well as innovative analytical tools for future research and for classroom application.     

A Critical Review of Line Graphs in Behavior Analytic Journals

Visual displays such as graphs have played an instrumental role in psychology. One discipline relies almost exclusively on graphs in both applied and basic settings, behavior analysis. The most common graphic used in behavior analysis falls under the category of time series. The line graph represents the most frequently used display for visual analysis and subsequent interpretation and communication of experimental findings. Behavior analysis, like the rest of psychology, has opted to use non-standard line graphs. Therefore, the degree to which graphical quality occurs remains unknown. The current article surveys the essential structure and quality features of line graphs in behavioral journals. Four thousand three hundred and thirteen graphs from 11 journals served as the sample. Results of the survey indicate a high degree of deviation from standards of graph construction and proper labeling. A discussion of the problems associated with graphing errors, future directions for graphing in the field of behavior analysis, and the need for standards adopted for line graphs follows.     

Student trajectories in physics: the need for analysis through a socio-cultural lens

An analysis of student connections through time and space relative to the core discipline of physics is attempted, as viewed through the lens of actor-network-theory, by Antonia Candela. Using lenses of cultural realities, networks, and perceived power in the discourse of one specific university in the capital city of Mexico and one undergraduate physics classroom, the trajectories and itineraries of students are analyzed, relative to a physics professor’s pedagogical practices. This ethnographic study then yields comparisons between Mexican undergraduate students and students from the United States. Actor network theory recognizes that the symbiotic relationship existing between an actor and a continuum of space and time is defined by the symbiotic yet interdependent relationships and networks of practice (Lemke in Downward causation: Minds, bodies, and matter 2000). As part of this study and in line with actor-network-theory, human actors and non-human participants were viewed in relation to how subjects acted and were acted upon within networks of practice. Through this forum I reflect on this work with particular focus on the issues of situatedness of actors from a sociocultural perspective and how established networks viewed within this perspective frame and subsequently impact student trajectories and itineraries. In essence I argue for a need to look at a myriad of further complexities driving the symbiotic relationships being analyzed.     

Making Learning Visible

Almost two million children in more than 40 countries around the world have received a One Laptop per Child (OLPC) XO netbook computer. These netbooks represent the commitment of politicians, community leaders, and educators to implement disruptive, large‐scale education reform initiatives that will advance their countries into the 21st century and prepare their children for interconnected, global, creative, and knowledge economies. Expectations for the success of these initiatives are high, and local stakeholders as well as numerous international organizations look to these experiments with cautious optimism. These programs hold the promise to expand the learning and creative potentials of broad populations. As such, arguably, one of the greatest challenges facing these initiatives is designing and implementing mechanisms that help make the outcomes visible, understandable, and actionable by all audiences. In this article, we discuss initiatives being developed by OLPC at different levels of scale: at the meta level to understand impact across nations and learn about the emerging developments in the different programs; at the mezzo level to allow stakeholders to understand the development of the program in their countries and their schools; and at the micro level to help teachers and students understand emerging learning by children over a given period of time. We present some examples of student work to illustrate how some children are making creative contributions to OLPC. Inspired in the collaboration and work by Project Zero and Reggio Children, this article was given the name “Making Learning Visible.” Beyond the title, the work presented in this article recognizes the child both as an individual and a group learner; recognizes the acts as well as the products of learning; and above all, values the children's reflections and approaches to make their learning visible.     

Aversive education: Emersonian variations on ‘Bildung’

Abstract

The paper discusses Ralph Waldo Emerson’s thought in relation to the German Bildung tradition. For many, Bildung still signifies a valuable achievement of modern educational thought as well as a critical, emancipatory ideal which, frequently in a rather nostalgic manner, is appealed to in order to delineate problematic tendencies of current educational trends. Others, in an at times rather cynical manner, claim that Bildung through its successful institutionalization has shaped vital features of our present educational system and has thus served its time and lost its critical potential. When thinking through Emerson’s variations on Bildung I argue against the nostalgic appeals to Bildung that the criticism against it has to be taken seriously. Against the cynical assessment of Bildung having run its course, I will hold that with Emerson we can develop the idea of an ‘aversive education’ as a call for Bildung to be turned upon itself, allowing to revive it as a conceptual tool for transformation, drawing particular attention to its political dimension.     

The Rewards of Human Capital Competences for Young European Higher Education Graduates

The labour market rewards for a number of required human capital competences are analysed using a sample of young European higher education graduates. Factor analysis is applied to classify competences by jobs into eight orthogonal groups, namely participative, methodological, specialised, organisational, applying rules, physical, generic and socio-emotional competences. Estimates for the total rewards for competences are obtained through conventional wage regression, whereas estimates of the total rewards are derived in terms of job satisfaction through ordered logit regression. Explanatory variables include personal characteristics, job attributes, occupational titles, fields of study, type of higher education institution and country dummies. Results on wage rewards show that jobs with higher requirements of participativeand methodological competencesare best paid; conversely, jobs with higher requirements of organisational, applying-rulesand physical competencesare worse paid. Results on total rewards suggest that jobs with higher requirements of competences increase graduates' satisfaction, the only exception being applying-rules competences.     

New insights into the activation mechanism of store-operated calcium channels: roles of STIM and Orai

The activation of Ca2 entry through store-operated channels by agonists that deplete Ca2 from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER)is a ubiquitous signaling mechanism,the molecular basis of which has remained elusive for the past two decades.Store-operated Ca2 -release-activated Ca2 (CRAC)channels constitute the sole pathway for Ca2 entry following antigen-receptor engagement.In a set of breakthrough studies over the past two years,stromal interaction molecule l(STIM1,tbe ER Ca2 sensor) and Orail(a pore-forming subunit of the CRAC channel)have been identified.Here we review these recent studies and the insights they provide into the mechanism of store-operated Ca2 channels(SOCCs).