“Let’s not leave this problem”: exploring inclusive education in rural South Africa

Inclusive education represents a new agenda for educational reform that spans a wide range of socio-political, cultural, ethical, personal and interpersonal dimensions. Working towards educational inclusion demands commitments, responsibilities and initiatives on the part of all parties to take into consideration the meanings and purpose of education and social justice, to engage and take collective actions in their struggle to combat the diverse forms of educational and social exclusion. This paper presents an educational initiative to implement inclusive education in rural KwaZulu-Natal, an area of South Africa that is most seriously affected by the pandemic of HIV and AIDS. Through the implementation of participatory video-making projects in two schools, the authors seek to empower the voices and actions of teachers in an effort to cope with the problems of poverty and marginalization facing many children. The outcomes of this type of participatory work with teachers have implications for the policy-making process, which in turn, could change the ways educational policy research is structured and implemented.

Global estimates of the implications of COVID-19-related preprimary school closures for children’s instructional access,development, learning,and economic wellbeing

Observational data collected prior to the pandemic (between 2004 and 2019) were used to simulate the potential consequences of early childhood care and education (ECCE) service closures on the estimated 167 million preprimary-age children in 196 countries who lost ECCE access between March 2020 and February 2021. COVID-19-related ECCE disruptions were estimated to result in 19.01 billion person-days of ECCE instruction lost, 10.75 million additional children falling “off track” in their early development, 14.18 million grades of learning lost by adolescence, and a present discounted value of USD 308.02 billion of earnings lost in adulthood. Further burdens associated with ongoing closures were also forecasted. Projected developmental and learning losses were concentrated in low- and lower middle-income countries, likely exacerbating long-standing global inequities.     

Using a Professional Development Program for Enhancing Chilean Biology Teachers’ Understanding of Nature of Science (NOS) and Their Perceptions About Using History of Science to Teach NOS

A number of authors have recognized the importance of understanding the nature of science (NOS) for scientific literacy. Different instructional strategies such as decontextualized, hands-on inquiry, and history of science (HOS) activities have been proposed for teaching NOS. This article seeks to understand the contribution of HOS in enhancing biology teachers’ understanding of NOS, and their perceptions about using HOS to teach NOS. These teachers (N = 8), enrolled in a professional development program in Chile are, according to the national curriculum, expected to teach NOS, but have no specific NOS and HOS training. Teachers’ views of NOS were assessed using the VNOS-D+ questionnaire at the beginning and at the end of two modules about science instruction and NOS. Both the pre- and the post-test were accompanied by interviews, and in the second session we collected information about teachers’ perceptions of which interventions had been more significant in changing their views on NOS. Finally, the teachers also had to prepare a lesson plan for teaching NOS that included HOS. Some of the most important study results were: significant improvements were observed in teachers’ understanding of NOS, although they assigned different levels of importance to HOS in these improvements; and although the teachers improved their understanding of NOS, most had difficulties in planning lessons about NOS and articulating historical episodes that incorporated NOS. The relationship between teachers’ improved understanding of NOS and their instructional NOS skills is also discussed.     

Seeing for ourselves: when teachers make documentary films. Rebel Goulash and Over the Rainbow

To begin … a moral tale for anthropologists, a fantasy in which an anthropological cinema exists—not documentaries about ‘anthropological’ subjects but films designated by anthropologists to communicate anthropological insights. It is a well‐articulated genre distinct from the conceptual limitations of realist documentary and broadcast journalism. It borrows conventions and techniques from the whole of cinema—fiction, documentary, animation and experimental … this fantasy is more like science fiction than anything else. It is not remotely close to being realized. But it is an ideal worth pursuing (Ruby, 2000 Ruby J 2000 Picturing culture: explorations of film and anthropology (Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press)  [Google Scholar], pp. 1–2).     

The Complexity of Change in Universities

This paper relates to the implementation process of the Universitaetsorganisationsgesetz 1993 (University Organisation Act of 1993) at an Austrian university. In accordance with the idea of a managed university, the Austrian government aimed this law at transferring a greater scope of responsibility for strategic decisions and management issues from the ministry to the universities. The empirical basis is derived from a 2‐year, in‐depth field study showing that the transformation to a ‘simple’ management orientation is in itself complex. We suggest therefore a frame of reference that is based on an understanding of universities as complex and self‐referential organisations. This view explains changes in universities as nontrivial transformation and conceptualises the management of change in universities as a paradoxical intervention.     

挑战"极端"害羞

It starts out just fine. You get invited to a party. You plan what you're going to wear, dream about whom you might meet. Then the big night arrives and, wham, the excitement sputters into nervousness. You stand around awkwardly(笨拙地),nurse a drink and ogle(送秋波) the chatty people around you. You feel shy.     

Learning action learning: a journey

The action learning set (ALS) is an often-used tool in practice development to facilitate group reflection. As such, its use evolves in the hands of the participants as they become more comfortable with the process and as trust develops amongst group members. This paper aims to discuss the journey of one ALS over a 2-year period. It seeks to highlight the process of learning through an ALS and the complexity of making the process meaningful for the participants. The role of trust within an ALS cannot be overstated. This was an imperative factor in the overall effectiveness of the set.     

Keith Pavitt and the Invisible College of the Economics of Technology and Innovation

This paper uses a database on scientific interaction in the field of the economics of technological change and innovation. The database is used to address two issues. First, the network is shown to be (approximately) scale-free. This suggests that growth of the number of scholars active in the field and so-called preferential attachment (i.e., scholars entering the field prefer to attach themselves to highly reputable existing members of the network) are characteristic of the nature of the underlying field. Thus, increasing returns seem to govern mechanisms of reputation formation. Second, the potential existence of cohesive subgroups of relatively strongly connected scholars is explored, and the implications of this for the paradigmatic structure of the field are discussed.     

Using a Xicana Feminist Framework in Bilingual Teacher Preparation: Toward an Anticolonial Path

This article intentionally proposes the use of anticolonial Xicana feminisms as a theoretical foundation for Spanish–English bilingual teacher preparation programs that serve a majority of Latinx aspiring teachers. An anticolonial Xicana feminist framework is imperative in order to prepare bilingual teachers to confront and counter the growing neoliberal ideologies that are co-opting the goals of bilingual/dual language education today and that run the risk of further marginalizing Latinx language minoritized students, particularly in rapidly gentrifying urban communities and regions experiencing a recent Latinx population boom. The article analyzes the theoretical and pedagogical processes that would help prospective teachers challenge the legacies of colonization, imperialism, and Eurocentric heteropatriarchy in order to forge an anticolonial path in bilingual education in four interrelated areas: vision, identities, languages, and pedagogies.     

Archaeomagnetic investigation of a metallurgical furnace in Pisa (Italy)

An archaeological excavation has been carried out at Pisa (Italy), unearthing an ancient metallurgical workshop. Since archaeological burnt materials provide important records of direction and intensity of the Earth's magnetic field in the past and they can be used to better improve geomagnetic secular variation curves (SVCs), an archaeomagnetic study has been performed. This small copper-alloy furnace presents a circular concave shape covered with a thin layer of mortar, with some traces of heated clay surrounding the feature that confirms the high temperature reached inside it. Archaeological context dating points to the last firing of the furnace between the last quarter of the 13th century and the first quarter of 14th century AD, when then the metallurgical workshop was transformed in a warehouse. Archaeomagnetic sampling has been performed using the modified Thellier method, by collecting several, large and independently oriented aliquots of heated clay, forming the bottom part of the circular wall of the structure. Laboratory treatments have been conducted at the IGG-CNR ARCHEO_LAB (Pisa, Italy) and at St. Maur Palaeomagnetic laboratory (Paris, France). Analytical measurements of the thermo-remanent magnetization index acquired from the samples have been performed using a large cell induction magnetometer for large samples, and the characteristic remanent magnetization (ChRM) has been successfully isolated after an alternate field demagnetization cleaning procedure for each sample. The final mean archaeomagnetic direction has been calculated at sampling site (D = 6.9°; I = 52.8°; N = 9; k = 305; α₉₅ = 2.6°) following the Fisher Statistics, and it exhibits a perfect agreement with some coeval already published directions obtained from Mt. Arso lava flows, these latter being an important anchor point in the preliminary Italian secular variation curve. Comparison with the preliminary Italian SVC, the French SVC and the SCHA.DIF.3K archaeomagnetic regional model have permitted to define an archaeomagnetic absolute age confirming the conventional archaeological age, underlining the importance of this result into the Italian archaeomagnetic data set.