Gender differences in adolescents’ choice of heroes and admired adults in five countries

Seven hundred and sixty-eight adolescents from five countries and regions (USA, Spain, Hong Kong, Qatar, and Malaysia), aged 13–19 (M?=?15.78; SD?=?1.28) years, responded to a questionnaire designed to determine who was their most admired famous adult or hero. Male heroes clearly outnumbered admired females (73.3% vs. 26.7%). There was a pattern of same-sex choices, but it was more likely for girls to choose male heroes than for boys to choose females. Over half of the admired adults were athletes, and movie, television, and music stars. Regarding the personally known adults, there was a more balanced choice of males and females, with parents as the most frequent choice. Results suggest that society continues to fail in providing an adequate supply of female role models.     

英语写作中语块使用的实证研究

提高英语写作技能是英语教学的目标之一,但怎样提高写作水平是英语教学亟待解决的难题。将语块理论引入写作教学,为其提供了新的视角。采用SPSS17．0对140名学习者在写作中使用语块的数据分析,发现其特征如下：从语块使用频度上看,语块使用较少,仅占全文的1/3;从语块使用重复率上看,其重复率较高,接近语块总数的1/3,这表明学习者语块使用不够多样化,种类不丰富;从语块类型上看,短语语块使用较多,句子语块使用较少;从学习者水平上看,高分组限制语块使用较多,低分组固定语块使用较多。     

西周园林：从娱神到娱人的美育思想

西周园林反映了我国先秦美学思想从娱神到娱人的转变,即从崇拜神到肯定人的主体性,这种转变深深地影响了此后中国人的精神气质。一方面中国人极其重视个人的德行修养,另一方面又将这种自我修养与入世精神相结合,既富有深情,又执着,但又不至于走向自我否定的极端境地;既有一种“天下”情怀,以天下事为己事,又有一种“悲天悯人”的情怀,始终不曾远离底层。这些都是先秦美育思想在这一时期转变的结果。     

Improved Appreciation of Mathematics Through an IBL Liberal Arts Mathematics Course

Abstract

The author has taught an inquiry-based liberal arts mathematics class using the text “The Heart of Mathematics: An Invitation to Effective Thinking” by Edward B. Burger and Michael Starbird a total of 20 times since Spring 2001. The students in this class have almost all been in non-technical majors and many started the semester with negative or ambivalent attitudes toward mathematics based on their prior experiences. The author has gathered responses from students in this class that illustrate significant changes in their attitudes towards mathematics during the course. In particular, the responses gathered at the end of the semester are often eloquent about understanding the great ideas of mathematics that students confronted in this course and about seeing many more and varied connections between mathematics and the “real world” than they had previously realized existed.     

Students’ Perspectives on LGBTQ-Inclusive Curriculum

Implementing curriculum that is inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) people has the potential to create an equitable learning environment. In order to learn more about students’ experiences of LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum, 26 high school students with diverse racial/ethnic, sexual, and gender identities were recruited from the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) Network in California. Students participated in focus groups conducted by telephone by GSA staff, sharing their experiences of LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum in school. Qualitative coding methods, including grounded theory, were used to identify themes and interpret students’ responses. Data revealed that LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum was most often taught in social sciences and humanities courses as stand-alone lessons. LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum rarely met standards of social justice education, though opportunities for critical conversations about systemic oppression regularly emerged. For instance, teachers often failed to intervene in LGBTQ bullying and missed teachable moments conducive to inclusive curriculum. Some students learned positive LGBTQ lessons and highlighted the ways such curriculum reflected their identities and created a supportive school climate. Implications for equitable education are discussed.     

From Awareness to Action: College Students’ Skill Development in Intergroup Dialogue

A central goal of intergroup dialogue (IGD) is to strengthen individual and collective capacities to foster social justice commitments by supporting new ways of thinking about oneself, others, and the social structures in which we live. Relatedly, IGD assists individuals with building multicultural competencies and skill sets that support peoples’ capacities to take action and work towards social change. The following qualitative study contributes to current research by describing the types of skills undergraduate students report learning as a result of their IGD experience and the challenges they encounter as they develop communication, cognitive, and affective skills.     

Do men and women perform academic work differently?

Tertiary Education and Management - Why is the gender gap so large in researchers’ career progression? Do men and women have different priorities in their academic careers? This study...     

Developmental Changes in the Relations Between RAN,Phonological Awareness,and Reading in Spanish Children

We examined the developmental relations of phonological awareness (PA) and rapid automatized naming (RAN) with reading in a cross-sectional study with 874 Spanish children from Grades 2 to 6. Our main prediction was that the RAN–reading relationship would decrease due to a gradual change in reading strategy, from serial decoding to sight word reading. Therefore, in contrast to most previous studies, we used discrete reading tasks. Serial RAN tasks for objects, colors, digits, and letters were included. First, we examined whether the RAN tasks loaded on the same constructs across time. An alphanumeric and a nonalphanumeric factor were identified, which were invariant over time. In subsequent multigroup structural equation models we found that the PA–reading relationship was low but slightly increased in the higher grades. As predicted, the RAN–reading relationship decreased for words, whereas the relationship remained stable for pseudowords.