Reducing subjectivity in special education referrals by educators working with Latino students: using functional behavioral assessment as a pre-referral practice in student support teams

Over the past several decades, the Latino population throughout the USA has demonstrated significant growth and exceeded that of other ethnic minority groups. This influx is particularly evident in the student enrollment of US schools as the number of Latino students has increased by approximately 10 million within the past 10 years. With this dramatic increase, there are a number of critical issues that present significant barriers to a high-quality educational experience for Latino students, specifically overrepresentation of Latinos receiving disciplinary actions and the high number of referrals to special education evaluation for emotional and behavioral disorders. This paper will discuss the impact of the Latino population in US schools, the concern of overrepresentation and biased referrals, and the use of a culturally attuned functional behavioral assessment as a pragmatic solution to better serve this growing population.     

The Hybrid Construction of Sexuality in Mexico and its Impact on Sex Education

As is now widely established, sexuality is a historically and culturally specific social construction. In Mexico, such construction has been dominated by different institutions and discourses at different times. From pre-Hispanic times to today, this article traces the ideas that main institutions, like the Catholic Church, have ingrained in Mexican sexual culture and shows how they have changed over time. At present, sexuality has become a contested arena?like never before?in which very diverse discourses contend for hegemony. Formal sex education has not been alien to this debate, in which religion, medicine, gender equity discourses and ethics seem to have a differential input in curricula and textbooks. This article discusses the expression of this tension in formal sex education in Mexico.     

Culture and Technology: implications for multicultural teacher education

ABSTRACT

American classrooms are experiencing a rapid growth in cultural and ethnic diversity, as well as an increase in educational classroom computing. Because culture directly affects classroom organisation and classroom learning, teachers need to understand, incorporate, and support their students’ cultures. Furthermore, since educational computing is not culturally neutral, teachers in culturally diverse settings must integrate the computer culture, the classroom culture, and students’ learning preferences. To meet the need for culturally and technologically competent multicultural teachers, teacher education programs must first define both cultural competency and computer competency. After examining the relationship between culture and educational computing, the paper explores some essential components of cultural and technological competency for multicultural teachers. Finally, it indicates the need for further research on the interaction of culture and technology in the multicultural classroom.     

DNA as a Work of Art: Processes of Semiosis between Contemporary Art and Biology

When A Genomic Portrait – Sir John Sulston by Mark Quinn appeared in the London National Portrait Gallery's exhibition in 2001/2, the ensuing public controversy over its portrayal raised a number of questions about the representation of a publicly known figure. Because the portrait was the Gallery's first contemporary commission using specialised, scientific procedures in its creation, a number of issues arose surrounding its authenticity. How questions of authenticity are answered depends upon how the viewer reads aspects of scientific coding as it functions within the artistic domain. This is a form of visual literacy that depends on the viewer's ability to lift the veil that operates between coding systems and the context of their use. Literacy in this case is built upon the relationship between visual interpretation and ascribed systems of meaning within the context of their recontextualisations. By playing with the intersections between artistic and scientific discourses, the authors investigate how the representation of identity functions as a polysemy across different semiotic domains. Using visual semiotics to examine the intersections between sign systems across these domains, some of the communication aspects of how new modes of art function in present‐day communities are provoked. By illustrating the complexity of this process as a part of transforming expert knowing into pedagogical practice, support is given for improving teacher education in the arts and cultural domain.     

Digital resources in the family-school relationship during the 0–3 stage / Recursos digitales en la relación familia y escuela en la etapa 0–3

Abstract

Digital resources can open up new means of communication between families and schools, helping to create links and build relationships between both educational agents. The role played by digital resources to establish family-school relationships in pre-schools for children up to three is identified and analysed on the basis of experiences in schools in which ICT resources are being used for communicative processes. The results show that the most commonly used resources are blogs/websites and email, mainly for providing families with information. It is also observed that the introduction of ICT tools in these relations lacks the pedagogical reflection that would determine the communicative goals and the role played by both educational agents in the relationship scenarios mediated by ICT.     

Online educational videos according to specific didactics: the case of mathematics / Los Vídeos educativos en línea desde las didácticas específicas: el caso de las matemáticas

Abstract

The vast number of online educational videos available at the moment has generated an emerging area of research concerning their level of suitability. This study considers the epistemic quality of educational videos on mathematics, focusing on the specific content of directly proportional distributions. A qualitative study is used, based on the application of theoretical and methodological tools from the onto-semiotic approach to knowledge and mathematics instruction, principally the notion of epistemic suitability and the identification of algebraic levels. The sample consists of the 31 most popular videos in Spanish on YouTube? on directly proportional distributions. Analysis reveals interesting results on these kinds of resources. In general, it is observed that they are weak in epistemic suitability, which does not seem to affect their level of popularity. Moreover, the existence of videos with inaccurate arguments or incorrect procedures, together with the diversity of algebraic levels used, indicates that teachers should be careful when selecting them and only recommend those that better suit their students’ needs.     

Relaciones interpersonales,elección entre alternativas y resolución de conflictos

Con la resolución de conflictos se pretende abarcar el conjunto de técnicas, recursos y estrategias orientadas a la superación de situaciones problemáticas, estableciéndose las fases del procedimiento a seguir en su aplicación en el aula. Asimismo, se presentan ejemplos de actividades dirigidas en especial a los alumnos del primer ciclo de la Educación Secundaria. Además, se ofrecen prototipos de actividades para otros tramos educativos     

La ética: Polémica en el curriculum escolar

Se analiza a continuación la polémica generada en torno a la educación moral y cívica a lo largo de las últimas décadas y, en especial, la derivada de la LOGSE al dotar a la Etica de un carácter transversal generando nuevos planteamientos y perspectivas que procuran su mayor sistematización en el curriculum escolar.