Children’s Models about Colours in Nahuatl-Speaking Communities

This paper presents the development and structure of indigenous children’s ideas about mixing colours as well as their ideas about each colour, derived from their traditions. The children were interviewed both at school and outside it, and an educational proposal was implemented. Ideas expressed in the school context were analysed using the partial possible model, which states that the inferences and explanations used to describe a subject consist of constricting ideas, rules of correspondence, and a set of phenomenological inferences about processes. After identifying these components in the children’s ideas, we developed models to describe their conceptions about mixing colours. We employed a different approach to analyse children’s ideas related to their cultural context. The results showed that children change from a conception that focuses on colours as entities that do not change and as properties of objects (model 1) to the idea that colour represents a quality of substances or objects that can be modified by mixing colours (model 2). Cultural context analysis showed that stories are independent from one another and that they are not connected to colour mixing processes, only to the actions of colour on people. We concluded that students generate independent constructions between school and cultural knowledge.     

The Student–Teacher Relationship Scale revisited: Testing factorial structure,measurement invariance and validity criteria in German-speaking samples

The Student–Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS) is widely used for research in kindergarten and school. The increasing number of applications inside and outside of the U.S. stresses the need to investigate STRS properties, accordingly. The present study used the STRS in German-speaking countries, examining whether (a) the original factor structure is appropriate for a German version, (b) whether applications of a German STRS are invariant across contexts (kindergarten, first and second grade) as well as gender, and (c) whether construct and criterion validity are met. The original STRS was translated into German and filled out by 368 kindergarten and 503 elementary school teachers in Germany and Austria. Observations in kindergartens, student reports in schools, and teacher reports of students’ characteristics served as validity criteria. Results of confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) did not confirm the original STRS factor structure. Subsequent exploratory factor analyses on training samples resulted in significant item reductions, followed by further CFAs on validation samples. The bootstrapped results yielded an adjusted three-factor model with subscales indicating satisfying alphas and invariance across context and gender. Construct and criterion validity were met for all subscales of the German STRS based on various criteria from both, observations and reports.     

‘They might as well be Black’: the racialization of Sa’moan high school students

This article explores the processes of racialization imposed on Sa’moan youth through policy and practice in one urban, US school district and at one high school in particular. Specifically, I use the methodological practices of defamiliarization and counter‐storytelling to examine the contradictory practices of racialization and the simultaneously oppressive and transformative potentials these practices catalyze. The analysis of this process is framed by the Critical Race Theory concepts of colorblindness and Whiteness as property, which powerfully illustrate how this racialization both disrupts and reifies reigning local and national racial norms and hierarchies.     

Creating critical classrooms: reading and writing with an edge

Since the foundation in this country in 1950 of the Institut für Film Und Bild the production of AV aids for tuition and education has been promoted in many ways.     

The twin prime problem and generalizations (après Yitang Zhang)

We give a short introduction to the recent breakthrough theorem of Yitang Zhang that there are infinitely many pairs of distinct primes (p, q) with |p ? q| < 70 million.     

Towards a Competency Model for Teaching Computer Science

To address the special challenges of teaching computer science, adequate development of teachers’ competencies during their education is extremely important. In particular, pedagogical content knowledge and teachers’ beliefs and motivational orientations play an important role in effective teaching. This research field has been sparsely investigated up to now and there exists no consistent competency model for teaching computer science in Germany. Therefore, this paper describes the development of competency in the areas of pedagogical content knowledge, teachers’ beliefs, and motivational orientations with regard to computer science. Competency-relevant factors for teaching computer science are theoretically derived and concretely formulated with the help of expert interviews conducted according to the critical incident technique and analyzed using techniques of qualitative content analysis.