The impact of relational markers on expository text comprehension in L1 and L2

This article reports on an experimentinvestigating the impact of causal discoursemarkers (connectives and signaling phrases) onthe comprehension of expository texts in L1 andL2. Although several psycholinguistic studieshave investigated the impact of connectives andlexical markers of text structure oncomprehension (i.e. off-line), there is noconsensus on the exact effect of explicitdiscourse markers on text understanding; threedifferent findings are reported in theliterature: markers would have a facilitatingeffect, an interfering effect or no effect atall. The first goal of this article is toclarify this problem of contradicting resultsby limiting the scope of the study to causalrelations, and to one specific text type:expository texts. Furthermore, the naturalnessof the experimental texts was controlled,readers did not need specific backgroundknowledge to understand the texts and theexperimental method consisted of open answerquestioning. Our second goal is to investigateto what extent a supposed effect of linguisticmarking depends on readers proficiency in afirst or second language.The experiment consisted in the reading of short expository texts in two languages, Dutchand French, which both functioned as L1 and L2.The results indicate that readers benefit fromthe presence of causal relational markers bothin L1 and in L2. Implications for (theoriesof) text processing are discussed, as well asfor the further insights in readingcomprehension in L1 and L2.     

Interpretations of child compliance in individuals at high- and low-risk for child physical abuse

OBJECTIVE: Our studies compared individuals at high- and low-risk for child physical abuse on measures of social information processing. METHOD: Two studies were conducted using similar methods. Twenty-eight childless women in Study 1 and 36 mothers in Study 2 read vignettes of parent-child interactions in which the child's level of compliance was difficult to interpret. Participants were asked a series of questions about the child's behavior and their own reactions. RESULTS: Accuracy and bias in identifying compliant behavior were assessed using a signal detection paradigm. In both samples, high- and low-risk participants did not differ in their overall accuracy in identifying children's behaviors. However, they used different evaluation standards such that high-risk participants were biased toward seeing more noncompliance and low-risk participants were biased toward seeing more compliance. High- and low-risk participants also made different types of errors in interpreting children's behavior. Low-risk participants were more likely to misinterpret noncompliant behavior as compliant, and there was a trend for high-risk participants to not perceive compliant behavior when it occurred. There were no differences in reported disciplinary responses in either study and the results for affective reactions were mixed. CONCLUSIONS: Specific differences in social information processing between high- and low-risk individuals replicated across samples, suggesting a reliable association between evaluation standards and risk of child physical abuse. However, the absence of differences in reported discipline and inconsistent findings on affective reactions indicate the need to identify the mechanism through which cognition influences parenting behavior.     

The developmental influence of sex composition in preschool classrooms: Boys fare worse in preschool classrooms with more boys

A multilevel modeling approach was employed to investigate the relation between sex composition and developmental change in 70 urban preschool classrooms. The research represents a unique contribution as (1) few studies have examined the influence of sex composition during the preschool years, (2) it represents the first research to use a continuous (i.e., sex ratio) as opposed to binary (i.e., mixed- versus single-sex) indicator for classroom sex composition, and (3) the sample represents an important and often neglected group (i.e., low-income children from urban schools). A series of HLM models were run, addressing the nested nature of the data (children within classrooms), and relating classroom sex composition to developmental change using the cognitive, motor, and social subscales from the Child Observation Record (COR). Overall, there were no main effects at the classroom-level for sex composition. However, a cross-level interaction indicated that, while girls’ development was not influenced by classroom sex composition, boys in classrooms with proportionally more boys fared significantly worse in terms of development as assessed by combined score on the COR. More specifically, this interaction was significant when predicting the COR cognitive subscale, but nonsignificant when predicting the COR social and motor subscales. This was true when controlling for the number of students at the classroom-level, as well as child's age and baseline ability (i.e., Time 1 COR) at the child-level. Implications for early childhood education policy are discussed.     

Pupils' views on equity in schools

This paper presents student perspectives on what they consider to be a fair and equitable national education system, based on their own experiences of primary and secondary level schooling by the age of 13 or 14. A survey of 5432 students in five countries involved a questionnaire administered as part of an EU‐funded project to develop indicators of equity in European school systems. Overall, the UK students reported favouring an egalitarian system where all students were treated in the same way, and this was largely what they felt that they experienced. In this respect, they differed from their peers in the other EU countries, a substantial proportion of whom thought that the least able should receive more support and attention in class, but who found that more attention was actually given to the more able. The UK students also appeared to be more self‐confident about their ability to succeed in school. We discuss these results in terms of policies for school allocation, student assessment and the formation of personal notions of justice. In particular, we argue that equity in structure and procedure is important for the effective teaching of notions of justice in citizenship studies.     

Media rich, resource poor: practical work in an impractical environment

Film and media courses appear well placed to exploit technology convergence in exposing students both to practical skills and to theoretical concepts. For the University of Cape Town's (UCT) large film and media studies courses, it is impractical simply to use the technology of professionals as this would typically be too expensive to purchase and time‐consuming to run. Our approach has been to develop activities that can run with large classes in generic computer laboratories and which simulate environments and tools of the real world. Two illustrative examples, emphasising writing skills in context, involve the production of a TV news story and the development of a proposal for an educational soap opera. Using these, we reflect on our experience of integrating practical skills into the curriculum of a traditional academic institution, where these skills have a lower status and must be sufficiently flexible to accommodate changes in the higher‐status academic components. This suggests that such flexibility has to be part of the design of practical interventions and that they should additionally aim to provide a challenge to some of the more theoretical aspects of these courses. While developing one's own interventions allows for some of this flexibility to be incorporated into the design, it remains difficult for academic departments to adopt these solutions as their own, thus requiring continued involvement of the original developers to adapt to changes.     

Education in England – a testbed for network governance?

Abstract

Since devolution in the late 1990s, education policy in England has diverged further from that in Scotland and also from policy in Wales and Northern Ireland. In this paper we review the roots and trajectory of the English education reforms over the past two decades. Our focus is the schools sector, though we also touch on adjoining reforms to early years and further and higher education. In so doing, we engage with various themes, including marketisation, institutional autonomy and accountability. Changes in governance arrangements for schools have been a defining feature of education reforms since devolution. This has been set against an evolution in national performance indicators that has put government priorities into ever sharper relief. In theorising the changes, we pay particular attention to the suggestion that the English education system now epitomises the concept of ‘network governance’, which has also been applied to education in a global context. We question the extent to which policies have in practice moved beyond the well-established mechanisms of ‘steering at a distance’ and undermined the very notion of an education system in England. We conclude by considering possible futures for education policy and how they may position England in relation to other parts of the UK and the wider world.     

Social issues

Rachel Theilheimer teaches early childhood education at Borough of Manhattan Community College in New York City. Emma C. Winger has just completed fifth grade at P.S. 84 in Manhattan.     

Assessment in special schools: national early assessment procedures and pupils attending special schools in England

An implicit assumption that fostering inclusion means having shared systems encompassing the needs of all children is evident in many aspects of policy development over the past decade. Reflecting this, the implementation of ‘baseline assessment’ schemes (i.e. testing at around age 5 years) is a statutory requirement on all state-maintained special and mainstream schools in England since 1998. Our argument is that the enthusiasm for commonality has obscured the need to question the value and validity of baseline assessment schemes for children with special educational needs (and possibly some others such as children having English as an additional language). We illustrate this position with reference to data from our recent study on baseline assessment in England. The study encompassed survey data from a national sample of 982 schools, of which 107 were special schools. Between them, these special schools used 42 different baseline assessment schemes. Comparisons between our mainstream and special school respondents indicated that there were similarities in the nature and perceived value of the schemes used. However, special schools were less satisfied with their schemes. We suggest that a reappraisal of the nature and purpose of baseline assessment for pupils with special educational needs warrants greater critical debate. Without this, there is a danger that a stress on commonality, veiling an inclusion orthodoxy, will ultimately be counterproductive.