The moderating influence of instructional intensity and word type on the acquisition of academic vocabulary in young English language learners

This study used a within-subjects design to explore two instructional conditions for developing vocabulary in second-grade Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs)—extended instruction and embedded instruction implemented during shared interactive reading. Words assigned to the extended condition were directly taught using a multifaceted approach that included visuals, bilingual definitions, examples, spelling, and partner-talk about the words’ meaning. Words assigned to the embedded condition were taught solely through brief definitions to embedded text, writing activities, and songs. In the control condition students heard the target words read aloud during shared interactive reading but without definitions or direct instruction. The study also explored the interaction between instructional condition and word type. Four types of words—abstract cognates, abstract noncognates, concrete cognates, and concrete noncognates—were randomly assigned to each condition. Nine teachers in four schools and 187 second-grade ELs participated in this within-subjects intervention, which took place in transitional bilingual classrooms. Findings indicated that across all word types, both extended and embedded instruction were more effective than the control condition in helping ELs acquire vocabulary. Findings also indicated that extended instruction was more effective then embedded instruction for all word types except concrete cognates suggesting that these young Spanish-speaking ELs were advantaged by word knowledge in their home language. Finally, while embedded instruction was less effective than extended instruction, it was much more effective than a control condition. Embedded instruction takes significantly less preparation and instructional time than extended instruction, offering teachers a practical way to teach more vocabulary to ELs.     

Contemporary Classics? The Early Onset of Influence of Articles Published in Criminology and Criminal Justice Journals, 2010–2015

Citation analysis is a valuable method for tracking the growth and transmission of scientific knowledge. In criminology and criminal justice, such analyses tend to be focused on “classic” works or on highly cited scholars over many years. As an alternative approach, we focus on work that has been cited rather quickly – what we term the “early onset” of impact. In doing so, we identified 221 of the most highly cited peer-reviewed articles, authored by 480 scholars, which were published in criminology and criminal justice journals between 2010 and 2015. Analyses reveal wide variation in substantive topics and methodological approaches, as well as a substantial gender gap with respect to authorship. Additional analyses provide insight into both journal and institutional/program prestige. We conclude with directions for future research and stress the importance of tracking over time articles that appear to be off to an early start with respect to scholarly impact.     

Alternating exposure to two compound flavors creates inhibitory associations between their unique features

Rats were exposed to two compound solutions, saline-lemon and sucrose-lemon. In Group ALT, trials with one solution alternated with trials with the other. Group BLK received all trials with one solution before any trials with the other. Previous retardation tests had implied that only alternating exposure would establish sucrose as an inhibitor of saline. To provide a complementary summation test for this inhibition, in Experiment 1, all the animals received pairings of peppermint and saline and were tested for consumption of peppermint-sucrose under sodium depletion. Consumption was increased by sodium depletion only in Group BLK. In Experiment 2, a retardation test was used to show that presentation of saline-lemon before sucrose-lemon on each exposure day would establish sucrose as an inhibitor of saline. Neither exposure to sucrose-lemon before saline-lemon nor alternating exposure to sucrose and saline alone had the same effect. These results provide support for an associative theory of perceptual learning that suggests that exposure to complex stimuli aids later discrimination partially as a result of establishing inhibitory associations between their unique elements.     

Metacognition,elaboration, and knowledge acquisition: Implications for instructional design

The robustness of the effect of precise elaborations on memory and the relationship of these effects to metacognitions about learning was investigated in two studies. Twenty-six naive experimenters administered prepared tasks to 130 subjects. Participants rated the comprehensibility of each sentence as it was read. An unexpected cued-recall test with a confidence rating for each answer given was administered, followed by rating the ease of learning the types of items used in three treatments: precisely elaborated, imprecisely elaborated, and unelaborated base sentences. Both studies resulted in very similar findings: Memory for precise elaborations was 50% greater than for either imprecisely elaborated or unelaborated statements. Comprehension ratings of the three sets of statements were not significantly different. Confidence ratings of correctly answered items were significantly higher than of incorrectly answered items.     

What does the teaching and learning of sexuality education in South African schools reveal about counter-normative sexualities?

ABSTRACT

Using the interlocking concepts of power, knowledge and discourse, this article focuses on how counter normative sexualities are discursively constructed in the sexuality education classroom and with what effects. Drawing on in-depth interviews with teachers and classroom observation, the evidence highlights the presence of specific discourses about the teaching and learning of sexuality diversity. First, while many teachers argued for the inclusion of counter-normative sexualities, in their teaching and responses they privileged heterosexuality as legitimate and natural and same-sex sexualities as deviant and Other. Second, teachers’ discourses construct queer youth not only as innocent and childlike but also as hypersexual and rebellious – requiring discipline and intervention. These constructions link closely to discourses of pity and tolerance, or blame when counter-normative sexualities were expressed. Finally, despite heterosexuality being privileged in the classroom, teachers’ and pupils’ questions about gender and sexuality diversity suggest the need for a more defined and inclusive curriculum sexuality education curriculum. Findings justify concern about how counter-normative sexualities are addressed in the sexuality education classroom and advocate for improvement in teaching and learning about counter-normative sexualities in South African secondary education.     

Race and the Education Reform Act

The abandonment of a commitment to the achievement of social democratic consensus in the Thatcherite project and the emphasis on individualism and the market means that a new source of cultural hegemony has to be sought. It is being attempted by the inculcation of a particular form of nationalism using the family and schools as a vehicle. The exact parameters of what constitutes Britishness are achieved by the marginalization of groups and movements that threaten the particular Thatcherite model of the nation and the imposition of a limited, and racist, model of culture. Within education a struggle is developing over content as the government seeks to impose a National Curriculum that reflects its ideology while structural changes hasten the commodification of education. Both the curriculum and structural changes are likely to have a detrimental effect on black and working-class pupils.     

AGGRESSIVE ATTITUDES AND PREVALENCE OF BULLYING BYSTANDER BEHAVIOR IN MIDDLE SCHOOL

Separate lines of research find that proaggressive attitudes promote peer aggression and that bystanders play a pivotal role in deterring or facilitating bullying behavior. The current study hypothesized that proaggressive attitudes in middle school would deter students from standing up to bullying and encourage them to reinforce bullying behavior. Middle school students (n = 28,765) in 423 schools completed a statewide school climate survey that included an aggressive attitudes scale and their bystander response to a recent episode of bullying, which was categorized as upstanding, reinforcing, or passive. Multilevel logistic regressions indicated that higher aggressive attitudes were associated with less upstanding behavior at the school level and less upstanding behavior and more reinforcing behavior at the individual level, while controlling for other school and student demographic variables. These findings suggest that antibullying programs might address student attitudes toward aggression as a means of boosting positive bystander intervention.