Reclaiming Kindergarten: Part II: Questions About Policy

Part II of “Reclaiming Kindergarten” continues the discussion related to responding to the crisis in today’s kindergarten. In Part II, two policy questions are posed, the answers to which seek to respond to this continuing crisis. The questions center on issues related to engaging families in kindergarten and the need to consider a new early childhood paradigm where kindergarten is part of a continuous and seamless educational experience spanning prekindergarten through third grade. As in Part I, examples of classroom practice are used to illustrate the effective implementation of these principles in a kindergarten classroom.     

Facing multiculturalism’s challenges in Korean education and society

Multicultural policy in South Korea faces variants of challenges endemic to multiculturalism. These challenges are “dilemmas of difference,” “variable terms of inclusion,” and “legitimacy.” In Korea, these challenges arise in a setting in which ethnic diversity is of relatively recent origin, an ideology of ethnic homogeneity is prevalent, and official multicultural policy is limited in its reach to those who are designated as “multicultural families,” that is families in which one spouse is Korean and the other an immigrant, usually the wife, and their offspring. The exclusion of migrant workers and their families from Korea’s multicultural framework poses a core contradiction in Korean multicultural policies. This contradiction must be resolved if multiculturalism in education and other spheres is to promote equality and provide a foundation for national integration on terms that are equitable to the diverse constituents of Korean society. Inevitably, this will require a redefinition of what it means to “be Korean.” Even if multicultural policies fall short in their immediate effects on those toward whom they are directed, multiculturalism represents a significant shift in the discourse of Korean identity and will be terrain on which the status of diverse groups in Korea will be contested.     

The building of weak expertise: the work of global university rankers

University rankers are the subject of much criticism, and yet they remain influential in the field of higher education. Drawing from a two-year field study of university ranking organizations, interviews with key correspondents in the sector, and an analysis of related documents, I introduce the concept of weak expertise. This kind of expertise is the result of a constantly negotiated balance between the relevance, reliability, and robustness of rankers’ data and their relationships with their key readers and audiences. Building this expertise entails collecting robust data, presenting it in ways that are relevant to audiences, and engaging with critics. I show how one ranking organization, the Times Higher Education (THE), sought to maintain its legitimacy in the face of opposition from important stakeholders and how it sought to introduce a new “Innovation and Impact” ranking. The paper analyzes the strategies, methods, and particular practices that university rankers undertake to legitimate their knowledge—and is the first work to do so using insights gathered alongside the operations of one of the ranking agencies as well as from the rankings’ conference circuit. Rather than assuming that all of these trust-building mechanisms have solidified the hold of the THE over its audience, they can be seen as signs of a constant struggle for influence over a skeptical audience.     

电动车能量再生技术

1　Introduction　Therateddistanceisoneofkeyfactorstolimitthedevelopmentofelectricvehicle (EV)sinceEVwasin vented .Itisawayforincreasingtherateddistancetoputtheadvancedenergyregenerationtechnologyintouse .Manyexperimentsprovethattheactualrateddistanceofaelectricscooterunderthecityroadsur roundingsisabout 35 - 45kmwhileitisabout 5 5 - 6 5kmunderthestandard proving ground .Moreover ,JapanToyotaalsoprovedthattherateddistancecouldbeincreasedby 2 0 %whenusingtheenergyregenera tionsysteminEV .Soi…     

Erosion behavior and mechanism of boronised steels

Boronising of steels is a hardening process to get high surface hardness. The erosion resistance of boronised steels was researched with the use of four kinds of erodent, i.e. glass, alumina, quartz and silicon carbide. The erosion rate increases rapidly with erodent hardness and severe erosion occurs with high impacting angle range of hard particles. SEM analysis indicated that chipping is caused by repetitive impacting of glass and quartz, whereas by alumina and silicon carbide impacting, chipping, and that plastic flow take place simultaneously and the erosion rate reaches the peak value when the impacting angle is above 60°.     

Social network analysis of international student mobility: uncovering the rise of regional hubs

Research on the patterns of international student mobility and the dynamics shaping these patterns has been dominated by studies reflecting a Western orientation, discourse, and understanding. Considering political, economic, cultural, historical, and ecological factors, this study argues that international student mobility is not only an issue of the economically developed, politically stable, and academically advanced Western world but also one that involves countries with different economic, political, and academic characteristics. Taking into account various theoretical orientations, this study argues that political, economic, cultural, and historical factors have led to the emergence of non-traditional destinations for international students; these countries are labeled as emergent regional hubs. In order to empirically test this, a social network analysis was conducted on a worldwide dataset representing 229 countries. The findings evidenced the strong position of traditional destinations for international students. However, the results also suggest the rise of several regional hubs, which are undergoing internationalization processes in different forms and with different rationales. The mobility patterns in emerging regional hubs deviate from those in traditional destinations, which fundamentally change the nature of internationalization in this context.     

Concurrent and longitudinal predictors of calculation skills in preschoolers

Early calculation abilities in preschoolers are predictive of mathematics achievement in subsequent grades (e.g., Jordan et al. 2009). Two studies were conducted to evaluate concurrent and longitudinal predictors of early calculation skills. In the first study, 102 preschoolers (57.8 % female; mean age?=?60.57?±?8.66 months) were given vocabulary, language comprehension, and verbal working memory tasks and a test battery that evaluated components of early number competence (quantity comparison, counting, number line, size seriation, semantic knowledge of digits, visual-spatial memory). The children were also asked to complete early calculation tasks, including addition and subtraction calculations. The results of this task constituted the dependent variable. The results showed that vocabulary, size seriation, and visual-spatial memory were significant concurrent predictors of early calculation competence. In the second study, 43 children completed the early number competence battery at time 1 (53.5 % female; mean age?=?59.30?±?3.46 months) and the linguistic and early calculation tasks at time 2, about 10 months later (mean age?=?69.43?±?3.31 months). The analysis of the longitudinal predictors of early calculation showed significant effects for counting and size seriation. The implications for preschool assessment and intervention are discussed.     

Preservice teachers’ use of contrasting cases in mathematics instruction

Drawing comparisons between students’ alternative solution strategies to a single mathematics problem is a powerful yet challenging instructional practice. We examined 80 preservice teachers’ when asked to design a short lesson when given a problem and two student solutions—one correct and one incorrect. These micro-teaching events were videotaped and coded, revealing that fewer than half of participants (43%) made any explicit comparison or contrasts between the two solution strategies. Those who did were still not likely to use additional support strategies to draw students’ attention to key elements of the comparison. Further, correlations suggest that participants’ mathematical content knowledge may be related to whether participants’ showed contrasting cases but not to whether they used specific pedagogical cues to support those comparisons. While these micro-teaching events differ from the interactive constraints of a classroom, they reveal that participants did not immediately orient toward differing student solutions as a discussion opportunity, and that future instruction on contrasting cases must highlight the utility of this practice.     

„Jeder Schule ihre Lehrer“?

Neue Personalauswahl- und Einstellungsverfahren, an denen die Einzelschulen ma?geblich beteiligt werden, kommen bei der Besetzung von Lehrerstellen in zahlreichen Bundesl?ndern seit Mitte der 1990er-Jahre zur Anwendung und haben mittlerweile die herk?mmlichen zentralen Auswahl- und Zuweisungsverfahren zumindest in einigen von ihnen nahezu vollst?ndig abgel?st. Die Praxis und Wirkung der neuen Auswahlverfahren wurde bislang allerdings nicht systematisch untersucht. In diesem Beitrag werden empirische Befunde einer Untersuchung von Schulen in Nordrhein-Westfalen vorgestellt, die im Jahr 2002 freie Lehrerstellen über das neue Ausschreibungsverfahren besetzt haben. Erfasst wurden unter anderem die in der Praxis angewandten Kriterien der Personalauswahl und die Inhalte der Auswahlgespr?che, die Beurteilung des neuen Auswahl- und Einstellungsverfahrens durch die beteiligten Schulleitungen und Mitglieder der Auswahlkommissionen, Einsch?tzungen und Erfahrungen der neu eingestellten Lehrkr?fte sowie der Verlauf ihrer Berufseinstiegsphase und ihre Bew?hrung am neuen Arbeitsplatz.