Language‐Switching Costs in Bilingual Mathematics Learning

Behavioral studies on bilingual learning have revealed cognitive costs (lower accuracy and/or higher processing time) when the language of application differs from the language of learning. The aim of this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study was to provide insights into the cognitive underpinnings of these costs (so‐called language‐switching costs) in mathematics. Twenty‐nine bilingual adults underwent a 4‐day arithmetic training in one language, followed by an fMRI test session in which they had to solve the trained problems in both languages. Language‐switching costs were accompanied by increased activation in areas associated with magnitude processing (intraparietal sulcus), visuo‐spatial imagery (precuneus), numerical stimulus recognition (fusiform gyrus) and executive functions (frontal areas). These findings suggest that language‐switching costs in arithmetic are due to additional numerical information processing. Bilingual education programs need to take these findings into account to reduce language‐switching costs in order to fully exploit the potential of bilingual learning.     

Little Evidence That Time in Child Care Causes Externalizing Problems During Early Childhood in Norway

Associations between maternal reports of hours in child care and children's externalizing problems at 18 and 36 months of age were examined in a population‐based Norwegian sample (n = 75,271). Within a sociopolitical context of homogenously high‐quality child care, there was little evidence that high quantity of care causes externalizing problems. Using conventional approaches to handling selection bias and listwise deletion for substantial attrition in this sample, more hours in care predicted higher problem levels, yet with small effect sizes. The finding, however, was not robust to using multiple imputation for missing values. Moreover, when sibling and individual fixed‐effects models for handling selection bias were used, no relation between hours and problems was evident.     

Predicting early center care utilization in a context of universal access

This paper reports predictors for center care utilization prior to 18 months of age in Norway, a country with a welfare system providing up to one-year paid parental leave and universal access to subsidized and publicly regulated center care. A community sample of 1103 families was interviewed about demographics, family, and child characteristics when their child was 6 months old, and the child's entry into center care prior to 18 months of age was recorded. Utilization rate was 72.2%. Parents’ preference that their child entered center care prior to 18 months of age was the strongest predictor of utilization. Nonwestern immigrant status and lower socio-economic status predicted lower utilization. Age of entry was higher for children in two-parent families. Mother's severe health problems, parents’ preferences for entry prior to 18 months, and high child activity levels predicted earlier entry. Our findings suggest that in a context of universally accessible subsidized center care, family and child factors beyond preferences for center care predicted utilization only to a very limited extent.     

The Addition Property of Expectation – An Example to Convince

This article describes an example that is designed to convince students of the addition property of expectation.     

In the Margins of Journalism

Research on journalists and journalistic work has focused on journalists with permanent, full-time employment. Given the rapid decrease of such employment opportunities, we argue that journalism research needs to pay more attention to those who those who have had to leave their jobs and either stopped doing journalism entirely, or who have switched to a freelance career (sometimes combining journalism with other work). This category of people is at once becoming more marginalized and “the new normal” within the occupation: In this paper, we furthermore focus on local (Swedish) journalists and ex-journalists. Based on a set of semi-structured interviews (n?=?12) with ex-journalists who share the experience of having lost their permanent, full-time jobs, we use the concept of livelihood as an analytical tool. The concept of livelihood highlights the shift from journalism as a job practiced exclusive of other jobs to an activity conducted alongside other income-generating activities and makes it possible to analyse leaving the occupation from a context that incorporates the whole life situation of the respondents. This also contributes to the current wave of studies of journalism and job loss by adding qualitative data about individual experiences of job loss to the existing quantitative survey evidence.     

Journalism Under Threat

Previous studies of intimidation and harassment of journalists have (rightly) focused on non-democratic and authoritarian nations and/or transitional/emerging democracies. In this article, we examine the situation in Sweden, a country with strong de facto and de jure safeguards of journalistic freedom and autonomy. We report the findings from a representative survey of Swedish journalists where three themes are analysed: the extent of harassment, the forms of harassment, and the consequences of intimidation and harassment. The results show that a third of the respondents had experienced threats at work in the past year, and an overwhelming majority said they had received offensive and insulting comments. Intimidation and harassment also had consequences, both professionally and personally, such as fear and self-censorship. We therefore argue that it is time to add the dimension of external pressure and threats to the discussion of journalistic autonomy—including in countries like Sweden.     

Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model and the circulation of journalism in the digital landscape

ABSTRACT

Notions of circuitry are central to Stuart Hall’s conceptualization of how communities, cultures, and media constitute each other. This is very explicit in his encoding/decoding model from 1973. Hall here reserves the term “circulation” for a delimited process within a broader argument for a circular movement, or a “reproduction” of culture through media. In this broader view, however, Hall sees circulation as both technological and hermeneutical processes through which meaning and/or ideology move into and out of discursive form. The encoding/decoding text(s) refer on several occasions to “current affairs” but later applications of this model have somewhat neglected the sphere of journalism. This paper consequently situates Hall’s notions of circulation in relation to new modes of circulating journalism on participatory digital platforms. Given the status of Hall’s model, the overall goal of this re-reading is twofold: seeing Hall through contemporary issues puts into perspective key aspects of Hall’s thinking, while Hall’s framework in turn helps illuminate important characteristics of how journalism is ascribed meaning in a digital landscape. The paper ultimately argues that while Hall’s insistence on seeing the circulation of journalism within a broader circuit of culture is as important as ever, some of his main tenets and assumptions need to be rethought and supplemented in light of newer developments.     

Facilitating integrated agricultural technology development through participatory research

Purpose: In this paper, we discuss the role of participatory research in integrated agricultural technology development using the example of a solar fruit drying project in Mozambique.

Design/methodology/approach: We engage in seven participatory exercises with groups of farmers from two farmers’ associations in Inharrime district in Mozambique to identify their needs for solar fruit drying that are crucial for solar dryer technology design. We focus in the analysis on three of these exercises including a daily schedule exercise, SWOT (Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats) analysis and technology requirement exercise.

Findings: Participatory research takes a dual function for integrated agricultural technology development. First, it can help to identify the technology needs of farmers and second it can enable the exchange and creation of different sets of knowledge for agricultural technology development between multiple stakeholders.

Practical implications: Participatory research provides a tool for joint knowledge exchange and creation, which allows the identified technology requirements to be translated into practical technology design.

Theoretical implications: This paper extends the concept of integrated research to integrated agricultural technology development and shows how participatory research is a tool that enables transdisciplinarity, which presents the most desired form of integrated research.

Originality: This research is highly relevant for researchers working in an interdisciplinary environment with agricultural technology development in cross-cultural contexts. From a meta-level perspective, it provides insights for joint and integrated technology development.     

An ethnographic field study of the influence of social interactions during the school day for children diagnosed with ADHD

The aim of this ethnographic field study was to investigate the influence of school-day social interactions on the well-being and social inclusion of children diagnosed with ADHD. The empirical data consisted of participant observations and informal interviews over a three-month period at a Danish primary school. Two ADHD-diagnosed 11-year-old boys in the fourth and fifth grades were followed on an alternating basis. The field notes were analysed using a qualitative content analysis that incorporated Etienne Wenger’s concepts of social identity and participation. The results revealed that the effects of school-day social interactions are complex and situation dependent. Medication, friendships and relationships with teachers and other adults strongly influence how children diagnosed with ADHD participate in social interactions and, consequently, how they thrive. We argue that it is important to emphasise the mediation of these children’s participation in the classroom community throughout an entire school day to ensure their social inclusion and well-being.