Children’s Home Numeracy Environment Predicts Growth of their Early Mathematical Skills in Kindergarten

This study investigated the longitudinal associations between children’s early mathematics and their home numeracy environment (HNE). Chilean children from families who varied widely in socioeconomic status were assessed at the beginning and end of prekindergarten in 2016 (N = 419, M_age = 4:7 [years:months]), and at the end of kindergarten in 2017 (N = 368, M_age = 5:10). Children whose parents provided frequent operational numeracy activities (e.g., learning simple sums) at prekindergarten showed better arithmetic performance and growth in nonsymbolic and symbolic number comparison at the end of kindergarten. Parents’ knowledge of number-related games predicted children’s arithmetic skills and growth in nonsymbolic number comparison. These findings underscore the persistent relations between the HNE and the development of children’s mathematical skills.     

Del término descolonización y sus derivas pedagógicas

RESUMEN

En tiempos de globalización neoliberal, de enorme sufrimiento de nuestros pueblos y naturalezas, resulta necesario (re) visitar las ideas de los pensadores anticoloniales y a Frantz Fanon (1925–1961). Sus aportes son una vía crítica para recuperar historias de resistencia al colonialismo, se parte de su producción intelectual para luego observar sus derivas y las marcas que este intelectual dejó en la obra de Paulo Freire. Mi intención es analizar las influencias de Fanon, observar como el martinico es una referencia ineludible en el pensamiento latinoamericano, caribeño y del mundo periférico en general. La crítica política que nos propuso puede sintetizarse en el par descolonización-liberación. En tanto enunciación interpelante permitió analizar en clave de sospecha muchos de nuestros presupuestos teóricos-prácticos de fuerte contenido eurocéntrico que se encuentran presentes en la educación. En la actualidad las discusiones sobre la descolonización han vuelto, están de algún modo a reconfigurando nuestras bibliotecas, a pesar de ser parte de nuestra memoria, y biografías políticas han podido ir más allá ellas. Para responder a los avances y la complejidad de la descolonización-liberación, en tanto núcleo de sentido, es necesario realizar una genealogía del concepto para estudiar como nutre los debates actuales de las teorías sociales críticas y de la pedagogía de la liberación.     

Teacher preparation for equitable access through the integration of TESOL standards,multiple intelligences and technology

Abstract

Schools need teachers who can provide English language learners with equal access to academic content and to information technologies. The authors propose that the integration of standards in TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages), the theory of multiple intelligences (MI) and technology can provide an equitable education, support learning differences and develop English language skills across the curriculum. The authors suggest how the integration of TESOL standards, MI theory and technology can become a part of pre-service teacher education and discuss some of the challenges to transferring this integration into the classroom     

Development of occupational aspirations in early Korean adolescents: a multiple-group latent curve model analysis

The complex phenomenon of intraindividual and interindividual differences in the development of occupational aspirations and factors influencing this development were examined in a longitudinal sample of 5,727 Korean adolescents over a 4-year period. A downward trajectory of occupational aspirations from junior high school to the first year of high school was found. Rate of change in expressed aspirations was different for men and women. Potentially important initial differences in occupational aspirations development, based on curriculum track, were also detected.     

Patterns of accelerometer-derived sedentary time across the lifespan

ABSTRACT

We aimed to describe ST and its patterns on a national level. A hip-worn accelerometer (ActiGraph GT1M) was used to collect data during waking hours from 4575 Portuguese’ participants from 2007–2009 (2683 females) aged 10–102 years old. Data was presented by sex, in 5-years age intervals, and by adolescents (n=2833), adults (n=1122), and older adults (n=620). Lambda-mu-sigma (LMS) smoothed percentile curves were estimated. Girls, women, and older women spent 61, 57, and 64% of wear time in ST, respectively. In males, ST represented 57, 60, and 62% of wear time respectively for boys, men, and older men. Comparing to other age groups, older adults spent a larger amount of ST in bouts ≥30-min (women: 33%, men: 39% of total ST). The number of breaks/ST hour were: 10.6 in girls, 11.7 in women, and 9.6 in older women. In males, the number of breaks/ST hour were: 11.2, 10.5, and 8.5 for boys, men, and older men. In conclusion, ST was not consistently higher at older ages. Instead, we found that the potential critical moments in which ST may be higher are during adolescence and in the transition from adulthood into older adulthood, which represents critical periods for interventions.     

Growth of Social Competence During the Preschool Years: A 3‐Year Longitudinal Study

This study examined the stability and growth over a 3‐year period of individual differences in preschool children's social competence, which was assessed in three domains: social engagement/motivation, profiles of behavior and personality attributes characteristic of socially competent young children, and peer acceptance. A total of 255 children (126 girls and 129 boys) participated in this study. Growth curve analyses demonstrated both stability and change with regard to social competence over early childhood. Social competence measures and latent variables were invariant over this time period, individual differences in social competence were largely stable from year to year, and significant increases over time were observed for the domain most closely reflective of specific personal attributes skills.     

Media Consumption and Public Connection: Toward a Typology of the Dispersed Citizen

This paper explores the nature and extent of citizens’ connection to public space through media consumption. It reports on a study of data from two qualitative sources: panel responses and individual in-depth interviews. The authors’ findings are, first, that people's media consumption and forms of public connection may be significantly constrained by limitations on their time—not just objectively, but also subjectively (their sense of lacking time to use media or pursue information). Second, such is the complexity of how people think about their public connection that research methodologies must be sensitive to the details of people's reflexivity, while enabling effective typologies of the positions people take up in thought and practice. Third, such research may reveal not a consensus, but instead a range of incompatible framings of whether public connection matters and how it can be achieved. Research should aim, therefore, not at a redefinition of something as unified as “civic culture,” but rather at tracking the hetereogeneity of the “dispersed citizen.”     

Beginning to untangle the strange coupling of power within a neoliberal early education context

Policymakers across the globe continue to promote access to early education programmes as a means to improve children's readiness for school. Many of their reforms are rooted in a neoliberal conception of governance that frames policy solutions through economic rather than democratic terms. Such policies foster an image of the successful learner as one who becomes an earner and consumer rather than an active member of the larger democratic society. This shift in the conception of publicly supported early education affects teachers of young children in multiple ways. This article examines how a sample of early educators in the USA responded to a set of neoliberal reforms in their pre-kindergarten teaching context. Examining their responses, which ultimately mimicked their policy-makers’ neoliberal reforms, reveals the subtlety of these policies in overtaking their attempts to resist them. It also illuminates the challenges they and other early educators face as policy-makers’ neoliberal policies continue to alter the purpose and direction of early childhood. Finally, it ends by considering the ways in which early educators working in similar contexts might respond to and navigate such reforms.     

A novel actuation method of transporting droplets by using electrical charging of droplet in a dielectric fluid

We evaluate the feasibility of manipulating droplets in two dimensions by exploiting Coulombic forces acting on conductive droplets immersed in a dielectric fluid. When a droplet suspended in an immiscible fluid is located near an electrode under a dc voltage, the droplet can be charged by direct contact, by charge transfer along an electrically conducting path, or by both mechanisms. This process is called electrical charging of droplet (ECOD). This charged droplet may then be transported rapidly by exploiting Coulombic forces. We experimentally demonstrate electrical actuation of a charged droplet by applying voltage sequences. A charged droplet is two dimensionally actuated by following the direction of the electrical field signal. The droplet does not contact the surface of the microfluidic chip when it moves. This characteristic is very advantageous because treatments of the substrate surfaces of microfluidic chip become simpler. In order to test the feasibility of using ECOD in a droplet-based microreactor, electrocoalescence of two oppositely charged droplets is also studied. When two droplets approach each other due to Coulombic attraction, a liquid bridge is formed between them. We postulate that if the applied electric field is weaker than a certain critical level, the two droplets coalesce instantaneously when the charges are exchanged and redistributed through this liquid bridge.