New Technologies and Musical Education

Abstract

Musical education is also benefiting from the new technologies, and this article looks at how these new technologies can help the teacher and the students both in the classroom and in the workshops, which are either directed or in which students work on their own. It then looks in detail at a multi‐discipline project from the 1995‐96 multimedia workshop.     

Mathématique et affectivité

Summary This article sums up a survey carried out on pupils of 15 to 18 years of age to study the relations existing between mathematics and affectivity. Pupils were considered according to their sex and whether they were in literary or scientific streams.This work has been carried out according to a clinical method based on 60 recorded interviews and also according to an experimental method based on 600 sets of questions. Its objective was to show in which way mathematics can be considered as a support for libidinal cathexis used by the unconscious through various mechanisms.This research work has been published in: Mathématique et Affectivité, Édition Stock, Paris.     

Reading and summarizing challenging texts in first and second languages

The thinking processes of 14 adult Anglophone students of French performing challenging reading and summarizing tasks were compared in their first and second languages. Individuals proved to use equivalent proportions of higher-order problem solving strategies while writing and reading in both languages. These varied with people's levels of literate expertise in their mother tongue, correlating with the qualities of written summaries they produced in both languages. Uses of these problem solving strategies appeared unrelated to participants' levels (beginning and intermediate) of second language proficiency. Analyses of the verbal reports reveal thinking processes which are common to reading and summary writing in first and second languages but which appear to vary with people's literate expertise and relevant knowledge. Findings are interpreted in relation to Cummins' (1984) theories of the cross-linguistic interdependence of cognitive-academic skills and Van Dijk and Kintsch's (1983) model of discourse comprehension. Implications are drawn for theories of bilingual cognition, further research, and instruction in second language reading and writing.     

Numerical competence in young children and in children with mathematics learning disabilities

A longitudinal study was conducted on 82 children to investigate, firstly the numerical competence of young children and the predictive value of (pre)-numerical tests in kindergarten, and, secondly, whether children's knowledge of the numerical system and representation of the number size is related to their computation and logical knowledge and to their counting skills. In an additional cross-sectional study on 30 children with a clinical diagnosis of mathematical learning disability (MLD) of 8,5 years, age- and ability-matched with 2 × 30 children the same parameters of numerical competence were assessed. The longitudinal data showed individual differences in numerosity, as well as the relationship between a delay in arithmetics in grade l and problems on numerosity in kindergarten. In the cross-sectional results some evidence was found for the independence of numerical abilities in MLD-children. About 13% of them had still severe pre-numerical processing deficits (in number sequence production, cardinality skills and logical knowledge) in grade 3. About 67% had severe difficulties in executing calculation procedures and a lack of conceptual knowledge. A feature of 87% of the MLD-children was severe translation deficits, with a significantly worse knowledge of number words compared with the knowledge of Arab numerals. Finally a severe deficit in subitizing was found to be present in 33% of the MLD children. On a group level the processing deficits were linked to understanding numerosity, since the ability-matched younger children and the MLD-children had the same pre-numerical and numerical profile. Implications for the assessment of mathematical disabilities and the value of TEDI-MATH® as an instrument in this process are discussed.     

Neural Correlates of Self and Its Interaction With Memory in Healthy Adolescents

Adolescence is marked by the development of personal identity and is associated with structural and functional changes in brain regions associated with Self processing. Yet, little is known about the neural correlates of self‐reference processing and self‐reference effect in adolescents. This functional magnetic resonance imaging study consists of a self‐reference paradigm followed by a recognition test proposed to 30 healthy adolescents aged 13–18 years old. Results showed that the rostral anterior cingulate cortex is specifically involved in self‐reference processing and that this specialization develops gradually from 13 to 18 years old. The self‐reference effect is associated with increased brain activation changes during encoding, suggesting that the beneficial effect of Self on memory may occur at encoding of self‐referential information, rather than at retrieval.     

Talented in Dance: The Bloom Stage Model revisited in the personal histories of dance students

Bloom (1985) reported on the careers of a sample of 120 talented individuals from three domains: science, athletics and the arts. His findings are used as a starting point for the research on professional dance students presented in this article. Three issues were studied: the relevance of significant others in a dance career; the issue of detecting dance talent and, also, using Bloom's proposed three career stages in a talent domain, how teachers are described by students, and what the characteristics of a typical dance class are. A questionnaire was constructed and administered to 129 students in the Dance Department at the Amsterdam School of the Arts, the Netherlands. The results indicate that, in addition to the dance teacher and parents (as highlighted in Bloom's study), peers should also be considered. Furthermore, the majority of students have been labelled "talented" at some point in their career, notably by teachers and other dance experts, while in fact parents played no role here. A new measurement format was introduced in an attempt to reveal the peculiarities of teacher and dance class during the three career stages. The results obtained correspond to Bloom's findings. Therefore, the present study not only supports Bloom's findings in a dance sample, but also offers a generalisation from Bloom's male-dominated sample to a female-dominated one.     

Typology of students at risk of dropping out of school: Description by personal, family and school factors

The purpose of this study was to identify the different subgroups of students at risk of dropping out of school. The typology was developed based on the three main contexts associated with school dropout risk, namely, the personal, family and school contexts. On the basis of these factors, the clustering results enabled us to categorize at-risk students into four subgroups: (1) the Anti-Social Covert behavior type, (2) the Uninterested in school type, (3) the School and Social Adjustment Difficulties type, and (4) the Depressive type. Moreover, considering all the contexts involved in school dropout, the clustering technique confirms the importance of behavior problems and learning difficulties, while emphasizing the significance of both depression and the family and classroom environments in the development of dropout risk. Students at risk of dropping out of school report many family organisational problems and that they obtain little emotional support from their parents. They also perceive little order or organisation in the classroom.