Moral attention: A comparative philosophical study

The notion of moral attention allows the recognition of fundamental aspects of ethical life ignored or neglected by mainstream ethical theories. It is central to the theories of several notable female ethicists and many of them identify the French philosopher Simone Weil as the source of the contemporary use of this concept which invites questioning of crucial categories in the domain of ethics and moral education, such as the importance of the will as well as the definition of the moral sphere itself. The meanings given to the notion of moral attention are examined in the work of three ethicists: Iris Murdoch, Nel Noddings and Joan Tronto with the object of bringing out points of agreement and disagreement between their respective conceptions of this subject. The way they have addressed the complex problem of educating for moral attention is analyzed and important implications for moral education are discussed.     

Mentoring in schools: an impact study of big brothers big sisters school-based mentoring

This random assignment impact study of Big Brothers Big Sisters School-Based Mentoring involved 1,139 9- to 16-year-old students in 10 cities nationwide. Youth were randomly assigned to either a treatment group (receiving mentoring) or a control group (receiving no mentoring) and were followed for 1.5 school years. At the end of the first school year, relative to the control group, mentored youth performed better academically, had more positive perceptions of their own academic abilities, and were more likely to report having a "special adult" in their lives. However, they did not show improvements in classroom effort, global self-worth, relationships with parents, teachers or peers, or rates of problem behavior. Academic improvements were also not sustained into the second school year.     

Is syllable segmentation developmentally constrained by consonant sonority within syllable boundaries in silent reading? Evidence in French children

There is agreement that French typically reading children use syllable‐sized units to segment words. Although the statistical properties of the initial syllables or the clusters within syllable boundaries seem to be crucial for syllable segmentation, little is known about the role of consonant sonority in silent reading. In two experiments that used audio‐visual and visual pseudoword recognition tasks with 300 French typically developing children, we showed a progressive increase in the use of syllable segmentation from the first through fifth years of reading instruction. The children were influenced both by an optimal ‘sonorant coda–obstruent onset’ sonority profile and by the individual position‐dependent consonant sonority within syllable boundaries. Orthographic and phonological statistical properties did not clearly modulate the response patterns. We provide innovative data to help further understand the developmental course of the use of syllable segmentation as determined by sonority. We discuss our results in the light of linguistic principles.     

Participatory action research as pedagogy: investigating social and ecological justice learning within a teacher education program

A research collective comprised of teacher candidates, graduate students, and faculty set out to investigate the role and impact of social and ecological justice learning in a teacher education program. Amidst the tensions, negotiations, and articulations of the research design, the collective came to recognize the spaces of participatory action research as sites of growth and efficacy toward justice learning. And, each began to perceive themselves as both impacted by educational structures and as agents enacting their own visions of professional practice. These outcomes are discussed in the context of the growing body of participatory action research, emphasizing the dynamic learning precipitated within the intersections of the research collective. The empirical analysis, involving survey and interview data, brought to bear the rarity of events participants (teacher candidates) recognized as invoking meaningful social and ecological justice learning, and goes some way to describe such learning in terms of embodied experience. The paper closes with a selection of testimonials provided by members of the research collective, offering personal accounts of what was gained through participating in the research process.     

RECENTLY COMPLETED DISSERTATIONS ON COMMUNITY AND JUNIOR COLLEGES

This study was undertaken to investigate the perceptions held by developmental educators and counselors—student affairs professionals of current procedures for working with students with learning disabilities in community colleges. Current knowledge of students with learning disabilities and perceptions about their academic success were also examined. Implications for practice based on the results of this study were included.     

Promoting Reading Achievement and Countering the “Fourth-Grade Slump”: The Impact of Direct Instruction on Reading Achievement in Fifth Grade

Previous research has documented a substantial decline of standardized test scores of children from low-income backgrounds, relative to more advantaged peers, in later elementary grades, the so-called “fourth-grade slump.” This article examines changes in reading achievement from first to fifth grade for students in a large urban school system with a high proportion of students from economically deprived backgrounds. Students received first-grade reading instruction from Direct Instruction (DI), Open Court, or a mixture of reading curricula. Results indicate that students in schools using DI had significantly greater gains in both reading vocabulary and comprehension than students in the two other settings and that their average levels of achievement in fifth grade were above the national norms, thus countering the fourth-grade slump.