A Bayesian Approach for Estimating Multilevel Latent Contextual Models

In many applications of multilevel modeling, group-level (L2) variables for assessing group-level effects are generated by aggregating variables from a lower level (L1). However, the observed group mean might not be a reliable measure of the unobserved true group mean. In this article, we propose a Bayesian approach for estimating a multilevel latent contextual model that corrects for measurement error and sampling error (i.e., sampling only a small number of L1 units from a L2 unit) when estimating group-level effects of aggregated L1 variables. Two simulation studies were conducted to compare the Bayesian approach with the maximum likelihood approach implemented in Mplus. The Bayesian approach showed fewer estimation problems (e.g., inadmissible solutions) and more accurate estimates of the group-level effect than the maximum likelihood approach under problematic conditions (i.e., small number of groups, predictor variable with a small intraclass correlation). An application from educational psychology is used to illustrate the different estimation approaches.     

A Pedagogy of the Parochial: Pedagogical Imperialism and Mutual Accompaniment in Christian Higher Education

Historically, many North American educational engagements abroad have been entangled with colonialist logics that objectify and oppress those who live in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe (Ogden, 2008 Ogden, A. (2008). The view from the veranda: Understanding today’s colonial student. Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, 15, 35–55. [Google Scholar]). How does contemporary Christian higher education (CHE) programming such as study abroad and international engagement navigate the history of colonialism with present desires to expand and grow into international territories? This article explores this question through the theme of mutual accompaniment, resulting from a study of more than 250 interviews that students from a U.S. college on study abroad conducted with Majority World church pastors or other congregational leaders in communities where students lived. Interviews included a series of nine questions, including, “What would you like to say to the church in North America or the West?” Church leader responses pointed to the concept of mutual accompaniment we explore in this paper. After briefly delineating this concept, the article explores various ways CHE rationalizes its global engagements, highlighting especially the metaphor of cosmopolitanism. The ancient idea of a world citizen used today needs further articulation and analysis within CHE because of how the term can be conflated with practices of consumption and appropriation. Alternatively, as we explore in the concluding section, CHE can seek to advance a critical global citizenship with practices and habits that foster intercultural humility of the world citizen. By unraveling the colonialist logics embedded in cosmopolitanism, the article invites readers to consider how CHE students and programs can construct our positionality through embodied practices, in what we call “a pedagogy of the parochial.”     

Providing high quality child care

The trend toward a growing proportion of American women employed outside the home is clear. One- and two-parent families, often out of economic necessity, are seeking alternative care arrangements for their infants and preschool-aged children. As many are experiencing full-day, alternative child care during part or all of their developmentally crucial first five years, there is a need to focus on the quality of day care. Several recent reviews of center-based day care research have portrayed this experience as a relatively benign influence on the development of young children provided that a high level of quality is maintained (Belsky & Steinberg, 1978; Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Etaugh, 1979). What are the implications of this research for child care providers? If it is true that high quality child care has a benign effect on young children's development, what can child care providers do to ensure quality care?     

THE RESTRUCTURING OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE USSR

Great interest is being expressed in higher education circles everywhere and at all levels in the fundamental changes envisaged with regard to the organizational structure and contents of higher education in the USSR. These changes constitute an important part of the restructuring; the “perestroika”, currently going on in all spheres and at all levels of Soviet society.

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CC CPSU) adopted the Principal Directions for the Reorganization of Higher Education and Specialized Secondary Education. As a follow‐up to that framework document, the CC CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a number of decisions, dated 13 March 1987, aimed at giving substance to and at amplifying the basic principles enumerated. As change in Soviet higher education has been in the air for some time, we were able to preview some of its directions in previous issues of Higher Education in Europe, specifically in No. 4, Vol. XI (1986), pp. 80‐81 and in No. 2, Vol. XII (1987), pp. 83‐84.

As promised in the latter issue, we are now presenting the main provisions of these “Measures”, and “Decisions” via excerpts taken from five documents which were published partly in Byulleten’ Ministerstva Vysshego i Srednego Spetsialnogo Obrazovaniya, No. 6, 1987, and partly in Pravda, 27 March 1987.

The editors are solely responsible for the choice of excerpts as well as for the editorial and stylistic modifications that they believed necessary in order to fit them into the content of Higher Education in Europe.     

Examining interest throughout multiple text use

Reading and Writing - Prior work has examined the role of interest in students’ single text processing and comprehension, but interest has been under-examined within the context of multiple...     

Effects of reading picture books on kindergartners’ mathematics performance

This article describes a field experiment with a pretest–posttest control group design which investigated the potential of reading picture books to children for supporting their mathematical understanding. The study involved 384 children from 18 kindergarten classes in 18 schools in the Netherlands. During three months, the children in the nine experimental classes were read picture books. Data analysis revealed that, when controlled for relevant covariates, the picture book reading programme had a positive effect (d = .13) on kindergartners’ mathematics performance as measured by a project test containing items on number, measurement and geometry. Compared to the increase from pretest to posttest in the control group, the increase in the experimental group was 22% larger. No significant differential intervention effects were found between subgroups based on kindergarten year, age, home language, socio-economic status and mathematics and language ability, but a significant intervention effect was found for girls and not for boys.