Legal and educational perspectives of equity in assessment

Equity in assessment concerns all educational authorities and practitioners. While educators commonly consider issues of equity in terms of accommodations for students with special needs, or addressing cultural difference, equity issues in educational assessment have emerged outside these bases. This paper examines equity assessment issues, drawing predominantly on case history from the United States of America (US) with examples from Australia and England, to demonstrate areas that may draw legal consideration. The discussion shows that the legal standard to establish inequity is high and sometimes illogical from an educational perspective. The paper is intended to assist understanding of legal implications of educational assessment in order to reduce the likelihood of legal claims and the resultant redirection of valuable resources from educational provision. The discussion is also intended to broaden thinking on matters that impact on the provision of equitable educational and assessment opportunities for all students.     

纸条检测法对第85窟壁画空鼓灌浆脱盐效果的评估

实验得出不损伤壁画的纸条检测法与壁画表面盐分含量的关系,并以此为根据,采用纸条法测定壁画表面盐分的含量状态,评价壁画空鼓灌浆后脱盐的效果.结果表明壁画空鼓灌浆所带人的水分激活了地仗中的盐分,使盐分运移并大量地富集到壁画的表面.保护笔的脱盐效果十分显著,纸条法测得保护笔脱盐后Cl-浓度降低约10个ppm,相当于保护笔脱盐可以减少了壁画表面地仗中所含1.6%的Cl-的量,即可以去除掉未灌浆区域壁画表面盐分的80%.实验证明纸条法可以应用于壁画脱盐效果的检验.     

Social functioning among college students diagnosed with ADHD and the mediating role of emotion regulation

Despite the many studies that have documented the association between symptoms of ADHD and social difficulties in children and adolescents, few have examined this phenomenon in college students. In addition, the underlying factors contributing to such social difficulties are still poorly understood. We hypothesised that college students with symptoms of ADHD, namely inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity, would continue to display social behavioural difficulties, and that emotion regulation would play a mediating role in that relationship. Ninety-nine 17–24-year-old college students filled out three questionnaires to assess Inattentive and Hyperactivity/Impulsivity Symptoms, Social Skills, and Emotion Regulation abilities. Analysis revealed that emotion regulation is a significant mediator between Inattentive Symptoms and Social Skills for female students. There was no significant correlation between ADHD symptoms and Social Skills for males. Female college students report social functioning difficulties associated with their inattentive and hyperactive symptoms, and impaired emotion regulation abilities mediate this relationship for inattentive symptoms only.     

Refracting schoolgirls: pedagogical intra-actions producing shame

This article contributes to the discussion of gender inequality in schools with the central theme tracing ways that pedagogical affect im/mobilises agency. I argue that what I call ‘the schoolgirl affect’, as distinctly gendered pedagogical practices in schools, constitute a schoolgirl body that refracts capacity for action in particular ways. Karen Barad's theorising of performativity allows me to move away from a definition of what schoolgirl success is and rather discuss ways successful schoolgirls are co-constructed. Using filmed testimonial accounts of former Australian schoolgirls, I attempt to understand how practices of shaming inhibit interest and in fact stultify these students in a myriad of ways. I consider if shame when recognised as materially discursive results in a complex affirmative repositioning that is productive of agency. I interrogate ways that the shame/interest pendulum may affectively constitute schoolgirls, influence ethical educational practices and impact the life trajectories of these particular schoolgirls.     

Changing practice in Malaysian primary schools: learning from student teachers’ reports of using action,reflection and modelling (ARM)

Curricular and pedagogical reforms are complex inter-linked processes such that curricular reform can only be enacted through teachers teaching differently. This article reports the perspective of emergent Malaysian primary teachers who were expected to implement a Government reform that promoted active learning. The 120 student teachers were members of a single cohort completing a new B.Ed. degree programme in Primary Mathematics designed by teacher educators from Malaysia and the UK. They were taught to use a tripartite pedagogical framework involving action or active learning, supported in practice through reflection and modelling. Drawing on findings from surveys carried out with the student teachers at the end of their first and final placements this article examines evidence for the premise that the student teachers were teaching differently; illustrates how they reported using active learning strategies; and identifies factors that enabled and constrained pedagogic change in the primary classroom. The students’ accounts of using action, reflection and modelling are critiqued in order to learn about changing learning and teaching practice and to contribute to understanding teacher education and early teacher development. The students’ reports suggest diversity of understanding that emphasises the need to challenge assumptions when working internationally and within national and local cultures.     

Comprehensive Sexuality Education for Adolescents in Zambia via the Mobile-Optimized Website TuneMe: A Content Analysis

Abstract

Adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa encounter high risks associated with sexuality and reproduction, yet face numerous barriers in obtaining appropriate health services and information. Mobile phones provide a unique opportunity to provide youth with this critical sexual and reproductive health information need. Designed from the United Nations Comprehensive Sexuality Education framework, the mobile-optimized app TuneMe aims to provide adolescents living in eight sub-Saharan African countries—Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Lesotho, South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia—with sexual and reproductive health information, and to promote uptake and use of sexual and reproductive health services. To assess the scope and appropriateness of TuneMe’s sexuality education content, we conducted a directed content analysis of the 299 articles published on the Zambia-specific TuneMe site between October 2015 and June 2017. Results from this analysis indicate that the greatest information provided by TuneMe was on sexual and reproductive health and HIV, followed by relationships, sexual rights, and citizenship. There was substantially less information that focused specifically on matters of pleasure, violence, diversity, and gender. Content was situated within relatable and culturally-relevant contexts, but gave mixed, and often problematic, depictions of gender norms. This assessment is central to understanding current and future mobile-based sexuality education programming.     

Carnival in the Curriculum

This article focuses on a carnival in the curriculum project designed to revitalise the arts in the experience of students in Higher Education preparing to become primary school teachers. It argues the relevance of a combined arts or trans‐disciplinary artform in the remit of a visual arts education journal and explores carnival as a complex, inclusive, multifaceted and multidimensional cultural practice with deep historical and social roots. It locates carnival within theory and the debate about the arts in schools in the UK from the early 1980s. Drawing on the analysis of interviews with students and teachers in carnival project schools, issues and themes such as student involvement, creativity, artists in schools, and cross‐curricular learning are explored, concluding that carnival in the curriculum provides an opportunity for agency within the regulated official curriculum.