Productive Communication in an Afterschool Engineering Club with Girls Who are English Language Learners

This article the learning of girls who were in a co-ed after school engineering club related to the project: Designing Vital Engineering and Literacy Practices for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math for Elementary Teachers and Children (DeVELOP STEM ETC). While few girls grow up to become engineers in the US, recently more attention has focused on practices that engage girls in order to grow interest in engineering and engineering careers. In this article, we follow three eight and nine-year-old girls (3rd graders). We illustrate how key features of the Engineering Design Process intersect with a multimodal model of Productive Communication to help the girls enact identities as girls and as engineers as they design and build a bridge. We argue that to enact the Next Generation Science Standards, particularly those related to engineering, engineering and STEM educators must attend to the disciplinary literacies and communicative modes of girls and other under-represented minorities. This is also particularly important for learners who are still new to learning English and who may benefit from multimodal interactions and diverse opportunities to learn.     

Exploring the Mechanisms of Knowledge Transfer in University‐Industry Collaborations: A Study of Companies,Students and Researchers

This article discusses mechanisms, enablers and barriers for knowledge transfer in university‐industry collaboration projects involving companies, students and researchers. Data is collected through 35 qualitative interviews with Danish and Norwegian representatives from the above categories. All respondents have been involved in collaborative projects, such as student‐industry cooperation or collaboration projects between scientists and businesses. This research shows that to secure real value adding through knowledge transfer in university‐industry collaboration projects, it is important that the involved parties view each other as equal partners. It is argued that creating a better understanding of roles and competences of the involved parties can help diminish this problem. A final conclusion is that continuous knowledge sharing throughout the project seems more highly valued by the involved parties than a final report does. Best practice for collaborative projects is suggested.     

Science, the public, and social elites: how the general public, scientists, top politicians and managers perceive science

This paper finds that the Croatian public's and the social elites' perceptions of science are a mixture of scientific and technological optimism, of the tendency to absolve science of social responsibility, of skepticism about the social effects of science, and of cognitive optimism and skepticism. However, perceptions differ significantly according to the different social roles and the wider value system of the observed groups. The survey data show some key similarities, as well as certain specificities in the configuration of the types of views of the four groups--the public, scientists, politicians and managers. The results suggest that the well-known typology of the four cultures reveals some of the ideologies of the key actors of scientific and technological policy. The greatest social, primarily educational and socio-spatial, differentiation of the perceptions of science was found in the general public.     

Why Do Some Young Adults not Graduate From Upper-Secondary School? On the Importance of Signals of Labour Market Failure

In high-income countries, not completing secondary school often entails a high risk of social exclusion. Using data on young adults born in 1985 who grew up in metropolitan Sweden, we study factors associated with not graduating from upper-secondary school at age 21. Our hypothesis is that if a young person sees examples of people who are not able to earn a living despite having a long education, such negative examples are influential. Results from estimated logistic models are consistent with the hypothesis.     

Continuous training and wages: An empirical analysis using a comparison-group approach

Using German linked employer-employee data, this paper investigates the short-term impact of on-the-job training on wages. The applied estimation approach was first introduced by Leuven and Oosterbeek (2008). Wages of employees who intended to participate in training but did not do so because of a random event are compared to wages of training participants. The estimated wage returns are statistically insignificant. Furthermore, the decision to participate in training is associated with sizeable selection effects. On average, participants have a wage advantage of more than 4% compared to non-participants.     

The Value of a Library Catalog for Selecting Children's Picture Books

The aim of this study was to determine how parents select picture books for their children and which bibliographic data are important as they choose between different versions of the same title. Thirty-six parents of preschool children aged one to six years were interviewed and observed as they chose one version of the picture book Cinderella from among six bibliographic records and then selected from among six physical versions. Parents described the criteria and the reasons for their selections. The results indicate that the parents experienced difficulties using the library catalog and that the current bibliographic elements are inadequate.     

Agentic perspective on fostering work-related learning

Despite the increased recognition of the role that professional agency plays in work-related learning, little is known about what supports it. Based on current theoretical notions, the first purpose of this paper is to show that professional agency is closely intertwined with work-related learning. The second purpose is to introduce some main principles that promote professional agency and describe three work-related training settings that are aimed at fostering learning by taking into account agentic perspectives. These complementary settings include an identity coaching programme, a leadership coaching programme, and a work conference. Based on the qualitative meta-synthesis, the paper further provides an empirical overview of professional agency and learning in these settings. The paper contributes to the understanding of the potential of professional agency at the heart of work-related learning. To foster learning, it is necessary to create social events for the enactment and activation of agency so that social and individual resources (e.g. experiences) are utilised. Overall, the paper emphasises that individuals and communities are active crafters of their professional identities and practices, and it provides viewpoints to support their agency in work and training settings.     

Is being gifted always an advantage? Peer relations and self-concept of gifted students

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences between identified gifted adolescents and adolescents not identified as gifted in terms of social acceptance and self-concept (peer relations, academic, and general). In addition, we aimed to investigate the differences between two groups of students identified according to different identification criteria (i.e. intelligence test and teacher assessment), and whether the relationship between students’ giftedness and the indicators of their social adjustment was moderated by gender. A total of 404 Slovenian elementary school students (191 males; 47%, 213 females; 53%) participated in the study; among them 85 (21%) were identified as gifted. No significant differences were found between gifted and non-gifted students in positive sociometric nominations and social preference; gifted students received less negative nominations and had lower social impact, but were assessed as more socially accepted by their teachers. Gifted students reported higher academic and general but not peer relations self-concept. No differences in social acceptance and self-concept were found between the groups of gifted students identified with regard to different identification criteria. In addition, we found significant interaction effects between gender and giftedness for peer relations self-concept. The results indicate the importance of investigating individual differences among gifted students in future studies.