Education reform for the expansion of mother-tongue education in Ghana

In 1957 Ghana was the first sub-Saharan colonial nation-state to achieve independence from British rule. The language of literacy instruction, however, remained English throughout most of Ghana’s independence, effectively thwarting reading and writing in 11 major and 67 minor indigenous languages in use today. After years of policy shifts, including the intermittent of mother tongue in early childhood schooling to facilitate English language and literacy instruction, prospects for a bold move towards multilingual education have emerged from a coalescence of forces inside and outside of Ghanaian education policy circles. This article discusses how the inertia of a dated language policy and a historic disregard for Ghana’s multilingual landscape by the country’s own policy makers are being overcome, at least partially, by progressive powers of change, albeit not without challenge. It undertakes an analysis of how a policy environment that supports bilingual education was created in order to implement a comprehensive and innovative multilingual programme, the National Literacy Acceleration Program (NALAP), which was rolled out across the nation’s schools in early 2010. Having been involved in the process of designing NALAP, the authors describe the development of standards of learning and materials, as well as innovative aspects of a constructivist teacher education approach. The paper concludes with recommendations for further research, including combining a change process for key stakeholders and randomised language and literacy assessment with social marketing research in a unified approach.     

Young Children's Reasoning About the Effects of Emotional and Physiological States on Academic Performance

This study assessed young children's understanding of the effects of emotional and physiological states on cognitive performance. Five, 6-, 7-year-olds, and adults ( N = 96) predicted and explained how children experiencing a variety of physiological and emotional states would perform on academic tasks. Scenarios included: (a) negative and positive emotions, (b) negative and positive physiological states, and (c) control conditions. All age groups understood the impairing effects of negative emotions and physiological states. Only 7-year-olds, however, showed adult-like reasoning about the potential enhancing effects of positive internal states and routinely cited cognitive mechanisms to explain how internal states affect performance. These results shed light on theory-of-mind development and also have significance for children's everyday school success.     

Teachers' attitudes toward and frequency of engagement in reading aloud in the primary classroom

Reading aloud to children is considered one of the most highly effective strategies for fostering a range of literacy skills, both at home and within contemporary classrooms. However, little is known about teachers' attitudes toward reading aloud, their self‐reported frequency of engagement in the practice and what may pose as contemporary barriers to the practice. The 2016 Western Australian Study in Reading Aloud (WASRA) collected data from over 100 teachers at 14 Australian schools. The WASRA reveals tensions in translating reading aloud practices into daily practice due to reported lack of time and high curriculum demands. The findings suggest that primary school teachers typically enjoy reading aloud to children, though fewer enjoyed reading themselves. Recommendations are provided to address time and curriculum demands purported as being inhibitors of daily reading practices. These recommendations go some way to help mitigate against literacy inequities within our primary classrooms and in so doing encourage provision of daily reading opportunities for teachers and reading aloud practices.     

Commentary: Positive Youth Development Goes Mainstream

Evidence has accumulated that confirms the success of a positive youth development (PYD) approach. Importantly, a positive development approach is just that—an approach. It is not a particular program or curriculum but a set of practices designed to achieve one or more positive outcomes. As such, PYD practices can be added onto other programs to make positive outcomes more likely. For example, a tutoring program can work hard to hire and train staff to work with students in a trusting, respectful relationship. Camp counselors can be encouraged to build rapport and positive bonds among the campers.     

Race salience and essentialist thinking in racial stereotype development

The authors explored the emergence and antecedents of racial stereotyping in 89 children ages 3-10 years. Children completed a number of matching and sorting tasks, including a measure designed to assess their knowledge and application of both positive and negative in-group and out-group stereotypes. Results indicate that children start to apply stereotypes to the out-group starting around 6 years of age. Controlling for a number of factors, 2 predictors contributed significantly toward uniquely explaining the use of these stereotypes: race salience (i.e., seeing and organizing by race) and essentialist thinking (i.e., believing that race cannot change). These results provide insight into how and when real-world interventions aimed at altering the acquisition of racial stereotypes may be implemented.     

Latent profiles of attitudes toward print and digital reading among adolescents

Reading and Writing - A growing body of research has highlighted the important role attitudes play for adolescent readers, but few have examined differences in attitudes across purposes and...     

“If They're Trying to Say Something About My Culture … I'm Confused”: Recognizing and Resisting Authenticity in Latino-Themed Television

The television landscape has expanded to include an ever-increasing crop of culturally themed programs aimed at the Latina/o audience. Assumptions about the audience have shaped this trend, resulting in questions about the effectiveness of niche programming to satisfy viewer taste. This project investigates LatiNation with specific focus on the differences in the reception process based on participants' connection to their ethnic identity. In-depth interviews were conducted with self-identified Latina/o students who were also given a survey with scaled items to measure their connection to their ethnic identity. In general, the findings indicate that audience members produce varied readings of the text showing the participants actively negotiate identity by using LatiNation as an opportunity to both embrace and critique Latinidad.     

Validity and Reliability of the Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPAQ)

There is limited published validity and reliability evidence to support using the Global Physical Activity Questionnaire. Two studies were conducted to evaluate validity and reliability evidence for the Global Physical Activity Questionnaire. In Study 1: 69 adults completed the Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (three months apart; n?=?54), International Physical Activity Questionnaire, fitness and anthropometric measures. All participants wore a pedometer and 53 participants wore an accelerometer for seven days at baseline. In Study 2, 16 adults completed the Global Physical Activity Questionnaire 10 days apart. Global Physical Activity Questionnaire moderate and vigorous minutes were correlated with the accelerometer moderate (r?=?0.28) and vigorous (r?=?0.48) physical activity. The Global Physical Activity Questionnaire and International Physical Activity Questionnaire were related for sedentary behaviors (r?=?0.51), moderate-to-vigorous (r?=?0.48) and vigorous (r?=?0.63) PA. Global Physical Activity Questionnaire moderate-to-vigorous physical activity was associated with percent fat (r =??0.32), estimated VO₂ max (r?=?0.26), and step count (r?=?0.39). The Global Physical Activity Questionnaire demonstrated graded differences across categories for step count, body mass index, waist circumference, percent fat, fitness, and accelerometer measured activity. Short-term test–retest reliability (10 days) ranged from 0.83 to 0.96 while long-term reliability (three months) was 0.53 to 0.83. These data provide low-to-moderate validity and generally acceptable reliability evidence for the Global Physical Activity Questionnaire.