Covid-19 pandemic and the prospects of education in South Africa

PROSPECTS - The Covid-19 pandemic has caused havoc in the world, radically changing our lives and raising new and old questions, both existential and educational. This pandemic has revealed the...     

Geographies of elite higher education participation: An urban ‘escalator’ effect

Based on analysis of an administrative dataset, which includes granular detail on 800,000 English students over a 10-year period, this article identifies an urban ‘escalator’ effect in entry to elite universities, with disadvantaged youth in the urban centres of England having higher rates of entry than similarly disadvantaged youth located rurally. Using multilevel modelling, as well as Geographic Information System (GIS) methods, the analyses show that while place in itself is not a major contributory factor in entry to elite universities overall, there is a distinct urban–rural patterning to progression. When raw progression rates by area alone are observed, rural areas typically have higher progression rates to elite universities. However, when the full range of individual differences are accounted for, including attainment, socio-economic status, ethnicity and accessibility to elite universities, the converse is true—localities within and surrounding major urban centres are those with the highest progression rates. A ‘vortex of influences’ is likely to favour urban disadvantaged youth, including the geography of social class and ethnic identities, a legacy of concerted policy interventions within urban areas, as well as the proliferation of widening participation activity in urban centres.     

Effective Antenatal Education: Strategies Recommended by Expectant and New Parents

Antenatal education is a crucial component of antenatal care, yet practice and research demonstrate that women and men now seek far more than the traditional approach of a birth and parenting program attended in the final weeks of pregnancy. Indeed, women and men participating in this study recommended a range of strategies to be provided during the childbearing year, comparable to a “menu in a restaurant.” Their strategies included three program types: “Hearing Detail and Asking Questions,” “Learning and Discussing,” and “Sharing and Supporting Each Other.” The characteristics of each type of program are identified in this article. The actual learning methods the study participants recommended to be incorporated into the programs were “Time to Catch Up and Focus,” “Seeing and Hearing the Real Experience,” “Practicing,” and “Discovering.”     

Scale dimensionality and population heterogeneity: Potential problems in the interpretation of attitude data

This paper examines problems in the interpretation of attitude data which may arise when the dimensionality of the instrument and sources of heterogeneity in the population are ignored. As a specific example, the paper describes the development and analysis of an instrument designed to measure primary school children's liking of science-related activities. Careful analysis of the patterns of response to the questionnaire created some disquiet about the conventional methods used to collapse data from attitude scales. The results demonstrate that conclusions drawn from attitude measurement can be misleading when proper attention is not given to the structure of the instrument nor to the structure of the population from which the measurements are made.     

Sex preference and body orientation preference in huddling behavior of rat pups

The social huddling of six litters of rat pups (Rattus norvegicus) was observed on Days 6–9 postpartum without the dam present. Each litter was reduced to three male and three female pups. Thirty-six pups were used as subjects (18 male, 18 female). Tests for the effects of sex of subject, age of subject, sex of littermate huddled against, and body orientation during huddling were carried out. Results indicated that subjects huddled against opposite-sex Uttermates more frequently than against same-sex littermates. Huddling was a curvilinear function of age, with average frequency of huddling reaching a peak on the second day of observation (Day 7 postpartum) and decreasing thereafter. Results also showed that subjects, regardless of sex, huddled using an orientation that allowed their heads to touch more frequently than an orientation in which the head was touching the body of a sibling. These data on early sex preference and body orientation pReferences during huddling suggest that rat pups are competent in aspects of behavior having attachment potential. The findings also help define the age of social competence in this species.     

Literacy's verb: Exploring what literacy is and what literacy does

This article considers contemporary policy claims about “what literacy is” and “what literacy does.” First, the article reviews in-depth the ways in which development discourses define literacy, and the claims made in development discourses about the “consequences” of literacy for economic and political development. I then draw on 24 months of ethnographic research in Brazil with 41 highly impoverished literacy students from four literacy programs in two cities in order to demonstrate that there is no predictable “impact” of literacy on development. Instead, I show that the opportunities afforded by literacy depend greatly on the types of literacy and the types of literacy programs made available to students, as well as students’ cultural understandings of literacy and the social, political, and economic contexts within which they attempt to assert new literacy practices. The article concludes that we should not consider literacy as an actor with some “impact”; instead, we should examine how people use literacy in ways that are conditioned by social and cultural forces.     

Undergraduates’ perception and engagement in Facebook learning groups

This study presents and evaluates the educational potentials that Social Network Services (SNS) offer to students in the higher education context. The first aim of this study is to explore students’ perceptions of Facebook Learning Groups (ie, Facebook Groups that were created for learning purposes), and the learning and affective benefits that SNS offer to students. This study further explores the influence of four identified factors (ie, self-efficacy, privacy, trust and presence of teaching members) in moderating students’ perception and learning engagements on SNS. Findings from an online survey demonstrate the usefulness of these learning groups. Trust and presence of teaching members were also indicated to have significant influences in affecting students’ perception and engagement in Facebook Learning Groups.     

The structure of collaboration networks: Findings from three decades of co-invention patents in Chile

Collaboration networks have primarily been studied in developed economies. In this paper, we present a comprehensive analysis of co-inventor networks in a small but thriving OECD economy in Latin America: Chile. Using a dataset for patents granted in the country between 1989 and 2018, we study a variety of statistical properties for five different co-inventor networks. We show that these networks exhibit power-law, small-world, and preferential attachment properties, all of which have been used to describe networks in more advanced economies. We also highlight some apparent differences in collaboration patterns between networks (and inventors) and we reveal the precarious nature of the network of local inventors by confirming the community structure property. Evidence for strong positive autocorrelation between highly and lowly productive inventors is presented via methods used in spatial econometrics. Our results show that the inventor system in Chile is highly fragmented, which emphasizes the need for strong government intervention in steering research funding, and for more collaboration between inventors, especially local ones.