Tuition policy and the interstate migration of college students

Policies toward nonresident students by public institutions of higher education are an increasingly important issue. This paper looks at the determinants of student migration and the interrelationship of student migration and tuition rates. Students are found to be attracted to schools in states that are attractive to migrants in general, specifically schools in states with favorable economic and environmental conditions, and high tuition rates are found to be a significant deterrent to nonresident students. Tuition rates for nonresident students are found to be largely determined by tradition, although states are found to have a tendency to increase nonresident tuition if they are strong net importers of students.     

English and geography: common ground? From Planet Earth to Pigs

What does a sense of space and place bring to the interpretation of a literary text such as Pigs by Les Murray? What does an English subject perspective add to work in geography on documentary texts such as the BBC wildlife series Planet Earth? This article is an outcome of our collaboration as teacher educators involved in the initial training of English and geography teachers. We start with Planet Earth because we want to highlight a popular text worth viewing from different subject perspectives. In many ways the process reflects the type of interdisciplinary understanding required to address ecological issues. We take the examples of English and geography, tracing the etymologies of these separate disciplines and considering the common ground between them. The potential of this approach for subject development is modelled through analysis of Pigs, a poem by Les Murray.     

Providing psychosocial support to special needs children: A case of orphans and vulnerable children in Zimbabwe

The AIDS pandemic has orphaned hundreds of thousands of children worldwide and most of these are in sub-Saharan Africa. Being orphaned by AIDS creates peculiar circumstances which may affect the children's ability to benefit from regular education. The impact of vulnerability on children's well-being has been documented by UNAIDS, UNICEF and by other organizations and writers. This study sought to ascertain the effectiveness of implementing psychosocial support (PSS) among children who are orphaned by AIDS in improving their schooling outcomes. A total of 20 children with ages ranging from 10 to14 years, attending four different primary schools located in the rural wards of Mberengwa district of Zimbabwe were involved in this study. All the children showed signs of emotional need and they were lagging behind in their academic work. Psychosocial support was provided to these children over a period of eight months resulting in improvements in several areas, including schoolwork during and after the intervention period.     

Freedom’s Children: A Gender Perspective on the Education of the Learner-Citizen

Drawing on Ulrich Beck’s theory of “freedom’s children”, the present contribution examines contemporary concerns about educating young people for citizenship as well as educating them about citizenship. Under the first theme, the author focuses on the citizen as learner, highlighting some of the gender- and class-related inequalities that are typically associated with individualisation. Under the second theme, she looks at the learner as citizen in view of the fact that citizenship education courses often prepare learners for a gender-divided world – even though the processes of individualisation have themselves significantly reshaped contemporary gender relations. In light of current challenges facing citizenship education, the study concludes by reflecting on gender-related dimensions of individualisation and their implications for democracy and the learner-citizen.

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Zusammenfassung DIE KINDER DER FREIHEIT: EINE GESCHLECHTSBEZOGENE PERSPEKTIVE AUF DIE BILDUNG DES LERNENDEN BüRGERS – Indem er sich auf Ulrich Becks Theorie der ,,Kinder der Freiheit“ stützt, untersucht der vorliegende Beitrag zeitgen?ssische Bemühungen, junge Menschen sowohl zur Staatsbürgerschaft hin zu erziehen als auch sie über die Staatsbürgerschaft zu belehren. Unter der ersten überschrift konzentriert sich die Autorin auf den Bürger als Lernenden, indem sie einige der geschlechts- und klassenspezifischen Ungleichheiten betont, die typischerweise mit der Individualisierung verbunden werden. Unter der zweiten überschrift wirft sie einen Blick auf den Lernenden als Bürger, und zwar unter Berücksichtigung der Tatsache, dass Lernende in Kursen für staatsbürgerliche Erziehung h?ufig auf eine Welt vorbereitet werden, die nach Geschlechtern getrennt ist – auch wenn die Prozesse der Individualisierung ihrerseits die gegenw?rtigen Beziehungen zwischen den Geschlechtern in bedeutender Weise umgeformt haben. Im Licht aktueller Herausforderungen, mit denen die staatsbürgerliche Erziehung konfrontiert ist, schlie?t die Untersuchung, indem sie über die geschlechtspezifischen Ausma?e der Individualisierung und ihre Implikationen für die Demokratie sowie den Bürger als Lernenden reflektiert.

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Resumen HIJOS DE LA LIBERTAD: LA PERSPECTIVA DE GéNERO EN LA EDUCACIóN DE LOS CIUDADANOS – Haciendo referencia a la teoría de Ulrich Beck contenida en su libro Hijos de la libertad, esta contribución examina asuntos de relevancia actual relacionados con la educación de las personas jóvenes para la ciudadanía y sobre la ciudadanía. Bajo el primer aspecto, la autora se concentra en el ciudadano como alumno, realzando algunas de las desigualdades de género y de clases, típicamente relacionadas con la individualización. Bajo el segundo aspecto, la autora enfoca al alumno como ciudadano, en vista del hecho de que los cursos sobre ciudadanía muchas veces preparan a los educandos para un mundo dividido en géneros, pese a que los procesos de individualización les hayan deparado unas relaciones entre los géneros sustancialmente remodeladas. A la luz de los retos que actualmente debe afrontar la educación ciudadana, el estudio termina con una reflexión sobre las dimensiones de la individualización en cuanto a su relación con los géneros y a los efectos que pueden tener para la democracia y los ciudadanos en formación.

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Résumé LES ENFANTS DE LA LIBERTé : UNE PERSPECTIVE SEXUELLE SUR L’éDUCATION DE L’ APPRENANT-CITOYEN – Partant de la théorie d’Ulrich Beck sur les ? enfants de la liberté ?, la présente contribution examine les préoccupations contemporaines à propos de l’éducation des jeunes gens à la citoyenneté et autour de la citoyenneté. Quant au premier thème, l’auteur se concentre sur le citoyen en tant qu’apprenant, mettant sur le devant de la scène certaines des inégalités relatives aux différences de sexe et de classes sociales qui sont associées de fa?on typique à l’individualisation. Avec le deuxième thème, elle se tourne vers l’apprenant en tant que citoyen eu égard au fait que les cours d’éducation à la citoyenneté préparent souvent les apprenants à un monde divisé en sexes différents – même si les processus d’individualisation ont eux-mêmes refa?onné significativement les relations contemporaines en matière de différences sexuelles. Au vu des défis actuels face à l’éducation à la citoyenneté, l’étude conclut sur une réflexion sur les dimensions relatives à la différence de sexe de l’individualisation et leurs implications pour la démocratie et l’apprenant citoyen.

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The author: Madeleine Arnot received her MA from Edinburgh University and PhD from the Open University. She is Professor in Sociology of Education and is Professorial Fellow at Jesus College at Cambridge University. She has acted as a gender expert for the Council of Europe, an international consultant for the UNESCO Education for All: Gender Monitoring Project and on equal opportunities policies. Her work has involved projects on women and citizenship, pupil consultation, gender-education policy and refugee and asylum-seeker children’s education. Contact address: Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, 184 Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 2PQ, UK. E-mail: mma1000@cam.ac.uk.     

Assessing approaches to learning with nonparametric multidimensional scaling

This article reports on a trace-based assessment of approaches to learning used by middle school aged children who interacted with NASA Mars Mission science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) games in Whyville, an online game environment with 8 million registered young learners. The learning objectives of two games included awareness and knowledge of NASA missions, developing knowledge and skills of measurement and scaling, applying measurement for planetary comparisons in the solar system. Trace data from 1361 interactions were analysed with nonparametric multidimensional scaling methods, which permitted visual examination and statistical validation, and provided an example and proof of concept for the multidimensional scaling approach to analysis of time-based behavioural data from a game or simulation. Differences in approach to learning were found illustrating the potential value of the methodology to curriculum and game-based learning designers as well as other creators of online STEM content for pre-college youth. The theoretical framework of the method and analysis makes use of the Epistemic Network Analysis toolkit as a post hoc data exploration platform, and the discussion centres on issues of semantic interpretation of interaction end-states and the application of evidence centred design in post hoc analysis.

Practitioner notes

What is already known about this topic

• Educational game play has been demonstrated to positively affect learning performance and learning persistence.
• Trace-based assessment from digital learning environments can focus on learning outcomes and processes drawn from user behaviour and contextual data.
• Existing approaches used in learning analytics do not (fully) meet criteria commonly used in psychometrics or for different forms of validity in assessment, even though some consider learning analytics a form of assessment in the broadest sense.
• Frameworks of knowledge representation in trace-based research often include concepts from cognitive psychology, education and cognitive science.

What this paper adds

• To assess skills-in-action, stronger connections of learning analytics with educational measurement can include parametric and nonparametric statistics integrated with theory-driven modelling and semantic network analysis approaches widening the basis for inferences, validity, meaning and understanding from digital traces.
• An expanded methodological foundation is offered for analysis in which nonparametric multidimensional scaling, multimodal analysis, epistemic network analysis and evidence-centred design are combined.

Implications for practice and policy

• The new foundations are suggested as a principled, theory-driven, embedded data collection and analysis framework that provides structure for reverse engineering of semantics as well as pre-planning frameworks that support creative freedom in the processes of creation of digital learning environments.