Mathematics: a female,male or gender‐neutral domain? A study of attitudes among students at secondary level

The aim of the current study is to investigate whether Swedish secondary school students perceive mathematics as a female, male or gender‐neutral domain. A sample of 1300 students in two age groups, 15‐ and 17‐ years, answered a questionnaire and about 50 students participated in interviews. The main part of the inquiry form consists of Who and mathematics, an attitude scale recently developed by other researchers. The results are analysed with respect to gender, school year and study programme. Gendered attitudes were found among considerable minorities. There is a marked tendency to view mathematics as a symbolically male domain: positive aspects are associated with boys and negative aspects perceived as more female. Older students hold more strongly gendered views than younger. Boys in the science programme have the strongest beliefs of mathematics as a male domain.     

Information recall of younger and older skilled athletes: The role of display complexity,attentional resources and visual exposure duration

This study was concerned with the interactive role of experience of athletic skill with other relevant environmental variables (display complexity, attentional resources, exposure time of stimuli) on perception (recall) of structured handball game situations. Nineteen experienced (older) and 19 less experienced (younger) handball players were assigned randomly either to ball‐bouncing (diverted attention) or to calm seated (focused attention) conditions. In each of the two conditions, the subjects were exposed to a total of 36 slides containing 2–3, 5–6 and 8–10 players. Eighteen slides were exposed for 0.5 s and 18 for 1.0 s. All the slides contained structured defence and offence situations. Recall scores were subjected to repeated‐measures ANOVA using attention condition and age as between‐subject factors and task complexity and exposure duration as within‐subject factors. The results showed that the recall of less experienced players deteriorated more than the recall of more experienced players following exposure to complex displays (≥ 8 players) while engaging in a secondary task (bouncing). The findings suggest that research paradigms should be applied in the field of sport which share both ecological validity and a potential to discover the cognitive substrates underlying experience and age in skilled motor performance.     

‘Second death’, or revival of the ‘third world’ in the context of neo‐liberal globalization

Abstract

This paper tries to analyze the historical change in the Third World in its emergent stage, in the authoritarian stage and in the current democratic stage and, thereafter, find a way to revive the Bandung spirit in the current globalization context. I define the Bandung spirit as one of a ‘non‐aligned self‐helped “organization against” the dominant powerful countries’; that is, spirit of ‘anti‐predominance’. This spirit has emerged on the base of such domestic orientation and realities as economic self‐reliance, nationally integrated political regime, convergence of the state and civil society around anti‐colonialism. However, according to intensification of the Cold War confrontation on the international level and its centrifugal influence, the early Third World changed to a ‘new’ authoritarian Third World. The Third World in this stage could be characterized by an exclusive authoritarian political regime, dependent‐developmentalist economic orientation and coercively repressed and mobilized, in the top‐down way, civil society. This authoritarian Third World began to be confronted with a strong struggle from the bottom for democratization. In order for democratization of the Third World to become its true revival in the context of globalization, the following tasks should be considered. First, the democratic Third World should be a great driving force for the institutionalization of the transnational public regulatory mechanism. Second, the democratic Third World countries try to go over a kind of ‘transformed’ dependent development strategy. Third, democratization should go along with recovery of political inclusiveness and openness of the state to civil society’s demands. Thereafter, I tried to construct globalist re‐interpretation of the Bandung, by way of conceptualizing the current globalization as imperial globalization, unlike the imperialist globalization which the historical Bandung wanted to confront. I argue that the Bandung spirit of collective self‐help organizations against the newly emerging dominant order should be revived in this worse imperial globalization context. In addition, I argue that a nationalist resistance is also one component of the multiple resistances in the current imperial globalization.     

Preschool teachers and classroom aides: Same context,similar perceptions of children's behaviors?

This study explored the correspondence and differences between school staff perceptions of preschool children's social skills and behavior problems. One hundred preschoolers were assessed by 14 pairs of teachers and classroom aides with the Preschool and Kindergarten Behavior Scales – 2^nd Edition (PKBS‐2 Portuguese version). Indexes of agreement and disagreement were calculated. Risk levels and item analyses of PKBS‐2 scores according to both informants' ratings were compared. A higher level of agreement was obtained for social skills scores than for behavior problems (mean correlation of .62). No statistically significant differences between informants were obtained for the risk levels, and item analyses revealed a similar pattern of behaviors that were most and least rated by both informants. Results indicate that the classroom aides' perspective on preschool assessment represents a reliable input, which justifies that they network with teachers in addressing preschoolers' social‐emotional and behavioral challenges.     

From activity to gestures and scientific language

Abstract: Gestures may provide the long sought‐for bridge between science laboratory experiences and scientific discourse about abstract entities. In this article, we present our results of analyzing students' gestures and scientific discourse by supporting three assertions about the relationship between laboratory experiences, gestures, and scientific discourse: (1) gestures arise from the experiences in the phenomenal world, most frequently express scientific content before students master discourse, and allow students to construct complex explanations by lowering the cognitive load; (2) gestures provide a medium on which the development of scientific discourse can piggyback; and (3) gestures provide the material that “glues” layers of perceptually accessible entities and abstract concepts. Our work has important implications for laboratory experiments which students should attempt to explain while still in the lab rather than afterwards and away from the materials. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 38: 103–136, 2001     

Globalization and the freedom of knowledge

This article considers the transmission of knowledge in higher education. It takes the metaphor of the music industry that pre‐selects the music people can buy. The sales potential is the leading principle in the selection process. Often the small producer is excluded because his or her music is not of commercial interest. The end‐customer does not know what he or she is missing because he or she has never heard the music. It is to be feared that a similar market principle will also influence the selection of knowledge and affect the capacity of higher education institutions to freely generate and transmit new knowledge. The globalization of higher education risks homogenizing the cultural traditions of the non‐Western world through a process of Western cultural domination. On the other hand, the Internet, via open source software like LINUX, might serve to democratize higher education and allow greater grassroots input.     

Depression and Anxiety in the Postnatal Period: An Examination of Infants’ Home Language Environment,Vocalizations, and Expressive Language Abilities

This longitudinal study investigated the effects of maternal emotional health concerns, on infants’ home language environment, vocalization quantity, and expressive language skills. Mothers and their infants (at 6 and 12 months; 21 mothers with depression and or anxiety and 21 controls) provided day-long home-language recordings. Compared with controls, risk group recordings contained fewer mother–infant conversational turns and infant vocalizations, but daily number of adult word counts showed no group difference. Furthermore, conversational turns and infant vocalizations were stronger predictors of infants’ 18-month vocabulary size than depression and anxiety measures. However, anxiety levels moderated the effect of conversational turns on vocabulary size. These results suggest that variability in mothers’ emotional health influences infants’ language environment and later language ability.     

Academic socialization,parental educational expectations,and academic self‐efficacy among Latino adolescents

This study examined the direct association between parental educational expectations and adolescents’ academic self‐efficacy, as well as the moderating influence of parental academic socialization messages. Participants were 148 Latino parent–adolescent dyads with the majority of Mexican origin (80.4%). Most of the parent participants were mothers (85.8%). Adolescents were 13 (46%) or 14 (54%) years of age, and 53% identified as female. Adolescents reported their academic self‐efficacy and perceptions of their parents’ educational expectations; parents reported on their academic socialization messages of shame/pressure and effort regarding academics. The results suggest that, after accounting for parents’ level of education and immigrant status, parental educational expectations were positively associated with adolescent academic self‐efficacy. This association was stronger among adolescents whose parents reported transmitting fewer messages of shame/pressure and academic effort. These results point to the importance of nuances in the content and type of academic socialization messages within Latino families.     

Community College Counseling: Why Are Research Outcomes So Elusive?

This article focuses on counseling research in the community college context. The article suggests the need for a robust community college knowledge base, describes some limitations of the current community college literature, and suggests a framework for more effective work in this area. The authors’ own experiences and selected examples of published studies are used as illustrations of the hurdles encountered and solutions available when examining counseling theories, practices, and outcomes in 2‐year settings.     

The Metamorphosis of Industrial Designers from Novices to Experts

Professional training for designers is crucial in the field of design studies. The characteristics of novices versus those of expert designers have been identified in the literature; however, studies exploring the issue of professional training processes in the actual workplace are not well developed. Our study addresses the topic by using qualitative research methods along with flexible design. Collected data from the interviewees with different work experience were analysed by open, axial and selective coding. Herein, we argue that the processes by which a designer transforms from a novice into an expert in the industry are constructed through the interaction of several complicated factors. The re‐learning inherent in design professions is implemented through knowledge transfer gained from participation in design projects, particularly regarding tacit knowledge. Also, the novice's process of learning and training yields the characteristics and skills that companies and firms require of designers; this process involves a series of disciplinary sub‐processes, from destructive to reconstructive, implemented by employers. In these sub‐processes, the subjectivity of designers is neglected, leading to the suppression of imaginative expression and feelings of alienation among these workers.