Association between attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder and learning disorders

This article discusses the relationship between attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and learning disability (LD). The relevant literature is outlined, and empirical data are presented from a prospective follow-up study of 600 speech/language-impaired children. The data show an increased prevalence of both LD and ADHD among children with early speech/language impairments. Furthermore, LD was strongly associated with ADHD in both the initial and follow-up samples. Also, the children with LD had increased rates of other psychiatric disorders (e.g., behavior disorders, mood disorders, anxiety disorders). The implications of these data are discussed with regard to the possible etiology of the ADHD-LD association, treatment for children with LD and ADHD, and promising hypotheses for future research.     

Students' Perceptions of Literacy Assessment

Students' perceptions of literacy assessment processes and practices were investigated in two year long case studies undertaken in two English classrooms in two state high schools in Queensland, Australia. A range of qualitative data techniques was used to collect information related to students' previous experiences of assessment in primary school, students' responses to the first and last literacy assessment task of the school year, and their perceptions of assessment at the end of the year. The study showed that students' attitudes, beliefs, practices and understandings about assessment varied both within and across student groups and differences in students' accounts were evident both at the start and end of the school year. The findings highlight the role that students play in actively constructing knowledge about literacy assessment through their prior and current experiences with assessment tasks, and in their interactions with each other.     

Mothers' Views on Teaching their Preschoolers in Everyday Situations

Mothers' views of what they teach their preschoolers in everyday situations and their beliefs about the importance of teaching particular kinds of skills were explored. Middle class mothers of 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children were asked to identify situations/activities in which they intentionally set out to teach their child and situations/activities in which teaching occurs incidental to some other goal. Most mothers reported teaching both cognitive/academic and social/life skills, but they differed in the relative emphases they put on each type. Few mothers spontaneously reported teaching metacognitive skills, although when specifically asked whether they taught any "learning-to-learn" skills they indicated that they did. Nevertheless, the skills they identified were lower-level process skills such as listening and paying attention rather than higher-level self-regulatory skills such as planning and monitoring progress. Some educators have questioned the extent to which parents are aware of and take advantage of the opportunities for teaching afforded by everyday interactions with their children. The present results suggest that this need not be a concern with respect to middle class families in the cognitive and social domains but that it is of concern in the metacognitive domain. It seems clear that there should be an increased emphasis in parent education programs and materials on how and why to foster metacognition.     

Lessons from black-thicket jungle: What is feasible in village schools of disadvantaged areas?

Comparative examination of the national goals of education as presented by various developing countries shows such goals to be often abstract and overly idealistic: a long way from the harsh reality of most rural village schools. Drawing on the results of a lengthy field study in a disadvantaged area of Sri Lanka, this article discusses the matter of feasibility in the shadow of too high expectations. It is concluded that ambitious goals should be operationalized at a practicable level, and recommendations are put forward for feasible action. As a rigidly ordered system of schooling may be an inevitable stage in a progressive evolution of schooling types, patience is needed before criticizing schools which lack creative teaching and problem-solving approaches. It is emphasised that the most important raw materials of the educational system are abundantly present, i.e., human resources. Children are eager to learn; parents are potentially supportive and want education for the sake of learning as well as for jobs. And most importantly for the success of the schools, dedicated principals and teachers are present in unexpectedly high numbers considering the constraints they face. The importance of such educators is stressed, along with implications for selection, training and remuneration.

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Zusammenfassung Vergleichende Studien der staatlichen Bildungsziele, wie sie von verschiedenen Entwicklungsländern vorgelegt wurden, zeigen, daß solche Ziele oft abstrakt und allzu idealistisch und von der rauhen Wirklichkeit der meisten ländlichen Dorfschulen weit entfernt sind. Die Autorin diskutiert, indem sie sich auf die Ergebnisse einer umfangreichen Feldstudie in einem benachteiligten Gebiet Sri Lankas bezieht, die Frage der Durchführbarkeit im Schatten überhöhter Erwartungen. Sie kommt dabei zu dem Schluß, daß die hochgesteckten Ziele auf eine gangbare Ebene zugeschnitten werden müßten, und gibt Empfehlungen für durchführbare Maßnahmen. Da ein straff organisiertes Unterrichtssystem ein unvermeidliches Stadium in einer fortschreitenden Entwicklung von Unterrichtstypen sein kann, ist Geduld angebracht, bevor man Schulen kritisiert, denen es an kreativem Lehren und Ansätzen zur Problemlösung mangelt. Betont wird, daß die wichtigsten Rohstoffe des Bildungssystems in Überfluß vorhanden sind, z.B. der Reichtum an Menschen. Kinder sind lernbegierig, Eltern unterstützen sie unter Umständen und wünschen eine Ausbildung sowohl um des Lernens willen als auch im Hinblick auf einen Arbeitsplatz. Und es gibt, was für den Erfolg der Schulen von größter Wichtigkeit ist, eine unerwartet hohe Zahl von engagierten Direktoren und Lehrern, wenn man die Widrigkeiten bedenkt, mit denen sie zu kämpfen haben. Die Bedeutung solcher Erzieher wird hervorgehoben unter Berücksichtigung der Konsequenzen für deren Auswahl, Ausbildung und Vergütung.

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Résumé L'examen comparé des objectifs éducatifs nationaux présentés par divers pays en développement révèle qu'ils sont souvent abstraits et excessivement idéalistes — et par conséquent bien éloignés de la dure réalité de la plupart des écoles rurales. En s'appuyant sur les résultats d'une étude très longue menée sur le terrain dans une région désavantagée du Sri Lanka, le présent article examine la question de faisabilité à l'ombre de ces exigences exagérées. On conclut que les objectifs ambitieux devraient être réalisés au niveau pratique et des recommandations sont faites pour l'action possible. Du fait qu'un système d'éducation agencé strictement peut devenir la phase inévitable de l'évolution progressive de divers types d'éducation, il convient d'être patient avant de procéder à la critique des écoles où un enseignement créatif et des approches orientées vers la solution de problèmes font défaut. On souligne que les matières premières les plus importantes d'un système éducatif, à savoir les ressources humaines, sont abondantes. Les enfants sont désireux d'apprendre, les parents constituent un soutien potentiel et souhaitent une éducation en vue d'acquérir des connaissances et de trouver un emploi. Et ce qui est capital pour le succès des écoles, il existe un nombre inopinément élevé de directeurs et d'enseignants dévoués, compte tenu des contraintes auxquelles ils doivent faire face. On met en lumière l'importance de ces éducateurs ainsi que les implications pour leur sélection, leur formation et leur rémunération.

     

Obscenity and fabrication in equity and widening participation methodologies

Equity and widening participation (EWP) initiatives in Australia are increasingly reimagined in policy as sites where participants are constructed as competitor-individuals, with education considered only in terms of employability, social mobility and nation-state market competition. In the context of EWP outreach, and with school students in particular, this can transpire into demands for narrow forms of ‘legitimate’ aspirations. Goffman defines obscenity as when (1) the very intimate is forced into the public sphere, while (2) the humanising dimensions or contexts are stripped away, with an example being pornography—where intimate encounters are reproduced as de-contextualised acts while being made public. This article argues that dominant approaches to practicing and evaluating EWP risk obscene consequences if they force community members to present static future-oriented valuations of intimate, fluid aspirations and experiences of education against a backdrop of increasingly individuated, competitive and standardised educational institutions. In this article, firstly we detail the context to establish a foundation for theorising consequences of particular socio-educational discursive practices. Secondly, we engage with notions of frame, keying and fabrication as a toolbox to reveal some of the unintended (obscene) dynamics risked via certain approaches to programmatic practice and evaluation. Thirdly, we review the diversity of approaches to evaluation (and their attendant debates), highlighting the importance of these debates and diversities, making a case against methodological imperialism.     

“UNIFIED”: Bridging the Researcher–Practitioner Divide in Mind,Brain, and Education

Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) science is by definition transdisciplinary. However, the communication and collaboration between constituent disciplines needed for true transdisciplinarity remains relatively rare. Consequently, many of the potential benefits of MBE science remain unrealized for parties on all sides of the discipline. The present commentary first conducts an analysis of the current strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of transdisciplinary partnerships in MBE. A new, free, and international web platform (“UNIFIED”) is then proposed to broker relationships between researchers and teachers within schools. This website would allow users to form collaborations based on a system of tags indexing their research interests as well as practicalities such as their location. Such a website appears well placed to realize many of the opportunities, and mitigate the threats and weaknesses, of transdisciplinary MBE research. The article concludes with an appeal to interested researchers and schools to contribute to the development of the project.     

Joining forces for public value creation? Exploring collaborative innovation in smart city initiatives

Creating public value is a key goal of public administrations, both in their daily business and in the growing field of smart government and smart cities, which focuses on IT-enabled innovations in the public sphere. However, many public administrations still struggle with such innovations due to complex technologies, high investments, and the numerous stakeholders involved. To address this issue, some local governments in continental Europe have turned to collaborative innovation approaches, partnering with (semi-)public utility companies in the hope that their additional innovation assets will boost innovativeness. Nevertheless, it remains unclear how exactly such collaborations should be governed to ensure that the focus remains on creating public value, as utility companies may have their own agendas. To explore this question, we conducted a comparative case study in the context of smart city initiatives with four cases in Swiss local governments. Drawing on agency and stewardship theory, we then propose a model of public-value-focused collaborative innovation, enabling us to explore various collaboration characteristics and their effects on public value creation. Our findings suggest that both agency- and stewardship-based collaborations increase innovativeness. However, while agency collaborations tend to produce smart city innovations that mainly serve the utility companies' business interests, stewardship relationships lead to innovations that are focused more on public value creation. As such, our study extends the literature on the effects of collaborative innovation on public value, and it provides practical recommendations on how such collaborative innovation should be designed.     

Embedded Technical Expression: Code and the Leveraging of Functionality

In this article, I argue that a key problem for understanding the social ramifications of software is an implicit separation of software programs into two separate elements: expressive aspects, which are seen as socially driven and affectual, and functional aspects, understood as scientific and rational. In order to overcome this binary, I develop an alternative framework that examines the ways software expresses best practices, correct behaviors, and social organization. A key element of this framework is an understanding of software programs as simultaneously rhetorical and tangible objects. Given that Western society is dependent on sociotechnical systems in which software plays a crucial role, understanding the complex ways software expresses normative tasks, practices, and social orders is increasingly important.