When does an opportunity become an opportunity? Unpacking classroom practice through the lens of ecological psychology

Drawing on ecological psychology, this paper considers how student engagement is an accomplishment of the classroom system. Specifically, this paper presents an analysis of two teachers and their students who were using a project-based unit in their mathematics classes. The two teachers used identical curricular materials, but had dramatically different personal histories of teaching and different instructional practices. Our goal is to investigate the role of the teacher in supporting student engagement by considering the kinds of opportunities to learn that were presented by the teacher, and the relationship between those opportunities to learn and the ways their students engaged. Pragmatically, this paper contributes to our understanding of how teachers’ framing of activity significantly impacts the ways that students are likely to engage tasks. Theoretically, this paper highlights the interactional nature of learning, with the goal of clarifying why learning is not simply an individual accomplishment.     

Indigenous peoples’ human rights and the Victorian Charter: a framework for reorienting recordkeeping and archival practice

This article considers the legal framework for archival and recordkeeping institutions, archivists and recordkeeping professionals in one Australian state under the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (Vic) and the relationship with protection of Indigenous culture. It examines the underlying themes of the Victorian Charter and considers the Charter rights to culture, privacy and family as relevant specifically to Indigenous Victorians, and to those institutions keeping records and archives relating to Indigenous Victorians. Finally, it explains the way the human rights protected by the Charter are enforced, and the role of public institutions as duty bearers under the Charter.     

Editors’ introduction to Keeping cultures alive: Archives and Indigenous human rights

Keeping Cultures Alive investigates the relationship between Indigenous human rights and the archives through an interdisciplinary and comparative lens, bringing together papers by Indigenous and non-Indigenous experts in Indigenous studies, human rights, law and archival science. It explores Indigenous human rights in an international context with particular reference to the implications of the international human rights agenda for current and future archival practice in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.     

Caregiver instability and early life changes among infants reported to the child welfare system

This study describes the extent of caregiver instability (defined as a new placement for 1 week or longer in a different household and/or with a new caregiver) in a nationally representative sample of infants, followed for 5–7 years. Data were drawn from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW), a longitudinal study of 5,501 children investigated for child maltreatment. The analysis sample was restricted to 1,196 infants. Overall, 85.6% of children who were infants at the time of the index maltreatment experienced at least one caregiver instability event during their first 2 years of life. Caregiver instability was associated with the child having a chronic health condition and the caregiver being older than 40 years of age at baseline. The levels of instability reported in this study from infancy to school entry are extremely high. Children with more risk factors were significantly more likely to experience caregiver instability than children with fewer risk factors. The repeated loss of a young child's primary caregiver or unavailable, neglectful care can be experienced as traumatic. Some evidence-based programs that are designed to work with young maltreated children can make a substantial positive difference in the lives of vulnerable infants.     

Enhancing preschool children's vocabulary: Effects of teacher talk before,during and after shared reading

This observational study analyzed patterns of teacher extratextual talk as it occurs before, during, and after reading books to children, and the frequency and duration of teacher questioning by type (label, define, associate) on preschoolers’ receptive and expressive vocabulary knowledge. Over the course of 18 weeks, 13 teachers and 100 children participated in ninety 20-min small-group sessions of teacher-guided shared reading instruction. Teachers’ reading instruction was examined through videotaped observations using the Multi-Option Observation System for Experimental Studies (MOOSES™; Tapp, Wehby, & Ellis, 1995). Two findings, in particular, yielded relevant educational and theoretical implications. First, time spent after reading was significantly related to expressive vocabulary. However, question timing did not seem to matter in terms of receptive vocabulary outcomes. Second, duration of teacher association questioning was significantly related to receptive vocabulary outcomes while both frequency and duration of teacher vocabulary-related association-level questioning were related to expressive vocabulary. For receptive vocabulary, both vocabulary- and comprehension-related association-level questioning mattered. These findings complement the body of work demonstrating that engaging children in interactive shared reading that elicits their active participation is related to meaningful gains in children's language and literacy growth. Limitations of the study and directions for future research are discussed.     

Politeness theory and refusals of requests: Face threat as a function of expressed obstacles

This investigation seeks to extend Wilson, Aleman, and Leatham's (1998) revision of Brown and Levinson's (1987) politeness theory by focusing on the relationship between face threat and refusals to requests. Results support that (a) when requests are refused, threats to the negative face needs of the requester are more prevalent than threats to the negative face of the refuser and (b) depending on the obstacle underlying the refusal, there are differences in type of threat present to the requester's positive face and the refuser's face needs.     

Media Literacy Messages and Hostile Media Perceptions: Processing of Nonpartisan Versus Partisan Political Information

Partisans are poor judges of news content, rating neutral content as biased against their views (the hostile media perception) and forgiving biased content when it favors their side. This study tests whether a short news media literacy public service announcement (PSA) appearing before political programming can influence credibility and hostility ratings of the program and program host. Our findings suggest that a media literacy PSA can be effective, but its impact depends on the position of the news program and on the political ideology of the viewers. In this case, the media literacy PSA only influenced conservatives’ evaluations of the political program, improving perceptions of a neutral or congruent (conservative) host while further depressing ratings of an incongruent (liberal) host. Liberals’ evaluations of the program were unaffected by the PSA. Implications for media literacy messaging and information processing are discussed.     

Beyond Consultation: A New Model for Librarian's Office Hours

ABSTRACT

Given the many changes in our students and their study and research practices, libraries are finding it necessary to seek new ways to reach these students. The Undergraduate Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign created a new model to do so. Librarian's Office Hours are a hybrid of reference and instructional services that fulfill the dual purposes of meeting the needs of term paper research counseling and library workshops. This article discusses the strategies involved in the creation and implementation of this service and examines suggestions for the future of such a service.