Bodily practices and discourses of hetero‐femininity: girls' constitution of subjectivities in their social transition between childhood and adolescence

In foregrounding how girls use their bodies when negotiating subjectivities as adolescents, this paper explores possible ways of doing, being and becoming an adolescent girl in urban, multicultural school contexts. Drawing on interview material generated through a longitudinal qualitative study of children's social transitions between childhood and adolescence, the paper more specifically examines how girls constitute subjectivities through bodily practices which position them according to dominant discourses of hetero‐femininity. The paper goes on to argue that the way in which girls negotiate these discourses through practices on and with their bodies has a significant impact on how they subsequently experience their social transition between childhood and adolescence.     

Teachers’ learning in a learning study

The point of departure in this study is the question: do teachers who develop theoretical knowledge of the variation theory change the way(s) they offer their pupils the object of learning due to the theoretical framework. The aim of the study is to describe this development, i.e. to find if and how teachers developed theoretical knowledge when planning instruction, and in what way(s) this has an impact on the pupils’ learning outcome when using contrasts in the instruction. The theoretical framework is strongly content related, and by analysing the learning object’s critical aspects the teachers are guided to focus on the content in this particular way. The question “what does it take to develop knowledge about the object of learning?” has to be answered by the teachers before choice of teaching method is made. The research method used is Learning Study, a fusion between lesson study and design experiment. The teachers (6) have carried out nine research lessons in three Learning Study cycles (containing three lessons each). The pupils belong to three different classes and are between 9 and 11 years old. The result shows how the teachers gradually use the variation theory when planning instruction and how the learning outcomes shown by the pupils improve. The developed theoretical insight seems to affect the teachers’ ways of seeing the object of learning, such as subtle changes of how to organize the critical features of the learning object, are discerned. In every learning study cycle contrasts are used in one lesson, and in the analysis of the effect of the contrasts, the two remaining lessons are used as control groups. The results show the impact of contrasts in the pupils’ learning outcomes. The need to complement a lesson study with a theoretical perspective on learning is that the teachers are then given the opportunity to make use of the theory when planning instruction individually, not only in a lesson study. There again, the Learning Study model seems to be a powerful model with which to develop teachers’ understanding of the theoretical framework.     

Creating Opportunities for Contact between Mainstream Pupils and their Counterparts with Learning Difficulties

Michael Shevlin, Lecturer in Education, and Astrid Mona O'Moore, Senior Lecturer in Child and Educational Psychology and Co-ordinator of the Anti-Bullying Centre, both at Trinity College, Dublin, describe a programme linking mainstream pupils and their counterparts with severe and profound learning difficulties, consider the reactions of the pupils, and assess the social and educational benefits for all involved.     

‘Wrighting’ the self: new technologies and textual subjectivities

The expression of the self through multimodal texts is a central theme in education. While it has been suggested that new technologies act as important mediators in the relationship between texts and subjectivity, the mechanisms underlying such mediation has been a neglected topic of research. This paper considers the theoretical assumptions upon which speculation so far has been based and explores the methodologies that are best suited to investigating further the relationships between text, self and technology.     

‘We can write!’ The writing workshop for young learners

The study presents the process of differentiated instruction, its implementation, and impact on second graders in a Lebanese school It analyses how writing instruction has been differentiated through implementing the writing workshop to help students demonstrate improved writing skills. It examines the effects of second graders' participation in the writing workshop and discusses the factors that enabled students to develop their writing skills. Data collection includes pre- and post-writing samples, reflective journal and checklists during individual conferences. Findings show that students' writing skills improved as reflected in their progression of text, expansion of ideas, and development in conventional writing.     

Preparing gifted leaders for a futuristic society

Social studies teachers rely too heavily on textbooks which contain minimal problem solving or other high level cognitive tasks. This finding raises serious questions about the capacity of a social studies curriculum meeting the goals for a program for the gifted.     

Utilization of discrete transforms to conquer the problems of multi-tone systems

This paper presents a new implementation of discrete multi-tone (DMT) systems based on different discrete transforms that include the discrete sine transform (DST), discrete cosine transform (DCT), and discrete wavelet transform (DWT). The implementation also considers time-domain equalization to mitigate channel distortion. Compared to the fast Fourier transform discrete multi-tone (FFT-DMT) system, the proposed implementations have an advantage in that their energy-compaction property helps in reducing the channel effects. The performance of the DST-DMT, DCT-DMT, DWT-DMT, and FFT-DMT systems, employing a time-domain equalizer (TEQ), is investigated in the paper. It has been demonstrated by computer simulations that the proposed implementations outperform the FFT-DMT system and that the utilization of the TEQ can lead to higher bit rates     

A Rare Case of Mucopolysaccharidosis

Mucopolysaccharidosis are a group of rare metabolic disorders of the lysosomal storage disease family caused by the absence or malfunctioning of lysosomal enzymes responsible for their breakdown. It encompasses disorders in which undegraded or partly degraded glycosaminoglycans accumulate in the lysosomes of many tissues owing to a deficiency of specific lysosomal enzymes. Here we report a case of a 7 years old child displaying the symptoms of Morquio’s disease (Mucopolysaccharidosis type IV). Urine screening tests were performed which gave contrasting results.