Political pornification gone global: Teresa Rodríguez as fungible object in the 2015 Spanish regional elections

In this article, the authors examine the political pornification of Spanish politician Teresa Rodríguez and assess the rhetorical strategies she and her supporters used to respond to the controversy. The authors theorize a “fungibility frame” within which women candidates and citizens are treated as interchangeable, violable, and devalued. Rodríguez and her supporters resisted this frame, asserting women's individuality, agency, and inherent value. This case underscores the ways in which political pornification impacts not just candidates and public figures, but also private citizens. When pornified, women are presented not as individuals with political agency but as objects which may be manipulated for political and commercial gain. Additionally, this analysis reveals the ways in which the conditions that produce political pornification may be endemic to democratic culture.     

Preparing Students for Middle School Through After-School STEM Activities

Journal of Science Education and Technology - The middle school years are a crucial time for cultivating students’ interest in and preparedness for future STEM careers. However, not all...     

Erratum to: Preparing Students for Middle School Through After-School STEM Activities

Journal of Science Education and Technology -     

Enhancing consent forms to support participant decision making in multimodal learning data research

Advances in the field of multimodal learning analytics (MMLA) research is often accomplished by actively exploring new technologies and techniques related to the collection and analysis of data. Exploration of ethical principles and procedures for governing the use of new technologies and techniques, however, is not as readily pursued. As collected data grow in complexity and invasiveness, potentially, a growing need is arising to scrutinize ethical aspects of MMLA research. In our study, we introduce an informed consent comprehension test for educational technology research and assess the effects of enhancing MMLA consent forms on comprehension of informed consent and on rates of enrollment in a MMLA study. One form is written from a researcher perspective and the other from a participant perspective. Results of the study involving first-year undergraduate students suggest that the overall level of comprehension did not differ between conditions. Yet, the participant-oriented consent form resulted in significantly lower rates of enrollment. Implications for MMLA researchers are discussed.     

Teacher‐pupil dialogue in the guided reading session

Drawing on the findings of an ESRC‐funded project, this article concerns the quality of teacher‐pupil dialogue in the guided reading session of the Literacy Hour and its relationship to pupils' powers of comprehension. We recorded and analysed examples of discussions during the guided reading session in four primary schools, visiting each of them three times. On each school visit, we recorded the same group of six Year 6 children (10–11‐year‐olds) working with their class teacher. The results of the study suggest that talk in this context is teacher‐dominated. The teacher: usually asks questions to which s/he already knows the answer; normally selects which pupil is going to speak next; keeps a tight grip on the topic of conversation; and does most of the talking. We argue that there is a case for making time available during the guided reading session for a period of discussion in which pupils are invited to play a more leading role in shaping the topic of conversation.     

Drug education in bolivian schools: A feasibility study for cross-cultural application of a preventive curricular unit

The purpose of this study was to test the feasibility of adapting and implementing in La Paz, Bolivia a drug education course originally developed for use in the middle schools in the United States. On the basis of teacher and student evaluations, it was concluded that the unit is a viable, culturally relevant and effective method of drug education in the public and private schools in La Paz. Implications for the prevention of other health-related problems and for implementation of a demandreduction strategy to prevent drug abuse throughout the Americas are discussed.

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Zusammenfassung Ziel dieser Studie war es herauszufinden, inwieweit die Anwendung eines Kurses zur Drogenerziehung in La Paz, Bolivien durchführbar ist. Dieser Kurs wurde ursprünglich für Mittelschulen in den Vereinigten Staaten entwickelt. Auf der Basis von Bewertungen durch Lehrer und Schüler fand man heraus, daß dieser Kurs eine lebensfähige, kulturell relevante und effektive Art der Drogenerziehung in öffentlichen und privaten Schulen in La Paz ist. Außerdem wird diskutiert, welche Auswirkungen auf die Verhütung anderer Gesundheitsprobleme erzielt werden, sowie auf die Durchführung einer Strategie zur Verringerung der Nachfrage, um den Drogenmißbrauch in ganz Amerika zu reduzieren.

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Resumen El objetivo de este estudio residía en comprobar la factibilidad de adaptar e implementar en La Paz, Bolivia, un curso de educación antidrogas que se ha desarrollado para aplicarlo en las escuelas de enseñanza media de los Estados Unidos. Sobre la base de evaluaciones hechas por docentes y estudiantes se ha llegado a la conclusión de que el curso es un método viable, de relevancia cultural y efectivo para realizar una educación antidrogas en los colegios públicos y privados de La Paz. Se discuten las implicaciones del estudio para la prevención de otros problemas relacionados con la salud y para implementar una estrategia de reducción de demanda, a efectos de prvenir el abuso de drogas en todo el continente.

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Résumé L'objectif de cette étude est de tester la faisabilité de l'adaptation et de la mise en oeuvre à La Paz, en Bolivie, d'un programme de prévention contre la drogue, développé à l'origine pour être utilisé dans les écoles primaires aux Etats-Unis. D'après les évaluations des enseignants et des apprenants, il s'est avéré que ce programme constitue une méthode de prévention contre la drogue valable, culturellement pertinente et efficace, pour les écoles publiques et privées de La Paz. La discussion porte sur les répercussions sur la prévention d'autres problèmes de santé et sur la mise en oeuvre d'une stratégie de réduction de la dépendance afin de s'opposer aux méfaits de la drogue sur le continent américain.

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This project was made possible by a grant from the North-South Center, University of Miami, Florida, USA.     

How Do Children Acquire Early Grammar and Build Multiword Utterances? A Corpus Study of French Children Aged 2 to 4

In the last 50 years, researchers have debated over the lexical or grammatical nature of children's early multiword utterances. Due to methodological limitations, the issue remains controversial. This corpus study explores the effect of grammatical, lexical, and pragmatic categories on mean length of utterances (MLU). A total of 312 speech samples from high‐low socioeconomic status (SES) French‐speaking children aged 2–4 years were annotated with a part‐of‐speech‐tagger. Multiple regression analyses show that grammatical categories, particularly the most frequent subcategories, were the best predictors of MLU both across age and SES groups. These findings support the view that early language learning is guided by grammatical rather than by lexical words. This corpus research design can be used for future cross‐linguistic and cross‐pathology studies.