Gender and digital divide 2000-2008 in two low-income economies in Sub-Saharan Africa: Kenya and Somalia in official statistics

The Beijing World Conference on Women held in 1995 by the United Nations member states, approved strategies for improving women's access to and use of new communication technologies. The aim of this paper is to retrieve official statistics for the years 2000-2008 with regard to sex differences, gender and digital divide (specifically concerning telecommunication technologies) in two low-income economies in Sub-Saharan Africa, Kenya and Somalia. This paper reveals that official statistics on sex discrepancies and, the gender divide regarding access, use and benefits of telecommunications are still almost totally lacking for the countries in view. However, the digital divide is successively closing, and the telecommunication process in Kenya was quite rapid at the end of the period. Official statistics from Somalia are difficult to comprehend due to the absence of official data and a lack of evidence-based knowledge. Fifteen years after the Beijing Conference in 1995 there is still a lack of comprehensive statistics regarding new communication technologies for low-income economies such as Kenya and Somalia.     

Evaluating College Teaching

Subtle forms of prejudice called microaggressions occur in college classrooms, but the effective methods of managing such prejudice are not clear. This study explored teachers’ (N = 222) and students’ (N = 166) perceptions of vignettes describing classroom microaggressions and the effectiveness of various teacher responses to the microaggressions. Teachers of courses focused on diversity perceived microaggressions more negatively and were more likely to respond to the microaggressions than teachers of nondiversity courses. Students believed that teacher responses to microaggressions were effective and ignoring microaggressions was ineffective. The results suggest that teachers should in some way respond to classroom microaggressions. They also suggest that diversity awareness may be a factor in the ability of teachers to recognize subtle prejudice in the classroom.     

Personal Backgrounds of Effective Teaching

Planning time for giving students effective feedback is an important and challenging aspect of the teaching and learning process. In our article we describe and analyze how we engage students as partners in providing formative feedback in time for students to modify their own thinking or behavior to improve learning. We have found ways to provide formative feedback more frequently and to involve students in providing effective formative feedback to each other. The four techniques we describe are the following: a) three-color group quiz with feedback on product, process, and progress; b) midterm student conferencing; c) shared revision of student generated questions and statements; and d) timely feedback using collaborative assignment blogs. These techniques give feedback in time for revisions to occur, provide scaffolding for learners, inform instruction, and most importantly, involve students as partners in assessment. These pedagogical strategies show that the resulting benefits of improved instruction, enhanced student learning, and better student products are worth the time and effort and contribute to a productive classroom climate where the focus is on learning more than on grading. Formative feedback involving students as partners is a key strategy to enhance the teaching and learning process.     

Students' Views of Teaching

Abstract

Much To Do About Writing: Teaching and Assessing Writing By Edward M. White San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1985, 304 pages, $19.95. Reviewed by David Taylor

A Poignant, Colorful Portrait: Refugee Scholars in America: Their Impact and Their Experiences By Lewis A. Coser New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1984, xviii + 351 pages, $25.00. Reviewed by R. W. Franklin     

Primary mathematics teachers’ goal orientations and student achievement

Primary mathematics teachers’ (N = 521) personal goal orientation and instructional practices were examined based on questionnaire responses. The teachers (grades 2 and 3) were oriented towards mastery goals and mastery approaches to instruction, and reported high teaching efficacy. Strong positive relation between performance orientation and performance instructional practices was established, and correspondingly between mastery orientation and mastery instructional practices. Positive relations between students’ (N = 9,980) basic mathematics performance (measured by paper and pencil tests) and both teacher mastery orientation and teaching efficacy were also found. Results indicate that mastery oriented teaching strategies are crucial for fostering basic mathematical competencies in primary students.     

Defining curriculum policy through slogans

This article explores the upper secondary (or post‐16) school market. The study on which it is based, funded by the Swedish Research Council, was entitled ‘Upper‐secondary education as a market’. Empirical data include official statistics, policy documents, school publications, company reports and school visits. Printed and other news media were also scrutinised to identify how the marketisation of education is represented in public discourse. A number of themes emerged from the study which included mapping the expansion of the school market, chains of ownership and influence, marketing strategies, choice and the school market and issues raised in the media. These imply that there is a new market discourse which represents a clear break with previous social democratic education policies primarily aimed at enhancing citizenship and wider democratic values within an inclusive public school. However, critiques have also emerged including a call for strengthened regulations of and control over independent schools and concern about an education market equated more with shares and profits rather than pedagogy and student citizenship.