What Happens Next? Follow-Up From the Children's Toddler School Program

This study was a follow-up of a group of 29 children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders at age 2 who attended an inclusive toddler program until age 3. Children ranged in age from 4 to 12 years at the time of the parent survey and follow-up testing. The majority of children were placed in a special education (noninclusive) preschool class, but among the children who were in elementary school at the time of follow-up, 63% were in general education classroom placement. Diagnoses of autism spectrum disorders remained stable, socialization skills remained a weakness, and child-related parental stress remained high despite average cognitive and language skills in the majority of children. Social skill development and support remained a service need.     

Erstsprachförderung bei Migrantenkindern in Kindergärten

This contribution reports on an investigation into the importance of supporting first language for the command of first and second language skills using a quasi-experimental longitudinal study of migrant children in kindergarten. For two years the development of both first and second language skills was coordinated through the treatment of the same topics and stories during lessons. Furthermore, parents were asked to read their children a story or play an audio book in the first language three times a week. This extensive intervention neither had statistically significant effects on the development of language competency in the first nor the second language, German. The transfer effects between first and second language expected by the interdependency hypothesis of Cummins were only in evidence to a very limited extent.     

Predicting individual differences in reading comprehension: a twin study

We examined the Simple View of reading from a behavioral genetic perspective. Two aspects of word decoding (phonological decoding and word recognition), two aspects of oral language skill (listening comprehension and vocabulary), and reading comprehension were assessed in a twin sample at age 9. Using latent factor models, we found that overlap among phonological decoding, word recognition, listening comprehension, vocabulary, and reading comprehension was primarily due to genetic influences. Shared environmental influences accounted for associations among word recognition, listening comprehension, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. Independent of phonological decoding and word recognition, there was a separate genetic link between listening comprehension, vocabulary, and reading comprehension and a specific shared environmental link between vocabulary and reading comprehension. There were no residual genetic or environmental influences on reading comprehension. The findings provide evidence for a genetic basis to the “Simple View” of reading.     

College Students Perceptions Toward Carrying Concealed Weapons on College Campuses

This study uses a survey of undergraduate college students at two schools in the eastern United States to investigate their attitudes toward carrying concealed weapons on campus. We found that politically conservative white men who own guns are more likely to be in favor of qualified students and faculty carrying concealed weapons on campus than politically liberal non-whites and women who do not own guns. Neither academic major nor age had a significant effect on any of our dependent variables.     

The weight of expectation: Cathy Freeman,Legacy, Reconciliation and the Sydney Olympics – A Canadian Perspective

This paper compares French- and English-language Canadian television coverage of Australian Aboriginal athlete Cathy Freeman during the 2000 Olympics using a narrative framework. The specific focus of the analysis is the representation of Freeman's political identity as an agent and symbol of Aboriginal reconciliation – the struggle for apology, reparatio, and social justice in the light of the history and legacy of colonial oppression and exclusion. Freeman has used her sporting success to signify visibly and with some controversy her identification with political Aboriginality and reconciliation, and she went into the 2000 games bearing an unusual weight of expectation, intensified by being chosen to light the Olympic cauldron, that a victory in the 400 metres would mark symbolically reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians. The analysis generally conforms the hypothesis that the normative dimension of these expectations would be accentuated more in the French- than English-language coverage, and this resulted in a more consistently affirmative portrayal of Freeman and her performance. The English-language coverage emphasized the ambivalent nature of her role. The corollary of this was that the English-language coverage paid greater attention to the substance of Aboriginal grievances and struggle. Nonetheless, neither network saw Freeman's identity in openly critical terms: in Freeman's Olympic narrative sport and politics were allowed to mix in a relatively unproblematic way.     

Images of women in literature on physical education and sport: Representations of social transformation in France under the third republic, 1870-1939

Writings on 'the female' under the Third Republic in France provide evidence of the profound changes taking place in the social representation of femininity and masculinity during the period. They correspond to dramatic changes in the socio-economic context in parallel with those in the scientific models being used to describe human bodily movement. This paper sets out to demonstrate both the structure of the discussion on femininity and the practice of exercise, and the possible links with changes in women's education and their social position in France. It attempts to go beyond the traditional analysis of the historical relationships between women and exercise in the period under examination (1870-1939). It reviews the debates on these relationships taking place at the time in France and within the state education system during the Third Republic and focuses on three specific aspects: work, school and society.     

The effect of a strategy training on reading comprehension in fourth-grade students

Previous studies have shown that instruction of reading strategies is an effective method for enhancing reading comprehension. However, many of the interventions in these studies focused on small groups of (poor) comprehenders and were provided by research assistants, making it time-consuming and relatively expensive. The authors implemented a strategy intervention to intact classrooms, consisting of reciprocal teaching and delivered by teachers. Participants were 510 typically developing fourth-grade students. A clustered randomized controlled trial was conducted with pretest, posttest, and follow-up measures to assess knowledge of reading strategies and reading comprehension. The results revealed that the intervention had an effect on knowledge of reading strategies at posttest and follow-up. However, the intervention did not affect reading comprehension performance. Together with the results of earlier studies, the present study raises the question whether strategy interventions are the most efficient to improve fourth-grade students' reading comprehension.     

An Examination of Poetry for the People: A Decolonizing Holistic Approach to Arts Education

This article is concerned with the epidemic of alienation created by colonization and the ideologies that maintain systems of domination. More specifically, it argues that a decolonizing holistic pedagogy can help address the root of our individual and collective alienation to facilitate healing. This position is supported by the findings of an ethnographic study, conducted in 2013–2014, highlighting Poetry for the People (P4P), an arts/activism course started by poet-activist-professor, June Jordan, at UC Berkeley. The article opens with a theoretical framework that centers healing and love as decolonial priorities and pedagogical imperatives, and speaks to the mindbodyspirit labor, restoration, and creativity involved in decolonizing education. Emphasizing the need for decolonizing epistemologies to inform classroom dialogue, this article points to the power inherent in those dialogues for creating connections that mend alienation and for generating apertures for personal and social transformation. However, it is the voices of the P4P participants interviewed that give testimony to the effectiveness of a decolonizing holistic pedagogy to foster rigorous investigation of self and society, authentic community-building across difference, as well as the healing power of writing, sharing, and witnessing others share personal/political poetry.