The increasing role of non-State actors in education policy-making. Evidence from Uruguay

ABSTRACT

Over the last decades privatization policies have taken centre stage in many processes of educational reform globally. In Latin America, these policies have played an important role since the 1990s leading to an increasing participation of private agents in educational provision. The case of Uruguay stands out for having remained somehow apart from this privatization agenda. More recently, however, research has identified a significant shift in the discursive order especially driven by a series of new actors including think tanks and civil society organizations favourable to different forms of privatization. Building on case study methods and informed by a cultural political economy (CPE) approach this paper addresses two purposes. First, it attempts to explore possible explanations for the scarce development of the private sector in Uruguayan education. Second, it aims to characterize the discourses and strategies increasingly used by different actors to frame and promote policy ideas potentially leading to privatization policies. The study shows how a small but influential number of actors have become involved in the process of promoting ideas that seek to influence policymaking. Findings reveal how these actors frame school autonomy and accountability as policy solutions by means of different strategies of networking and knowledge mobilization.     

The journey of two Latino educators: our collective resilience

This article represents a journey into education undertaken by two Latino educators from diverse generations. Through the content of the narratives, we emphasize that success was achieved within the presence of oppression. The narratives reveal significant constructs that shaped our journey. For the first author, Pablo, role models, pivotal moments, and resistance had a powerful influence in his journey. Family lessons and self-sacrifice were key to the success of the second author, Yolanda. These constructs contributed to both of our resilience and success. We suggest that the aforementioned constructs have significant implications for Latino youth in the educational system.     

Clipping our dogmatic wings: The role of religion’s Parerga in our moral education

Abstract

In a note introduced into the second edition of Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (1794), Kant assigns a systematic role to the General Remarks at the end of each Part of his book. He calls those Remarks, “as it were, parerga to religion within the boundaries of pure reason; they do not belong within it yet border on it” (RGV 6:52). As Kant sees them, the parerga are only a “secondary occupation” that consists in removing transcendent obstacles. This paper is skeptical of Kant's view. It proposes an alternative account, according to which the parerga are essential to our moral education, since they force human reason to confront its own limitations and resist the urge to take refuge in spurious religious beliefs. That urge, I argue, is linked to the propensity to evil, and uses religious orthodoxy to undermine moral religion. By clipping our dogmatic wings, the parerga encourage reason to face its own dialectical tendencies and direct its speculative interest to immanent practical use. This redirection counteracts the debilitating effects of the propensity to evil and plays a key role in our moral regeneration. To consider the parerga “derivative,” as Kant himself does, is therefore a grave mistake.     

Technology as ‘Applied Science’

The current consideration of technology as ‘applied science’, this is to say, as something that comes ‘after’ science, justifies the lack of attention paid to technology in science education. In our paper we question this simplistic view of the science-technology relationship, historically rooted in the unequal appreciation of intellectual and manual work, and we try to show how the absence of the technological dimension in science education contributes to a naïve and distorted view of science which deeply affects the necessary scientific and technological literacy of all citizens.     

Engaged environmental science for underserved youth

Abstract

The National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences has called for targeted efforts to engage underserved youth in environmental education programs that support environmental literacy and contribute to the development of a diverse workforce pipeline for environmental science-related occupations. Evidence suggests that career knowledge among low income and minority youth is more likely to be incompatible with post-secondary educational opportunities than other racial and ethnic groups. One approach to attenuating discordant college and career expectations among underserved youth is building networks for information sharing between secondary and post-secondary students. The purpose of this commentary is to describe the development and implementation of a high school curriculum on environmental science and environmental justice by Texas A&M University in collaboration with community engagement partners, students, and teachers at Furr High School, an innovative XQ Super School in Houston, Texas.     

To click or not to click: investigating conflict detection and sourcing in a multiple document hypertext environment

This study investigated whether accessing conflicting claims in other documents by means of hyperlinks embedded within currently read documents may facilitate conflict detection and source-content integration. Norwegian undergraduates (n?=?85) read multiple conflicting documents on a controversial health-related issue, with half of the conflicting claims across documents hyperlinked and the other half not. Moreover, half of the participants were told that they would get more information by clicking on the links (weak prompting condition) while the other half were additionally told that clicking on the links was necessary to get a more complete understanding of the issue (strong prompting condition). Results indicated that the extent to which participants accessed conflicting claims in other documents via the hyperlinks was positively related to their detection of cross-document conflicts as well as their integration of source-content information. A mediational analysis indicated that conflict detection mediated the effect of accessing conflicting claims via the hyperlinks on source-content integration. No relationship was found between the prompting condition and participants’ selection of the hyperlinks. The theoretical significance as well as the practical value of our findings are discussed.

     

Validation of a school environment survey among Colombian teachers

The article explores the validity and reliability of an instrument for measuring for the School Environment (SE) among 3610 teachers in Medellín, Colombia during 2011. A multilevel exploratory factorial analysis established through 20 items that the instrument identifies four dimensions of SE on an individual level: communication between school and teachers, between teachers and parents, teacher involvement in school decisions, sense of security (respect-safeness) and academic expectations. At a group level, the same items measure a general dimension of SE. Based upon these analyses, the instrument produced a valid and reliable school environment measure that differentiates among schools.     

Correction to: Fostering integrated mental models of different professional knowledge domains: instructional approaches and model-based analyses

Educational technology research and development - A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-021-09971-w     

Rhythms of Mental Performance

ABSTRACT— Cognitive performance is affected by an individual's characteristics and the environment, as well as by the nature of the task and the amount of practice at it. Mental performance tests range in complexity and include subjective estimates of mood, simple objective tests (reaction time), and measures of complex performance that require decisions to be made and priorities set. Mental performance tasks show 2 components, a circadian rhythm and the effects of time awake. The circadian rhythm is in phase with the rhythm of core temperature and there is evidence for a causal link. Increasing time awake results in performance deterioration and is attributed to fatigue. The relative contribution of these 2 components depends upon the task under consideration; simple tasks generally show smaller effects due to increasing time awake. These contributions have been assessed by constant routines and forced desynchronization protocols and have formed the basis of several mathematical models that attempt to predict performance in a variety of field conditions. Mental performance is negatively affected by sleep loss; although short naps are beneficial, sleep inertia limits their value immediately after waking. The processes involved in cognition include attention (tonic and phasic alertness, and selective and sustained attention), working memory (phonological, used for speech, reading, and writing; and visuospatial, used for spatial processing, drawing, and mathematics), and executive function (initiative, decision making, and problem solving). These processes are illuminated by analysis of the regions of the brain involved, the presence of circadian rhythmicity, and the effects of sleep loss. The results from such laboratory- and field-based observations are relevant to the issue of learning in schoolchildren and lead to suggestions for improving their performance.