A first-language-first multilingual model to meet the quality imperative in formal basic education in three ‘francophone’ West African countries

This paper documents the new trend towards a first-language-first multilingual model in formal education in three former French colonies of West Africa, namely Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. It compares the sociolinguistic situations, the conditions of the development of multilingual education and the achievements of mother-tongue-medium education in all three countries. The evidence is that, contrary to common discourse in francophonie, a strong first-language-first model in formal education is the best guarantee of a good mastery of French and, more generally, of quality education in francophone countries.     

Differential effects of psychological maltreatment on children of mothers exposed to intimate partner violence

Objective

Psychological maltreatment (PM) is the most prevalent form of child abuse, and is the core component of most of what is considered as child maltreatment. The aim of this work was to explore differential adverse outcomes of the different types of PM in the mental health and functioning of children living in homes in which they are exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV).

Method

Participants were 168 children, aged between 4 and 17, whose mothers experienced IPV. They were assessed using different measures of psychopathology and functioning: Diagnostic Interview for Children and Adolescents-IV, Child Behavior Checklists and Child and Adolescent Functioning Assessment Scale. Furthermore, IPV was assessed with the Schedule for Assessment of Intimate Partner Violence Exposure in Children and the Index of Spouse Abuse. Statistical analyses were carried out with regression models adjusted by means of Generalized Estimating Equations.

Results

Spurning was the PM subtype with the greatest global effect on the children, as it was significantly associated with internalizing and externalizing problems. Denying emotional responsiveness specifically increased the risk of internalizing psychopathology and impairment in the emotional area. Terrorizing was not significantly associated with a greater number of negative outcomes in children's psychopathology or functioning in this population.

Implications

The results suggest the importance of taking PM types into account in order to fully understand the problems of children exposed to IPV at home, and for the design of effective treatment and prevention programs.     

Averages of ratios vs. ratios of averages: An empirical analysis of four levels of aggregation

In the recent debate on the use of averages of ratios (AoR) and ratios of averages (RoA) for the compilation of field-normalized citation rates, little evidence has been provided on the different results obtained by the two methods at various levels of aggregation. This paper provides such an empirical analysis at the level of individual researchers, departments, institutions and countries. Two datasets are used: 147,547 papers published between 2000 and 2008 and assigned to 14,379 Canadian university professors affiliated to 508 departments, and all papers indexed in the Web of Science for the same period (N = 8,221,926) assigned to all countries and institutions. Although there is a strong relationship between the two measures at each of these levels, a pairwise comparison of AoR and RoA shows that the differences between all the distributions are statistically significant and, thus, that the two methods are not equivalent and do not give the same results. Moreover, the difference between both measures is strongly influenced by the number of papers published as well as by their impact scores: the difference between AoR and RoA is greater for departments, institutions and countries with low RoA scores. Finally, our results show that RoA relative impact indicators do not add up to unity (as they should by definition) at the level of the reference dataset, whereas the AoR does have that property.     

Fostering parents-professional collaboration for facilitating the school inclusion of students with ASD: design of the “ToGather” web-based prototype

Educational technology research and development - In recent years, many psycho-educational technologies were studied to address the school-related difficulties encountered by students with autism...     

Differences in Brain Activation Between Novices and Experts in Science During a Task Involving a Common Misconception in Electricity

Science education studies have revealed that students often have misconceptions about how nature works, but what happens to misconceptions after a conceptual change remains poorly understood. Are misconceptions rejected and replaced by scientific conceptions, or are they still present in students' minds, coexisting with newly acquired scientific conceptions? In this study, we use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare brain activation between novices and experts in science when they evaluate the correctness of simple electric circuits. Results show that experts, more than novices, activate brain areas involved in inhibition when they evaluate electric circuits in which a bulb lights up, even though there is only one wire connecting it to the battery. These findings suggest that experts may still have a misconception encoded in the neural networks of their brains that must be inhibited in order to answer scientifically.     

A tapered channel microfluidic device for comprehensive cell adhesion analysis, using measurements of detachment kinetics and shear stress-dependent motion

We have developed a method for studying cellular adhesion by using a custom-designed microfluidic device with parallel non-connected tapered channels. The design enables investigation of cellular responses to a large range of shear stress (ratio of 25) with a single input flow-rate. For each shear stress, a large number of cells are analyzed (500–1500 cells), providing statistically relevant data within a single experiment. Besides adhesion strength measurements, the microsystem presented in this paper enables in-depth analysis of cell detachment kinetics by real-time videomicroscopy. It offers the possibility to analyze adhesion-associated processes, such as migration or cell shape change, within the same experiment. To show the versatility of our device, we examined quantitatively cell adhesion by analyzing kinetics, adhesive strength and migration behaviour or cell shape modifications of the unicellular model cell organism Dictyostelium discoideum at 21 °C and of the human breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-231 at 37 °C. For both cell types, we found that the threshold stresses, which are necessary to detach the cells, follow lognormal distributions, and that the detachment process follows first order kinetics. In addition, for particular conditions’ cells are found to exhibit similar adhesion threshold stresses, but very different detachment kinetics, revealing the importance of dynamics analysis to fully describe cell adhesion. With its rapid implementation and potential for parallel sample processing, such microsystem offers a highly controllable platform for exploring cell adhesion characteristics in a large set of environmental conditions and cell types, and could have wide applications across cell biology, tissue engineering, and cell screening.     

Coherence in professional education: does it foster dedication and identification?

This article examines the impact of professional education on students' dedication to and identification with a profession. The premise is that professional education is not only about knowledge acquisition and reasoning but also about attitudes and aspirations. In fostering dedication and identification, students' experiences of relevance seem to be important. The concept of coherence seen as an expression of relevance is introduced and measured by four kinds of interactions: Theory–practice interaction, teacher–student interaction, peer interaction and supervisor–student interaction. Analysis indicates that coherence, particularly as theory–practice interaction, peer interaction and supervisor–student interaction, has a significant impact on dedication to and identification with a profession. Longitudinal survey data – collected from students in colleges for teaching, nursing and social work – are analysed.     

Learning environments at the margin: Case studies of disenfranchised youth doing science in an aquarium and an after-school program

In this article, we explore how two informal educational contexts—an aquarium and an after-school science program—enabled disenfranchised learners to adopt an identity as insiders to the world of science. We tell the stories of four youth, relating what doing science meant to them and how they positioned themselves in relation to science. We contribute to the extensive literature on the value of learning beyond the school walls, yet focus on ethnically and linguistically diverse youth from low-income backgrounds who have often been excluded from such settings. We suggest that such out-of-school settings are particularly important to youth who have few other opportunities to interact with and relate to science in positive ways.     

Constructing and understanding of place value in numerical notation

The purpose of this study was to investigate how children aged five to nine gradually build up an understanding of the characteristics of place-value inherent in the written number system. The task consisted in presenting collections of chips, asking children to produce the corresponding two-digit numerals, and then questioning them in a structured clinical interview about the possible numerical meaning (in terms of correspondence to a number of chips) of each of the digits in the numeral. Results show that the idea that parts of the notation must correspond to mutually exclusive parts of the collection is but slowly built up, and that subsequently it is fleshed out by the use of knowledge concerning oral numeration_— written numeration correspondences. Intuitions concerning «groups of ten» arise later. A fair proportion of eight-year-olds and all nine-years-olds saw the two-digits as corresponding to, on the one hand, a number of units, and on the other, a number of groups of units.