An alternative to social learning theory: Discussion of papers by Whitehurst,Zimmerman, and Brody

Social learning theory, in explaining cognitive development, fails to account for rule invariance in the face of capricious and informationally impoverished experience, offers no explanatory mechanism for the process by which systems of abstract rules are acquired, and offers less flexibility than alternative explanations based on operations and reflective abstraction.     

THE BUREAUS AND THE DENOMINATIONS

Diversity and special interest have historically been the great builders of American Jewish communal life. Jewish hospitals, Jewish childcare services, Jewish schools in this country were all created by private “ideologues” — religious, Zionistic, or other — which special passions alone empowered them to create meaningful, workable institutions. Federations were formed to supply the infrastructure necessary to perpetuate these institutions: to systematize and coordinate the grant diversity of communal fund-raising efforts spanning the nation.     

JEWISH EDUCATION IN IRAN

Introduction

Historically, two periods are discernible in the development of the system of extra-curricular activities in the Israeli schools — the first period, from the founding of the first Israeli high school around the beginning of the twentieth century to the establishment of the State of Israel (1948), and the second period, from 1948 to the present. The main difference between the two stages lies in the degree of local autonomy in the administration of the activity program.     

A Survey of “One-Day-A-Week” Jewish Education in Philadelphia,Pa.

In light of recent developments in the Modern Orthodox community's approach to homosexuality, this article presents a classroom discussion on homosexuality that took place at a Modern Orthodox high school. An examination of the discussion's heteroglossia, or multiplicity of languages existing in tension, along with attention to the discussion's turn-taking structures, reveals the teacher's high degree of control over what students could express. This controlling pedagogy consistently suppresses expressions of empathy in favor of legalistic assertions. This article questions whether the specific issue of homosexuality demands a different approach.     

Book Reviews

We present here a reflexive and critical commentary and exemplification of the teaching and learning of research methodology. The paper focuses on the teaching/learning of qualitative data analysis. It is our belief that it is essential to do data analysis when learning about the process and that there are serious limitations to methodological ‘manuals’ which set out to model the process. In doctoral workshops, Frankham and Stronach have used a passage by Jules Henry to provoke students into generating data which is then analysed as a group. This paper, written with a group of doctoral students, describes the reflexive and iterative processes of data analysis which took place in one such group. We hope that describing our discussions will be of practical use to others in our attempt to iterate a process. Our other purposes include a desire to underline the inappropriacy of the notion of ‘skills’ in the context of research ‘training’ or of following formulaic procedures in interpretive inquiry. Instead the process we set out to illustrate here is embodied and serendipitous and centres on individuals' capacity to think.     

Alternative education programmes and middle school dropout in Honduras

Honduras has made steady progress in expanding post-primary school coverage in recent years, but many rural communities still do not provide a middle (lower secondary) school. As a result, Honduras has implemented a number of middle school alternative programmes designed to meet the needs of at-risk populations throughout the country. This article analyses dropout in three of the four main alternative lower secondary school programmes in Honduras over a three-year period for a cohort of roughly 5,500 students. The results show that these programmes are indeed reaching a vulnerable population in the country, but dropout rates are generally very high – upwards of 50 per cent in some cases – between Grades 7 and 9. Furthermore, even in the control school comparison samples made up of formal lower secondary schools, about 25 per cent of children leave school between Grades 7 and 9. The authors’ analysis includes propensity score matching (PSM) methods that make more focused comparisons between students in alternative programmes and control samples. These results show that dropout rates in alternative programmes are not much different than in control schools, and only significant in one programme comparison, when taking into account family background characteristics like socioeconomic status (SES). Multivariate analysis within alternative programme samples finds that attrition is lower in those learning centres which have adopted key features of formal schools, such as university-educated teachers. The results highlight the tremendous variation in the alternative middle school sector in terms of programme features, school quality and student outcomes, as well as the challenges of expanding this sector to meet the growing demand for lower secondary schooling in Honduras.     

Accuracy of a screening instrument to identify potential child abuse in emergency departments

Although screening for child abuse at emergency departments (EDs) increases the detection rate of potential child abuse, an accurate instrument is lacking. This study was designed to measure the accuracy of a screening instrument for detection of potential child abuse used in EDs. In a prospective cohort study at three Dutch EDs, a 6-item screening instrument for child abuse, Escape, was completed for each child visiting the ED. The data from the completed Escape instrument was used to calculate sensitivity, specificity, and the positive/negative predictive value per item. The clinical notes and conclusions of the screen instruments of all potentially abused children reported to the hospitals’ Child Abuse Teams were collected and reviewed by an expert panel. A logistic regression model was used to evaluate the predictors of potential abuse. Completed Escape instruments were available for 18,275 ED visits. Forty-four of the 420 children with a positive screening result, and 11 of the 17,855 children with a negative result were identified as potentially abused. Sensitivity of the Escape instrument was 0.80 and specificity was 0.98. Univariate logistic regression showed that potentially abused children were significantly more likely to have had an aberrant answer to at least one of the items, OR = 189.8, 95% CI [97.3, 370.4]. Most of the children at high risk for child abuse were detected through screening. The Escape instrument is a useful tool for ED staff to support the identification of those at high risk for child abuse.