The consequences of being labelled ‘looked‐after’: Exploring the educational experiences of looked‐after children and young people in Wales

The educational experiences and attainment of looked‐after children and young people (LACYP) remains an issue of widespread international concern. Within the UK, children and young people in care achieve poorer educational outcomes compared to individuals not in care. Despite proliferation of research documenting the reasons for educational disadvantage amongst this population, there remains limited empirical consideration of the lived experiences of the educational system, as perceived by LACYP themselves. This paper draws upon qualitative research with 67 care‐experienced children and young people in Wales. The sample was aged 6–27 years, and comprised 27 females and 40 males. Participants had experienced a range of care placements. Findings focus on how educational policies and practices alienate LACYP from dominant discourses of educational achievement through assignment of the ‘supported’ subject position, where children and young people are permitted and even encouraged not to succeed academically due to their complex and disrupted home circumstances. However, such diminished expectations are rejected by LACYP, who want to be pushed and challenged in the realisation of their potential. The paper argues that more differentiated understandings of LACYP's aspirations and capabilities need to be embedded into everyday practices, to ensure that effective educational support systems are developed.     

Building a Unidimensional Test Using Multidimensional Items

This paper demonstrates, both theoretically and empirically, using both simulated and real test data, that sets of items can be selected that meet the unidimensionality assumption of most item response theory models even though they require more than one ability for a correct response. Sets of items that measure the same composite of abilities as defined by multidimensional item response theory are shown to meet the unidimensionality assumption. A method for identifying such item sets is also presented     

Engaging Diversity in First-Year College Classrooms

The increasing calls for diversity research signal a need to explore strategies through which we attempt to interact with and respond to diversity intentionally in courses and curricula. This case study of a first-year inquiry course in a college of education fills a gap in the literature by documenting and analyzing instances of educators actively working with multiple dimensions of diversity in the classroom so as to support students’ development of diversity-related competencies. The guiding research question for this study was to explore what curricular and/or pedagogical activities students in a first-year experience course identified as facilitating their engagement with diversity in an intentional, purposeful manner.     

Levels of Cognitive Functioning as Related to Anxiety

The relationships between levels of cognitive functioning as suggested by the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook I and states of affective arousal as measured by Text Anxiety (the main variable of interest), General Anxiety, and Need for Achievement were investigated. Two separate samples were used: (1) 234 university students, and (2) 319 junior and senior class high school students.

For the university sample significant negative correlations between Text Anxiety and Knowledge (recall of specific facts) and Test Anxiety and Comprehension were found. For the high school sample the negative correlation between Test Anxiety and Comprehension was significant. No significant relations between Test Anxiety and higher levels of cognitive performance were found. The results are discussed in terms of interfering effects to task performance that Test Anxiety may produce when the examinee is given no information to “workwith” and must rely essentially on memory.     

Viscoelastic and mechano-sorptive studies applied to the conservation of historical violins: A case study of the Guarneri “del Gesù” violin (1743) known as the “Cannone”

To assess the possible effects of mechanical loading on the conservation of historical wooden musical instruments, a research project was carried out on the violin Guarneri “del Gesù” (1743), known as the “Cannone”. This paper refers to the results obtained by studying the deformations to which a violin is subjected after being tuned, with special attention to the viscous and mechano-sorptive behaviour (as in a concert environment for example). The amount of viscoelastic creep was quantified under normal tuning conditions, and the mechano-sorptive creep was quantified using a dead mass resulting in 55% of the elastic deformation obtained after tuning. The viscoelastic and mechano-sorptive deformations were clearly observed. These deformations were completely recovered once the violin was unloaded, demonstrating that this violin structure is appropriately dimensioned for the applied stresses.     

Trends in No Leisure-Time Physical Activity—United States, 1988–2010

Purpose: The aim of this study was to examine trends in the prevalence of no leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) from 1988 to 2010. Method: Using the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data, 35 states and the District of Columbia reported information on no LTPA from 1988 to 1994; all states reported no LTPA from 1996 to 2010. Results: No LTPA significantly declined over two decades. Prevalence for all states declined on an average of 0.6% per year from 29.1% in 1996 to 24.1% in 2004 and stabilized from 2005 to 2010, ranging from 24.0% to 25.4%. Prevalence declined for both sexes and all racial/ethnic groups. Conclusion: While the no LTPA trends improved over two decades, one in four U.S. adults still report they do not engage in LTPA.     

Making the right connections: Differential effects of reading intervention for subgroups of comprehenders

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of different types of questioning interventions on students' reading comprehension. Fourth-grade students (n = 246) were identified as struggling, average, or good readers and assigned randomly within school to one of three questioning interventions: two inferential conditions (Causal or General) or one literal condition (“Who, What, Where, When” or W-questioning). Teachers delivered the interventions for 20–30 min, 2–4 times per week, for 8–10 weeks. All readers made reliable pre- to posttest comprehension gains as measured by story recall (ps < .001 to .04). Differential effects for intervention were found between two subgroups of struggling comprehenders—elaborators and paraphrasers. Elaborators benefited more than paraphrasers from Causal questioning (d = .86) whereas paraphrasers benefited more than elaborators from General questioning (d = 1.46). These findings suggest that identifying subgroups is important in developing and evaluating the effectiveness of reading comprehension interventions.     

THE BORDER CROSSED US: EDUCATION, HOSPITALITY POLITICS, AND THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE "ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT"

In this essay, Dennis Carlson explores some of the implications of Derrida's "hospitality politics" in helping articulate a progressive response to a rightist cultural politics in the United States of policing national, linguistic, and other borders. He applies the concept of hospitality politics to a critical analysis of the social construction of the "problem" of "illegal immigrants" in U.S. public schools. This entails a discussion of three interrelated discourses and practices of hospitality: a universalistic discourse of philosophical and religious principles, a legalistic-juridical discourse, and a discourse and practice grounded in the ethos of everyday life. Derrida suggested that a democratic cultural politics must interweave these three discourses and also recognize the limitations of each of them. Moreover, a democratic cultural politics must be most firmly rooted in the praxis of ethos, and in the ethical claims of openness to the other.