Images of mathematics held by university teachers of mathematical sciences

For some time now mathematics educators have been studying elementary and secondary school teachers' views of mathematics. A knowledge of university teachers' views of this discipline can provide a useful background to these research endeavours. As part of a national survey of men and women teachers of mathematical sciences in Canadian universities, I included a question concerning the definition of mathematics. In this article I present the themes emerging from a content analysis of the responses obtained and discuss them in relation to research on school teachers' perception of mathematics. I also report the results concerning the university teachers answers to a second question relevant to the image of mathematics, namely identifying up to ten books which, in their opinion, have had the most influence on the development of mathematics.     

Unforgivable Blackness: Visual Rhetoric,Reader Response,and Critical Racial Literacy

Perceptions of black representations in literature and other visual mediums as positive or negative continuously cause consternation and debate (Fleetwood, 2011). Because African American children are literacy participants and consumers, they are not immune from experiencing this tension. This essay considers the effects and affective threads of racism and racialization connected to visuality (Foster, 1988), and how educators might support and nurture children’s roles as aesthetic critics and critical readers of books featuring racial imagery and representations. The young African American readers in this study resist a picturebook using colorist logic and macro-level social indexing of phenotypic traits. The author argues that negative social messages about blackness within the larger ethos of society, as well as the absence of diverse representations in children’s literature, contribute to such interpretations. She suggests explicitly teaching African American children about counter-visuality and the ways in which “art works” to shape and transform understandings about complex experiences like racism.     

Repurposing and Renovating Space for High-Density Storage: Kansas State University Libraries' Answer to Additional Collections Space

While many libraries have built new high-density storage facilities, fewer academic libraries have repurposed and renovated an existing building for that new end. This article details Kansas State University Libraries' experience renovating an existing structure for high-density storage purposes and the improved collection management options that resulted.     

“Oh,the Places You'll Go” by Bringing Developmental Science Into the World!

Urie Bronfenbrenner and Ernest Boyer argued for leaving the laboratory to conduct rigorous developmental research in the real world where children are found—in the places they go. Contributions to this special issue meet Bronfenbrenner and Boyer's call while at the same time recognizing the continued importance of laboratory research. These articles range from a review of research on the arts to a language intervention in Senegal to large‐scale dissemination and intervention projects designed to communicate the best developmental science to families, public agencies, and schools. Together these articles illustrate how we can study development in the world and enrich our work on the factors that promote development. Taking this path presents us with a set of additional hurdles to be addressed, such as how to communicate with the public and how to scale up our interventions in the face of diversity along many dimensions.     

Novel noun and verb learning in Chinese-, English-, and Japanese-speaking children

When can children speaking Japanese, English, or Chinese map and extend novel nouns and verbs? Across 6 studies, 3‐ and 5‐year‐old children in all 3 languages map and extend novel nouns more readily than novel verbs. This finding prevails even in languages like Chinese and Japanese that are assumed to be verb‐friendly languages (e.g., T. Tardif, 1996 ). The results also suggest that the input language uniquely shapes verb learning such that English‐speaking children require grammatical support to learn verbs, whereas Chinese children require pragmatic as well as grammatical support. This research bears on how universally shared cognitive factors and language‐specific linguistic factors interact in lexical development.     

Childbirth educators, doulas, nurses, and women respond to the six care practices for normal birth

This collection of commentaries by childbirth educators, doulas, a labor and delivery nurse, and a woman preparing for the birth of her second baby provide an overall response to all six of Lamaze International's care practice papers that promote normal birth: Labor Begins on Its Own; Freedom of Movement throughout Labor; Continuous Labor Support; No Routine Interventions; Non-Supine (e.g., Upright or Side-Lying) Positions for Birth; and No Separation of Mother and Baby with Unlimited Opportunity for Breastfeeding. Strategies for using the position papers to facilitate learning in childbirth classes and for helping expectant parents access and understand research are presented. The commentaries describe the value of the position papers as a catalyst for professional growth, a foundation for creating change, a way to encourage reflection among professionals and women planning for the births of their babies, and an inspiration for everyone who advocates normal birth.