Action speaks louder than words: young children differentially weight perceptual, social, and linguistic cues to learn verbs

This paper explores how children use two possible solutions to the verb-mapping problem: attention to perceptually salient actions and attention to social and linguistic information (speaker cues). Twenty-two-month-olds attached a verb to one of two actions when perceptual cues (presence/absence of a result) coincided with speaker cues but not when these cues were placed into conflict (Experiment 1), and not when both possible referent actions were perceptually salient (Experiment 2). By 34 months, children were able to override perceptual cues to learn the name of an action that was not perceptually salient (Experiment 3). Results demonstrate an early reliance on perceptual information for verb mapping and an emerging tendency to weight speaker information more heavily over developmental time.     

ISI web of knowledge: new author searching capability and reports features

The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), part of Thompson Scientific, produces the Web of Science database as part of its Web of Knowledge. Recently, ISI introduced some new features, among them a new Author Finder feature, which allows users to zero in on a specific author in a very guided way. In addition, search results may be analyzed and reports created by users, both at the click of a button. This column focuses on these recently introduced features.     

On pigs and packers: Radically contextualizing a practice of science with Mexican immigrant students

This paper reports on instructional practices observed in a high school English Learner (EL) Science course serving newcomer Mexican immigrant youth. The school is located in a rural Midwestern meatpacking community in which labor at the hog plant is economically- and racially-segmented; it is the town’s Mexican residents, many of them undocumented, who comprise most of the unskilled labor force. The general purpose of the paper is to document how the economic and racial context of this community influences science instruction in the EL Science course and to describe how this presents particular challenges in achieving equitable science instruction for Mexican immigrant youth in these rural, globalizing places. Entering the data via critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1995) and then utilizing Barton’s (2003) “practice of science” perspective, with an eye toward achieving “radical contextuality” (Grossberg, 1997), we describe the science events, identities, and structures of the pig dissection lesson and detail how what these students could do with science, as rendered by that lesson, was limited by the roles the teacher attributed to the students, her inability to draw on their funds of knowledge as resources for learning, and the voice and position she allowed them to take up. The data reinforce conventional understandings of schools as sites of cultural reproduction (Bowels & Gintis, 1976), as well as of resistance (Giroux, 1983), but afford us a glimpse of the particularity of those mechanisms within the demographically-transitioning American Heartland, iconic of the era of global capitalism.

Digital technology and creative arts career patterns in the UK creative economy

In this article, we ask what role both digital and artistic human capital play in the creative economy by examining employment patterns of digital technology (DT) and creative arts and design (CAD) graduates. Using student micro-data collected by the Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA) in the United Kingdom, we investigate the characteristics and location determinants of these graduates. The article deals specifically with understanding how digital and creative skills in the UK are embedded across industries, or are concentrated in creative sub-sectors. Furthermore, it explores the role that these graduates play in each of the different sectors and their financial rewards. Findings suggest that digital technology graduates tend to concentrate in the software and gaming sub-sector of the creative industries, but also are likely to be in embedded creative jobs outside of the creative industries. DT and CAD graduates are more likely to be in a creative job than other graduates. Although they are more likely to be in full-time employment than part-time or self-employment, DT graduates suffer from a higher level of unemployment than CAD graduates.     

Supermarket Speak: Increasing Talk Among Low‐Socioeconomic Status Families

Children from low‐socioeconomic status (SES) families often fall behind their middle‐class peers in early language development. But interventions designed to support their language skills are often costly and labor‐intensive. This study implements an inexpensive and subtle language intervention aimed at sparking parent–child interaction in a place that families naturally visit: the supermarket. We placed signs encouraging adult–child dialogue in supermarkets serving low‐ and mid‐SES neighborhoods. Using an unobtrusive observational methodology, we tested how these signs affected adult–child interactions. When signs were present in supermarkets serving low‐SES neighborhoods, both the amount and the quality of talk between adults and children increased significantly, compared to when the signs were not present; signs had little effect in middle‐SES supermarkets. This study demonstrates that implementing simple, cost‐effective interventions in everyday environments may bolster children's language development and school readiness skills.     

‘Computer games can get your brain working’: student experience and perceptions of digital games in the classroom

There is considerable enthusiasm in many quarters for the incorporation of digital games into the classroom, and the capacity of games to engage and challenge players, present complex representations and experiences, foster collaborative learning, and promote deep learning. But while there is increasing research documenting the progress and outcomes of game-based learning, relatively little attention is paid to student perceptions and voice. In order to effectively target game-based learning pedagogy, it is important to understand students' previous experience, if any, of the use of games in the classroom, and what they made of these. In this paper, we present findings from a survey of 270 primary and secondary school students in Year Levels 4–9 (aged 9–14) in 6 Queensland schools at the start of a 3-year Australian Research Council project researching the use of digital games in school to promote literacy and learning.     

Sources of career support for university faculty

A survey of faculty at a research-oriented public university in the midwest identified four major sources of support for faculty. These are off-campus personal supports including spouse or significant other, family, friends, a former professor, and the religious community; colleagues within the academic unit; professional supports outside the unit such as administrators, colleagues on campus with common research interests, and national and international networks; and a minority network including minority faculty in the unit and on campus and other ethnic or cultural groups off campus. The primary source of support for faculty was a spouse or significant other. Differences in types of career supports were examined for women and men and for faculty at different ranks.This research was partially supported by an Affirmative Action Grant awarded by The Ohio State University, 1987–88.     

Water Birth at Home: Two Perspectives

In this column, a grandmother, with a long history as an author and activist for normal birth, and her daughter, a new mother, offer their unique experiences of a water birth at home, attended by family members and midwives. Their unique perspectives demonstrate the trust in the normal birth process that is possible for every birth.