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.     

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.     

The effectiveness of a transitional prekindergarten program on later academic achievement

Transitional, or extra year, classes have become a widely implemented intervention in many schools. This study investigated the academic effectiveness of a prekindergarten program in a suburban, predominantly Caucasian upper middle class school system. Ninety matched pairs of children were selected for the study based on a “developmentally immature” score on the Gesell School Readiness Test. Children who spent an extra year in prekindergarten were matched with youngsters who proceeded directly to regular kindergarten based on gender, date of birth, and Gesell score. No significant differences were found between the two groups of students on the basis of Stanford Achievement Test scores (second grade), Pupil Evaluation of Progress scores (third grade), placement in a first grade remedial reading program, review by the building level Pupil Service team, or classification by the Committee on Special Education. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Self-concept differences in student teachers in primary,elementary, secondary,and special education

Self-concept, intelligence and academic achievement were examined in students preparing to teach in primary, elementary, secondary, and special education (N = 267). The measures were the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale, a group intelligence test, and school grades. Differences in self-concept, but not in intelligence and academic achievement, were found among groups of student teachers. Secondary education majors reported a more positive self-concept than primary or elementary, with special education majors reporting the least positive self-concept of all.