The effects of time and practice upon culture assimilator trainingLos efectos del tiempo y la practica en el entrenamiento de asimiladores de culturaEffets du temps et de la pratique sur l'entrainement avec l'assimilateur culturel

The culture assimilator is a technique for training persons from one culture to better understand the behavior of persons from another culture. A laboratory test, using 35 white female college students, of an assimilator for teaching Whites about black culture revealed significant improvements in trained subjects' knowledge of black culture and in their enjoyment of an interpersonal interaction with black confederates. Support was found for the hypothesis that assimilator training heightens subjects' anxiety with regard to interpersonal encounters with members of the target culture, but that the anxiety decreases over time. Results suggest a small positive effect of a supportive practice interaction with a target culture member prior to the behavioral measures. Some of the attitude measures were significant in the hypothesized direction, but others were significant in the opposite direction. Possible causes and implications of these results are discussed.     

Empathy,Experience and SMSC (Spiritual,Moral, Social and Cultural Education)

Having commented on the developments in PSE and SMSC [Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Education] Ron Best suggests that the motivation for these has been more political than child centred. He is particularly critical of the trend towards specifying learning outcomes as matrices, which he characterizes as the kind of bureaucratization which dehumanizes an essentially human activity. He argues that we need to start with experience and that empathy, though currently undervalued, should be a key dimension of this. The meaning of empathy is then elaborated and in conclusion the case for its central importance presented.     

Curriculum-Based Measurement in the Content Areas: Validity of Vocabulary-Matching as an Indicator of Performance in Social Studies

In this study, we examined the reliability and validity of two curriculum-based measures as indicators of performance in a content-area classroom. Participants were 58 students in a 7th-grade social studies class. CBM measures were student- and administrator-read vocabulary-matching probes. Criterion measures were knowledge pre- and post-tests, the social studies subtest of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, and student grades. Results revealed moderate alternate-form reliability for both vocabulary-matching measures. Reliability of the measures was increased by combining scores across two testing sessions. Correlations between the predictor and criterion variables were moderate to moderately strong, with the exception of those between vocabulary-matching and student grades. Observed scores for students with LD were lower than for students without LD on both student- and administrator-read vocabulary-matching measures. Few differences in reliability and validity coefficients were found between the student- and administrator-read measures. Results are discussed in terms of the use of CBM as a system for monitoring performance and designing interventions for students with learning disabilities in content-area classrooms.