From the Washington to the Post-Washington Consensus: The influence of international agendas on education policy and practice in Malawi

Education is receiving ever-increasing priority in the post-Washington consensus era, which views education as both a means to and end of development. However, justification for the attention given to education continues to be centrally focused on the notion of human capital. By consequence, marketisation and privatisation of education are becoming increasingly significant. With the World Bank and WTO joining forces to create a vision for a 'global education industry', emphasis is placed on free trade in educational goods and services. The paper examines critically the implications of this international education agenda for developing countries, focusing on the experience of Malawi.     

Children's Early Decontextualized Talk Predicts Academic Language Proficiency in Midadolescence

This study examines whether children's decontextualized talk—talk about nonpresent events, explanations, or pretend—at 30 months predicts seventh-grade academic language proficiency (age 12). Academic language (AL) refers to the language of school texts. AL proficiency has been identified as an important predictor of adolescent text comprehension. Yet research on precursors to AL proficiency is scarce. Child decontextualized talk is known to be a predictor of early discourse development, but its relation to later language outcomes remains unclear. Forty-two children and their caregivers participated in this study. The proportion of child talk that was decontextualized emerged as a significant predictor of seventh-grade AL proficiency, even after controlling for socioeconomic status, parent decontextualized talk, child total words, child vocabulary, and child syntactic comprehension.     

A Meta-Analysis of Single-Case Research on Mathematics Word Problem-Solving Interventions for English Learners with Learning Disabilities and Mathematics Difficulties

This single-case meta-analysis is the first to provide a quantitative synthesis of the published literature on mathematics word problem-solving intervention studies for English learners with learning disabilities and mathematics difficulties. A total of ten single-subject studies were included for analysis. The current study investigated the magnitude of the effect of mathematics interventions targeting the improvement of students’ mathematics word problem-solving performance, and analyzed variables that moderated this effect. Results indicate a moderate overall effect size of 0.81 (95% CI [0.71, 0.90]) on word problem-solving performance for English learners with learning disabilities and mathematics difficulties. Moderator variables such as the implementer of the interventions, instructional focus, and word problem-solving content significantly moderated the mathematics intervention effects.     

A model of intellectual capital management capability in the dynamic business environment

This paper discusses the way in which intellectual capital (IC) can be managed to assist organization to overcome dynamic challenges. An intellectual capital management capability (ICMC) model is developed which permits the management of an organization to realize the potential of IC by measuring the maturity level of its IC. The model is consistent with dynamic capability theory, which suggests leveraging internal and external resources in response to environment changes to sustain competitive advantage. By utilizing in-depth interviews with 25 chief executive officers from firms possessing high IC, this study seeks to inform the readers of the preliminary work and the way in which the maturity level of ICMC can be measured through the development and deployment of dynamic capabilities. The verification and enhancement of the proposed model has also clarified our understanding on the evolutionary path of management capabilities of IC.     

Negotiating identity between career and family roles: A study of international graduate students’ wives in the US

This paper is based on a long-term ethnography of an adult creative writing class situated in a major urban art gallery in the United Kingdom. It takes the claims of one group of older adults—that creative writing made them ‘feel younger’—as the starting point for exploring this connection further. It places these claims broadly within theories of learning in later life that advocate creative expression and reminiscence as important practices for educators of older adults. However, the main analysis employs anthropological theories of creativity and ageing in order to question the cultural assumptions about creativity and the period of older age informing theory and practice. The paper argues that the value of creative writing for the individuals studied lies both in the fact that it is a relational (rather than individual) process and a means of being in the present. These findings contradict traditional conceptions about creativity as future-oriented and older people as retrospective; they also raise questions about narratives of empowerment, individual agency and the importance of ‘reminiscence’ in some of the literature on older adult learning.     

Connectivity Thinking,Animism, and the Pursuit of Liveliness

In this essay, Deborah Bird Rose takes up Val Plumwood's challenge that Western thought needs radical revitalization by pursuing the liveliness of the biosphere and human ontologies of connectivity. The first part looks at obstacles to the West's understanding of Earth as a place of lively, interactive connectivities that promote diversity, complexity, and relationality. In this context Rose offers a brief overview of Indigenous animisms. The second part explores the question of liveliness. It is taken as given that the West now seeks ontological legitimacy in science, and so this discussion focuses on what biological scientists have contributed to contemporary ontology wars. The third part examines trauma in the Garden of Eden narrative, highlighting both the disaster of the story and its continuing relevance. Drawing on the work of theologians, in particular, Rose seeks in this section to recuperate a mythic foundation for a Western animism from within that great site of loss.     

What predicts the malnutrition among a select group of Filipino older persons in institutionalized setting? A partial least square study

The overall intent of this study is to examine the relationship among several factors that influence the malnutrition of a select group of Filipino elderly in institutionalized setting. A total of 102 residents were purposively recruited from three different institutionalized care settings at the national capital region of the Philippines. A multi-aspect questionnaire was used to characterize the demographic and nutrition profiles of the participants. Data were treated statistically using the partial least square design. Notably, the study showed that 48.0% of the elderly residents in institutions were at risk of malnutrition, 36.3% were malnourished, and 15.7% have normal nutritional status. Malnutrition was found to be prevalent among the female group, aged >70 years old, functional impairment (p = <0.01), poor eating habits (p = 0.01), lower dietary intake (p = 0.01), and eating difficulties (p = 0.04). However, statistically significant relationships between eating habits (p = 0.08) and dietary intake and comorbidities (p = 0.32) and malnutrition were not established. Impliedly, administrators of homecare institutions are invited to pay greater attention to the nutritional status of the elderly by institutionalizing nutrition assessment and evaluation practices and nutrition care planning that respond to the identified nutritional needs and concern of the elderly.     

The effects of syllable instruction on phonemic awareness in preschoolers

Purpose

Preschooler instruction for speech sound awareness typically teaches a progression of speech units from sentences to phonemes, ending at simple first phoneme activities. This study investigates the effects of teaching advanced tasks of phoneme blending and segmenting with and without the larger speech unit of the syllable.

Method

Thirty-nine 4-5-year-old typically developing children received twice-weekly small-group instruction in three conditions: two weeks of syllable tasks then four weeks of multiple phoneme tasks (SP), four weeks of multiple phoneme tasks only (MP), or an active control condition of first phoneme instruction (FP).

Results

The conditions SP and MP showed large significant gains on blending and segmenting and no significant differences on first phoneme isolating compared to the FP condition. A comparison of SP and MP did not show significant differences on phoneme blending and segmenting, but SP showed significantly more confusion during early sessions of phoneme instruction.

Conclusion

This preliminary evidence suggests that preschoolers can improve understanding of phoneme blending and segmenting, without first being taught syllable blending and segmenting, and with no negative effects on first sound awareness. These findings support a more efficient way of teaching preschoolers awareness of the individual sounds of speech. Replication with a larger sample, including children at-risk for literacy difficulties, is recommended before firm conclusions should be drawn.     

A ‘whole-school/community development’ approach to preventing and countering bullying: the Erris Anti-Bullying Initiative (2009–2011)

This paper describes how a ‘whole-school/community development’ anti-bullying programme was designed, implemented and evaluated in an initiative in Erris, Co. Mayo, Ireland, involving local primary and post-primary schools and community groups. Students from seven participating schools (five primary, two post-primary) completed modified versions of the Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire both prior to and following programme implementation. Thereafter, there were reductions in students' reports of involvement in bully/victim problems and increases in their reports of feelings about bullying and countering bullying that were consistent with an anti-bullying ethos. The sizes of these effects were modest, in some cases perhaps due to the significantly low incidence of students' involvement in bully/victim problems prior to the programme. This model is in continued use in Erris, and in its further development it is intended to seek out opportunities to implement and evaluate it in other locations.