‘Beyond 2015’, within the modern/colonial global imaginary? Global development and higher education

Efforts to emphasize higher education’s role in development have grown in recent years, but important questions remain about the motivations and effects of these initiatives. In this paper, we employ the concept of a ‘modern/colonial global imaginary’ to consider the impact of the enduring power relations and uneven politics of knowledge in the relationship between higher education and development. Specifically, we consider the Association of Commonwealth Universities’ (ACU) ‘Beyond 2015’ campaign, which was launched in anticipation of the new UN Sustainable Development Goals. We argue that despite the ACU’s intention to provide ‘a platform for diverse voices, particularly from the global South’, the campaign was structured in a way that discouraged dissenting perspectives. More broadly, we consider available possibilities and limitations for challenging mainstream development agendas.     

Self-reports of forgetting and remembering childhood sexual abuse in a nationally representative sample of US women

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this article is to describe patterns of forgetting and remembering childhood sexual abuse (CSA) in a nationally representative sample of US adult women. METHOD: The respondents were a national probability sample of 711 women, aged 26 years to 54 years, residing in noninstitutional settings in the contiguous 48 states. In a 1996 face-to-face interview survey, trained female interviewers asked each respondent whether she had experienced any sexual coercion by family members or nonfamily members while growing up; whether she believed that she had been sexually abused (by family members or others); and whether she had ever forgotten the CSA experiences and, if so, how she had subsequently remembered them. RESULTS: Twenty-one and six-tenths percent of respondents reported having sexually coercive experiences while growing up; of these, 69.0% indicated that they felt they had been sexually abused. More than one-fourth of respondents who felt sexually abused reported that they had forgotten the abuse for some period of time but later remembered it on their own. Only 1.8% of women self-described as sexually abused reported remembering the abuse with the help of a therapist or other professional person. CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicate that, among women who report CSA, forgetting and subsequently remembering abuse experiences is not uncommon. According to the women surveyed, however, very few (1.8%) of those who felt abused recovered memories of CSA with help from therapists or other professionals. As one of the few studies of CSA memories in a nationally representative sample, this study suggests that therapist-assisted recall is not a major source of CSA memories among women in the US general population.     

A Matter of Time: Emotional Responses to Timed Mathematics Tests

This study examines the emotional responses of three individuals to timed mathematics tests. We examine the emotional responses of two adult women who look back to timed skills-tests in elementary school and the emotional response of a grade-three girl currently taking timed skills-tests. To interpret the individual reactions, we use a non-Newtonian view of time and draw on Mandler's insights into the nature of emotional responses. We examine the implications of these emotional responses for equitable assessment practices.This revised version was published online in September 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The human dimension of development in India

This paper provides an overview of the level of economic development in India, with a brief explanation of the factors that have impeded rapid growth of the economy. Against this background information, the paper focuses on some social programs undertaken by government and non-governmental agencies to help the most vulnerable segments of society to deal with the adverse effects of industrialization and urbanization and to share in the benefits of economic development.     

Case‐based pedagogy as a context for collaborative inquiry in the Philippines

The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential for using case‐based pedagogy as a context for collaborative inquiry into the teaching and learning of elementary science. The context for this study was the elementary science teacher preparation program at West Visayas State University on the the island of Panay in Iloilo City, the Philippines. In this context, triple linguistic conventions involving the interactions of the local Ilonggo dialect, the national language of Philipino (predominantly Tagalog) and English create unique challenges for science teachers. Participants in the study included six elementary student teachers, their respective critic teachers and a research team composed of four Filipino and two U.S. science teacher educators. Two teacher‐generated case narratives serve as the centerpiece for deliberation, around which we highlight key tensions that reflect both the struggles and positive aspects of teacher learning that took place. Theoretical perspectives drawn from assumptions underlying the use of case‐based pedagogy and scholarship surrounding the community metaphor as a referent for science education curriculum inquiry influenced our understanding of tensions at the intersection of re‐presentation of science, authority of knowledge, and professional practice, at the intersection of not shared language, explicit moral codes, and indigenization, and at the intersection of identity and dilemmas in science teaching. Implications of this study are discussed with respect to the building of science teacher learning communities in both local and global contexts of reform. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 38: 502–528, 2001     

Lessons for Preschool Language Socialization from the Vantage Point of the First Day of Kindergarten

All 12 kindergarten classrooms from a small town/rural Midwestern county were observed for the full session on the first day of school to determine teachers' language and classroom practices. Data collection included completion of a classroom checklist by the investigator and running accounts of classroom events with verbatim notes of teacher language. The findings from this study provide evidence of demands for entering kindergartners to process complex language, organize themselves and their materials, and comply with many new rules and procedures. Based on these data, the author and participating teachers present recommendations for preschool teachers, kindergarten teachers, and researchers. The findings provide convergent validity for previous surveys of teacher expectations for children at kindergarten entry. They can be used by preschool personnel to plan preschool language experiences to assist young children's transition to kindergarten. The method of classroom observation employed here can also help local personnel in varied communities to shape a more seamless system of experiences for the early years.     

Does maternal employment influence poor children’s social development?

Various initiatives over the past 40 years have aimed to strengthen children’s early learning and social development. One policy theory—manifest in recent welfare reforms—postulates that requiring single mothers to work more outside the home will advance children’s well-being. We first examine whether young children’s social development is related to maternal employment among 405 women who entered welfare-to-work programs in 1998. For girls, age 24–42 months, we found that their mother’s recent employment duration was significantly associated with a lower incidence of aggressive behavior and inattentiveness, measured by two scales from the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL 2/3). Yet these relationships with employment were weaker than more robust associations observed for proximal child-rearing practices, including the frequency of reading with the child, enforcing a regular bedtime, the propensity to spank the child, as well as levels of maternal depression. We then assess whether broader measures of the mother’s economic security help to predict these proximal determinants of development. We observed that food security and indicators of job quality consistently predicted the proximal factors. Structural equation models (SEM) provided additional evidence that these broader indicators of economic security, but not recent employment per se, operated through parenting practices and maternal depression to influence girls’ and boys’ social development. These results are consistent with recent findings from random-assignment experiments, showing that employment gains rarely affect child outcomes unless mothers’ income and broader economic security also improve.     

Creating Learning Prisms with an Interdisciplinary Case Study Workshop

With increasing specialization, most academic disciplines have become highly compartmentalized. Numerous organizations in higher education strongly encourage interdisciplinary collaboration at the faculty and student level. The purposes of this article are (a) to provide a conceptual framework for explaining how and why an interdisciplinary case study method is a catalyst for the development of students and faculty; (b) to document the conception, planning, organizing, and results of an interdisciplinary case study workshop; and (c) to provide recommendations to encouragechange others who might want to apply this model to their own interdisciplinary efforts.All authors are at Towson University Sharon B. Buchbinder, R.N., PhD, is associate professor of health science. She received her PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Special interests are physician job satisfaction and turnover, patient compliance, learning styles and teamwork among undergraduates. Patricia M. Alt, PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is professor of health science. Special interests are state level policies on aging and human subjects protection, the impact of baby boomer aging on public services, responsible conduct of research training and typologies of institutional review boards. Karen Eskow, PhD, University of Maryland is associate professor of occupational therapy and occupational sciences and director of the Family Studies Program. Special interests are family professional relationships, family quality of life, and families with adolescents. William Forbes, PhD, University of Maryland is associate professor of Kinesiology and director of the Wellness Center. Special interests are developing quality programming to assist older adults in improving their fitness and wellness, racquetball, squash, downhill skiing, and billiards. Eva Hester, PhD, University of Maryland is associate professor of communication science and disorders and special assistant to the dean, College of Health Professions. Special interests are speech language-disorders in children and adults. Miriam Struck, O.T., doctoral student, University of Maryland is currently occupational therapist, Physical Disabilities Program, with the Montgomery County Public Schools. Special interests are disability, transitioning from school to work, and instructional methods. Dianne Taylor, R.N., Ed.D., University of Maryland is associate professor, nursing. Special interests are psychiatric nursing and critical incident stress management.