The Flood of Film Books Continues

Peter Pollack, The Picture History of Photography (Abrams, $25.00)

David Simon, Fifty Classic Motion Pictures (Crown, $9.95)

David Essoe's The Films of Clark Gable (Citadel, $10.00)

John Springer's The Fondas (Citadel, $10.00)

Pola Negri's Memoirs of a Star (Doubleday, $7.95)

Alexander Walker's Stardom (Stein & Day, $10.00)

T.J. Ross, Film and the Liberal Arts (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, price unknown)

Lewis Jacob's The Movies as Medium (Farrar Straus & Giroux, $8.95; or Noonday paporback, $3.95)

Benjamin B. Hampton, A History of the Movies, originally published in 1931 and re-issued now as History of the American Film Industry (Dover paporbacks, $4.00)

The Literature of Cinema

Don Slay, Conversations: Volume I (Kaleidoscope Press (Albuquerque, New Mexico), $10.00)

Raymond Durgnat, The Crazy Mirror: Hollywood Comedy and the American Imago (Horizon Press, $7.50)

Harry M. Geduld and Ronald Gottesman's edited collection Serge Eisenstein and Upton Sinclair: Tho Making and Unmaking of “Quo Viva Mexico” (Iniana University gross, $15.00)

Verne and Sylvia Carlson's Professional 16/35 mm Cameraman's Handbook (Hastings House, $15.00)

Julius Bellone's edited collection, Rennaisance of the Film (Collier paperbacks, $2.95)

Richard Randall's excellent Censorship of the Movies (University of Wisconsin Press, $7.95)     

Exploring Resilience in Latina/o Academic Outcomes: A Latent Class Approach

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between various protective factors with academic outcomes of Latina/o high school students. We use two groups of protective influences, individual and family, and their relationship to 12th grade mathematics achievement, dropout rates, and enrollment in post-secondary education. Latent class analysis was used to identify academic protective profiles, or latent groups/classes, among high school Latina/o students (N?=?1610) and assess group differences with respect to gender, SES, immigrant status, student’s native language, preschool attendance, and 10th grade mathematics. Results indicated the presence of four academic protective groups, which differed with respect to academic discussions with parents, and attitudes about mathematics. The four classes are compared with respect to academic outcomes and differences are discussed as well as implications for practice.     

An evaluation of the Touch Math method for teaching addition to students with learning disabilities in mathematics

The present study was designed to determine if children with learning disabilities in mathematics could be taught three‐row, double‐digit addition problems using a dot‐notation method. Three children with learning disabilities in mathematics were selected for the study. Prior to the intervention, these students employed a combination of count‐all and count‐on strategies when solving addition problems and relied on concrete referents such as fingers or tallies. A multiple‐probe design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. The experiment consisted of a teaching phase where students learned to count the dots on numbers 1 to 9 in a specified pattern, and an intervention phase where students progressed through nine levels of addition problems. Results indicate that the three subjects were able to learn and apply the dot‐notation method successfully, and to retain the method from one‐and‐a‐half to four‐and‐a‐half months after completing instruction.     

Editorial

The aim of this paper is to reflect upon the ways in which 'sex', as an unchanging biological given, is often implicitly taken for granted in tertiary sex education. The paper details my own attempt to move beyond what I have come to experience as the predictable order of teaching students about sex and sexuality: the exploration of sexuality and gender anchored by the unquestioned assumption of biological sexual difference. I provide a practical example of introducing new material ism in science, and social science critiques of sex, into a tertiary level course. Consideration is given to the importance of fostering critical thinking in education: principally in being open-minded to evidence that challenges one's own belief system.     

Students’ science attitudes,beliefs, and context: associations with science and chemistry aspirations

There is a widespread concern that relatively few students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, continue to study chemistry and other science subjects after compulsory education. Yet it remains unclear how different aspects of students’ background and home context, their own attitudes and beliefs, and their experiences of particular teaching approaches in school might limit or facilitate their studying aspirations; concurrently, less research has specifically focused on and surveyed disadvantaged students. In order to gain more insight, 4780 students were surveyed, covering those in Year 7 (age 11–12 years) and in Year 8 (age 12–13) from schools in England with high proportions of those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Predictive modelling highlighted that the students’ aspirations to study non-compulsory science in the future, and to study the particular subject of chemistry, were strongly associated with their extrinsic motivation towards science (their perceived utility of science, considered as a means to gain particular careers or skills), their intrinsic interest in science, and their engagement in extra-curricular activities. Additionally, their self-concept beliefs (their confidence in their own abilities in science), some teaching approaches, and encouragement from teachers and family alongside family science capital had smaller but still relevant associations.     

The effects of cooperative learning and learner control on high- and average-ability students

The effects of studying alone or in cooperative learning groups on high- and average-ability students were investigated. Also examined were the effects of completing computer-based instruction using either a learner- or program-control version of a lesson. A total of 175 fourth-grade students were classified as being of high or average ability and randomly assigned to paired or individual treatments stratified by ability. Students completed training to enhance small-group interaction before completing a computer-based tutorial and a posttest. Following cooperative learning, students demonstrated increased achievement and efficiency as well as better attitudes toward both the computer lesson and grouping. Students completed more practice items and examples in program-control treatments than in learner-control treatments. However, the form of lesson control did not affect students' achievement or attitudes.     

Do People with Autism Understand What Causes Emotion?

An experiment is described that tests whether people with autism understand some causes of 2 basic emotions (happiness and sadness). The causes of emotion tested were situations, desires, and beliefs. Results showed that, relative to normal and mentally handicapped subjects of an equivalent mental age, people with autism alone showed severe deficits in comprehension of emotion caused by beliefs. Their understanding of emotion caused by situations and desires was no different than the nonautistic mentally handicapped group. Thus, difficulties in understanding emotion by people with autism are most apparent when emotion interacts with false belief. The implications of these results for the affective and meta-representation theories of autism are discussed.     

Alignment, cohesion, and change: Examining mathematics teachers’ belief structures and their influence on instructional practices

This collective case study reports on an investigation into the relationship between mathematics teachers’ beliefs and their classroom practices, namely, how they organized their classroom activities, interacted with their students, and assessed their students’ learning. Additionally, the study examined the pervasiveness of their beliefs in the face of efforts to incorporate reform-oriented classroom materials and instructional strategies. The participants were five high school teachers of ninth-grade algebra at different stages in their teaching career. The qualitative analysis of the data revealed that in general beliefs were very influential on the teachers’ daily pedagogical decisions and that their beliefs about the nature of mathematics served as a primary source of their beliefs about pedagogy and student learning. Findings from the analysis concur with previous studies in this area that reveal a clear relationship between these constructs. In addition, the results provide useful insights for the mathematics education community as it shows the diversity among the inservice teachers’ beliefs (presented as hypothesized belief models), the role and influence of beliefs about the nature of mathematics on the belief structure and how the teachers designed their instructional practices to reflect these beliefs. The article concludes with a discussion of implications of teacher education.