Continuing educational participation among children in care in five countries: some issues of social class

Young people who have spent all or part of their childhoods in public care are at particular risk of social exclusion as adults and yet the pathway out of exclusion identified by policy-makers at both European and national levels, namely, education, is very difficult to access. Using data from a five-country study of the post-compulsory educational pathways of young people in public care, this paper examines the rates of participation of young people in further and higher education and considers what might account for the gap, looking at two factors: the impact of background social class on educational support and the educational intentions and practices of the care system. The paper concludes by considering the policy context and some possible tensions between policy aims and young people’s contexts and experiences.     

Using social media to facilitate knowledge transfer in complex engineering environments: a primer for educators

While highly cohesive groups are potentially advantageous they are also often correlated with the emergence of knowledge and information silos based around those same functional or occupational clusters. Consequently, an essential challenge for engineering organisations wishing to overcome informational silos is to implement mechanisms that facilitate, encourage and sustain interactions between otherwise disconnected groups. This paper acts as a primer for those seeking to gain an understanding of the design, functionality and utility of a suite of software tools generically termed social media technologies in the context of optimising the management of tacit engineering knowledge. Underpinned by knowledge management theory and using detailed case examples, this paper explores how social media technologies achieve such goals, allowing for the transfer of knowledge by tapping into the tacit and explicit knowledge of disparate groups in complex engineering environments.     

Field-Based Evaluation of Two-Tiered Instruction for Enhancing Kindergarten Phonological Awareness

Research Findings: This study reports on the outcomes of a multisite, two-tiered, response-to-intervention instructional model for delivering phonological awareness instruction and intervention to kindergartners. Fifty-seven kindergartners from 3 classrooms participated in a supplemental phonological awareness program, and 56 kindergartners from 3 classrooms received the prevailing school-adopted literacy curriculum. All children in the supplemental condition received supplemental classroom-based phonological awareness instruction in addition to the adopted literacy curriculum. At mid-year, 6 low literacy achievers were identified in each supplemental classroom (n = 18) to participate in an additional 12-week small-group intervention. The classroom-based supplemental curriculum did not produce statistically significant gains for typically achieving children on measures of letter–sound knowledge, word recognition, or developmental spelling. However, an add-on tier of supplemental instruction exerted a substantial advantage for low-achieving children on a measure of developmental spelling. Practice or Policy: Results suggest that a 2-tiered intervention model provides an effective means for improving the literacy outcomes of low-achieving kindergarten children.     

Special and inclusive education in the Eastern Caribbean: policy practice and provision

The countries of the Eastern Caribbean have for more than a decade been committed to the implementation of a common educational reform strategy. At the heart of this strategy has been the policy of 'education for all', which includes establishing educational support services for children with special educational needs. In the past, many disabled children and children with learning difficulties have been excluded from the education system in these countries. For many more children, attendance at school has not given meaningful access to educational opportunities. This article discusses research carried out by the authors and reports on the implementation of the Reform Strategy and on the barriers to inclusive education that persist in the region.     

On-chip collection of particles and cells by AC electroosmotic pumping and dielectrophoresis using asymmetric microelectrodes

The recent development of microfluidic "lab on a chip" devices requiring sample sizes <100 μL has given rise to the need to concentrate dilute samples and trap analytes, especially for surface-based detection techniques. We demonstrate a particle collection device capable of concentrating micron-sized particles in a predetermined area by combining AC electroosmosis (ACEO) and dielectrophoresis (DEP). The planar asymmetric electrode pattern uses ACEO pumping to induce equal, quadrilateral flow directed towards a stagnant region in the center of the device. A number of system parameters affecting particle collection efficiency were investigated including electrode and gap width, chamber height, applied potential and frequency, and number of repeating electrode pairs and electrode geometry. The robustness of the on-chip collection design was evaluated against varying electrolyte concentrations, particle types, and particle sizes. These devices are amenable to integration with a variety of detection techniques such as optical evanescent waveguide sensing.     

Surviving organizational tolerance of sexual harassment: an exploration of resilience,vulnerability, and harassment fatigue

ABSTRACT

Although reports of workplace sexual harassment share various similarities, victims uniquely react and assign meaning to these events. Using Weick’s sensemaking theory coupled with Lazarus and Folkman’s model of coping, this study examines the role of organizational tolerance toward sexual harassment and its influence on victim resilience, coping, harassment fatigue, and perceived vulnerability to future sexual harassment. Survey results from 187 victims of workplace sexual harassment indicate that organizational tolerance of sexual harassment is a significant predictor of victim vulnerability, resilience, and harassment fatigue. Specifically, organizations that are more tolerant of sexual harassment are associated with higher victim vulnerability to future harassment and harassment fatigue, as well as lower resilience. Additionally, victims who responded to harassment using problem-focused coping were significantly more resilient, while formally reporting sexual harassment was associated with lower victim resilience. Overall, results illustrate the complexity of addressing sexual harassment from both an organizational and individual perspective.     

Who benefits from public spending on higher education in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa?

Most countries are far from achieving the new sustainable development target of equal access to higher education by 2030, with those in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa furthest behind. This raises questions about the allocation of public resources across the education system to promote equity. We use data from Demographic and Health Surveys and UNESCO Institute for Statistics in 31 countries in these regions to assess who benefits from public spending on education. Our results reveal an overall pattern of pro-rich education spending, increasing with education level. We find that this pattern can be traced to an allocation of resources to higher education that is disproportionate to the sub-sector’s size: even when higher education spending overall represents a small proportion of total educational expenditure, per-capita expenditure is extremely high. Given that the richest predominantly gain access to higher education, the current spending patterns are likely to reinforce wealth-driven education inequalities.     

Understanding productivity dynamics: A task taxonomy approach

As job markets have been polarizing, firms have been changing their labor inputs. By using matched employer–employee data for Portugal, we examine whether labor market polarization has occurred within or across firms and how labor input upgrades have contributed to overall productivity growth. We develop a firm taxonomy based on worker's occupational data. Firms can be focused on one task – Abstract, Manual or Routine – on a combination of tasks, or none. Results show that Abstract firms are the most productive and their share has increased over time. Manual firms, the least productive, have had a stable share throughout the period. Routine firms have seen their share decline over time. The dynamic decomposition of the estimated productivity reveals that productivity growth is propelled by increased market shares of the most productive incumbents and exiting of the least productive, especially for Abstract firms. Notwithstanding these productivity growth drivers, they fail to avert the productivity stagnation observed in Portugal between 2004 and 2009 due to the overall decline in productivity of incumbent firms, especially Routine. We discuss the policy implications of our results which are relevant to other European economies also lagging behind in terms of knowledge and innovation capabilities.     

The color of innovative and sustainable leadership: Learning from teacher leaders

In this article, I address how teachers in urban and suburban U.S. schools with multicultural and multilingual student populations demonstrate leadership both within their classrooms and schools as well as outside of them. Based on research with U.S. public school teachers in two projects (Nieto What keeps teachers going? New York: Teachers College Press 2003, Why we teach. New York: Teachers College Press 2005), various roles that teachers have in initiating, putting into practice, and sustaining change in schools are described. Implications for policymakers and administrators are then briefly explored.     

The influence of the family educational scenario on internet use of primary and secondary school children / La influencia del escenario educativo familiar en el uso de internet en los niños de primaria y secundaria

Abstract

With the aim of studying the impact of the internet in the home, this paper analyses how the physical component (where and with whom) and attitudinal component (who decides what the child is to see on the internet and motivations for internet use) of the family educational scenario influence the frequency of internet use and diversity of uses, as reported by parents. The participants included 711 parents of children in primary and secondary school. Results showed that being in secondary school, using the internet in privacy at home, without company, internet content under the child’s control, and parental motivations based on the internet being used as a means for the child to relax, predicted higher frequency of internet use. Some of these factors, as well as the presence of peers and new parental attitudes related to the use of the internet for social and learning purposes, predicted a greater variety of uses, suggesting a more appropriate family scenario. The practical implications for parental education on this matter are described.