Barriers to Excellence Our Children at Risk

E&E reviews books, special journal issues, films, television specials, etc. related to educational equity and excellence. While reviews are solicited, proposals are welcome.     

The rhetoric of American Indian activism in the 1960s and 1970s 1

Political rhetoric in a democracy is, in at least some sense, educative and constitutive even as it is instrumentally persuasive. For members of ethnic, racial, or cultural groups that lie outside of the dominant culture, the educative processes that underlie policy advocacy require attention to specific cultures, traditions, historical experiences, and group interests. Thus, even though all out‐groups share many common challenges, they all face unique situations as well. This essay explores these rhetorical challenges and some of the strategies designed to meet them through an examination of the political rhetoric of American Indian activists from the 1972 Trail of Broken Treaties through the 1973 siege at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Particular attention is paid to the question of audience.     

Employer understanding of Work-Integrated Learning and the challenges of engaging in work placement opportunities

This study examines employer understanding of Work-Integrated Learning (WIL), reasons for participation and the challenges and barriers posed during the WIL process. This is important given the drive to grow WIL, augmented by the National Strategy for WIL, and the significant benefits it holds in preparing students for their transition to employment. The study was undertaken by the four publicly funded Western Australian universities, in partnership with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Western Australia, and is focused on work placements among business students. Findings indicate employers had very little understanding of WIL offerings at the four Business Schools. While employers generally believed that student work placements are useful for their industry sectors, a number of issues impacted on their engagement in WIL. These included identifying suitable projects and tasks for students to complete; sourcing suitable students; concerns with student performance and capacity to mentor/supervise. A combination of quantitative and qualitative research tools were used with data gathered by an employer survey (N?=?112) and focus group sessions (N?=?17). The study recommends a number of ways to alleviate barriers and challenges to improve the WIL experience for all stakeholders and ensure the sustained growth of WIL in the higher education sector.     

Performance-based accountability in Qatar: a state in progress

It has become a normative practice to include Performance-Based Accountability (PBA) policies in educational reforms to foster school changes that enhance student learning and success. There is considerable variation in PBA models that have an important impact on how they operate in schools. It is, therefore, important to characterize PBA models in different contexts. This article describes and categorizes the Qatari PBA model using a five-dimensional framework previously employed in Canada and the UK. The State of Qatar is a small rich developing country in the Arabian Gulf that introduced a wholesale educational reform in 2004. Although the characteristics of the Qatari PBA model are shared with those of Western systems, the Qatari PBA model does not fit into the previously described categories. Policy inconsistencies surfaced within the Qatar PBA model in terms of structure, consequential intent, and expectations of professional involvement. The tensions are rooted in a PBA model that assumes a high level of professional accountability interacting with the reality of system-wide capacity issues. The implementation of a coherent PBA model in policy and practice will require developing past this early phase of educational reform.     

Assessing working memory capacity in a non-native language

The present studies directly test the usefulness of two English-language working memory capacity (WMC) assessments with two samples of students whose native language was not English. Participants completed two widely used complex span tasks, Reading Span (RSpan) and Operation Span (OSpan), in English. To determine whether the well-established relationship between WMC and Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (RAPM) would be observed when span tasks were not given in the native language of the participant, span scores were regressed against performance on the RAPM. Results indicated that while OSpan was a reliable and valid predictor of RAPM in non-native-English speakers, RSpan administered in English was not.     

Sex differences in science learning: Closing the gap through animations

Males traditionally outperform females on measures of both visuospatial ability and science achievement. This experiment directly tests a manipulation designed to compensate for such differences through the presentation of relevant illustrations or animations to support the construction of understanding of a specific scientific phenomenon. Males and females read a scientific text about plate tectonics that contained static illustrations, animated versions of the static illustrations, or no illustrations. Participants were assessed on their visuospatial ability and also working memory capacity. Results indicated that while males outperformed females on both the visuospatial measure and overall science learning, the presence of animations effectively eliminated performance differences for this science topic. These results suggest that sex differences in learning outcomes can be overcome by supporting the visualization of scientific phenomena.