Population differences in constructive memory

An experiment was conducted to evaluate constructive memory in fourth-grade low-SES black and middle-SES white children. The children were read nine short passages; each passage was composed of two premise statements and a filler sentence. The children were tested by a recognition procedure. Thirty-six test sentences were presented randomly. Four sentences were associated with each passage (true premise, false premise, true inference, and false inference). Subjects were asked to make yes/no recognition decisions based on whether the test sentence was identical to a sentence presented at study. Middle-SES white children made few errors, except to true inference test sentences. This pattern of performance is consistent with the constructive view of memory. Low-SES black children also had a high error rate to true inference items. However, this outcome may not reflect constructive memory because they also had a high error rate to some of the other types of test sentences.     

Punishment and Pastoral Care

Can concerns relating to the care and support of pupils and those with punishment and blame be reconciled? Much is written on the former but today even when discipline and control are the focus there is little consideration of punishment and blame. Indeed, we might think that discussion of these issues can be excluded from the educational debate. In this paper John Wilson argues to the contrary. He posits that our backgrounds and experience may make us disinclined to punish and that what we can do is significantly limited by the law. Wilson suggests that this situation means that we lose contact with a whole set of basic concepts that underpin human life and are essential for any form of moral, personal and social education. Punishment is not just an unpleasant necessity but an essential part of education and perhaps even care.     

Brownjohn,Hughes, Pirrie,and Rosen: What Rhymes with Oral Writing?

This article looks at the work of four writers who have had considerable influence on the teaching of poetry writing to primary school children. Each writer is considered in terms of their merits as a contributor to wider questions about writing, and in comparative terms with each other. Links are made between these writers' explicit and implicit philosophies and approaches. Finally, the article considers how far discussions about voice and form within children's writing are necessarily exclusive of each other.     

Not Proved: Reply to Wynn

Findings on whether young infants look longer at incorrect addition and subtraction have been inconsistent or, as in our study, negative. We hypothesize that imprecise ordinal calculating with very small numbers of objects develops in late infancy and precise calculating in early childhood.