Early development among dual language learners: The roles of language use at home,maternal immigration,country of origin,and socio-demographic variables

Using nationally representative data from the ECLS-B, we examined children's outcomes and growth from 9 to 65 months as a function of language used in the home at 24 months (English only n = 7300; English and another language n = 1500; other language only n = 400). We also examined whether demographic variables moderated the effects of DLL status in predicting child outcomes. Results revealed substantial variation within the DLL population within and across language groups in immigration status, heritage country, child outcomes, and family socioeconomic risk. DLL status was associated with differential outcomes, gains over time, and processes in complex ways. Maternal birth outside of the U.S., child gender, and parental education moderated relations between home language and child outcomes. Use of the heritage language at home served as a protective factor for children of immigrant families for a few outcomes. Gender and parental education were more strongly associated with child outcomes among English-speaking households than among DLLs.     

The Relationship of Science Knowledge,Attitude and Decision Making on Socio-scientific Issues: The Case Study of Students’ Debates on a Nuclear Power Plant in Korea

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship of students’ understanding of science knowledge, attitude and decision making on socio-scientific issues (SSI), especially on the issues of nuclear energy in Korea. SSI-focused instructions were developed to encourage students to understand and reflect on knowledge, attitude and decision making on nuclear energy in the current society. Eighty-nine students attended the instruction and participated in pre and post questionnaires to understand their understandings of nuclear energy. In this study, science knowledge was categorized into content and contextual knowledge, attitude consisted of images, safety, risk, potential, benefits and future roles, and decision making section included preference and alternative about lifetime extension of nuclear power plant. The results of questionnaires were analyzed by correlation, cross-tabulation and regression. As a result, while students’ understandings of science knowledge were significantly improved throughout the instruction, they maintained similar attitude and decision making on the issue. Regarding the relationship of the three domains, attitude showed some degree of connection to decision making whereas science knowledge did not show a significant relationship to decision making. This finding challenges SSI teaching in content-based science curriculum and classroom. Reflection and implications on the way of teaching SSI in the classroom were discussed further in this paper.     

Private Nonprofit Organizations for Child Welfare Cases of South Korea and People’s Republic of China

Private organizations and public sector regarding child welfare services have been two main actors in improving the quality of children ’s lives. In this paper, the author examines two cases of childre...     

Using memes and memetic processes to explain social and conceptual influences on student understanding about complex socio‐scientific issues

This study investigated seventh grade learners' decision making about genetic engineering concepts and applications. A social network analyses supported by technology tracked changes in student understanding with a focus on social and conceptual influences. Results indicated that several social and conceptual mechanisms potentially affected how and why ideas were taken up in the learning system of the classroom. Mechanisms included copying or memetic processes such as “do as the smart students do” and friendship selection. Study outcomes are compared with the broader literature on memes and memetic processes to reveal general evolutionary ideas such as the development of prestige, identity versus problem‐solving strategies, extended phenotypes, and memeplexes. Educational implications for this research are also addressed. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 45: 900–921, 2008     

Relationships between cognitive diagnosis, CTT, and IRT indices: an empirical investigation

Cognitive diagnosis models (CDMs) continue to generate interest among researchers and practitioners because they can provide diagnostic information relevant to classroom instruction and student learning. However, its modeling component has outpaced its complementary component??test construction. Thus, most applications of cognitive diagnosis modeling involve retrofitting of CDMs to assessments constructed using classical test theory (CTT) or item response theory (IRT). This study explores the relationship between item statistics used in the CTT, IRT, and CDM frameworks using such an assessment, specifically a large-scale mathematics assessment. Furthermore, by highlighting differences between tests with varying levels of diagnosticity using a measure of item discrimination from a CDM approach, this study empirically uncovers some important CTT and IRT item characteristics. These results can be used to formulate practical guidelines in using IRT- or CTT-constructed assessments for cognitive diagnosis purposes.     

Policy efforts to increase women faculty in Korea: reactions and changes at universities

Since 2001, the issue of the low ratio of women faculty in universities has been prominent in Korea because of its negative impact on female students and gender equality at the university level that has affected human resource development and utilization at the national level. To address this issue, the Korean government developed and executed an education policy, the Policy on Women Faculty Increase (PWFI) from 2004 to 2006. This paper investigated reactions to the PWFI and changes made as a result of the policy in the conservative Korean higher education context. We found that although the PWFI has particularly contributed to increasing the representativeness of women faculty in areas in which women faculty used to be rare, overall the PWFI has not made significant improvements in most participating universities due to the lack of internal motives and drivers and effective systems to support the policy. Recommendations for improvements in the policy are offered.     

School choice in the stratilingual city of Vancouver

This paper examines the links between language, social difference and political domination in the practices of parental school choice at the heart of a global city, Vancouver. Vancouver is a highly diverse city, especially in terms of language. Its inner city is replete with multiple languages whose exchange values are not equal. In this context, our case study of two elementary schools observes that white middle‐class parents choose a predominantly white school – whose students are non‐ESL and have a second language choice of French – in a socially and ethnically mixed inner city neighbourhood, creating a stark imbalance in the student population of local neighbourhood schools. This paper examines parents' accounts of their choices, which they rationalise on the basis of linguistic competency and differentiation from multilingual others. We draw from Pierre Bourdieu's theory of language and symbolic power and Ghassan Hage's spatial theory of nationalist practice to understand the linguistic dimension of school choice rationalisation made by white middle‐class parents. In the context of these insights, we argue that the way anglophone white middle‐class parents choose their children's schools is intricately linked to active processes of reproducing a stratilingual society in Canada.