Participation in the figured world of graffiti

This article is based on ethnographic work with two “crews” of young graffiti artists in southern Mexico City. The crews share certain characteristics with gangs or urban tribes, but more with “communities of practice”: they live in the “figured world” of graffiti, a community of practice at the local and global level. Through participation, including observation and the study of fanzines, group members learn the language, technical and social skills, and values of this figured world. Their reasons to paint and the topics they express are varied, but authentic expression is fundamental. Graffiti allows these young people to establish an interesting interplay of identities in the world of graffiti versus their ordinary lives.     

From higher education to work patterns of labor market entry in Germany and the US

Comparative studies describing the transition from higher education to work have often simplified the complex transition processes involved. In this paper we extend previous research by taking into account several steps that comprise labor market entry, e.g., recurrent education leading to more than one instance of labor market entry. By comparing Germany and the United States we also examine how the tertiary education systems influence these transitions via the mode of stratification (parallel tracks in Germany vs. consecutive tracks in the US), the coordination mechanism (state-controlled vs. market-based) and the degree of standardization in educational programs. In our empirical analyses using large-scale longitudinal survey data we find that transitions in the US are less standardized and regulated than in Germany. Furthermore, differences between students from lower- and higher-tier institutions are less marked than expected, both within and between the two countries.     

Active Learning and Student-centered Pedagogy Improve Student Attitudes and Performance in Introductory Biology

We describe the development and implementation of an instructional design that focused on bringing multiple forms of active learning and student-centered pedagogies to a one-semester, undergraduate introductory biology course for both majors and nonmajors. Our course redesign consisted of three major elements: 1) reordering the presentation of the course content in an attempt to teach specific content within the context of broad conceptual themes, 2) incorporating active and problem-based learning into every lecture, and 3) adopting strategies to create a more student-centered learning environment. Assessment of our instructional design consisted of a student survey and comparison of final exam performance across 3 years—1 year before our course redesign was implemented (2006) and during two successive years of implementation (2007 and 2008). The course restructuring led to significant improvement of self-reported student engagement and satisfaction and increased academic performance. We discuss the successes and ongoing challenges of our course restructuring and consider issues relevant to institutional change.     

Psychological Development and Females' Sport Participation: An Interactional Perspective

Dorothy Hams's writings have consistently reflected a philosophy that emphasizes the importance of an integrated sport science perspective for understanding females' participation and performance in the physical domain. Her advocacy for a 7ldquo;somatopsychic” approach included a consideration of the sociological, psychological, biological, and physical factors that interact to influence patterns of involvement and performance potential. Although a complete integration of subdisciplines within the sport sciences would be a formidable task, the purpose of this article is to first review selected research findings pertaining to females' sport socialization, psychological development, and biological and cognitive maturation. Then, a heuristic model is proposed as an initial attempt to represent an interactional approach to understanding females' sport participation and as a framework for future research.     

Educational family background and the realisation of educational career intentions: participation of German upper secondary graduates in higher education over time

In this article, we evaluate the impact of social origin on the realisation of educational intentions at the time of becoming eligible for higher education in Germany. In general, we find high persistence of intentions and actual attendance of higher education. However, effects of parental education on the changes of educational intentions increase the existing social inequality with regard to higher education at the time of leaving secondary school. The group which is affected most are those young adults planning to study after vocational training—while the gap between different origin groups does not widen much during other stop-outs from education. This can be explained only partly by previous educational performance. The findings suggest that estimates of educational inequality are attenuated when entry into higher education is approximated by educational intentions of young adults.     

Cross-Validation of a Model of Intrinsic Motivation With Students Enrolled in High School Elective Courses

The purpose of this study was to cross-validate a model of relationships among social-contextual factors, individual differences, and intrinsic motivation in adolescent students enrolled in required courses (E. Ferrer-Caja & M. R. Weiss, 2000) with an independent sample of students taking elective courses. Female and male high school students (N = 219) completed measures of motivational climate, teaching style, perceived competence, self-determination, goal orientation, and intrinsic motivation. Motivated behavior was assessed by teachers who rated the students on effort and persistence in class activities. First, the authors used structural equation modeling to examine model invariance between the original and the new samples, which yielded a lack of equivalence. Next, the authors examined several alternative theory-based models using the elective sample. The results indicated that the data were best represented by a model that separated social-contextual factors, individual factors, intrinsic motivation, and motivated behaviors. The strongest predictors of intrinsic motivation were task-goal orientation and perceived competence. These results are discussed from both theoretical and methodological perspectives.     

The Influence of Nursery School Attendance upon the Behavior and Personality of the Preschool Child

The power of analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and 2 types of randomized block designs were compared as a function of the correlation between the concomitant variable and the outcome measure, the number of groups, the number of participants, and nominal power. ANCOVA had a small but consistent advantage over a randomized block design with 1 participant in each Block × Treatment combination (RB1). At correlations of .3 or greater, ANCOVA was superior to a randomized block design with n participants per Block × Treatment combination (RBn), with increasing differences as the correlation increased. RBn was superior to the other 2 designs only when the correlation was .2 or less. At those levels, however, the randomized group analysis of variance ignoring the concomitant variable was equally powerful. The findings held regardless of sample size, number of groups, or nominal power.     

Effect of an Animated Classroom Story Embedded in Online Discussion on Helping Mathematics Teachers Learn to Notice

Rich-media representations of teaching using animated cartoons can be effective at stimulating teachers' discussion about practice and hence help them learn productively from one another about their profession. Our research aims to design web-based interactive rich-media virtual settings for teachers to learn to do the practice of teaching. For that purpose, we seek a set of operational design principles that could be used to optimally exploit web-based interactive rich-media technologies. By operational design principles, we mean guidelines that facilitate decision making in the creation of learning conditions. In this article, we report on a study of the effect of embedded animated clips of instructional practice in online interactive forum/chat to support teachers in learning to notice and interpret critical events of classroom interactions. The study showed that both novice and experienced teachers actively participated in discussion and effectively noticed important events of teaching practice. The main findings include the following: (a) Embedding animated representations of teaching in forum/chat, by serving as a common point of reference, helps both novice and experienced teachers effectively notice and discuss noteworthy events in teaching practice; (b) forum suits novice teachers better than chat; and (c) both forum and chat suit experienced teachers in different ways. This study is a critical step in a design-based research agenda toward the building of more complex virtual settings for teacher education.     

“Ourselves among others”: A new metaphor for business and technical writing

Business and technical writing grows out of a need to “build bridges” between ourselves and others. With today's diversifying readerships and increasingly global marketplace, business and industry face a new challenge that is reshaping our conception of business/technical writing and the metaphors of the genre. The metaphors of “selling” and “reader‐centeredness” demand especially to be recast and subordinated to a new metaphor of interculturalism/ internationalism—"ourselves among others.” Grounded in a social theory of language and communication, this new metaphor signifies that “bridge‐building” across differences will be the key in contexts becoming at once more heterogeneous and global.