Phonological awareness in kindergarten: a field study in Luxembourgish schools

The purpose of the present study was to assess the effectiveness of a phonological awareness training program in the specific context of the Luxembourgish educational system. The intervention was run by the kindergarten teachers in their classes with minimal external supervision. Forty-one classes of the area around Luxembourg City participated in the study. One hundred and fifty children from 20 kindergarten classes were part of the training group and 157 children from 21 classes formed the control group. At the end of kindergarten, clear training effects were observed for all phonological awareness tasks, except for the highly demanding phoneme deletion task. After 6 months of reading and writing instruction in first grade, no training effects were found in a pseudoword spelling task for the entire training group. Only at-risk children, which had the lowest performance on preschool phonological awareness measures, showed significant training effects. We conclude that early phonological awareness training may be profitably incorporated in kindergarten classroom activities, particularly for at-risk pupils, even when the language characteristics and teaching methods already concur in facilitating the understanding of the alphabetic principle.     

Photography and Oral History as a Means of Chronicling the Homeless in Miami: The StreetWays Project

This article describes the use of Photography and Oral History research methods as part of a collaborative research project on homelessness in Miami. Issues involving the use of documentary photography and oral history as a means of creating greater social awareness in the general public are explored, as well as broader issues of Social Justice.     

Intrafamilial sexual abuse: brother-sister incest does not differ from father-daughter and stepfather-stepdaughter incest

OBJECTIVE: Three groups of girls who were sexually abused (by either brothers, fathers, or stepfathers) were compared. The purpose was to identify the differing characteristics of the abuse, the family environments, and the psychosocial distress of these children. METHOD: Seventy-two girls aged between 5 and 16 were assigned to one of the three groups. Subjects were matched between groups on the basis of their actual age. Children completed measures of traumatic stress; their mothers completed the Child Behavior Checklist-Parent Report Form (CBCL) and other self-report questionnaires on family characteristics. Workers in child protective services completed information regarding the nature and severity of the abuse. RESULTS: Results suggested few differences in the characteristics of sexual abuse between the three groups. However, penetration was much more frequent in the sibling incest group (70.8%) than in the stepfather incest (27.3%) or father incest (34.8%) groups. Ninety percent of the victims of fathers and brothers manifested clinically-significant distress on at least one measure, whereas 63.6% of stepfather victims did. Compared with father and stepfather perpetrators, brothers were raised in families with more children and more alcohol abuse. CONCLUSIONS: The authors conclude that the characteristics of brother-sister incest and its associated psychosocial distress did not differ from the characteristics of father-daughter incest These findings suggest that theoretical models and clinical practices should be adjusted accordingly and that sibling incest should not necessarily be construed as less severe or harmful than father-daughter incest.     

Aesthetic experience and creativity in arts education: Ehrenzweig and the primal syncretistic perception of the child

The pertinence and worth of arts in Quebec primary schools vary considerably from one institution and school administration to another. In this paper it is argued that well-integrated arts education would bring a large array of pedagogical benefits to students, not the least of which is the preservation and the development of aesthetic perception and creativity. Actually, teachers can rely on the syncretistic and amodal perception of the young child, a learning mode that is analogous to the aesthetic experience and fostered by art practices. The paper draws notably on Ehrenzweig and Winnicott to advocate that the school, through arts education, should preserve and make use of this precious perceptive faculty, and temper the educational bias that largely favours the logical or analytical mode of the child. It advocates for an essential developmental balance between the child’s intuitive and analytical faculties, a healthy equilibrium that arts education has the potential to instil. Children and society both have much to gain from the school’s fostering of arts education and aesthetic perception: children from their balanced development and society from future creative citizens’ contributions.     

Public and private schooling in France: an investigation into family choice

Since the end of the 1970s, more than a third of all French pupils have attended private schools either continuously or temporarily. The private sector appeared as a second chance, but one that was not seized in equal proportions by all social classes and was thus a source of new inequalities. Moreover, it appeared that although pupil recruitment in the public sector was more democratic, the private sector had more success in equalizing results and scholastic careers. Today school switching continues to increase: more than 40% of pupils attend or have attended the private sector at one point in time and almost one family in two makes use of it for at least one child. In this respect, we have observed important similarities in the school careers of parents and children: some families remain loyal to one of the two sectors while others switch between sectors. Ideologically-based choices seem to be on the decline: the main reason families use the private sector is to improve their childrens' education. There remain, however, important regional differences in provision and use of the private sector.     

The contribution of PISA to the convergence of education policies in Europe

The international comparative studies on students’ outcomes have initiated analyses that have had a growing influence on national and sub‐national education policies in industrialised and developing countries. It is particularly the case of the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) which started in 2000 and has organised surveys every 3 years, so that the 2015 survey was the 6^th. Its influence has been particularly important for several reasons: 1) it assesses the basic competences in reading literacy, maths and science of 15 year‐olds students, i.e. around the end of compulsory education in many countries; 2) the assessment is based on a reliable methodology and the tests are completed by qualitative surveys and studies; 3) and the results lead to recommendations and are amplified by the media in most countries. However, it is not easy to evaluate the real impact of PISA because of the existence of other international studies such as IEA's TIMSS and, particularly in Europe, the influence of the recommendations and benchmarks of the EU that has been growing steadily in the last 25 years. Our analysis of the impact of PISA and EU policy focuses on the evolution of the education policy in France, but also studies its evolution in a few other European countries. Finally, we underline the limits of the influence of PISA and international standards in education towards a convergence of education systems because of the importance of their specific historic and cultural contexts.     

Les limites de l’atomisme enfantin; expérimentation d’une démarche d’elaboration d’un modèle particulaire par des elèves de collège

We present a teaching sequence aimed at helping pupils (13–14 years) to put into practice the activities of building and using models. Objects (particles) characterised by invariant properties (shape, dimensions, mass) are proposed as the basic elements for building models. We hypothesised that the invariance of the properties of particles would lead pupils to introduce a variability in relations between particles in order to take into account the tranformations observed. The designed learning sequence includes activities for the production of iconic representations, discussion of the relevance of these representations in relation to the phenomena observed and the use of such representations as a predictive tool. The results show the various stages in establishing the meaning of the initial axiom; they enable us to discuss the hypotheses underlying this teaching-learning sequence.     

What Is Happening with Portable Computers in Schools?

This study was an exploratory of the Landes initiative to supply all pupils and teachers with portable computers and Internet at school. These surveys involved 817 pupils and parents and produced a response rate of 98% for pupils from the first survey at the beginning of the year and 798 pupils at the end of the year. The approach, which consists of identifying any variances in individual perceptions of technology, was tested in an initial In-Tele research programme in which we were involved. The questionnaire-based survey reveals low usage of information technology in terms of teaching, with no difference between the portable and test groups. Moving on from the first level study, characterizing the sites and studying their viewing frequency produces the surprising outcome that the very high number of sites viewed actually conceals a much more pessimistic reality about pedagogical uses.     

Native Mexican Parents’ Beliefs About Children’s Literacy and Language Development: A Mixed-Methods Study

Research Findings. This study examined Mexican caretaker roles, beliefs, and practices around their child’s language and literacy development. Twenty-six parents in three preschools representing three socioeconomic strata located in Querétaro City, México completed questionnaires and participated in focus groups. We used convergent parallel mixed methods to analyze and compare parent questionnaire quantitative data and qualitative focus group data with a grounded theory approach to identify focus group discussion themes. Four themes were emerged: (a) Goals and expectations regarding reading and socioemotional development, (b) Perceptions and beliefs about children’s oral and written language, (c) Caretaker’s perceived role in children’s language and literacy development, and (d) Home and community learning-related resources and practices. Findings highlighted that Mexican parents highly value supporting their children’s education both socioemotionally and through engagement in literacy routines—evidence of duality in the educacíón value among native Mexican families. These literacy routines were complementary and responsive to teacher classroom instruction. Practice or Policy. Understanding how Latino families instantiate literacy practices to respond to American schooling expectations may be a way to address home-school discontinuities that often reflect lack of familiarity with the U.S. educational system.     

Psychometric properties of a pictorial self-concept scale among young learning disabled pupils

The aim of this study is to assess the psychometric properties of the Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance for Young Children (PSPCSA) (Harter & Pike, 1983) among young learning disabled pupils. The sample consisted of 105 French Canadian learning disabled pupils in Grades 1–3. All subjects completed a French translation of the PSPCSA, while 58 were retested 2–4 weeks later. The reliability analysis indicates results similar to those found in Harter and Pike's (1983) study. However, the factor analysis reveals three separate factors. These results are discussed in terms of domains of self-concept that were assessed, procedures and subjects characteristics. The main conclusion reached is that the PSPCSA should be used with caution in assessing French speaking pupils with learning disabilities. More research is needed until the instrument as reached acceptable levels of technical adequacy. 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.