School-based assessment of practical competence in science: Some issues from English experience

Teacher-conducted assessments of practical skills are a compulsory component of GCSE examinations in science in England and Wales. The paper presents some of the findings of a research project that investigated this aspect of a science teacher's work. The project was concerned principally with the ways in which science teachers interpreted and operationalised the policy decision of central government and examination boards that teachers assume responsibility for the internal assessment of the practical competence of pupils aged 14–16 preparing for GCSE examinations in science. Specializations: the social history and politics of school science education     

Indigenous knowledge in environmental education processes: Perspectives on a growing research arena

What, then, is the problem? Indigenous knowledge has not, or not entirely disappeared from the collective memory. It has not lost any parcel of its age old efficiency either. Besides, it should not be considered a problem that it coexists today with so called modern science (i.e. an imported, supposedly rational system of knowledge and know-how). The real problem is elsewhere: about the very form of this coexistence. (Hountondji, 2002, p. 24, emphasis original)     

Developmental Relations Among Behavioral Inhibition,Anxiety, and Attention Biases to Threat and Positive Information

This study examined relations between behavioral inhibition (BI) assessed in toddlerhood (n = 268) and attention biases (AB) to threat and positive faces and maternal‐reported anxiety assessed when children were 5‐ and 7‐year‐old. Results revealed that BI predicted anxiety at age 7 in children with AB toward threat, away from positive, or with no bias, at age 7; BI did not predict anxiety for children displaying AB away from threat or toward positive. Five‐year AB did not moderate the link between BI and 7‐year anxiety. No direct association between AB and BI or anxiety was detected; moreover, children did not show stable AB across development. These findings extend our understanding of the developmental links among BI, AB, and anxiety.     

Opportunities for Neurodevelopmental Plasticity From Infancy Through Early Adulthood

Multiple and rapid changes in brain development occur in infancy and early childhood that undergird behavioral development in core domains. The period of adolescence also carries a second influx of growth and change in the brain to support the unique developmental tasks of adolescence. This special section documents two core conclusions from multiple studies. First, evidence for change in brain‐based metrics that underlie cognitive and behavioral functions are not limited to narrow windows in development, but are evident from infancy into early adulthood. Second, the specific evident changes are unique to challenges and goals that are salient for a respective developmental period. These brain‐based changes interface with environmental inputs, whether from the child's broader ecology or at an individual level.