What’s in a Name? A Critical Literacy and Functional Linguistic Analysis of Immigrant Acculturation in Contemporary Picture Books

This article investigates how immigrant children’s acculturation experiences are characterized through the symbolic literary feature of name in children’s literature and how the language of the text functions to communicate these messages. We draw on the theoretical frameworks of Critical Literacy (CL) and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to inform our analysis, showcasing how the connection and interrelation of these theories maximizes the potential for meaning-making. Texts were examined to reveal dominant themes around acculturation communicated through the use of protagonists’ names and trends in the language used to construct young readers’ understandings. Findings indicate that the construct of a name is a key theme in the literature used to forge a cultural identity for immigrant children, generate cultural conflict, and stimulate others’ judgment.     

Childbirth education for multiple pregnancy: part 2: intrapartum and postpartum considerations

Women with a multiple pregnancy can expect a different labor and birth course than those with a singleton pregnancy. While the postpartum period is similar to that of families with a singleton, it is likely to be more hectic in families with multiple infants. In addition, a multiple pregnancy increases both maternal and neonatal risks; therefore, women with a multiple pregnancy may experience slight differences in care due to these potential risks, including additional monitoring and treatment. This article discusses the intrapartum and postpartum considerations families with a multiple pregnancy/birth may experience. This information is provided so that the childbirth educator can incorporate this content into courses, as appropriate, and assist families with a multiple pregnancy to anticipate a realistic birth and postpartum experience.     

Completely illiterate adults can learn to decode in 3 months

The purpose of this case series was to explore whether adults who did not have the opportunity to acquire reading skills during childhood are able to do so rapidly if trained with an adequate literacy program. After 14 weeks of training with a new, optimized, literacy course based on cognitive research, six out of eight participants became able to read words they had never encountered, hence demonstrating that they were definitely engaged in decoding processes that allow autonomous reading. Moreover, they showed enhanced phonemic sensitivity and phonological memory. The latter finding implies that functional changes can take place rapidly outside the reading domain even when reading is acquired in adulthood. Thus, there is no major plasticity impediment preventing rapid eradication of illiteracy in adults.     

Heat and Temperature: an analysis of how these concepts are dealt with in textbooks

Despite the fact that textbooks are primarily directed at students, research has shown that teachers are heavily reliant and dependent on them. On the other hand, there is some empirical evidence that textbook presentation of science content may lack accuracy and strengthen some alternative conceptions on their users. Besides, it seems that textbooks are not always in agreement with the results of educational research, namely in regard to teaching approaches. Thus, the main objective of this paper is to analyse how 9th grade Portuguese physics textbooks deal with heat and temperature, in order to see whether or not they are adequate sources of information for students and teachers. Eleven 9th grade textbooks are analysed with regard to ideas included, correctness of concepts and arguments, global teaching approach, learning activities (nature, diversity, level of investigation, etc.). The results indicate that the majority of the textbooks are hardly consistent with modem perspectives for science education.     

Longitudinal Trajectories of Family Functioning Among Recent Immigrant Adolescents and Parents: Links With Adolescent and Parent Cultural Stress,Emotional Well-Being,and Behavioral Health

This study examined longitudinal effects of adolescent and parent cultural stress on adolescent and parent emotional well-being and health behaviors via trajectories of adolescent and parent family functioning. Recent immigrant Latino adolescents (M_age = 14.51) and parents (M_age = 41.09; N = 302) completed measures of these constructs. Latent growth modeling indicated that adolescent and parent family functioning remained stable over time. Early levels of family functioning predicted adolescent and parent outcomes. Baseline adolescent cultural stress predicted lower positive adolescent and parent family functioning. Latent class growth analyses produced a two-class solution for family functioning. Adolescents and parents in the low family functioning class reported low family functioning over time. Adolescents and parents in the high family functioning class experienced increases in family functioning.     

Interactions in virtual learning environments: new roles for digital technology

For the last 10 years, online pre-service teacher distance education has increased significantly in Brazil. As a result, research on this educational modality has also increased, in particular, research investigating the different roles students and teachers play in these courses. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of digital technologies in two specific contexts: how teachers, tutors, and students play a role in producing interactive digital didactic material and how digital technologies themselves can play a role in teaching distance learning courses. But for these roles to emerge, we point to the need for participants of online courses to interact collaboratively. To identify these roles, grounded theory, a branch of qualitative research, was used as the two roles were articulated. Data were produced from virtual observations in virtual learning environments and virtual interviews. The results stress that both highlighted roles are related. They transform teacher and student roles and participation in the virtual classroom, and an “agency of media” emerges in online mathematics education.     

Cues of paternal uncertainty and father to child physical abuse as reported by mothers in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Objective

Paternity is uncertain, so if paternal feelings evolved to promote fitness, we might expect them to vary in response to variables indicative of paternity probability. We therefore hypothesized that the risk of lapses of paternal affection, including abusive assaults on children, will be exacerbated by cues of non-paternity.

Methods

Cross-sectional study of 331 Brazilian mothers, interviewed about 1 focal child (age 1–12) residing with her and the putative father. Child physical abuse was assessed using the Conflict Tactic Scales: Parent Child (CTSPC). Two potential cues of (non) paternity were (1) whether the parents co-resided when the child was conceived, and (2) whether third parties allegedly commented on father–child resemblance. Data were analyzed through multiple logistic regressions.

Results

Mothers reported child physical abuse by 15.9% (95% CI 4.6–27.1) of fathers who had not cohabited with them at conception, compared to 5.9% (95% CI 3.1–8.7) of those who had. The odds ratio for abuse by fathers who had not cohabited at conception in relation to those who had—adjusted for income, education, age, sex of child, whether child was first born, household size, time father spent with child, and alcohol abuse and drug use by father—was 4.3 (95% CI 1.4–13.8). Mothers reported abuse of 7.0% (95% CI 4.0–10.0) of children who purportedly resembled their fathers, versus 8.7% (95% CI 0.2–17.1) of those who did not.

Conclusion

According to maternal reports, not having co-resided at conception quadrupled the chance of child physical abuse by currently co-residing Brazilian fathers. The reported prevalence of abuse was unrelated to reported allegations of father–child resemblance.     

A place for arguing in engineering education: a study on students’ assessments

This paper focuses on the issue of how engineering programmes demand and/or promote argumentative reasoning, which is a subsequent aspect of curricular development. This was the main objective of the project on which this paper reports. This is to say that the focus is on assessment as a way to establish to what extent argumentative reasoning is demanded and mobilised in teaching and learning processes. This aim was achieved using a sample of assignments developed in courses in different Bologna undergraduate programmes at the Engineering School at the University of Porto, during the first semester of the academic year 2009/2010. Whereas problem solving in engineering constitutes a structural element in the curricular organisation of the engineering programmes and is strongly related to argumentative skills, it was possible to conclude that students demonstrate and explain extensively, but do not argue, possibly because their teachers do not invite them to do so in assessment situations.