Language proficiency and lateral position in the classroom

This paper not only makes a contribution to the mosaic of scientific knowledge of the brain and nervous system, but suggests implications of practical value. Observant, experienced teachers know empirically that some youngsters learn best, and perhaps only, when seated front-center, right before the teacher’s desk. Such children need to have the eye contact, or to be in quick arm’s reach, or to have distractions screened out. Drs. Bakker and Van Rijnsoever give evidence here that, for many children, taking in and remembering the message is dependent on their physical placement to catch most effectively the stream of sound. This is important to consider in the popular open classroom. Although many children can adapt readily to less-than-perfect physical learning conditions, for some we must “re-invent the wall,” not to climb, but to provide a place to call “home.” The theoretical re-inforcement presented in this paper proves that such boundaries can also provide source and direction for sound as part of some children’s currently needed sensory security and enhance the efficiency of their auditory intake. Editor     

Education on population matters in Europe: results from a comparative survey among students in five European countries

In 1996–1997, within the framework of the European Observatory for Population Education and Information, a comparative survey was conducted among students in final classes of secondary education in several European countries. On the one hand, the survey attempted to assess the effects of education on population in terms of knowledge acquired; the issues addressed in the questionnaire pertained to knowledge of demographic facts and trends (such as the ageing of Western societies and immigration). On the other hand it tried to ascertain students' opinions on demographic trends. What are young people's views on intergenerational solidarity, how tolerant are they towards immigrants, what are their views on recent changes in family structures? This knowledge is important since it is young people's attitudes and future behaviour that will help to shape both the social tissue and the economic prosperity of the European and world population. In this article we present a comparative analysis of survey results obtained in five European countries. We examined the question whether knowledge acquired in the course of scolarisation influences opinions. The results evidence a significant relationship between knowledge of the migrants' issue and attitudes of tolerance towards migrants. By means of multivariate analyses, the impact of factors such as social origin, study orientation and gender on both students' knowledge and attitudes, are investigated. We conclude that adequate educational training on population issues can have a significant positive impact on attitudes of tolerance.     

学术殖民主义在行动:美国认证他国大学

美国认证是针对美国高等教育的现实而设计的，它反映了美国学术系统的历史、规范以及价值观。作为一个学术超级大国，美国有义务不在全球滥用其学术强势。不存在任何形式的世界认证警察。     

Daddy,or serendipity

Philip Pullman grew up in what was then Southern Rhodesia, in Australia and in North Wales. He took an English degree at Oxford, and taught in middle schools in that city for thirteen years. He now divides his time between writing and lecturing at Westminster College, Oxford. His novelThe Ruby In The Smoke, the first part of a trilogy, won the International Reading Association Children's Book Award in 1988, and the other parts both made the ALA Best Book for Young Adults list. He has also written two illustrated novels for younger readers, books for teenagers and an adult novel.     

Does teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge affect their fluency instruction?

The relation is studied between teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge of reading and the quality of their subsequent classroom behaviour in teaching fluent reading. A confirmatory factor analysis model with two latent variables is tested and shows adequate goodness-of-fit indices. Contrary to our expectations, the results of structural equation modelling reveal a small but significant γ-value of .29, indicating that only 8% of the variance in teachers’ classroom behaviour in teaching fluent reading is accounted for by teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge of reading. Presumably teacher knowledge is not as stable and conclusive as one might think. More research is needed in determining the factors that work restricting for teachers in putting their knowledge into classroom practice. It is recommended that preservice and in-service teacher training should not be limited to transfer of knowledge, but should also assist teachers in designing and performing effective fluent reading instruction.     

The Misspecification of the Covariance Structures in Multilevel Models for Single-Case Data: A Monte Carlo Simulation Study

The impact of misspecifying covariance matrices at the second and third levels of the three-level model is evaluated. Results indicate that ignoring existing covariance has no effect on the treatment effect estimate. In addition, the between-case variance estimates are unbiased when covariance is either modeled or ignored. If the research interest lies in the between-study variance estimate, including at least 30 studies is warranted. Modeling covariance does not result in less biased between-study variance estimates as the between-study covariance estimate is biased. When the research interest lies in the between-case covariance, the model including covariance results in unbiased between-case variance estimates. The three-level model appears to be less appropriate for estimating between-study variance if fewer than 30 studies are included.     

Globalization and the freedom of knowledge

This article considers the transmission of knowledge in higher education. It takes the metaphor of the music industry that pre‐selects the music people can buy. The sales potential is the leading principle in the selection process. Often the small producer is excluded because his or her music is not of commercial interest. The end‐customer does not know what he or she is missing because he or she has never heard the music. It is to be feared that a similar market principle will also influence the selection of knowledge and affect the capacity of higher education institutions to freely generate and transmit new knowledge. The globalization of higher education risks homogenizing the cultural traditions of the non‐Western world through a process of Western cultural domination. On the other hand, the Internet, via open source software like LINUX, might serve to democratize higher education and allow greater grassroots input.     

The beginning of decoding

It is widely agreed that children recognize their first words in a different way than they later decode. One hypothesis is that sight words are recognized as wholes, another that they are recognized by parts. Two experiments were devised to compare these hypotheses. In one, children were taught a sight word accompanied by a salient extraneous cue and then tested for recognition of the word and the cue. In the other, children were taught sight words, then tested for recognition of each half of the word. The children were found to recognize the cue but not the word; they recognized one half of the word but not the other. The results support the idea that first words are recognized by selective association.