Décentralisation de l’éducation en Afrique francophone de l’Ouest : Réalités et défis au niveau local

THE DECENTRALISATION OF EDUCATION IN WESTERN FRANCOPHONE AFRICA: LOCAL-LEVEL REALITIES AND CHALLENGES – For some years now, the process of decentralisation has been a popular means of reforming the way that public services are administrated. This ambitious and complex means of reform has been embraced by a number of very different countries. However, questions have arisen concerning the ability of the local authorities and schools – two of the main beneficiaries of this reform – to carry out the administrative duties involved. Many doubt that its impact is far-reaching enough. As a result, the IIEP has coordinated a research programme in Western Francophone Africa with the aim of gaining greater insight into the challenges facing local authorities and schools in the context of decentralisation reforms. To a certain extent, the results are discouraging because they show the limits facing those who attempt to implement a policy of decentralisation, although a number of successful examples of innovation do give grounds for hope. For this reason, the results enable us to identify several principles for good practice.     

The Influence of Afrocentric Spirituality on Counselling Stigma and Help-Seeking Perceptions among Nigerian Americans

This empirical study examined the relations between Afrocentric spirituality and psychological help-seeking attitudes, intentions, and stigma among Nigerian adults living in the United States of America (N = 122). Participants completed a demographic questionnaire, the Spirituality Scale (Jagers and Smith in Journal of Black Psychology, 22, 429–442, 1996), the Perception of Stigmatization by Others for Seeking Psychological Help Scale (Vogel et al. in Journal of Counseling Psychiatry, 56, 301–308, 2009), the Self-Stigma of Seeking Help Scale (Vogel et al. in Journal of Counseling Psychology, 53, 325–337, 2006), the Intention to Seek Counselling Inventory (Cash et al. in Journal of Counseling Psychology, 6, 111–112, 1975), and the Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale-Short Form (Fischer and Turner in Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1, 79–90, 1970). Results from multiple regression analyses indicated that there was no relation between Afrocentric spirituality and help-seeking attitudes or self-stigma about seeking counselling. However, there was a positive correlation between Afrocentric spirituality and other-perceived stigma, demonstrating that increased Afrocentric spirituality predicted increased perceived stigma from others about seeking counselling services. Contrary to expectations, there was a positive correlation between Afrocentric spirituality and intentions to seek counselling. Implications for counselling practice and theory are presented.     

Online News Coverage of Preexposure Prophylaxis

Human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV continues to be a serious issue, especially for men who have sex with men (MSM). A new means of HIV prevention, called preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP), significantly reduces the chance of HIV infection. However, adoption of the drug has been slow. In this study, a content analysis of 234 online news articles about PrEP from popular U.S. news Web sites was conducted, focusing on how articles were framed in terms of benefits to PrEP, barriers to PrEP, the severity of HIV, and the susceptibility of MSM to HIV. Results showed that coverage contained conflicting information about PrEP and failed to cast HIV as a serious problem.     

Children's imitations of lexical items.

3 experiments are reported in which the role of imitation in the acquisition of certain lexical items and factors influencing children's tendency to imitate these lexical items were examined. Imitation did not appear to facilitate the subsequent spontaneous use of lexical items. However, children's tendency to imitate lexical items appeared to be influenced by the novelty of the lexical item and its referent, the informativeness of the referent in the situation, and the lexical orientation of the children. The results are consistent with the interpretation that children's imitations involve the use of a supplied and previously unavailable lexical item under circumstances where lexical usage is highly probable.     

纪念我的高考

不知为什么,最近常想起高三的生活,虽然距离高考已将近两年,可是对当时的生活总能回忆得那么清晰,我想,那是人生的一笔财富,不管再过多少个两年,都值得我们细细品味．     

Leadership: Developing a research agenda for academic libraries

The number of books and journal articles on leadership is large and constantly increasing. Those writings might advance or evaluate different theories and test their application in different settings. The purpose of this article is to stimulate the amount and type of research on the topic appearing in the literature of library and information science. The research discussed is grouped around a conceptual model, one that captures managerial leadership in the information professions.     

What Happended to the Voice of the Author?

There are a series of issues that people designing multimedia for educational purposes should consider. These include, among others, the salience of the voice of the author, the balance between the seductive nature of the medium and the substantive content of the message, and the way(s) in which the navigational tools either promote or constrain the learening and teaching of the content. This paper explores some of these questions and suggests how the answers to them depend on the pedagogic ideology and philosophy of the creators of the software.     

Difficulties in L2 Hebrew Reading in Russian-speaking Second Graders

The present study examined factors that influence the process of learning to read in a second language. The Hebrew reading comprehension skills of 68 Russian-speaking children (mean age 7 years 6 months) were screened at the start of Grade 2. From this sample, 40 participants were selected: 20 successful learners and 20 unsuccessful learners. These two groups were then tested on a wide range of language skills (e.g., phonological processing, vocabulary, syntactic and morphological awareness) in both languages (Hebrew and Russian) and reading skills in Hebrew (e.g., reading speed and accuracy). Two factors, level of spoken Hebrew and phonological awareness deficits in both languages, were significant. Phonological awareness difficulties constituted the key factor associated with poor decoding whereas insufficient mastery of spoken Hebrew was important in the case of reading comprehension. An interesting dissociation was also found in our poor readers between impaired phonological awareness and other unimpaired phonological processing abilities such as oral pseudoword repetition and working memory. These findings suggest that, in addition to poor spoken L2 proficiency, poor readers are characterized more by a metalinguistic rather than a linguistic deficit in their native tongue.