The political economy of higher education in the era of neoliberal globalization: Latin America in comparative perspective

During the last two decades, Latin American universities have experienced intense pressure to abandon the main principles established in the 1918 Córdoba Reform (i.e., autonomy and autarchy). While funding for public higher education has declined, they are pressured to relinquish a large portion of institutional autonomy in order to accommodate to market demands and to a new set of control strategies emanating from the state.We argue that current changes in Latin American higher education cannot be examined in isolation from larger political and economic changes in the region, which in turn are related to the dynamics of globalization. After the decline of socialist and welfare-state models, neoliberal regimes have become hegemonic in many parts of the world. In most countries, changes in financial arrangements, coupled with accountability mechanisms, have forced universities to reconsider their social missions, academic priorities and organizational structures. Concerns about equity, accessibility, autonomy or the contribution of higher education to social transformation, which were prevalent during previous decades, have been overshadowed by concerns about excellence, efficiency, expenditures and rates of return. The notion that higher education is primarily a citizens right and a social investment – which has been taken for granted for many decades – is being seriously challenged by a neoliberal agenda that places extreme faith in the market.Though we focus on the international dimension of university change, it is important to note that global trends are promoted, resisted and negotiated differently in each national context and in each individual institution. In the emerging knowledge-based society, the polarization between North and South is expected to increase even further if the scientific and technological gaps are not narrowed. Latin American universities have a crucial role to play in this regard. The paper is organized in two parts. The first describes the context of university change, focusing on issues of globalization and neoliberalism. The second examines the main features of university restructuring in comparative perspective, with a particular focus on Latin America.     

Using Multilevel Regression Mixture Models to Identify Level-1 Heterogeneity in Level-2 Effects

This article proposes a novel exploratory approach for assessing how the effects of Level-2 predictors differ across Level-1 units. Multilevel regression mixture models are used to identify latent classes at Level 1 that differ in the effect of 1 or more Level-2 predictors. Monte Carlo simulations are used to demonstrate the approach with different sample sizes and to demonstrate the consequences of constraining 1 of the random effects to 0. An application of the method to evaluate heterogeneity in the effects of classroom practices on students is used to show the types of research questions that can be answered with this method and the issues faced when estimating multilevel regression mixtures.     

Reducing students’ ‘absent presenteeism’ and mobile misbehaviour in class: an empirical study of teacher perspectives and practices

ABSTRACT

Advances in information technology and communication through new social media platforms have enormous benefits in many contexts, including education. At the same time, self-distractive use of technology – or ‘absent presenteeism’ – can have negative effects in the classroom. The main research question of this study is the relationship between organisational leadership, enforcement of discipline and self-distractive use of technology in the secondary school setting. The finding indicated that the permissive style of discipline appeared to be the most effective at reducing self-distractive mobile phone use. However, a more authoritative style of discipline, short teacher tenure and the principal’s transformational leadership style contributed to high self-distractive mobile phone use. The authors rely on empirical data collected in Israeli public high schools from two independent sources: 144 teachers and 591 students, which yielded 4440 teacher-student events. Implications of the findings are discussed in the context of the school setting characterised by rapid changes in technology.     

Large‐scale Portfolio Assessments in the US: evidence pertaining to the quality of measurement

Portfolio assessment, that is, the evaluation of performance by means of a cumulative collection of student work, has figured prominently in recent US debate about education reform. Proponents hope not only to broaden measurement of performance, but also to use portfolio assessment to encourage improved instruction. Although portfolio assessment has sparked considerable attention and enthusiasm, it has been incorporated into only a few of the nearly ubiquitous large‐scale external assessment programmes in the US. This paper evaluates the quality of the performance data produced by several large‐scale portfolio efforts. Evaluations of reliability, which have focused primarily on the consistency of scoring, have yielded highly variable results. While high levels of consistency have been reached in some cases, scoring has been quite inconsistent in others, to the point of severely limiting the utility of scores.

Information about other aspects of validity is more limited and generally discouraging. For example, scores from portfolio assessments often do not show anticipated relationships with other achievement data, and teachers report practices in the implementation of portfolio assessment that are appropriate for instructional purposes but threaten the validity of inferences from portfolio scores. While other studies show positive effects of portfolio programmes (see Stecher, this issue), these findings suggest that portfolio assessment at its current state of development is problematic for many of the uses to which large‐scale external assessments are now put in the US.     

Extending the Discourse on Developmental Appropriateness: A Developmental Perspective

This article makes the argument that the present discourse on developmental appropriateness needs to be expanded. Four points are made: First, the present discourse assumes a consensus about child development that is more apparent than real; second, it is premised on a suspect notion of broad, universal stages; third, it ignores an important alternative perspective to the dominant individualist perspective on learning and development; and fourth, it ignores an important alternative perspective to the dominant view of the relationship between learning and development. Critiques are made and alternative perspectives presented.     

‘I think autism is like running on Windows while everyone else is a Mac’: using a participatory action research approach with students on the autistic spectrum to rearticulate autism and the lived experience of university

This co-authored article outlines the research process and key findings from the Stratus Writers Project, a participatory action research project with a group of seven students on the autistic spectrum at a university in the North of England. The project explores their experiences of university through critical autobiographies and offers unique insider perspectives into some of the key issues, challenges and successes. Building on a participatory action research approach, the data were collected by the participants themselves; however, this study departs from traditional research in that the participants also analysed the data, thus offering rich and potentially overlooked theoretical knowledge. The article concludes by demonstrating the strength of participatory action research approaches by identifying the impact that our project and its findings have had so far.     

The rat’s simultaneous anticipation of remote events and current events can be sustained by event memories alone

After receiving events in a fixed order, A-B-C…, rats, like people, on being provided with A, may anticipate not only B, a current anticipation, but also C, a remote anticipation. In two experiments, we attempted to determine whether rats’ remote anticipations are mediated by item cues (C elicited by A) or by position cues (C directly elicited by Position 3 cues, which generalize to Position 2). In Experiment 1, rats in a runway received two series of three trials, XNY and ZNN, each in irregular order each day. N signified nonreinforcement; X, Y, and Z signified three qualitatively different food reinforcements. The rats manifested a remote anticipation by running faster on Trial 2 in the XNY series than in the ZNN series. Since the series were presented irregularly, Trial 2 performance cannot be explained on a positional basis alone. It can be explained on an item basis, by assuming that the memory of the Trial 1 reinforcer became associated not only with the Trial 2 event, but with the Trial 3 event as well. Thus on Trial 2 the memory of X signaled N and Y, whereas the memory of Z signaled N and N. Experiment 2 produced the same results, regardless of whether the XNY and ZNN series were presented in regular or irregular order. These results indicate that remote anticipations can be mediated by item associations. They offer no evidence that position associations can do the same, but they do not rule out that possibility.     

Is Visually Guided Reaching in Early Infancy a Myth?

The issue examined was whether infants require sight of their hand when first beginning to reach for, contact, and grasp objects. 7 infants were repeatedly tested between 6 and 25 weeks of age. Each session consisted of 8 trials of objects presented in the light and 8 trials of glowing or sounding objects in complete darkness. Infants first contacted the object in both conditions at comparable ages (mean age for light, 12.3 weeks, and for dark, 11.9 weeks). Infants first grasped the object in the light at 16.0 weeks and in the dark at 14.7 weeks, a nonsignificant difference. Once contact was observed, infants continued to touch and grasp the objects in both light and dark throughout all sessions. Because infants could not see their hand or arm in the dark, their early success in contacting the glowing and sounding objects indicates that proprioceptive cues, not sight of the limb, guided their early reaching. Reaching in the light developed in parallel with reaching in the dark, suggesting that visual guidance of the hand is not necessary to achieve object contact either at the onset of successful reaching or in the succeeding weeks.