The role of knowledge in participatory and pluralistic approaches to ESE

The purpose of this article is to investigate in situ the functions that knowledge has when used by students in argumentative discussions. The study is based on Dewey’s pragmatic perspective of knowledge, which means that knowledge gets its meaning in the activity at hand. The analyses are conducted using Transactional Argumentation Analysis, which is a combination of pragmatic meaning analysis and Toulmin’s argument pattern. The empirical material consists of video-recorded lessons from two seminars in a Swedish upper secondary school. The results show that knowledge plays a crucial role in the discussions. Six different functions are identified: emphasising complexity, clarifying and correcting, highlighting conflicting interests, providing evidence in a counterargument, predicting the consequences and adding support to an earlier claim. Knowledge also has general functions, such as justifying a claim, and is part of a collective process aimed at understanding the issues discussed. Further, the students use knowledge from different disciplines, such as environmental studies, history, politics, biology and human geography.     

Hearing Where the Eyes See: Children Use an Irrelevant Visual Cue When Localizing Sounds

To reduce sensory uncertainty, humans combine cues from multiple senses. However, in everyday life, many co‐occurring cues are irrelevant to the task at hand. How do humans know which cues to ignore? And does this ability change with development? This study shows the ability to ignore cross‐modal irrelevant information develops late in childhood. Participants performed a sound discrimination task, with or without an irrelevant visual flash, presented synchronously in front of them. Adults ignored the irrelevant visual information, while 7‐ to 10‐year‐olds' responses were biased toward the flash location. The findings show that acquiring mature cue combination mechanisms is a multifaceted process that includes learning to ignore irrelevant cues, as well as to optimally combine relevant cues.     

Where did I come from? US parents' and preschool children's participation in sexual socialisation

This paper applies a sociology of childhood approach to the study of the sexual socialisation of young children in the USA. It examines both children's and parents' active participation in this dynamic and collaborative process through conversations between 49 parents and their 54 preschool children that were audio-recorded while they read books about ‘where babies come from’. Parents also participated in a brief survey. The authors found that, while parents do foreclose such conversations as previous research has indicated, they also use a variety of other tactics, including adding information and emotion management. These findings illustrate children's active engagement in their own sexual socialisation through their questions, confusions and distractions, which affected the amount and type of information that was elicited.     

Using a computer-aided personalized system of instruction to enhance the mastery of statistics in online learning

This study compared the effectiveness of teaching a distance education statistics course using a computer-aided personalized system of instruction (CAPSI) in comparison to a distance education course that used video lectures. Data were collected between 2017 and 2022. Two-hundred and sixty-eight students were included in the sample. Results supported that students enrolled in the CAPSI statistics course were less likely to drop out of the course and mastered significantly more material than students enrolled in the lecture-based distance education course. It is recommended that instructors teaching statistics in distance education settings consider using CAPSI to improve student outcomes.     

Does secondary school size make a difference?: A systematic review

There is a vast body of literature on school size but comparatively few high quality empirical studies comparing outcomes in schools of different sizes. This systematic review synthesizes the results of the published research from 31 studies on the effects of secondary school size from OECD countries since 1990. Overall the directions and patterns of effect vary for different outcomes. For pupil attainment measured by exam results, and for attendance, larger schools appear to do better up to some optimal school size but estimates of this point or range are insufficiently precise to be useful. The implications of different school sizes on student behaviours are equivocal, but teachers and pupils at smaller schools are more likely to have a positive perception of their ‘school environment’. Costs per pupil appear to decrease as school size increases. The results of the review suggest that there is little empirical evidence to justify policies that aim to ‘change’ or mandate particular school sizes. However, given the evidence that there do appear to be optimal sizes for some outcomes, stakeholders should be made aware that dramatic changes in a school's size may change the characteristics of a school's learning environment.     

BOOK REVIEWS

COMMUNITY IN CRISIS: THE ELIMINATION OF SEGREGATION FROM A PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. By James H. Tipton.
THE MEANING OF THE GLORIOUS KORAN. Translated by Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall.
PUBLIC EDUCATION UNDER CRITICISM.M. Hill. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1954. 414 pages. $6.35. Edited by W. Winfield Scott and Clyde
INQUIRY INTO INQUIRIES: ESSAYS IN SOCIAL THEORY. By Arthur F. Bentley.
POWER OF WORDS. By Stuart Chase in collaboration with Marian T. Chase.
GREAT HUMAN ISSUES OF OUR TJMES. By Harold Benjamin, Kenneth Cooper, Willard Gosh, Clifton L. Hall, Claude Chadwick, James L. Hymes, Jr., Henry H.Hill and William Van Til.
PUBLIC EDUCATION AND ITS CRITICS. New York: The Mac-millan Company, 1954. 170 pp. $2.50. (Kappa Delta Phi Lecture.) By V. T. Thayer.