Role Taking Ability,Nonverbal Sensitivity,Language and Social Adjustment of Deaf Adolecents

The relationships between social‐cognitive processes, language, and social‐behavioural skills were evaluated by analyzing the data of 68 deaf students, aged 14 to 2o years, who attended special education classes with vocational orientation. The social‐cognitive processes included Role Taking Ability (RTA) and Non‐Verbal Sensitivity (NVS). Language was evaluated by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) and by a test of Emotional Vocabulary (EV). Social‐behavioural skills were assessed by Goldstein, Sparfkin, Greshaw and Klein's (1980) Social Skills Checklist. The social‐behavioural skills were used as indicators of social adjustment. The results revealed low performance in all the social‐cognitive abilities. Language played a major role in social adjustment. However, the availability of specific emotional vocabulary was not a better predictor of social adjustment than general language ability. Although RTA was associated with social adjustment, this association was related to language ability, and RTA did not add a unique contribution to the explanation of social adjustment. NVS emerged as an important, special and independent social‐cognitive ability. The results were discussed in relation to the function of language in social cognition.     

Intercultural learning in graduate studies at an Israeli college of education: Attitudes toward multiculturalism among Jewish and Arab students

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the factors which affect attitudes towards multiculturalism among Jewish and Arab graduate students who experience intercultural learning in an Israeli-Jewish academic college of education. In Israeli society, it is in higher education institutions where young people from different ethnic groups first encounter the ‘others’. This is due to the structure of the Israeli elementary and secondary education system, which is divided into Jewish and Arab segregated sub-systems. In contrast, the country’s higher education institutions are open to everyone. The research population was composed of first and second year graduate students, all of whom were practicing teachers or involved in other educational work. Participants completed questionnaires and a smaller sample was also interviewed. All of the students are practicing teachers or involved in other educational work. Everyone perceived the college’s socio-cultural climate as an open and multicultural one in both years of study. However, these positive feelings characterized Jewish students to a larger extent than Arab students, while the socio-cultural aspect as well as the quality of the academic experience had a positive impact on multicultural attitudes primarily among Arab students. Thus, a multicultural climate is not enough to effect a positive change in entrenched attitudes toward multiculturalism. Multicultural education policy should also be reinforced through a formal academic curriculum, so as to set an example for ongoing social change which will further encourage graduate students—majority and minority alike—to implement their multicultural positive experiences in their own schools in the future.     

Typology of gender resistance and defiance in Israeli gyms

The article focuses on gender power relations at the gym. It is based on fieldwork in three gyms in Israel. The analysis suggests a typology of responses in relation to gender dictates and male dominance in Israeli gyms: (1) resistance by withdrawal was found mostly in women who gave up attending it and turned to look for alternatives to physical training elsewhere; (2) latent resistance was also found mainly in women, who expressed their resentment towards the ‘macho’ environment in the gym; (3) breaking gender dictates by both sexes, daring to participate in activities and using equipment that are ‘not for them’; and (4) confronting gender dictates openly, questioning the separation between types of activity that are ‘allowed’ according to gender. The analysis also discusses the differences in gender conduct between the gyms, two in the Israeli metropolis of Tel Aviv and one in the countryside.     

An end user search service in an academic health sciences library

This paper describes the experience of an academic health sciences library which made BRS/After Dark, an end user search service, available to its clientele as a complement to its mediated search service. The library environment, initial publicity efforts and administrative procedures are discussed. An attempt is made to evaluate the usefulness of the service in a library environment. This evaluation, covering a three-month period, is based on the observations of the librarians administering the service and an exit interview conducted with searchers over a two-month period. User satisfaction, both observed and recorded, was quite high; however, the librarians found that users had more difficulty in constructing appropriate search strategies than had been anticipated. Overall, the service is assessed as highly useful.     

《孢子》——人皆可为“造物主”!

Wendy家电脑寿终正寝的时候,2008年最受玩家期待的游戏正式出来了,忍不住傻笑着对装机的人说:至少要能玩《孢子》啊～如果操纵一个人从生到死(甚至复活!)的感觉不够过瘾,如果操纵一家公司、一座城市乃至一个帝国的兴衰成败还让你意犹未尽,现在整个地球都可以掌控在你一人的手里!对于游戏迷来说,只要机子赶得上升级,由《孢子》掀起的08-09年度大牌游戏潮是多么美好的事情啊……     

Alice: Overcoming the Border Motto: “I Am No Longer Afraid of the World”

In our paper, we present the story of emancipation of a Roma woman, who works as a social outreach worker. Our method is based on ethnographic approach and our paper focuses on the study the emic perspective of participants in our research. The aim of the paper is to show the tension arising between the actions and expectations of Alice and the actions and expectations of those who are the important others in relation to her. There are two planes present in the personal story of Alice’s emancipation: the plane of Alice’s agency, which is represented by actions, decisions, self-determined will, versus the plane of cultural models, schemata, roles, status positions, images that are in some way offered to Alice or even forced upon her or with which she herself identifies. We will follow the contradictory process of establishment of personal identity of a woman who takes endeavours in several social fields constantly trying to maintain the permeability of these fields and their meanings, which is not an entirely trivial matter.     

An evaluation of university students' latent and self-perceived digital competence in the use of mobile devices

This article presents an experimental study of the assessment made by university students of their level of digital competence in the use of mobile devices such as smartphones, laptops and tablets. The study was part of an investigation into ubiquitous learning with mobile devices and is based on the analysis of responses from a sample of 203 university students at eleven European and Latin American universities. Participants were asked questions about their performance on a set of digital activities that tested various components of digital competence. The analysis methodology was based on Item Response Theory (IRT). The survey data was analysed by applying a statistical model to represent the probability of obtaining an affirmative answer to each activity proposed. This enabled us to identify the difficulty and discrimination parameters of each activity. As an outcome of the study, measures on latent digital competence in individual participants were articulated. The results allowed us to describe how a number of devices and activities interacted. Understanding these types of interactions is necessary for a continued development of the evaluation of digital competence in students.