When Cultural Norms Discourage Talking to Babies: Effectiveness of a Parenting Program in Rural Senegal

In some areas of rural Africa, long‐standing cultural traditions and beliefs may discourage parents from verbally engaging with their young children. This study assessed the effectiveness of a parenting program designed to encourage verbal engagement between caregivers and infants in Wolof‐speaking villages in rural Senegal. Caregivers (n = 443) and their 4‐ to 31‐month‐old children were observed at baseline in 2013 and 1 year later at follow‐up. Results showed that caregivers in program villages nearly doubled the amount of child‐directed speech during a play session compared to baseline, whereas caregivers in matched comparison villages showed no change. After 1 year, children in program villages produced more utterances, and showed greater improvement in vocabulary and other language outcomes compared to children in comparison villages.     

An ambiguous, contested terrain: governance models for a new South African education system

This paper reviews the development of education governance in South Africa during the 1990s. It outlines ambiguities within and between competing policies, tracing the historical trajectory and explaining its outcome. Apartheid governance, the attempts to reform it, policy options originating within the anti-apartheid movement, and the law passed in 1996 by the new Parliament, are discussed. Trends in South Africa during this decade have been consistent with trends in international education: decentralization, ‘rolling back the state’, privatization, increased class and/or regional disparities, and greater parental governance responsibilities.     

Singing our song: the affordances of singing in an intergenerational,multimodal literacy programme

This exploratory case study examined the affordances of singing as a multimodal literacy practice within ensembles that featured art, singing and digital media produced in an intergenerational programme that served a class of kindergarten children and community elders. The programme that was set up by the study in collaboration with a rural school and elders' organisation saw participants meet one afternoon a week for most of a school year. Study questions concerned the meaning making and relationship‐building opportunities afforded to the participants as they worked through chains of multimodal projects. Data were collected using ethnographic tools in an elders' home where the projects were completed and in the kindergarten where project content and tools were introduced to the children and extended by the classroom teacher. Themes were identified through the juxtaposition of data in relation to the literature and study questions. Results indicate that singing provided opportunities for participants to form relationships and make meaning as a group while combining modes. Study findings foreground the communicative power of singing and suggest how singing, when viewed through a multimodal lens, might be a potent tool for multimodal literacy learning.     

Assessing Precollege Science Education Outreach Initiatives: A Funder's Perspective

We describe an assessment of the collective impact of 35 grants that the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) made to biomedical research institutions in 1999 to support precollege science education outreach programs. Data collected from funded institutions were compared with data from a control group of institutions that had advanced to the last stage of review but had not been funded. The survey instrument and the results reveal outcomes and impacts that HHMI considers relevant for these programs. The following attributes are considered: ability to secure additional, non-HHMI funding; institution buy-in as measured by gains in dedicated space and staff; enhancement of the program director''s career; number and adoption of educational products developed; number of related publications and awards; percentage of programs for which teachers received course credit; increase in science content knowledge; and increase in student motivation to study science.     

Scaffolding the Appropriation of Self-regulatory Activity: A Socio-cultural Analysis of Changes in Teacher–student Discourse about a Graduate Research Portfolio

This study informs the design and development of pedagogical agents that can flexibly support self-regulation by calibrating guidance to specific phases and facets of self-regulated learning (SRL) as individuals encounter challenges and develop more sophisticated understandings of the task and content. From a socio-cultural perspective of self-regulation, we examine the transition of self-regulatory control from teacher to graduate student during naturalistic instructional conferences. Three goals included (a) examining teacher–student dialogue about a complex task to see if fading actually occurs, (b) examining whether support and fading of support are calibrated to specific phases of the self-regulatory process at a given point in time, and (c) examining techniques used for scaffolding and fading scaffolding directed toward specific phases and facets (behavioral, cognitive, metacognitive and motivational) of the self-regulatory cycle. Findings support a socio-cultural perspective of SRL demonstrating a transition from teacher to student regulation across phases and facets of SRL. The paper concludes with an examination of how our findings can inform the design of computer-based scaffolds that can support SRL.     

The Effect of School Culture on Science Education at an Ideologically Innovative Elementary Magnet School: An Ethnographic Case Study

This ethnographic case study investigated the science practices of teachers at one public elementary magnet school in light of how school culture influenced science curriculum design and instruction. The purpose of the study was to address how school culture impacted the school??s overall treatment of science as a viable content area. Key informant teachers were interviewed to explore their personal beliefs and values, teaching, access to materials, and views of the adopted integrated thematic curriculum model and magnet structure. The resulting data, triangulated with informal observation and artifact collection, were analyzed using a theoretical framework that emphasized five interdependent school culture indicators (values, beliefs, practices, materials, and problems). Findings suggest that the school??s culture adversely influenced the treatment of science.     

Power Dynamics and Questioning in Elementary Science Classrooms

We describe the dynamic discourse interactions between a teacher and her students in a third-grade science classroom. We focused on how the teacher and students initiate, prompt, respond, and provide feedback; use questioning and power strategies; and how questions are associated with power dynamics. We relate the consequences of teacher use of power to the engagement of student with subject matter. Two classroom sessions were observed and teacher?Cstudent interactions audio recorded. Data were transcribed and a method was developed for analyzing teacher-student interactions, power dynamics, and types of questions asked. Results revealed that teacher talk was twice as frequent as students?? talk; questions were primarily closed-ended and task-oriented; and students asked few questions. The teacher exercised power by keeping activities organized and conventional, and utilizing subject matter. The developed methods showed us the complexity of question and power dynamics in classroom discourse and have implications for professional development and research.     

Trends in culturally relevant interface design features for Latino Web site users

There is a lack of published research on designing Web-based instruction for the adult U.S. Latino population. Instructional designers need guidance on how to design culturally relevant learning environments for this audience, particularly for Latino people from Mexican heritage. The authors used content analysis to investigate the extent to which 20 U.S. state food stamp Web sites and 20 Mexican state government Web sites contained culturally relevant interface features targeted at the Spanish-speaking Latino population. Web sites were coded for 10 features distilled from Hofstede??s work on cultural differences. Results indicated that more culturally and linguistically relevant features, including Hofstede??s dimensions of collectivism, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance, as well as adequacy of information in Spanish, were found on Mexican than on U.S. Web sites. The findings suggest that Hofstede??s cultural dimensions theory might provide a useful framework for designing Web-based resources for the adult U.S. Spanish-speaking Latino population and provides additional evidence to further investigate if Web-based interface features tailored for U.S. Latino Web users motivate users, strengthen communication, and promote learning.     

Students’ images of two-variable functions and their graphs

This paper presents a conceptual analysis for students’ images of graphs and their extension to graphs of two-variable functions. We use the conceptual analysis, based on quantitative and covariational reasoning, to construct a hypothetical learning trajectory (HLT) for how students might generalize their understanding of graphs of one-variable functions to graphs of two-variable functions. To evaluate the viability of this learning trajectory, we use data from two teaching experiments based on tasks intended to support development of the schemes in the HLT. We focus on the schemes that two students developed in these teaching experiments and discuss their relationship to the original HLT. We close by considering the role of covariational reasoning in generalization, consider other ways in which students might come to conceptualize graphs of two-variable functions, and discuss implications for instruction.