The comparative ethnography of educational projects: youth and adult literacy programmes in Brazil

This article elaborates the concept of educational projects, a term that signifies consistent constellations of institutions, financial resources, social actors, ideologies, theories of knowledge and attendant pedagogies that shape local cultural practices of schooling. The article demonstrates the utility of the concept of educational projects for comparative and international educational studies by examining competing educational projects in Brazilian literacy programmes for youth and adults. In conclusion, the article argues that the concept of educational projects provides a theoretically rich comparative tool for the field of comparative and international education.     

Levels of phonological awareness in preliterate and literate Spanish-speaking children

Evidence of phonological awareness levels usually comes from English-speaking children. The evidence in Spanish is scarce. The present study examined the phonological awareness of syllables, onsets–rimes, and phonemes, extending the Treiman and Zukowski (1991) results to preliterate and literate Spanish-speaking children. The sample comprised preschoolers, kindergarteners and first-graders. Children found syllables easier than onset–rime units, and onset–rime units easier than phoneme units (Experiments 1 and 2). Preliterate children found ending units easier than beginning units. However, literate children were best at initial linguistic units, particularly initial syllables. Results on the phonological awareness task and on the masked priming lexical decision task support that the phonological awareness development is sensitive to the orthographic units used by children from the time they begin to read (Experiment 3). For all children, initial continuant consonants were easier than stop consonants.     

Early feelings about school and later academic outcomes of children with special needs living in poverty

In this investigation we examined the relation of children's reported feelings about school during kindergarten or first grade to their academic achievement at the end of fifth grade. Participants were children (N = 103) who lived in poverty during early childhood and who were placed on individualized education programs (IEPs) during their elementary school years. Results indicated that early feelings about school predicted fifth-grade outcomes above and beyond predictions based on an assessment of receptive language at age 5. Specifically, general positive feelings about school predicted higher fifth-grade literacy skills whereas feelings of greater competence in academics predicted higher fifth-grade math skills. The findings have implications for interventions with young children who have special learning needs, live in poverty, and report early ambivalent or negative feelings about school.     

Mass Incarceration in California Counties: A Mechanism for Educational Inequality

Abstract

Although there is substantial evidence of the negative effects of being incarcerated or having a father imprisoned, there is little research on the spillover effects created by the concentration of incarceration within disadvantaged communities. This article addresses this limitation by investigating the association between mass incarceration and the educational outcomes of all Black and White children living in a community where many of its members were incarcerated across counties within California from 2009 to 2013.     

A framework for enabling graduate outcomes in undergraduate programmes

Our research aim was to determine what enables engagement with graduate outcomes in tertiary institutions in Aotearoa/New Zealand. We used a mixed methods approach comprising a survey sent to all tertiary institutions, follow-up interviews with 10 academic leaders and eight case studies of good practice of programmes engaged with graduate outcomes across four institutions. Using a general inductive approach, analysis of the academic leader interviews generated five categories of enablers: external drivers, structural/procedural, development, student achievement and contextual enablers. Combining these enablers led to an integrating framework for institutional engagement in the development of graduate outcomes. Drawing on wider datasets from the survey, interviews and cases studies, relevant strategies were identified that staff and students perceived influenced the development of graduate outcomes. The framework and the associated strategies adopt a ‘whole-of-institution’ approach, which is inclusive of programmes, staff and students and their individual histories, traditions, cultures and purposes thus allowing for each institution’s unique characteristics.     

Professional development design considerations in climate change education: teacher enactment and student learning

Climate change is one of the most pressing challenges facing society, and climate change educational models are emerging in response. This study investigates the implementation and enactment of a climate change professional development (PD) model for science educators and its impact on student learning. Using an intrinsic case study methodology, we focused analytic attention on how one teacher made particular pedagogical and content decisions, and the implications for student’s conceptual learning. Using anthropological theories of conceptual travel, we traced salient ideas through instructional delivery and into student reasoning. Analysis showed that students gained an increased understanding of the enhanced greenhouse effect and the implications of human activity on this enhanced effect at statistically significant levels and with moderate effect sizes. However, students demonstrated a limited, though non-significant gain on the likely effects of climate change. Student reasoning on the tangible actions to deal with these problems also remained underdeveloped, reflecting omissions in both PD and teacher enactment. We discuss implications for the emerging field of climate change education.     

Bilingual families as literacy eco‐systems

Mainstream educators tend to assume that families should follow a school‐prescribed pathway, centred on parent‐child storyreading sessions, to help their children become literate and achieve educational success. The research discussed here focuses on case studies of bilingual families with six‐year‐old children growing up in London, and shows that they function in more diverse and complex ways, to achieve the goal of children learning to read and write in English and in Chinese, Arabic or Spanish as well. The skills of different family members (including parents, siblings and grandparents) are harnessed so that they complement each other to foster children's learning. Each family thus operates as a ‘literacy eco‐system’, which is dynamic and open to change. The paper concludes by recommending that early years educators find out more about the systems used by pupils’ families, in order to support the work that is already taking place at home.     

新《高中化学课程标准》提高学生科学素养的理念

本文简单介绍了科学素养的内涵和构成要素 ,并结合新颁布的高中化学课程标准 ,简析化学教育教学提高学生科学素养的几个方面 ,并就激发学生学习化学兴趣和化学前景进行了简单描述