The European university landscape: A micro characterization based on evidence from the Aquameth project

This paper provides a new and systematic characterization of 488 universities, from 11 European countries: Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and UK. Using micro indicators built on the integrated Aquameth database, we characterize the European university landscape according to the following dimensions: history/foundation of university, dynamics of growth, specialization pattern, subject mix, funding composition, offer profile and productivity.     

Museum Heroes All: The Pavia Approach to School-Science Museum Interactions

To improve on the classic school trip to the museum and the traditional distinctions between formal and informal learning, every year we run a project where the schools (first the teachers and then the pupils) are actively involved right from the very first stages of planning. The various projects realised so far involve schools with children of different age levels, from kindergarten to high school, and aim to provide a rewarding museum experience for each level. The various phases of each project follow a timeline where the specific roles of each group of actors is set out. All our projects rely extensively on history of science, but in a number of ways: using primary and secondary sources, museum exhibitions, multimedia and hands-on reconstructions of historical experiments. We mix all these resources together to offer a historical route suitable to the various age groups. Creative analogical thinking, iconographic similarities and coincidences between the scientific and artistic domains are encouraged especially with children from 3 to 13 years old. These comparisons become pretexts for analysis, reflection and creative production also at the graphic level. In this paper we outline our methodology in the specific case of a laboratory and exhibition experience built around the person and work of Galileo. One of the results has been the involvement of the pupils in a new, unexpected emotional experience.     

The interplay among environmental attitudes,pro-environmental behavior,social identity,and pro-environmental institutional climate. A longitudinal study

By using a panel design in a sample of 298 undergraduate/master students at an Italian public university, the present study aimed to test longitudinally the interplay among environmental attitudes, pro-environmental behavior, social identity, and pro-environmental institutional climate. The relationships were tested with cross-lagged analysis based on two waves over a 2-month period. The cross-lagged panel analysis revealed positive cross-lagged effects of social identity on environmental attitudes and pro-environmental institutional climate perceptions on social identity. Environmental attitudes and social identity at Time 1 did not predict Time 2 pro-environmental behavior. Pro-environmental behavior at Time 1 did not predict Time 2 environmental attitudes. Pro-environmental institutional climate perceptions at Time 1 did not predict Time 2 pro-environmental behavior. Finally, social identity at Time 1 did not predict Time 2 pro-environmental institutional climate perceptions.     

Universities in the New Knowledge Landscape: Tensions,Challenges, Change—An Introduction

In the last decades of the twentieth century universities in Europe and other OECD countries have undergone a profound transformation. They have evolved from mainly élite institutions for teaching and research to large (public and private) organisations responsible for mass higher education and the production and distribution of new knowledge. Increasingly, new knowledge is produced by universities not only for its own sake but also for potential economic gains.     

Tilting the playing field: ‘Redshirting’ kindergarten boys in the US and the competition for hegemonic masculinity

This study examines patterns in the kinds of discourses parents use to think about when to start their children in kindergarten in the US. Parents of three- to six-year olds were interviewed to gain an understanding of how parents make the ‘redshirting’ decision and the extent to which parental concern for sons’ achievement of successful masculinity plays into that choice. Focusing on the parents of male children, this analysis reveals parents employ two gender-related discourses: (1) the ‘failing boys’ backlash debate, surrounding the notion that schools are assumed to favour girls and how girls learn, and (2) a discourse involving the importance of hegemonic masculinity in competition with other boys.     

A rapid screening measure for the identification of visuospatial learning disability in schools

Verbal and nonverbal forms of developmental learning disabilities have been reported. Whereas there are several instruments for evaluating children for the presence of verbal learning disabilities at school, no screening tool is available to identify children who have nonverbal learning disabilities. This study aimed at devising and validating a short screening questionnaire that can be used by teachers in primary schools to identify those children who need to be referred for clinical services because they have a visuospatial learning disability (VSLD). An 18-item Shortened Visuospatial Questionnaire (SVS) was derived from an earlier, longer version. Its validation procedure was twofold and was achieved by (a) verifying that children who had been identified with the SVS questionnaire as having a VSLD actually showed visuospatial deficits on psychometric evaluation and by (b) rating with the SVS a clinically identified population of children with VSLD. The results of the validation procedure showed that the SVS is a quick, reliable, and valid instrument that may be helpful in identifying children with VSLD in primary school.     

Can we estimate a monetary value of scientific publications?

In this paper, we analyze the compelling issue of monetary valuation of a scientific publication. While many academic scholars tend to overlook the topic, as being either too difficult or even meaningless, policymakers begin to use very rough tools for evaluating publications, which have many limitations, as we will discuss in this work. The main objective of this work is to address this open problem by stimulating further discussion on the topic and future research developments. We provide an overview of different methods to value scientific publications. We discuss their main hypotheses, pros and cons by means of an illustration based on Sapienza University of Rome. Although we begin to address the issue of monetary valuation of scientific publications, presenting a range of available methods and listing the limits and benefits of each, further methodological and empirical research is still needed to comply with policy and stakeholders' needs which we expect will increase in the near future.     

Is Italian science declining?

The paper analyses the Italian contribution to the world scientific production, its relative citation impact, its international collaborations and scientific productivity compared with the most productive EU countries over the period 1980–2009. It shows that despite the fact that the level of funding has been dramatically low during the past decades, Italian science has been able to increase its performance up to 2007. Italian science is a “cathedral in the desert”. However, a recent reduction in the level of scientific production, the lagging behind in international scientific collaboration (highly correlated with the relative citation impact) and the great heterogeneity of researchers’ productivity (absence of correlation of number of researchers with quality and quantity of scientific production) may mark the start of a decline of Italian science. The paper concludes that the increased funding must go hand-in-hand with reform of autonomy and governance and calling for a sound system of internal quality control and performance enhancement.