Influence of teachers and schools on students' civic outcomes in Latin America

The authors investigated to what extent teachers' practices and school characteristics can influence students' civic knowledge, civic attitudes, and future participation in Chile, Colombia, and Mexico and how this can be related to their specific curricular structures and educational content. It uses data from the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study. The results show that in Chile, Colombia, and Mexico, teacher practices and attitudes relate to the civic outcomes. Although teachers' practices and attitudes significantly predict students' civic knowledge, this relationship does not seem relevant for students' expected participation and students' attitudes toward diversity. Still, the democratic environment of the school is a relevant variable in the case of expected participation of students and their attitudes toward diversity, which shows a possible indirect influence of teachers through the school environment. The results are discussed in relation to the civic education curriculum in place in the countries analyzed.     

The benefits and challenges of enterprise education: results from an action research project in the third grade in Finnish basic education

This article is the result of an action research project conducted in 2014 in a primary school in the city of Vaasa in Finland. The project focused on developing the practice of integrating enterprise education as a part of everyday teaching in Grade Three. The project involved three class teachers, the headmaster and a university researcher. This article focuses on the teachers’ perceptions of the benefits and the challenges of the project. The teachers viewed the project as beneficial to their own professional development as well as to the students’ learning. The process, however, also revealed several challenges associated with applying enterprise education in Grade Three, such as time or different personalities. Based on the experiences from this particular project, the article broadens the understanding of how enterprise education can be realised in Grade Three, as well as its benefits and challenges.     

Learning styles and approaches to learning in excellent and average first-year university students

We assessed the learning approaches and learning styles of a sample of 148 excellent students selected from 11 degrees from nine centers of the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain), and we compared the results with those of a sample of 133 average students from the same centers. We found that excellent students took deeper approach than average students and that they preferred reflective and theoretical learning styles. Average students adopted a more surface approach, and they preferred active and pragmatic learning styles. Greater academic achievement was related to the deep approach and to the reflective and theoretical learning styles. Poorer academic achievement was related to the surface approach and an active style. University professors may reinforce the deep approach by placing high aims for students which go well beyond reproducing knowledge but use other complementary methods other than expository teaching: problem solving, case studies, designing projects, raising questions, discussion and negotiation in the classroom, etc. To accomplish this, teachers must encourage students to be committed, and these methods help do that. It also helps to introduce more demanding evaluation procedures which do not merely involve repeating what has been learnt, but include training guidance that offers students feedback.     

Predictors of Handwriting in Adolescents and Adults with Down Syndrome

Handwriting is a skill that is constantly used in schools and in the workplace – two environments that are targeted in French legislation passed in 2005 on the integration of people with disabilities. The aim of the present study was to determine the predictive factors for handwriting speed and quality in adolescents and adults with Down syndrome (DS), looking at chronological and developmental age, pen grasp and perceptual-motor processing, which are known to contribute to both the speed and quality of handwriting. Results yielded by simple linear and curvilinear analyses revealed that handwriting speed and quality are related to chronological age, developmental age and perceptual-motor processing. Moreover, multiple linear regressions showed that handwriting quality can be predicted by fine motor coordination. We discuss the influence of different factors on handwriting acquisition in individuals with DS, and the implications in terms of intervention programmes.     

Test-enhanced learning in third-grade children

Several recent studies have shown that retrieval is more efficient than restudy in enhancing the long-term retention of memories. However, studies investigating this effect in children are still rare. Here, we report an experiment in which third-grade children initially read a brief encyclopaedic text twice and then either performed a cued recall test on selected target contents of the text or reread the same text twice. A final four-choice memory test about the text’s contents was administered to all children after seven days as well as tests measuring their IQ and reading skills. In the final four-choice memory test, children who took the initial cued recall test showed significantly greater performance in comparison with children who restudied the text twice (their responses were 87 and 53% correct, respectively). The results suggest that cued recall tests can elicit very robust testing effects in young children, even when complex, educationally relevant materials are used as stimuli.     

The increasing role of non-State actors in education policy-making. Evidence from Uruguay

ABSTRACT

Over the last decades privatization policies have taken centre stage in many processes of educational reform globally. In Latin America, these policies have played an important role since the 1990s leading to an increasing participation of private agents in educational provision. The case of Uruguay stands out for having remained somehow apart from this privatization agenda. More recently, however, research has identified a significant shift in the discursive order especially driven by a series of new actors including think tanks and civil society organizations favourable to different forms of privatization. Building on case study methods and informed by a cultural political economy (CPE) approach this paper addresses two purposes. First, it attempts to explore possible explanations for the scarce development of the private sector in Uruguayan education. Second, it aims to characterize the discourses and strategies increasingly used by different actors to frame and promote policy ideas potentially leading to privatization policies. The study shows how a small but influential number of actors have become involved in the process of promoting ideas that seek to influence policymaking. Findings reveal how these actors frame school autonomy and accountability as policy solutions by means of different strategies of networking and knowledge mobilization.