A Shadow Curriculum: Incorporating Students’ Interests into the Formal Biology Curriculum

Students have been largely ignored in discussions about how best to teach science, and many students feel the curriculum is detached from their lives and interests. This article presents a strategy for incorporating students’ interests into the formal Biology curriculum, by drawing on the political meaning of “shadow government” as alternative policies developed by parties not in office. A “shadow curriculum” thus reflects the interests and information needs of those who have no voice in deciding what the formal curriculum should include, although they are the ones who are most influenced by it. High school students’ interests in three Biology topics were identified (n = 343) and retested on another student sample (n = 375), based on their solicited questions as indicators for interests. The results of this exploratory case study showed that half of the questions asked by students in the areas of genetics, the cardiovascular system and the reproductive system are not addressed by the national curriculum. Students’ questions were then expressed in the curricular language of principles, phenomena and concepts in order to create a shadow curriculum. A procedure that could be used by other researchers and practitioners to guide the development of a curriculum that is more aligned with student interests is suggested.     

The role of feedback in implicit and explicit artificial grammar learning: a comparison between dyslexic and non-dyslexic adults

The importance of feedback for learning has been firmly established over the past few decades. The question of whether feedback plays a significant role in the statistical learning abilities of adults with dyslexia, however, is currently unresolved. Here, we examined the role of feedback in grammaticality judgment, type of structural knowledge, and confidence rating in both typically developed and dyslexic adults. We implemented two artificial grammar learning experiments: implicit and explicit. The second experiment was directly analogous to the first experiment in all respects except training format: the standard memorization instruction was replaced with an explicit rule-search instruction. Each experiment was conducted with and without performance feedback. While both groups showed significantly improved learning in the feedback-based explicit artificial grammar learning task, only the typically developed adults demonstrated higher levels of conscious structural knowledge. The present study demonstrates that the basis for the grammaticality judgment of adults with dyslexia differs from that of typically developed adults, regardless of increase in the level of explicitness.     

“The Cameras Were Everywhere”: Media Conduct Through the Eyes of Homicide Victims’ Families: Switzerland,Italy, and Israel

Using a qualitative research method of life stories, this article examines perceptions among families from Switzerland, Italy, and Israel regarding the media’s role in their process of coping with the murder of close relatives. The findings reveal a duality of attitudes regarding the media found in all three countries examined. The media logic predominant in the experience of victims’ families has a very similar effect, clearly leading to a mediatization of victimhood.     

Technophobia among older Internet users

Internet use may be helpful in maintaining older adults’ independence, social connectedness, and quality of life. High levels of technophobia (fear of modern technologies or discomfort with them), however, may constrain older Internet users’ online activity and limit the benefits they derive therefrom. The literature on technophobia in later life tends to focus on nonusers and ignore older individuals who already use advanced technologies. Relying on an online survey of 537 Internet users aged 60 and up, this study explored the extent to which technophobia constrains older users’ online activity. The results demonstrated varying levels of technophobia among users and significant associations between technophobia and Internet use patterns, including type and complexity of use. Technophobia also correlated with users’ education, perceived health and well-being: Technophobes tended to be less satisfied with their lives—a correlation that remained significant even after controlling for background variables and online activities. The findings suggest that technophobia plays a role at both the first and second levels of the digital divide among seniors. They also indicate that technophobia may be a risk factor in later life, suggesting that older users ought to be taken into account in planning measures to reduce technophobia among seniors.     

Measuring Emotional Appeals in Israeli Election Campaigns

The use of emotions in political campaigns is known and welldocumented. From its earliest days in the Roman Empire or laterin Crusader times to its extensive use by the Nazi regime, politicalpropaganda attempted to seduce and convince, attract and influencetargeted publics by appealing to their emotions. Appeals tofear, hope, pride, anger, and anxiety are frequent in moderncampaigns too. Yet no attempts appear to have been made to developa methodological tool for the objective and systematic identificationof the use of such appeals. This research is based on the design,testing, and validation of a research instrument intended tomeasure quantitatively and comparatively the use of emotionalappeals in two Israeli election campaigns (1996 and 1999). Italso reports findings from an application of the new measureto test specific hypotheses on the use of emotional appealsacross campaigns and parties.     

Successful Aging as a Lifelong Process

Previous qualitative studies of lay perspectives explored older adults’ definitions and views of successful aging as a condition. This study aims at examining their perceptions of successful aging as a process. For this purpose, 207 individuals aged 65–92 years old were interviewed by students, who asked the participants for advice on how to achieve successful aging. Three principal themes were identified: (a) Investments at early stages are profitable; (b) preservation of early qualities contributes to well-being, and (c) internal resources are a key factor in the coping process. Each theme reflected a wide range of actions and attitudes perceived as useful by participants. Findings indicated that older adults consider successful aging a positive outcome of resources acquired and efforts invested throughout life, viewing it as a 3-phase, lifelong process that begins with early adulthood investments, continues through efforts to preserve continuity in spite of changes and losses, and concludes with various emotional coping strategies applied when counteraction is no longer viable.     

On the Epistemology of Narrative Research in Education

The purpose of this article is to explore the epistemological foundations of narrative research in education. In particular, I seek to explain how one can obtain knowledge, given its origin in teachers' subjective experiences. The problem with rhetorical and aesthetic criteria that narrative researchers use to warrant their knowledge claims is not that they don't meet a correspondence criterion of truth as post‐positivists contend, but rather that they fail to connect teachers' ethical views with their practice. Since narrative research is aimed at understanding teachers' actions and not at seeking some kind of mechanism in teachers' behaviour, the link between past experiences and present teaching practice is not causal but teleological. I suggest that although the knowledge claims of narrative researchers may not be justified (because they don't meet the criteria of truth as correspondence theory), we might nonetheless be intellectually entitled to accept them. Entitlement is an epistemic right or warrant that constitutes knowledge as justification, but uses different reasons—teleological not causal explanations. I offer three criteria to establish entitlement to accept narrative researchers' findings: (1) the meeting of rhetorical standards such as plausibility, adequacy, and persuasion; (2) the inclusion of teachers' stories about their pedagogical practice; (3) the meeting of ethical criteria that connects a teacher's actions to an articulate and defensible end‐in‐view or vision of the good.     

THE CO-AUTHORED CURRICULUM: HIGH-SCHOOL TEACHERS’ REASONS FOR INCLUDING STUDENTS’ EXTRA-CURRICULAR INTERESTS IN THEIR TEACHING

There is increasing evidence of a gap between curricular requirements and what students actually want to know. One of the factors influencing what is taught in the classroom is teachers’ attitudes towards integrating their students’ interests. This study investigated what prompts high-school teachers who prepare students for national matriculation examination to adjust the curriculum to match their students’ interests. In the first stage of the study, 350 students’ biology questions that are not covered by the Israeli biology curriculum were presented to 15 experienced biology teachers. These teachers provided 19 reasons why they would or would not address these questions in their teaching. In stage 2, these 19 reasons were presented to another 175 high-school teachers from different disciplines. These teachers were asked to rank the importance of each reason in deciding whether to include or exclude topics raised by the student which are not required by the curriculum. Based on these answers, the 19 reasons were classified into four groups: civic literacy, curricular compatibility, topic suitability, and curricular limitations. The findings show that demographic factors such as gender, experience, and sector, as well as the subject taught by the teacher, all influence decisions. Thus, many teachers are aware of the interest gap, but the solutions and the attention given to this problem vary.     

Morpho-lexical development in language impaired and typically developing Hebrew-speaking children from two SES backgrounds

The study investigated the impact of language impairment and environmental deprivation on Hebrew morpho-lexical development across the school years. Participants were 659 grade school and middle school Hebrew-speaking students—typically developing and language impaired, from mid-high and from low socio-economic status (SES). They were all administered three derivational morphology tasks designed to elicit verbs, adjectives and derived abstract nouns. Each response was scored in three different ways: as a whole word, and according to its base (root or stem) and affixal (pattern or suffix) morphemes. Findings revealed three systematic hierarchies. First, the typically developing mid-high SES group always scored the highest, the language impaired low SES group always scored the lowest, while the typically developing low SES and the language impaired mid-high SES groups lay in-between. Second, verbs were the easiest category across all study groups, whilst adjectives and derived abstract nouns proved to be more affected by population type. Third, affixal morpheme always scored lower than base morpheme, with persistent gaps between the typically developing mid-high SES group and all other groups. Altogether, results show that language development is impeded extensively by both language impairment and SES factors, suggesting that in the long run, innate and environmental factors may have similar implications on morpho-lexical development.