Information and Communication Technologies for Development: The Bottom of the Pyramid Model in Practice

The currently influential model for information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) is based on increasing the well-being of the poor through market-based solutions, and by using low-cost but advanced technologies. Using ethnographic methods, we chart out the contradictions that could arise when such a development-through-entrepreneurship model is implemented. We examine the Akshaya project, a franchise of computer-service kiosks in Kerala, India, which strives simultaneously for social development through access to computers and financial viability through cost recovery and entrepreneurship. We show that tensions within the state and among entrepreneurs and perceptions of public versus private among consumers make it challenging to meet the twin goals of commercial profitability and social development.     

Development of Implicit Links Between Effort,Pain, and Recovery

This article describes three studies that examined Japanese children’s and adults’ intuitive perceptions regarding the links between pain, effort, and healing. A total of 79 six-year-olds, 81 nine-year-olds, 74 twelve-year-olds, and 66 adults were presented with scenarios involving modern and traditional medical interventions and were examined with regard to how the level of pain and effort presented in the scenarios influenced their views of healing. It was consequently found that the 6-year-olds tended to judge painful interventions as aversive, while adults considered them to be effective. Furthermore, overall, effortful interventions were believed to be more efficacious than painful ones. The children and adults appeared to assume that people who have tried hard and expended considerable effort deserve to be healed quickly. These results are in accord with the coexistence model, which posits that an individual can have coexisting scientific and folk beliefs across his/her life course.     

Information and Communication Technologies for Development: The Bottom of the Pyramid Model in Practice

The currently influential model for information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) is based on increasing the well-being of the poor through market-based solutions, and by using low-cost but advanced technologies. Using ethnographic methods, we chart out the contradictions that could arise when such a development-through-entrepreneurship model is implemented. We examine the Akshaya project, a franchise of computer-service kiosks in Kerala, India, which strives simultaneously for social development through access to computers and financial viability through cost recovery and entrepreneurship. We show that tensions within the state and among entrepreneurs and perceptions of public versus private among consumers make it challenging to meet the twin goals of commercial profitability and social development.     

Preschool Teachers’ Explanations for Hygiene Habits and Young Children’s Biological Awareness of Contamination

Research Findings: Preschools have many norms and rules children are supposed to follow. Among them, behavioral norms associated with mealtime are of great consequence because eating is an essential life function. The present study examined young Japanese children’s understanding of hygiene norms and rules at mealtime from the standpoint of their awareness of contamination. Previous studies on contamination sensitivity have mainly focused on children’s knowledge itself and have paid little attention to the origins of such knowledge. However, the present study examined how adults talk to children about contamination as 1 possible source of children’s knowledge. Practice or Policy: Study 1 involved 32 days of observations during lunchtime at 3 Tokyo preschools. The teachers frequently told children to adhere to hygiene habits such as washing their hands. Although preschool teachers attached much weight to hygiene, their explanations were not precise. They often used 1-word or 1-phrase directions (e.g., “Dirty”) or just input-output explanations such as “Please wash your hands, or you’ll get sick.” Explanations of why breaking hygiene norms would lead to sickness were seldom offered to children. In Study 2, 26 children age 3 (M age = 3.7) and 22 children age 5 (M age = 5.7) were asked to explain why breaking hygiene norms would lead to sickness. In contrast with teachers’ simple expressions in Study 1, even 3-year-old children frequently generated contamination mechanism explanations (e.g., referring to germs and disgust transmission spontaneously).     

An Analysis of the Text Complexity of Leveled Passages in Four Popular Classroom Reading Assessments

This study investigated the complexity of leveled passages used in four classroom reading assessments. A total of 167 passages leveled for Grades 1–6 from these assessments were analyzed using four analytical tools of text complexity. More traditional, two-factor measures of text complexity found a general trend of fairly consistent across-grade progression of average complexity among the four assessments. However, considerable cross-assessment variability was observed in terms of the size of increase in complexity from grade to grade, the overall range of complexity, and the within-grade text complexity. These cross-assessment differences were less pronounced with newer, multi-factor analytical tools. The four assessments also differed in the extent to which their passages met the text complexity guidelines of the Common Core State Standards. The authors discuss implications of the differences found among and within the classroom assessment systems, on one hand, and among the measures of text complexity, on the other.