Shared places,separate spaces: constructing cultural spaces through two national languages in Finland

Finland is a bilingual country with 2 national languages, Finnish and Swedish. The Swedish-speaking school institution aims to protect the minority language by maintaining a monolingual school space. In this article, the construction of linguistic and ethnic difference in educational discourse and practice related to the national languages in Finland is analyzed by using discourse analysis, feminist and post-structural theories. By analyzing ethnographic data and public debate, we argue that discursive and material practices related to spatiality have a significant role in constructing difference and otherness in the Finnish school context. Essentialist categories are produced but also contested from the positions within the cultural spaces at school and in society at large.     

Perspectives on using video recordings in conversation analytical studies on learning in interaction

Video is currently used in many studies to document the interaction in conversation analytical (CA) studies on learning. The discussion on the method used in these studies has primarily focused on the analysis or the data construction, whereas the relation between data construction and analysis is rarely brought to attention. The aim of this article is to discuss different approaches to data construction that CA studies in and on learning utilize, and how these approaches facilitate different analysis and understandings of learning and cognition from emic, participants', points of view. Three, partly overlapping, thematic approaches can be discerned: (1) setting-centred, (2) participant-centred and (3) content-centred. The underlying interest of the study seems to influence the data construction, which in turn affects what kind of analysis that can be done. There is a considerable variation in which aspects data sets focus on, where an emphasis in data construction on setting, participant or content also seems to project the subsequent analytic emphasis. This relation between data construction and analysis is important to be aware of and to address.     

Temporal resolution of auditory perception and verbal working memory in 15 children with language impairment

We investigated temporal resolution of auditory perception (TRAP), verbal working memory, and speech perception in 15 children with language impairment (LI) in comparison with a control group of 99 typical children. A computerized two-choice test was used to assess these three abilities. No deficits in TRAP were found in the LI group, and the thresholds were similar for both study groups. It was interesting that the variability was high for both groups and that the control group's performance was poorer than reported in some previously published studies. There were significant differences in the two groups' performance on speech perception and verbal working memory. Working memory was the most sensitive of these two measures.     

Context Effects on Children's Use of Language

The sweeping changes in Swedish society in the 1990s, with extensive decentralisation, privatisation and cutbacks in the public sector, implied quite new conditions for the realisation of the aim of pre-school and school as a meeting place for children from different backgrounds. This article discusses some of these changes and their implications, through a study of parent's choice of pre-school care facility in the city of Uppsala. The main data source is a survey study among 1584 mothers of children born in 1995. The results show that parents' use of the right to choose pre-school facility is economically, socially and culturally segregated; the patterns of choice are construed in relation to residential areas but are not a simple effect of housing segregation. The choice of pre-school facility in Uppsala is thus a practice that creates specific conditions--socially and culturally homogenous private pre-school facilities--that make it virtually impossible for them to achieve the goal of being meeting places.     

Temporal resolution of auditory perception in relation to perception, memory, and language skills in typical children

This study examined temporal resolution of auditory perception (TRAP) in relation to speech perception and phonological working memory in one experiment and in relation to measures of rapid naming, understanding of grammatical contrasts, and phonological awareness in a second experiment. In the TRAP test, 6- to 9-year-old children discriminated four pairs of two sine tones, 878 Hz and 1350 Hz, presented in blocks with stepwise decreasing interstimulus intervals from 256 ms to 8 ms. In Experiment 1, weak but significant correlations between TRAP and speech perception and phonological working memory were found, as well as a significantly lower TRAP performance by girls. Experiment 2 indicated a significant relation between TRAP and the phonological awareness task. The results give qualified support to the notion of a weak relationship between TRAP and speech perception and language skills among typical children. However, the gender differences in TRAP performance, the limited variance explained by the regression models, and the finding that only one of the language parameters correlated with TRAP do not support the notion of a causal relationship between language skills and TRAP. The possibility that TRAP is connected to general neurological maturation rather than specifically to language abilities is discussed.     

芬兰高中课程改革及高中数学课程标准评介

2003年,芬兰重新修订颁布了新版《普通高级中学国家核心课程》并使用至今。该课程标准中规定,高中课程包括3类课程：必修课程、专业课程和应用课程。高中数学课程标准中又分为基础和高阶两级水平。芬兰高中数学课程的主要特征有：课程建设的灵活性;课程结构的多样性和选择性;课程的模块化;课程目标的发展性;课程内容的综合性。