Toward an Expanded Understanding of Two-Way Bilingual Immersion Education: Constructing Identity through a Critical,Additive Bilingual/Bicultural Pedagogy

This literature review will take a focused look at the three currently accepted theoretical foundations upon which two-way bilingual immersion programs are based. Through an examination of research on identity construction in childhood and adolescence, particularly as seen through a critical pedagogical lens, it proposes that there exists a fourth and relatively unexamined component: identity construction. Further, it postulates that identity construction is of particular relevance to linguistic minority students.     

Examiner scoring of ambiguous WISC-R responses

Fabricated test protocols were used to study how effectively examiners agree in scoring ambiguous WISC-R responses. Clinical and school psychologists (N = 62) and graduate students (N = 48) scored WISC-R Similarities, Comprehension, and Vocabulary responses obtained in a group administration procedure. From over 15,000 responses obtained, only unusual, atypical, or ambiguous responses were selected; 726 responses were scored, with 11 groups of 10 raters each scoring 66 responses. Considerable scoring disagreement occurred. Unanimous agreement (within each group of 10 raters) was found on only 13% of the responses, while 80% of the raters agreed on 44% of the responses. Rates of scoring agreement were not related to level of rater experience, but were related to specific subtests. Higher rates of agreement were found on the Similarities and Comprehension subtests than on the Vocabulary subtest for both experienced and inexperienced raters. The results suggest that even with the improved WISC-R manual, scoring remains a difficult and challenging task.     

Adult outcomes of sustained high-quality early child care and education: Do they vary by family income?

Experimental research demonstrates sustained high-quality early care and education (ECE) can mitigate the consequences of poverty into adulthood. However, the long-term effects of community-based ECE are less known. Using the 1991 NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (n = 994; 49.7% female; 73.6% White, 10.6% African American, 5.6% Latino, 10.2% Other), results show that ECE was associated with reduced disparities between low- and higher-income children's educational attainment and wages at age 26. Disparities in college graduation were reduced the more months that low-income children spent in ECE (d = .19). For wages, disparities were reduced when children from low-income families attended sustained high-quality ECE (d = .19). Findings suggest that community-based ECE is linked to meaningful educational and life outcomes, and sustained high-quality ECE is particularly important for children from lower-income backgrounds.     

Dialogue with a conversational agent promotes children’s story comprehension via enhancing engagement

Dialogic reading, when children are read a storybook and engaged in relevant conversation, is a powerful strategy for fostering language development. With the development of artificial intelligence, conversational agents can engage children in elements of dialogic reading. This study examined whether a conversational agent can improve children's story comprehension and engagement, as compared to an adult reading partner. Using a 2 (dialogic reading or non-dialogic reading) × 2 (agent or human) factorial design, a total of 117 three- to six-year-olds (50% Female, 37% White, 31% Asian, 21% multi-ethnic) were randomly assigned into one of the four conditions. Results revealed that a conversational agent can replicate the benefits of dialogic reading with a human partner by enhancing children's narrative-relevant vocalizations, reducing irrelevant vocalizations, and improving story comprehension.     

Participation Patterns in Higher Education: a comparative welfare and production régime perspective

This article considers the counter-intuitive observation that some of the wealthiest nations can feature low tertiary graduation rates (e.g. Austria, Germany, and Switzerland). It also considers the observation that many countries with high tertiary graduation rates show low levels of social equity, while many countries with low tertiary graduation rates show high levels of social equity. These observations are considered through the lenses of institutional perspectives, and specifically welfare and production régime theories. The analysis elaborates on educational attainment, patterns and key aspects of economic functioning and development, and educational attainment patterns and their relationship to social inequality.     

Ontology-based shape-grammar schema for classification of caravanserais: a specific corpus of Iranian Safavid and Ghajar open, on-route samples

As part of research in progress on the study and design of an ontology knowledge model, this paper focuses on development of a shape-grammar schema for extracting attributes of spatial organization of a subset of cultural heritage relics, namely, caravanserais, from a selected corpus with a common architectural language of design. First, shape-grammar rules for classification of caravanserais of the selected corpus are developed and are represented in drawing by using Auto CAD tool. Shape rules as a natural-language equivalent are then devised by describing design functions and clarifying the topology of shapes. Based on these shape rules in given text, the hierarchy of a shape-grammar schema in the Protégé knowledge representation tool is designed, and each shape rule is defined as an interconnecting individual (or instance) in OWL language. This schema will enable us to extract computer-based semantics of shape-grammar rules. To illustrate this innovative approach, a selected corpus was classified by using the shape-grammar schema with the support of knowledge extraction tools.     

Turnaround Policy and Practice: A Case Study of Turning Around a Failing School with English-Language-Learners

In an era of school reform and high stakes accountability, the major challenge in education is to turnaround the nation’s lowest-performing schools. National policy provides abundant resources with often restrictive prerequisites. Research indicates that quality principals and teachers are the most important factors for turning around the lowest performing schools; however there is little research in how to turnaround failing schools with high enrollments of students in poverty, who are English-Language Learners, and who are Hispanic. The purpose of this study is to understand how demography, policy and practices affect the educational edge of students in poverty, who are English-Language Learners, and who are Hispanic. How do the practices of a school leader who is professionally/culturally/linguistically responsive affect turnaround for a failing schools? How does the personal and professional background of a Latino principal affect student performance in a failing school? This research conducted a qualitative case study to include principal interviews, principal observations, teacher interviews, and the use of state and school archival data. Analyses included organizing data into data themes and triangulating data themes, using principal background, principal professional/cultural beliefs and practices, school context, teacher data, and archival data. Conclusions confirm the need to conduct research to document and define the performances for professionally/culturally/linguistically responsive principal models and their effect on student performance in historically failing schools. In addition, policymakers need to consider the organizational contexts of professional/culturally/linguistically responsive leadership and teaching models as turnaround school models.     

Classroom Quality and Academic School Readiness Outcomes in Head Start: The Indirect Effect of Approaches to Learning

This study used the FACES 2009 dataset to examine the possibility of an indirect effect of classroom quality on academic school readiness through teacher-rated approaches to learning in a large nationally representative sample of children served by Head Start. Research indings: Classroom quality did not directly predict gains in academic school readiness across the Head Start school year (β = -0.009, p = .844). However, classroom quality did predict gains in teacher-rated approaches to learning (β = 0.151, p = .040), which in turn predicted gains in academic school readiness (β = 0.105, p < .001), and there was a significant indirect effect of classroom quality on academic school readiness through approaches to learning (β = 0.016, p = .049). Although associations were generally small, this pattern of results suggests that approaches to learning may facilitate the relationships between classroom quality and academic school readiness. Practice or Policy: Educators should make targeted efforts to boost children’s approaches to learning as it may represent an important lever for academic success. In a society increasingly focused on high-stakes testing, we must not lose sight of the importance of domain-general skills that can help children achieve school and life success.     

Active teaching to manage course difficulty and learning motivation

Given the recent reported common occurrence of mediocre or substandard academic performance by students in colleges and universities, it has become essential to identify pedagogical factors that might lessen or reverse this trend. Kolb’s experiential learning, Pintrich’s student learning motivation, and cognitive load theories were used as a framework to assess active teaching moderation of the effects of course difficulty on course performance and learning motivation. Hierarchical ordinary least squares (OLS) regression was used to analyse the data. Research subjects were recruited from a medium-sized historically Black college and university (HBCU) students enrolled in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and Business (i.e. management, economics, or accounting) classes. Active teaching was a positive predictor of course grade and learning motivation. Course difficulty was a negative predictor of course grade. Interaction analysis revealed that increases in active teaching reduced (i.e. moderated) the negative relationship between course difficulty on both course grade and learning motivation. Overall, the findings suggest that student learning outcomes are certainly a function of pedagogy (e.g. active teaching), psychological/affective (e.g. learning motivation), and learning content complexity. Active teaching environments should (1) address both cognitive load and emotional responses attributed to difficult coursework, and (2) provide efficacy building opportunities during instructional delivery.     

The desire to emulate parental emotional strategies and its relation to emotion dysregulation among emerging adults

Emotion regulation (ER) is an integral aspect of emerging adults’ mental health, yet little is known about interpersonal factors that influence ER in during this period. This investigation examines emerging adults’ desire to emulate parental ER skills in the relation between perceived parental ER and emerging adults’ emotion dysregulation.A sample of 79 emerging adults (M_age = 18.55 years, SD = .32; 88.6% female, 69.6% White) completed measures of perceived parental ER (Affective Style Questionnaire [ASQ]Hofmann and Kashdan 2010), emotion dysregulation (Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale [DERS]Gratz and Roemer 2004), and desire to emulate parental ER (Perception of Emotion Regulation Scale [PERS]).A desire to emulate parental ER skills moderated the relationship between perceived parental ER and emerging adults’ emotion dysregulation in general (B = -.10, SE = .048, t = ?2.07, p = .043), and low emotional awareness in particular (B = -.04 SE = .02, t = ?2.47, p = .02).Findings suggest that emerging adults with an increased desire to emulate parents with lower ER skills report greater emotion dysregulation. Implications for clinical practice, along with future directions for the field of ER, are discussed.