Experiences with cultural capital in education : exploring the educational life stories of first-generation postsecondary students

This study used a life history research design to explore first-generation university students' educational life stories and experiences with cultural capital. The project sought to examine how 3 first-generation university students experience cultural capital that is privileged in Ontario's education system and how the interactions between capital acquired through experiences within the home and school and capital privileged by the education system affect these students' educational experiences and perceptions. Using Pierre Bourdieu's (1984; 1986) theory of cultural capital as a framework, 3 firstgeneration, first-year university students participated in two 1- to 2-hour interviews. A focus on each participant's experiences with culture, capital, and education revealed themes corresponding to navigating, utilizing, and confronting familial, institutional, economic, and embodied forms of cultural capital. The study highlights the importance of recognizing how cultural capital influences the education system and how firstgeneration students can recreate normative pathways and achieve academic success despite challenges posed by the cultural capital privileged within the education system. Given cultural capital's effect on academic success, understanding first-generation students' educational life stories sheds light on the complex challenges facing students who confront and deal with privileged culture in the education system.

Progressive French Reader First year

UANL

A survey of First Year Students on Arrival

Used to make students aware of the demographics of their cohort - and trends from previous years.

First Year Activities - preparing your CV

Notes, slides and activities which students can use/refer to when developing their CV. This is pitched at entry level students, but may be useful to students at all levels for general reference.

Development and/or change of the notion of permanent object and operative causality: empirical evidence in the first year of life

This study examines the notion of permanent object during the first year of life, taking into account the controversy of two approaches about the nature of change: developmental change and cognitive change. Using a longitudinal/cross-sectional design, tasks adapted of the subscale of permanent object and operative causality of the Uzgiris-Hunt Scale (Uzgiris and Hunt, 1975) (Uzgiris & Hunt, 1975) were presented to 110 infants of 0, 3, 6 and 9 months-old, which reside in three cities of Colombia. The results showed three types of strategies: (a) Not resolution; (b) Exploratory and (c) Resolution, which follow different trajectories in children’s performance. This allows affirming that adaptive conquests of the cognitive development stay together with the variety of strategies. Using strategies reveals adjustments and transformations of action programs that consolidate the notion of permanent object not necessarily with age, but with self-regulatory processes. Empirical evidence contributes to the understanding of the relations between the emergence of novelty in the development and performance variability

Learning Patterns of First Year Students

Resumen basado en el de la publicación.

First year students??? construction of an academic identity in English as a foreign language

Resumen basado en el de la publicaci??n

Factors mediating the routinisation of e-learning within a traditional university education environment

Technology-enhanced or Computer Aided Learning (e-learning) can be institutionally integrated and supported by learning management systems or Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) to offer efficiency gains, effectiveness and scalability of the e-leaning paradigm. However this can only be achieved through integration of pedagogically intelligent approaches and lesson preparation tools environment and VLE that is well accepted by both the students and teachers. This paper critically explores some of the issues relevant to scalable routinisation of e-learning at the tertiary level, typically first year university undergraduates, with the teaching of Relational Data Analysis (RDA), as supported by multimedia authoring, as a case study. The paper concludes that blended learning approaches which balance the deployment of e-learning with other modalities of learning delivery such as instructor–mediated group learning etc offer the most flexible and scalable route to e-learning but that this requires the graceful integration of platforms for multimedia production, distribution and delivery through advanced interactive spaces that provoke learner engagement and promote learning autonomy and group learning facilitated by a cooperative-creative learning environment that remains open to personal exploration of constructivist-constructionist pathways to learning.

A model of the three-dimensional evolution of Arctic melt ponds on first-year and multiyear sea ice

During winter the ocean surface in polar regions freezes over to form sea ice. In the summer the upper layers of sea ice and snow melts producing meltwater that accumulates in Arctic melt ponds on the surface of sea ice. An accurate estimate of the fraction of the sea ice surface covered in melt ponds is essential for a realistic estimate of the albedo for global climate models. We present a melt-pond–sea-ice model that simulates the three-dimensional evolution of melt ponds on an Arctic sea ice surface. The advancements of this model compared to previous models are the inclusion of snow topography; meltwater transport rates are calculated from hydraulic gradients and ice permeability; and the incorporation of a detailed one-dimensional, thermodynamic radiative balance. Results of model runs simulating first-year and multiyear sea ice are presented. Model results show good agreement with observations, with duration of pond coverage, pond area, and ice ablation comparing well for both the first-year ice and multiyear ice cases. We investigate the sensitivity of the melt pond cover to changes in ice topography, snow topography, and vertical ice permeability. Snow was found to have an important impact mainly at the start of the melt season, whereas initial ice topography strongly controlled pond size and pond fraction throughout the melt season. A reduction in ice permeability allowed surface flooding of relatively flat, first-year ice but had little impact on the pond coverage of rougher, multiyear ice. We discuss our results, including model shortcomings and areas of experimental uncertainty.

Evidence for interplay between genes and parenting on infant temperament in the first year of life: monoamine oxidase A polymorphism moderates effects of maternal sensitivity on infant anger proneness

Background The low expression polymorphism of the MAOA gene in interaction with adverse environments (G × E) is associated with antisocial behaviour disorders. These have their origins in early life, but it is not known whether MAOA G × E occurs in infants. We therefore examined whether MAOA G × E predicts infant anger proneness, a temperamental dimension associated with later antisocial behaviour disorders. In contrast to previous studies, we examined MAOA G × E prospectively using an observational measure of a key aspect of the infant environment, maternal sensitivity, at a specified developmental time point. Methods In a stratified epidemiological cohort recruited during pregnancy, we ascertained MAOA status (low vs. high expression alleles) from the saliva of 193 infants, and examined specific predictions to maternal report of infant temperament at 14 months from maternal sensitivity assessed at 29 weeks of age. Results Analyses, weighted to provide general population estimates, indicated a robust interaction between MAOA status and maternal sensitivity in the prediction of infant anger proneness (p = .003) which became stronger once possible confounders for maternal sensitivity were included in the model (p = .0001). The interaction terms were similar in males (p = .010) and females (p = .016), but the effects were different as a consequence of an additional sex of infant by maternal sensitivity interaction. Conclusions This prospective study provides the first evidence of moderation by the MAOA gene of effects of parenting on infant anger proneness, an important early risk for the development of disruptive and aggressive behaviour disorders.

Predictors of first-year survival in patients with advanced COPD treated using long-term oxygen therapy

Little evidence-based guidance is available to aid clinicians in determining short-term prognoses in very severe COPD patients. Therefore, the present study was designed to provide a prospective assessment (1) of the mortality rates and (2) whether the baseline measurements may be determinants of 1-year mortality in hypoxemic COPD patients receiving long-term oxygen therapy (LTOT).Seventy-eight clinically stable patients with advanced COPD treated using LTOT were enrolled in a prospective cohort study. Outcome variable: first-year mortality. Baseline measurements: categorical variables: age (<60 or >= 60 years); gender; body mass index (<20 or >= 20 kg/m(2)); fat-free mass (FFM) index (<16 [men] and <15kg/m(2) [women]; baseline dyspnea index (BDI) (<= 3 or >3); and corticosteroid use. Continuous variables: smoking history; lung function; FFM; fat mass; hemoglobin; hematocrit; arterial blood gases; forearm muscle strength; St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ); and comorbidity score. By the end of 1-year of follow-up, 12 patients (15.4%) had died. Kaplan-Meier curves showed that BDI <= 3 was the only variable associated with higher mortality. Cox proportional hazards analysis revealed that tower PaO2 and SPO2, higher PaCO2 and SGRQ scores were associated with reduced survival. In the multivariate analysis, BDI remained predictive of mortality (hazard ratio [HR], 0.50; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.31-0.81), as did PaO2 (HR, 0.49; 95% CI, 0.26-0.95). These data suggest that readily available parameters as dyspnea intensity and hypoxemia severity may be useful in predicting first-year survival rates in advanced COPD patients receiving LTOT (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Seasonal metabolic depression, substrate utilisation and changes in scaling patterns during the first year cycle of tegu lizards (Tupinambis merianae)

The tegus increase in body mass after hatching until early autumn, when the energy intake becomes gradually reduced. Resting rates of oxygen consumption in winter drop to 20% of the values in the active season (Vo(2)=0.0636 ml g(-1) h(-1)) and are nearly temperature insensitive over the range of 17-25degreesC (Q(10)=1.55). During dormancy, plasma glucose levels are 60% lower than those in active animals, while total protein, total lipids and beta-hydroxybutyrate are elevated by 24%, 43% and 113%, respectively. In addition, a significant depletion of liver carbohydrate (50%) and of fat deposited in the visceral fat bodies (24%) and in the tail (25%) and a slight loss of skeletal muscle protein (14%) were measured halfway through the inactive period. Otherwise, glycogen content is increased 4-fold in the brain and 2.3-fold in the heart of dormant lizards, declining by the onset of arousal. During early arousal, the young tegus are still anorexic, although Vo(2) is significantly greater than winter rates. The fat deposits analysed are further reduced (62% and 45%, respectively) and there is a large decrease in tail muscle protein (50%) together with a significant increase in glycogen (2-3-fold) and an increase in plasma glucose (40%), which suggests a role for gluconeogenesis as a supplementary energy source in arousing animals. No change is detectable in citrate synthase activity, but beta-hydroxyacyl CoA dehydrogenase activities are strongly affected by season, reaching a Mold and 5-fold increase in the liver tissue of winter and arousing animals, respectively, and becoming reduced by half in skeletal muscle and heart of winter animals compared with late fall or spring active individuals. From hatching to late autumn, the increase of the fat body mass relatively to body mass is disproportionate (b=1.44), and the mass exponent changes significantly to close to 1.0 during the fasting period. The concomitant shift in the Vo(2) mass exponent in early autumn (b=0.75) to values significantly greater than 1.0 in late autumn and during winter dormancy indicates an allometric effect on the degree of metabolic depression related to the size of the fat stores and suggests greater energy conservation in the smaller young.