Literacy Practices in and out of School in Karagwe : The case of primary school literacy education in rural Tanzania

This study has investigated the question of relation between literacy practices in and out of school in rural Tanzania. By using the perspective of linguistic anthropology, literacy practices in five villages in Karagwe district in the northwest of Tanzania have been analysed. The outcome may be used as a basis for educational planning and literacy programs. The analysis has revealed an intimate relation between language, literacy and power. In Karagwe, traditional élites have drawn on literacy to construct and reconstruct their authority, while new élites, such as individual women and some young people have been able to use literacy as one tool to get access to power. The study has also revealed a high level of bilingualism and a high emphasis on education in the area, which prove a potential for future education in the area. At the same time discontinuity in language use, mainly caused by stigmatisation of what is perceived as local and traditional, such as the mother-tongue of the majority of the children, and the high status accrued to all that is perceived as Western, has turned out to constitute a great obstacle for pupils’ learning. The use of ethnographic perspectives has enabled comparisons between interactional patterns in schools and outside school. This has revealed communicative patterns in school that hinder pupils’ learning, while the same patterns in other discourses reinforce learning. By using ethnography, relations between explicit and implicit language ideologies and their impact in educational contexts may be revealed. This knowledge may then be used to make educational plans and literacy programmes more relevant and efficient, not only in poor post-colonial settings such as Tanzania, but also elsewhere, such as in Western settings.

ICT as a tool in English teaching : A literature review on the use of ICT for Swedish students with learning difficulties and their literacy learning in grades 7-9

Information and communication technology (ICT) is a subject that is being discussed as a tool that is used within education around the world. Furthermore it can be seen as a tool for teachers to individualize students´ education. Students with literacy difficulties, such as dyslexia, are in constant need of new ways to learn, and new ways to be motivated to learn. The aim of this study is to see what research says in regard to how ICT can be used as a tool to help students with literacy difficulties. Literacy difficulties can be due to a number of things, such as the student has not been taught how to read, trouble within the family which can cause distress, or a neurological disorder such as dyslexia. Furthermore, the main research questions will focus on how ICT can be compared to traditional education forms, such as books and a more teacher centered education within the classroom, and whether ICT can be preferred. The results of this literature review indicates that ICT can be seen as a way for teachers to help students with literacy difficulties gain more self-esteem – something the literature tells us students with learning difficulties lack. The results also show how ICT can lead to a more individualized education. This is due to tools that increase reading comprehension and tools that give direct response when working with ICT, which helps students work more independently.

Högstadieungdomar skriver historia på bloggen : undervisning, literacy och historiemedvetande i ett nytt medielandskap

The purpose of this thesis is to study the literacy formed when a class blog is used as a tool for students studying history and explore how this particular literacy is used to generate historical knowledge. The study was conducted during the course of a project in which ninth-grade students contributed entries to a common blog in the form of a diary written by individuals who experienced the Second World War. Its three major objectives were to study the students' perception of the blog in relation to their gender and level of historical knowledge; how they and their teacher esta-blished and used the formed literacy; and how the students related to this in the production of historical knowledge. In analyzing the results, a concept of literacy was used based on seven writing practices all linked to the new medium and history education. The study was based on a questionnaire, interviews and various student texts. In order to perform a content analysis on the study results a theoretical frame­work for historical conscious-ness was included. The results show that in using the writing practices a literacy character­ized by colla-borative authorship was formed. The study concludes that this affects both what and how the students learn. Together they show each other that history is comprised of many small stories, not necessarily strictly co­herent with the general history as told by their textbooks. Examining the students’ blog entries made a new learning process visible that enabled the enhancement of their historical consciousness.  

Meeting the Standards: An Analysis of Eight Grade Educational Assesment Test Scores in Maine

This paper examines the impact of socioeconomic factors on eighth grade achievement test scores in the face of federal and state initiatives for educational reform in Maine. We use student-level data over a five year period to provide a framework for understanding the policy implications of these initiatives. We model performance on standardized tests using a seemingly unrelated regressions approach and then determine the likelihood of meeting the standards defined by the adequate yearly progress requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act and Maine Learning Results initiatives. Our results indicate that the key factors influencing a student’s test scores include the education of a student’s parents, special services received for learning disabilities, and alternative measures of academic achievement.

September 2000: Dacus Enjoys Banner Year, Information Literacy, Lifelong Learning

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November 2007: A New Approach to Information Literacy

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Reading Is, Like, You Know, Sooooo Gross!

“Huge Decline in Book Reading” ran one headline. “Cultural Atrophy!” read another. “Study Links Drop in Test Scores to a Decline Spent in Reading” ran one for the “Duh!” award. “Americans are Closing the Book on Reading” said one, vying for the pun-acious trophy.

Changes in test scores distribution for students of the fourth grade in Brazil: a relative distribution analysis for the years 1997 to 2005

To assess the quality of school education, much of educational research is concerned with comparisons of test scores means or medians. In this paper, we shift this focus and explore test scores data by addressing some often neglected questions. In the case of Brazil, the mean of test scores in Math for students of the fourth grade has declined approximately 0,2 standard deviation in the late 1990s. But what about changes in the distribution of scores? It is unclear whether the decline was caused by deterioration in student performance in upper and/or lower tails of the distribution. To answer this question, we propose the use of the relative distribution method developed by Handcock and Morris (1999). The advantage of this methodology is that it compares two distributions of test scores data through a single distribution and synthesizes all the differences between them. Moreover, it is possible to decompose the total difference between two distributions in a level effect (changes in median) and shape effect (changes in shape of the distribution). We find that the decline of average-test scores is mainly caused by a worsening in the position of all students throughout the distribution of scores and is not only specific to any quantile of distribution.

The effects of adult literacy on earnings and employment

This paper provides evidence of the effects of adult literacy on individuals’ income and employability in Brazil based on information obtained from the monthly employment survey (PME). The OLS results indicate that after controlling for observable characteristics, there is a 21.25% increase in wages for individuals who become literate; however, there is no significant impact on employability. Moreover, the findings show an 8.1% increase in the probability of being employed in the formal sector. We also explore the longitudinal structure of the dataset to control for unobservable fixed characteristics of individuals. The fixed-effects estimators show smaller effects compared to the OLS estimators. We find that literacy has a 4.4% effect on wages and a 4.3% impact on the probability of being formally employed. The effects are significantly different from zero.

The impact of daycare attendance on math test scores for a cohort of 4th graders in Brazil

We estimate the impact of having attended center-based daycare institutions during early childhood on Math test scores at the 4th grade of elementary school. Because enrollment in daycare centers may depend on unobservable character-istics of the family and the child, we build and estimate a structural model of endogeneous choice of school to deal with the selectivity problem. We nd that attendance to daycare institutions is associated with a gain of approximately 0,04 standard deviation in Math test scores. This result is important to the extent our OLS results as well as most of the studies for Brazil nd no e¤ect associated to daycare attendance, suggesting selectivity may play a role on this finding.

Does money in schools matter? evaluating the effects of FUNDEF on wages and test scores in Brazil

In this paper we investigate the effects of the 1998 reform in the funding of fundamental education in Brazil (FUNDEF) on the relative wages of public school teachers and on the relative proficiency of public school pupils. The evidence suggests that, on average, FUNDEF raised the public school teachers’ relative wages and improved the relative proficiency of the public school students. Some indirect evidence was presented that showed that the effect of FUNDEF on proficiency seems to be related to its effect on wages and on school characteristics. The effect on proficiency seems to be concentrated in the municipal schools in the Northeast of the country.

Information literacy: uma análise nas bibliotecas escolares da rede privada em Natal / RN

GUEDES, Clediane de Araújo; FARIAS, Gabriela Belmont de. Information literacy: uma análise nas bibliotecas escolares da rede privada em Natal / RN. Revista Digital de Biblioteconomia e Ciência da Informação, Campinas, v. 4, n. 2, p. 110-133, jan./jun. 2007

Estimates of genetic parameters for visual scores and their correlation with production and reproductive traits in Brahman cattle

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Estimates of genetic parameters for visual scores and daily weight gain in Brangus animals

(Co) variance components were estimated for visual scores of conformation (CY), early finishing (PY) and muscling (MY) at 550 days of age (yearling), average daily gain from weaning to yearling (GWY), conformation (CW), early finishing (PW) and muscling (MW) scores at weaning, and average daily gain from birth to weaning (GBW) in animals forming the Brazilian Brangus breed born between 1986 and 2002 from the livestock files of GenSys Consultants Associados S/C Ltda. The data set contained 53 683; 45 136; 52 937; 56 471; 24 531; 21 166; 24 006 and 25 419 records for CW, PW, MW, GBW, CY, PY, MY and GWY, respectively. Data were analyzed by the restricted maximum likelihood method using single-and two-trait animal models. Direct heritability estimates obtained by single-trait analysis were 0.12, 0.14, 0.13 and 0.14 for CY, PY and MY scores and GWY, respectively. A positive association was observed between the same visual scores at weaning and yearling, with correlations ranging from 0.64 to 0.94. Estimated correlations between GBW and weaning and yearling scores ranged from 0.60 to 0.77. The genetic correlation between GBW and GWY was low (0.10), whereas correlations of 0.55, 0.37 and 0.47 were observed between GWY and CY, PY and MY, respectively. Moreover, GWY showed a weak correlation with CW (0.10), PW (-0.08) and MW (-0.03) scores. These results indicate that selection of the traits that was studied would result in a small response. In addition, selection based on average daily gain may have an indirect effect on visual scores as the correlations between GWY and visual scores were generally strong.