Reading between Librarians’ lines

It is a well known fact that librarians, as professionals go, are not among the world's most demonstrative people. I can say that with impunity because I am one. It's one thing for a man to slight his own profession; quite another when someone else presumes to do it. But given that librarians are a placid sort, just mention the phrase "intellectual freedom," or utter the word "censorship," and the usually calm demeanor of the librarian becomes as agitated as the water between Charybdis and Scylla! This article addresses three aspects of the issue of intellectual freedom and attempts to define the difference between the phrases "free speech" and "free expression." First to be explored will be the nature of intellectual freedom as defined by the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Manual; second, the underlying philosophy implicit in that expression; and third, an alternative to both the manual, and its philosophical presuppositions.

Reading at Risk

Reading may be in jeopardy as we advance along the information superhighway. Is literacy to be technology's first roadkill?

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.

The relationship between school violence and student proficiency

School violence has recently become a central concern among teachers, students, students' parents and policymakers. Violence can induce behaviors on educational agents that go against the goals of improving the quality of education and increasing school attendance. In fact, there is evidence that school environmental characteristics and student performance and behavior at school are related. Although school violence may have a direct impact on students’ performance, such impact has not yet been quantified. In this paper, we investigate this issue using Brazilian data and show that, on average, students who attended more violent schools had worse proficiency on a centralized test carried out by the Brazilian Ministry of Education, even when we controlled for school, class, teachers and student characteristics. We also show that school violence affects more the students from the bottom of the proficiency distribution. Furthermore, we find out that besides the direct effect on student proficiency, it seems that school violence has an indirect effect on it operating through teacher turnover. Indeed, we show that the occurrence of violent episodes in a school decreases the probability of a class in that school having only one teacher during the academic year, and increases the probability of that class having more than one teacher (teacher turnover).

Fragmented messages : a reading of L.P. Hartley's novel The go-between

A intenção deste trabalho é efetuar uma leitura do romance O Mensageiro, do autor inglês L.P. Hartley, na forma de uma jornada ao país estrangeiro do passado do protagonista-narrador. Tal leitura é uma espécie de convite aceito para a viagem, que esteticamente deixa sugestões sob a forma de truques, fragmentos de mensagens veladas, expressões ambíguas, sombras, vazios no caminho. Todavia, Mercúrio, o mensageiro dos antigos deuses, o protetor dos viajantes, o trapaceiro, é agora um ser indistinto, cuja imagem e função passou por grandes transformações ao longo da viagem até a modernidade. Guerras, restos de experiências traumáticas coletivas e pessoais são recuperadas na rota movediça do narrador melancólico, sob a forma de substância própria para a narração. Nietzsche e Walter Benjamin são companheiros na trajetória, provendo o suporte teórico básico para a viagem.

Affirmative action in college admission and the proficiency of high school students

Economic theory suggests that a¢ rmative action can either reduce or enhance incentives to invest in human capital. Empirical evidence on this matter, however, is still lacking. Using di¤erence in di¤er- ence estimates, this paper evaluates the e¤ects of the quota system in the admission to Brazilian public universities on the pro ciency of high school students. Our ndings show that favored groups attained lower scores, suggesting a negative link between a¢ rmative action and incentives for e¤ort and skill acquisition.

The Magic Of Reading

Trilha componente do jogo “Armas e Barões (http://www.loa.sead.ufscar.br/armasebaroes.html)” desenvolvido pela equipe do Laboratório de Objetos de Aprendizagem da Universidade Federal de São Carlos (LOA/UFSCar).

Reading comprehension in primary school: textbooks, curriculum and assessment

This study describes the reading comprehension processes present in the most widely sold textbooks at the fourth grade level in Portugal and discusses how they compare to international assessments of reading literacy. We adopted the Progress of International Reading Literacy Study framework to categorize the questions in the textbooks. Our analyses revealed that they focus heavily on the retrieval of explicitly stated information to the detriment of higher level comprehension skills. Portuguese fourth grade textbooks rarely challenge students to make connections between their knowledge and the ideas in the texts and to adopt a critical and evaluative reading stance. This is in sharp contrast to what students are asked to do in the Progress of International Reading Literacy Study, conducted every five years since 2001, and it may help explain the poor results Portuguese students have in national assessment and in PISA. The findings are discussed in light of the curriculum frameworks currently adopted in Portugal and suggestions are made as to how we can improve reading literacy achievement.