Comics as a literary-didactic method and their use for reducing gender differences in reading literacy at the primary level of education

The aim of the present study was to examine the effect of the systematic use of comics as a literary-didactic method to reduce gender differences in reading literacy and reading motivation at the primary level of education. It was assumed that the use of comics would have a positive effect on pupils’ reading literacy and reading motivation, while also reducing the aforementioned differences between boys and girls. The dimensions of reading literacy and reading motivation were examined in experimental and control groups, before and after the intervention, by means of questionnaires and tests for pupils. The sample consisted of 143 pupils from second to fifth grade from two Slovenian primary schools in a rural environment, of which 73 pupils participated in the experimental group and 70 pupils represented the control group. Effects of the use of comics as a literary-didactic method were not found: using comics as a literary-didactic method did not have a statistically significant effect on pupils’ reading literacy and reading motivation. However, when the four-way structure of the research (taking into account the age and gender of the pupils) was considered, some subgroups showed a statistically significant increase in reading interest and attitude towards reading. No reduction of gender differences in reading literacy and reading motivation was found. Based on the results, guidelines for further research are established and suggestions are offered for teachers’ work. (DIPF/Orig.)

No right to sext? A critical examination of media and legal debates about teenage girls' sexual agency in the digital age

Advances in digital photography and distribution technologies enable many people to produce and distribute images of their sex acts. When teenagers do this, the photos and videos they create can be legally classified as child pornography since the law makes no exception for youth who create sexually explicit images of themselves. The dominant discussions about teenage girls producing sexually explicit media (including sexting) are profoundly unproductive: (1) they blame teenage girls for creating private images that another person later maliciously distributed and (2) they fail to respect—or even discuss—teenagers’ rights to freedom of expression. Cell phones and the internet make producing and distributing images extremely easy, which provide widely accessible venues for both consensual sexual expression between partners and for sexual harassment. Dominant understandings view sexting as a troubling teenage trend created through the combination of camera phones and adolescent hormones and impulsivity, but this view often conflates consensual sexting between partners with the malicious distribution of a person’s private image as essentially equivalent behaviors. In this project, I ask: What is the role of assumptions about teen girls’ sexual agency in these problematic understandings of sexting that blame victims and deny teenagers’ rights? In contrast to the popular media panic about online predators and the familiar accusation that youth are wasting their leisure time by using digital media, some people champion the internet as a democratic space that offers young people the opportunity to explore identities and develop social and communication skills. Yet, when teen girls’ sexuality enters this conversation, all this debate and discussion narrows to a problematic consensus. The optimists about adolescents and technology fall silent, and the argument that media production is inherently empowering for girls does not seem to apply to a girl who produces a sexually explicit image of herself. Instead, feminist, popular, and legal commentaries assert that she is necessarily a victim: of a “sexualized” mass media, pressure from her male peers, digital technology, her brain structures or hormones, or her own low self-esteem and misplaced desire for attention. Why and how are teenage girls’ sexual choices produced as evidence of their failure or success in achieving Western liberal ideals of self-esteem, resistance, and agency? Since mass media and policy reactions to sexting have so far been overwhelmingly sexist and counter-productive, it is crucial to interrogate the concepts and assumptions that characterize mainstream understandings of sexting. I argue that the common sense that is co-produced by law and mass media underlies the problematic legal and policy responses to sexting. Analyzing a range of nonfiction texts including newspaper articles, talk shows, press releases, public service announcements, websites, legislative debates, and legal documents, I investigate gendered, racialized, age-based, and technologically determinist common sense assumptions about teenage girls’ sexual agency. I examine the consensus and continuities that exist between news, nonfiction mass media, policy, institutions, and law, and describe the limits of their debates. I find that this early 21st century post-feminist girl-power moment not only demands that girls live up to gendered sexual ideals but also insists that actively choosing to follow these norms is the only way to exercise sexual agency. This is the first study to date examining the relationship of conventional wisdom about digital media and teenage girls’ sexuality to both policy and mass media.

Transição da escola regular para um centro de reabilitação

Projeto de investigação apresentado à Escola Superior de Educação de Paula Frassinetti

Statistical forecasting of the Australian macadamia crop

Three types of forecasts of the total Australian production of macadamia nuts (t nut-in-shell) have been produced early each year since 2001. The first is a long-term forecast, based on the expected production from the tree census data held by the Australian Macadamia Society, suitably scaled up for missing data and assumed new plantings each year. These long-term forecasts range out to 10 years in the future, and form a basis for industry and market planning. Secondly, a statistical adjustment (termed the climate-adjusted forecast) is made annually for the coming crop. As the name suggests, climatic influences are the dominant factors in this adjustment process, however, other terms such as bienniality of bearing, prices and orchard aging are also incorporated. Thirdly, industry personnel are surveyed early each year, with their estimates integrated into a growers and pest-scouts forecast. Initially conducted on a 'whole-country' basis, these models are now constructed separately for the six main production regions of Australia, with these being combined for national totals. Ensembles or suites of step-forward regression models using biologically-relevant variables have been the major statistical method adopted, however, developing methodologies such as nearest-neighbour techniques, general additive models and random forests are continually being evaluated in parallel. The overall error rates average 14% for the climate forecasts, and 12% for the growers' forecasts. These compare with 7.8% for USDA almond forecasts (based on extensive early-crop sampling) and 6.8% for coconut forecasts in Sri Lanka. However, our somewhatdisappointing results were mainly due to a series of poor crops attributed to human reasons, which have now been factored into the models. Notably, the 2012 and 2013 forecasts averaged 7.8 and 4.9% errors, respectively. Future models should also show continuing improvement, as more data-years become available.

Um caso pediátrico de tuberculose miliar: achados raros e evolução atípica

Introdução: A tuberculose miliar resulta da disseminação linfohematogénica do Mycobacterium tuberculosis, sendo uma manifestação grave da infeção. Caso clínico: Criança de 9 anos, género feminino, com his¬tória de febre prolongada. O diagnóstico de tuberculose miliar foi colocado após telerradiografia torácica com infiltrado reticu¬lonodular difuso bilateral, e corroborado pelo achado de tubér¬culos coroideus no olho direito e visualização de bacilos álcool¬ ¬ácido resistentes em amostra de suco gástrico. Detetaram¬-se tuberculomas cerebrais na ressonância magnética. Isolou¬se Mycobacterium tuberculosis multissensível em amostras de suco gástrico. Após mais de 40 dias de tratamento, persistia a febre e baciloscopia positiva. Foi excluída infeção pelo vírus da imunodeficiência humana. Não foram detetadas complicações. Posteriormente, a evolução clínica foi favorável. Discussão/Conclusão: A tuberculose mantém-¬se um diag¬nóstico relevante na criança com febre prolongada. A associa¬ção da imagem torácica, baciloscopias positivas e tubérculos coroideus foram fundamentais para a celeridade do diagnóstico e implementação do tratamento. Reforça¬-se a importância de manter elevado índice de suspeição para uma patologia que tem tratamento.

Caso imagiológico

Introdução: A tosse constitui um dos principais motivos de consulta médica e, apesar de na maioria dos casos ser de etiologia vírica ou alérgica, por vezes surgem diagnósticos inesperados. Caso Clínico: Criança do sexo feminino, 19 meses, sem antecedentes relevantes. Recorreu ao Serviço de Urgência por tosse produtiva há 3 semanas e rinorreia serosa, sem febre. Noção materna de dificuldade respiratória e recusa alimentar parcial. À admissão, polipneica, com tiragem subcostal e gemido expiratório. Auscultatoriamente, murmúrio vesicular globalmente diminuído, tempo expiratório aumentado e sibilos dispersos. Analiticamente sem alterações. A radiografia torácica evidenciou volumosa imagem quística no hemitórax direito. A TC to- rácica documentou estômago intratorácico. Foi submetida a laparoscopia que constatou hérnia do hiato paraesofágica. Após Fundoplicatura de Nissen ficou assintomática. Discussão: A hérnia do hiato é rara em idade Pediátrica, tendo sido um achado inesperado no caso clínico descrito. Consideramos assim que, apesar da sua raridade, as anomalias anatómicas devem ser consideradas no diagnóstico diferencial da tosse persistente.

The Way We Mourned

The five short stories in this collection illustrate the insistence of the imagination in a foreign country. The protagonists deal with loss and exile of the human spirit, as well as language. In “View of the Taft Bridge”, a Chinese painter befriends a panda in the National Zoo in America’s capital. In “Early June before the Millennium”, an illicit student and teacher relationship unveils a painful history of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. An adopted teenager finds her life unraveled at the presence of a new tenant who shares her ethnicity in “Girl in the Basement”. And the inertia of a housewife drives her desire to become a house cat, in “Catwoman”, until dream and reality become interchangeable. In “The Way We Mourned”, betrayal and memorial are closely knit in the wake of a close friend’s death. These stories search for connections to bridge “self” and “other”, as well as one’s present with a haunting past.

Estudo dos sonhos de duas crianças cegas congenitas – a visão e os outros sentidos

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada no Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada para obtenção de grau de Mestre na especialidade de Psicologia Clínica

Age and gender differences in the relation between self-concept facets and self-esteem

This study tested whether the gender intensification hypothesis applies to relations between multiple domain-specific self-concept facets and self-esteem. This hypothesis predicts gender-stereotypic differences in these relations and assumes they intensify with age. Furthermore, knowledge about gender-related or age-related differences in self-concept-self-esteem relations might provide valuable knowledge for designing effective self-esteem enhancement interventions. We investigated grade and gender differences in the relations between domain-specific self-concept facets and self-esteem within a sample of 1958 German students in Grades 3 to 6. Results indicated no difference in the self-concept - self-esteem relations between the subsamples of third and fourth graders and fifth and sixth graders or between boys and girls. These relations also did not differ between boys and girls in the subsamples of third and fourth graders and fifth and sixth graders. These results suggest self-concept-self-esteem relations to be invariant across grade levels and gender and thus did not support the gender intensification hypothesis.

Girls’ education in Djibouti: an holistic approach in response to the ideolog y of development

International audience

Atopic Dermatitis

A 10-year-old girl with atopic dermatitis reports itching that has recently become relentless, resulting in sleep loss. Her mother has been reluctant to treat the girl with topical corticosteroids, because she was told that they damage the skin, but she is exhausted and wants relief for her child. How should the problem be managed?

Gleichermaßen auf das Leben vorbereitet? Ergebnisse der Jugendstudie AIDA

In [diesem] Beitrag stellen die Autoren ausgewählte Ergebnisse der Berliner Längsschnittstudie AIDA (Adaptation in der Adoleszenz) vor und knüpfen dabei an die Frage "Equally prepared for life?" an, die die OECD (2009) im Rahmen einer Re-Analyse von PISA-Daten stellte und mit Blick auf die Leistungsunterschiede in Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften mit einem "Nein" beantwortet wurde. Denn: Weibliche Jugendliche berichten über mehr Angst im Fach Mathematik, haben weniger Selbstvertrauen, spezifische mathematische Probleme lösen zu können, und neigen dazu, ihre Leistungsfähigkeit zu unterschätzen. Der internationale Vergleich verdeutlicht, dass diese Geschlechterunterschiede in Deutschland größer sind als in den meisten OECD-Ländern. Die AIDA-Studie erlaubt es, auch in weiteren nichtkognitiven Persönlichkeitsmerkmalen nach bedeutsamen Unterschieden zu fragen. (DIPF/Orig.)

Does gender make a difference? Gender-related fairness of high-stakes testing in A-level examinations in English as foreign language in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia in the context of Educational Governance

The shift from decentralized to centralized A-level examinations (Abitur) was implemented in the German school system as a measure of Educational Governance in the last decade. This reform was mainly introduced with the intention of providing higher comparability of school examinations and student achievement as well as increasing fairness in school examinations. It is not known yet if these ambitious aims and functions of the new centralized examination format have been achieved and if fairer assessment can be guaranteed in terms of providing all students with the same opportunities to pass the examinations by allocating fair tests to different student subpopulations e.g., students of different background or gender. The research presented in this article deals with these questions and focuses on gender differences. It investigates gender-specific fairness of the test items in centralized Abitur examinations as high school exit examinations in Germany. The data are drawn from Abitur examinations in English (as a foreign language). Differential item functioning (DIF) analysis reveals that at least some parts of the examinations indicate gender inequality. (DIPF/Orig.)

Governing the transition to higher levels of education and differences between achievement and school grades by gender

The author will explore the performance of boys and girls in external examinations in Slovenia at the beginning of upper secondary and tertiary education. These are critical points in students’ educational career at which he/she has to choose a school/university. Since both transitions are managed centrally by appropriate authorities, this is also a question of Educational Governance. Transitions between levels of education should, above all, assure fairness in selection procedures. At the point of transition to upper secondary schools we will explore differences between students’ achievements in various school subjects tested at the national assessment of knowledge (NA), and their school grades by gender. Since only school grades are used as admission criteria to upper secondary schools, this comparison of school grades with external and more objective measure of students’ achievement will show possible bias. In Slovenia admission to tertiary education usually consists of (externally assessed) Matura results and school grades in the last two years of upper secondary school. The author will compare the effects of both most commonly used measures of academic achievement on admission in view of gender differences. Study courses where selection procedure was actually applied will be of specific interest since they can show signs of (un)fairness. Results show signs of bias and build case for better Educational Governance. (DIPF/Orig.)

The treatment of oral lesions in Behçet's Syndrome: case report

Behçet's disease (BD) is a multi-systemic vascular disorder characterized by oral and genital ulcers, cutaneous, ocular, arthritic, vascular, central nervous system and gastrointestinal involvement. It usually affects young adults and the etiopathogenesis is unknown. A 21-year-old girl, Caucasian, with diagnostic BD, presented with rheumatoid arthritis, genital lesions and multiple recurrent ulcers inside the mouth, with an erythematous halo, covered by yellowish exudates exacerbated during menstrual periods, and in situations of stress and anxiety. The application of low power laser in ulcers was considered in order to decrease the inflammatory symptoms and pain, beyond getting the healing process accelerated. The proposed therapy was able to promote pain relief, increase local microcirculation and repair ulcerated lesions, eliminating the need for administration of systemic or topical medications, leading to improved quality of life.