The other of myself: representations of portuguese teachers about intercultural education related concepts

Having into consideration that we live in a multicultural society, it is important to analyse how far people view and accept each other. Therefore, one should reflect upon concepts such as: representations and stereotypes, because they are interpersonal constructs which are (re)built during the interaction of different sociocultural groups. In this study, we focus our attention on the representations a sociocultural group – Portuguese teachers - has of intercultural education and the role of teachers and educators in the promotion of an intercultural approach at school. We believe that teachers have the responsibility to: find out the representations students have of the Other; reconfigure stereotyped representations; and create representations which favor dialogue and relationship with the Other flourish. Following a sociolinguistic approach (Müller, 1998; Vasseur, 2001; Vasseur & Hudelot, 1998), which is related to the construction and diffusion of representations in discourse, we analyse the discourse of teachers during a workshop called ‘The Other and Myself’, in which they build and discuss about a didactic mask that portrays their own vision of both themselves and their ideas of intercultural education.

Future Selves: Career choices of young disabled people

There is growing recognition that gaining the views of young people is crucial for understanding issues that affect their lives. However, to date, very little is known about the way in which disabled children, make sense of their identities, and create a sense of their past and their imagined futures over time. This three year study, funded by the European Social Fund, and conducted by Dr Sonali Shah and colleagues at the University of Nottingham, used various methods to explore how physically disabled students, in full-time special or mainstream education, make choices concerning their occupational futures. It identified the factors that shape their educational and career related choices and chances, and explored how social relations, social processes, and social policies influenced the extent to which their aspirations were achieved. This study presents disabled children and young people as critical social actors who are telling their own stories of how social structures and processes shape their choices and aspirations for their future selves. It illustrates the importance of consulting children and young people about issues concerning their lives, and not rely solely on adults’ conceptions of childhood. The young disabled people’s experiences and views can be used to develop a new flexible system which offers the benefits of mainstream and special education, and facilitates young disabled people’s self-determination to make choices to participate in and contribute to their independent futures.

Semen profiles of young men involved as bicycle taxi cyclists in Mangochi District, Malawi: A case-control study

Aim The purpose of this study was to evaluate the semen profiles of bicycle taxi cyclists and healthy controls in Mangochi district, Malawi. Methods Semen samples were collected from young bicycle taxi cyclists after two to three days of sexual abstinence. A control group, comprising young men who were not bicycle taxi operators also submitted semen samples. Samples were left to liquefy for 30 minutes before measurements were conducted of volume, concentration, total motility, and progressive motility. This was followed by preparation of morphology slides. Light microscopy was used for sperm analysis. Results Semen parameters such as volume (1.66 ± 0.18 mL vs. 3.64 ± 0.17 mL; p = 0.0001), concentration (28.31 ± 4.33 x 106/mL vs. 54.95 ± 5.93 x 106/ mL; p = 0.02) , total motility (56.98% ± 8.22% vs. 56.98% ± 8.22%; p = 0.03), progressive motility (22.57% ± 3.35% vs. 59.69% ± 4.82%; p = 0.004), and morphology (6.98% ± 3.23% vs. 19.73% ± 2.32%; p = 0.006) were significantly reduced in the bicycle taxi cyclists compared to the healthy controls. Conclusion In this case-control study, bicycle taxi operators had lower semen volume, concentration, total motility, and progressive motility, as well as a higher concentration of abnormally shaped spermatocytes, compared to healthy controls.

Compliance in food consumption of young and long-lived elderly of a city in southern Brazil

Introduction: Life expectancy is increasing and becoming a characteristic phenomenon of developed countries and, increasingly, of developing countries, such as Brazil. The aging process causes changes of some physiological functions such as loss of smell, taste, loss of appetite, among other things that end up changing the food intake of these individuals. Objectives: This study aimed to assess food consumption of the young and long-lived elderly in a city in southern Brazil. Methods: A cross-sectional survey conducted through home visits in Palmeira das Missões - RS, Brazil. The sociodemographic, anthropometrical and dietary data were collected through questionnaires and 24-hour recall. The adequacy of nutrients was assessed according to the Dietary Reference Intakes. Data were analyzed using SPSS 18.0 software. Results: The study included 424 older adults, 84,4% (n = 358) aged less than 80 years old and 15,6% (n = 66) older than 80. The intake of energy and protein was insufficient for both young elderly and the oldest. The consumption of vitamins and minerals has been insufficient in all seniors except for iron, which presented an excessive intake. There was a statistically significant difference between the elderly and oldest only for the consumption of lipids and vitamin B12. Conclusion: The majority of studies with elderly corroborate the results found in this article. An inadequate intake of nutrients can develop nutritional deficiencies, and consequently it can result in physiological and pathological changes which would compromise the functional capacity of the elderly. Energy consumption was insufficient and macronutrients were inadequate, both for the young elderly as for the oldest. Additionally, the consumption of vitamins and minerals was insufficient to everyone except the iron, which presented excessive intake for young and oldest elderly.

Transition into adulthood : the impact of the great recession in schooling and financial choices of young adults

Mestrado em Finanças

The Role of EFL Teachers in the ESL Setting

Se describen las acciones que los profesionales de la enseñanza del inglés como lengua extranjera deben llevar a cabo al trasladarse a un contexto en el que se aprende el idioma como segunda lengua. Se subraya la función de esos profesionales como defensores y tutores de estudiantes con diversidad cultural y lingüística. Asimismo, se señalan los importantes aspectos portener en cuenta para cumplir con esa función.A description is provided of the challenges that English as a Foreign Language teaching professionals face when being relocated to an English as a Second Language setting. Language teaching professionals' role as advocates and educational parents to Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CLD) students is highlighted. The most important aspects to take into account to fulfill such a role are also presented.

School success stories of young men at risk

This paper arises from the concern about school inequality. This is a topic that uses to concern European organizations. Education is one of the five key goals of the “European Strategy 2020” to achieve economic growth, to combat social inequality and build a socially and economically strong Europe. This concern is also shared by international organisations such as the OECD, the World Bank and the UNESCO which, together with the European Union have become political agents that exercise their influence on national policies.

'Smart' technologies in early years literacy education. A game changer: mobile touchscreen devices and the education of young children

Professors Julianne Lynch and Terri Redpath discuss their article published in the Journal of Early Childhood Literacy entitled "Smart Technologies in Early Years Literacy Education".

Training of interval type-2 fuzzy logic system using extreme learning machine for load forecasting

Extreme learning machine (ELM) is originally proposed for single- hidden layer feed-forward neural networks (SLFN). From the functional equivalence of fuzzy logic systems and SLFN, the fuzzy logic systems can be interpreted as a special case of SLFN under some mild conditions. Hence the fuzzy logic systems can be trained using SLFN's learning algorithms. Considering the same equivalence, ELM is utilized here to train interval type-2 fuzzy logic systems (IT2FLSs). Based on the working principle of the ELM, the parameters of the antecedent of IT2FLSs are randomly generated while the consequent part of IT2FLSs is optimized using Moore-Penrose generalized inverse of ELM. Application of the developed model to electricity load forecasting is another novelty of the research work. Experimental results shows better forecasting performance of the proposed model over the two frequently used forecasting models.

Enriching understanding of young adult voter decision-making in the Australian compulsory voting context

This thesis has provided insight into considering how the consumer behaviour theoretical concept of usage impacts on lower-involvement young adult voter decision-making within the Australian compulsory voting context. This differentiated replication of previous research extends the range of results under which decision-making factors hold in voter behaviour.

Lessons learnt from dancing the data : performed research of beginning teachers' experiences

This paper discusses the power of performed research. Such power lies in assisting to research the whole human – thought, action, and emotion. The paper discusses the potential for research through the arts in the development of creativity and imagination, to facilitate social change, and to explore performance as a research process as well as an end result that presents findings. The experiences of Bagley and Cancienne (2001); (2002) guided the creation of the work, and assist to frame this paper. The dance work discussed in this paper is a recent addition to the performed research work ‘The First Time’. The dance work was crafted to bring together the comparable experiences of first year teacher participants, and similarities among the findings of research into their identity. The creation of ‘The First Time’ was employed as a tool to understand and analyse the data. The dance work was employed to highlight findings regarding beginning teachers’ transition to teaching. This paper explores the process of creating and presenting arts-based research to expand the avenues through which the results of research are made available to a relevant audience; of how this method might broaden and complement traditional ways of thinking about and doing educational research.

The influence of sex, temperament, risk-taking and mental health on the emergence of gambling: a longitudinal study of young people

There are a host of complex and interlinked psychological, social and biological factors involved in the development of problem gambling (PG). While existing research, which is predominantly cross-sectional, shows that emerging adulthood is a critical period for PG, the early risk factors for PG are currently unknown. Here, we recruited a sample of 156 early adolescents with no history of PG (mean age 12.6 years) and longitudinally followed them up into late adolescence (mean age 18.9 years) to investigate the role of sex, risk-taking behaviour and changes in temperament and psychiatric symptoms in the evolution of risky gambling behaviour. There were sex-independent effects of temperament and risk-taking behaviour, with greater developmental increases in temperamental frustration (i.e. negative affectivity), greater developmental decreases in temperamental attention (i.e. effortful control) and greater involvement in risky behaviours, such as alcohol use, predicting greater likelihood of being in the risky gambling group. In addition, there were sex-dependent effects whereby higher levels of baseline aggression in females and lower levels of the same in males were more predictive of risky gambling. These findings highlight how sex-dependent and independent factors across the early- to mid-adolescent period influence the occurrence of gambling later in life.

Measuring the accuracy of self-reported height and weight in a community-based sample of young people

BACKGROUND: Self-reported anthropometric data are commonly used to estimate prevalence of obesity in population and community-based studies. We aim to: 1) Determine whether survey participants are able and willing to self-report height and weight; 2) Assess the accuracy of self-reported compared to measured anthropometric data in a community-based sample of young people.

METHODS: Participants (16-29 years) of a behaviour survey, recruited at a Melbourne music festival (January 2011), were asked to self-report height and weight; researchers independently weighed and measured a sub-sample. Body Mass Index was calculated and overweight/obesity classified as ≥25 kg/m². Differences between measured and self-reported values were assessed using paired t-test/Wilcoxon signed ranks test. Accurate report of height and weight were defined as <2 cm and <2 kg difference between self-report and measured values, respectively. Agreement between classification of overweight/obesity by self-report and measured values was assessed using McNemar's test.

RESULTS: Of 1405 survey participants, 82% of males and 72% of females self-reported their height and weight. Among 67 participants who were also independently measured, self-reported height and weight were significantly less than measured height (p=0.01) and weight (p<0.01) among females, but no differences were detected among males. Overall, 52% accurately self-reported height, 30% under-reported, and 18% over-reported; 34% accurately self-reported weight, 52% under-reported and 13% over-reported. More females (70%) than males (35%) under-reported weight (p=0.01). Prevalence of overweight/obesity was 33% based on self-report data and 39% based on measured data (p=0.16).

CONCLUSIONS: Self-reported measurements may underestimate weight but accurately identified overweight/obesity in the majority of this sample of young people.