Educational Investment, Family Context, and Children’s Math and Reading Growth from Kindergarten through the Third Grade

Drawing on longitudinal data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–1999, this study used IRT modeling to operationalize a measure of parental educational investments based on Lareau’s notion of concerted cultivation. It used multilevel piecewise growth models regressing children’s math and reading achievement from entry into kindergarten through the third grade on concerted cultivation and family context variables. The results indicate that educational investments are an important mediator of socioeconomic and racial/ethnic disparities, completely explaining the black-white reading gap at kindergarten entry and consistently explaining 20 percent to 60 percent and 30 percent to 50 percent of the black-white and Hispanic-white disparities in the growth parameters, respectively, and approximately 20 percent of the socioeconomic gradients. Notably, concerted cultivation played a more significant role in explaining racial/ethnic gaps in achievement than expected from Lareau’s discussion, which suggests that after socioeconomic background is controlled, concerted cultivation should not be implicated in racial/ethnic disparities in learning.

Opening Keynote: History, Politics, and Education: Teaching about Holocaust and Genocide

Format: 5 minute introduction, 20 min per speaker, 30 minute discussion Moderator: Debórah Dwork, Strassler Center, Clark University

When left becomes right and vice versa: mirrored vision after cerebral hypoxia

The combination of acquired mirror writing and reading is an extremely rare neurological disorder. It is encountered when brain damaged patients prefer horizontally mirrored over normal script in writing and reading. Previous theories have related this pathology to a disinhibition of mirrored engrams in the non-dominant hemisphere, possibly accompanied by a reversal of the preferred scanning direction. Here, we report the experimental investigation of PR, a patient who developed pronounced mirror writing and reading following septic shock that caused hypoxic brain damage. A series of five oculomotor experiments revealed that the patient's preferred scanning direction was indeed reversed. However, PR showed striking scanpath abnormalities and mirror reversals that cannot be explained by previous theories. Considered together with mirror phenomena she displayed in neuropsychological tasks and everyday activities, our findings suggest a horizontal reversal of visual information on a perceptual level. In addition, a systematic manipulation of visual variables within two further experiments had dramatic effects on her mirror phenomena. When confronted with moving, flickering or briefly presented stimuli, PR showed hardly any left-right reversals. Not only do these findings underline the perceptual nature of her disorder, but also allow interpretation of the pathology in terms of a dissociation between visual subsystems. We speculate that early visual cortices are crucially involved in this dissociation. More generally, her mirrored vision may represent an extreme clinical manifestation of the relative instability of the horizontal axis in spatial vision.

Pens and Swords: Creative writing and poetry in post-conflict and displacement settings.

An overview of the use of poetry in creative writing and memoir writing in post-conflict contexts and for migrants illustrated with a number of proven activities, in the light of the (alleged) contrast between therapeutic and artistic writing.

Self, writing and feminine transactions in Virginia Woolf's Orlando and Clarice Lispector’s The stream of life

Este artículo realiza un acercamiento a Orlando, de Virginia Woolf, y a Agua viva, de Clarice Lispector, como obras que logran escribir la multiplicidad, la fluidez y la contingencia del ser. Jugando con las convenciones de la biografía y la autobiografía respectivamente, estas obras encuentran los medios para presentar un sujeto multidimensional y para mostrar, en particular, cómo la dimensión relacional, forjada por un orden simbólico patriarcal, ha hecho de la mujer el “otro" del hombre; un “otro" que debe ser dominado. Se exploran en este artículo los conceptos de “economía masculina" y “economía femenina" teorizados por Hélène Cixous y se propone al lenguaje poético como un medio capaz de eludir los dictados del falocentrismo. Lo poético, que no puede ser nunca agotado por uno o varios sistemas de significación, brinda la posibilidad de ir más allá de las categorizaciones y de explorar la multiplicidad. Tanto Orlando como Agua viva muestran las estrategias y las esperanzas de personajes y escritoras que ven en el lenguaje poético, en la “escritura femenina" como la entiende Cixous, el potencial de desarticular la “economía masculina" y abrir un nuevo espacio para sujetos diversos, múltiples y complejos.

Soft Skills: A Comparative Analysis Between Online and Classroom Teaching

Currently the Spanish universities are making a great effort to effectively incorporate the development and assessment of generic skills in their training programs. Information and communications technologies (ICT) offer a wide range of possibilities but create uncertainty among teachers about the process and results. It is considered of interest to conduct a study to analyze the extent to which social skills like commitment, communication and teamwork are acquired by students and teachers. It seeks to ascertain the influence of the learning context, online or classroom training, in the development of these personal skills among the participants in the sample. For this study two universities have been chosen, Universidad a Distancia de Madrid (UDIMA) offering online training environment, and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) with classroom training modality. A total of 257 individuals, 230 students and 27 teachers have answered the survey called Evalsoft. This instrument was designed in the project with the same name by a research team from Universidad Complutense of Madrid (UCM). Some interesting conclusions can be highlighted: it is in the online context where there are higher levels of commitment and teamwork than in the classroom modality; teachers have higher social skills that students and these improve with age. Sex and the training program appear to influence these social skills.

Eits: Combinatorics, Potential and Genre

Eits is a work of fiction, a non-traditional novel whose structure is largely determined by an Oulipian-style constraint. The constraint in Eits is culled from the album names and song titles of the band Explosions in the Sky. Each album corresponds to a chapter in the novel, and the language of each album title must be used in some way as an introduction to each chapter. Within each chapter (album), song titles correspond to numbered sections where each title must appear as is in the first sentence of that section. This not only dictates, to some degree, the direction of the text that will follow, but, looking ahead, the title of the next section will dictate where this section must arrive. From this, a narrative naturally takes shape. Albums/chapters appear chronologically, according to each album's release date, and within each album/chapter, songs/sections appear in the order they do on the album. This is, perhaps, the most straightforward way of ordering the received language of the constraint, the possibilities beyond this exponential. Eits is a novel that shifts in form, providing a texture to the space and reading experience of the novel, all in hopes of creating a space in which content and form inform and push each other to new limits. Eits is never satisfied to settle on one form for too long, and it is in the movement between forms that the narrative develops in interesting ways. Eits demonstrates the combinatoric possibilities inherent in language, and this exploration of potential highlights the reciprocal relationship between writing and reading. As Eits builds upon a limited language set, it explores and exploits the combinatory possibilities that language allows for both writer and reader. It demonstrates that all combinatoric potentialities, visible or not, always co-exist in the same time and space, and in this infinite space, individuals are invited to be writers and readers in simultaneity.

Prática de ensino supervisionada em Educação Pré-escolar e Ensino do 1.º Ciclo do Ensino Básico

O presente relatório foi concretizado no âmbito da Unidade Curricular da Prática de Ensino Supervisionada (PES), integrada no curso de Mestrado em Educação Pré-Escolar (EPE) e Ensino do 1.º Ciclo do Ensino Básico (1.º CEB). A prática educativa desenvolvida no contexto da EPE decorreu numa instituição Particular de Solidariedade Social, com um grupo de 12 crianças, com idades de 4 e 5 anos. No âmbito do contexto do 1.º CEB, a ação pedagógica decorreu num agrupamento de escolas pertencente à rede pública, com um grupo de 18 crianças do 2.º ano de escolaridade, com idades de 6 e 7 anos. Em ambos os contextos, desenvolvemos a ação educativa com o intuito de responder às necessidades e interesses das crianças sendo que tivemos o cuidado de criar um ambiente propício ao desenvolvimento e aprendizagem de saberes de forma lúdica, por gosto e prazer, onde, no dia-a-dia e ao longo da concretização das experiências de ensino/aprendizagem, prevalecesse o diálogo, a escuta, a negociação, a tomada de decisões e a resolução de problemas, de maneira a valorizarmos as crianças como cidadãos ativos, autónomos, responsáveis e capazes de saber fazer, ser e estar. Após definirmos as questões e os objetivos que iriam orientar a nossa investigação, foi fundamental delinearmos um estudo centrado nas abordagens metodológicas qualitativa e quantitativa. Neste sentido, para que fosse possível recolhermos dados que sustentassem o nosso estudo, recorremos a um conjunto de técnicas e instrumentos de recolha de dados, em ambos os contextos, designadamente: à observação participante, às notas de campo e aos registos fotográficos, às produções das crianças, ao inquérito por questionário e, ainda, à entrevista semiestruturada. Desta forma, ao longo da prática educativa, considerando as experiências de ensino/aprendizagem sustentadoras da nossa temática de estudo, procuramos promover atividades que envolvessem o contacto e exploração de diferentes suportes de escrita e leitura do meio envolvente, desafiando, apoiando e incentivando as crianças a desenvolverem o gosto e prazer pela leitura e escrita. Em relação à análise e interpretação das entrevistas semiestruturadas e dos inquéritos por questionário, dirigidas ao grupo de crianças da EPE e do 1.º CEB, respetivamente, percebemos que as crianças inquiridas estavam inseridas num ambiente educativo e familiar que, na sua rotina diária, desenvolvia práticas de literacia diversificadas e que potenciava o contacto com diferentes suportes de escrita e leitura. Com efeito, ao longo da nossa ação, assumimos uma atitude crítica e reflexiva, de modo a responder às necessidades e interesses das crianças, alicerçada em diferentes modos de pensar e agir.

Ancient writing and its influence,

Bibliography: p. 231-234.

World Beats : Beat Generation Writing and the Worlding of U.S. Literature /

A study of the Beat-era writers in a global context. This title was made Open Access by libraries from around the world through Knowledge Unlatched.

Pursuing excellence : a study of U.S. eighth-grade mathematics and science teaching, learning, curriculum, and achievement in international context /

Mode of access: Internet.