bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The “Mask of Masculinity”: Underreported Declines in Male Friendship and Happiness in the United States
Authors: Klein Jessie
Published: November 2023

Men suffer more as a result of contemporany social trends than is commonly known. A recent focus on women’s greater malaise may unnecessarily and inaccurately pathologize women’s emotional well-being. A widely cited study declares that women are less happy than they were thirty-five years ago and that their unhappiness is increasing at a faster rate than men’s. A closer examination of related research, however, indicates that men are faring at least as badly as women, especially due to trends in decreased social connections. In particular, the dissolution of marriage, one of the few institutions fostering social connections, may be particularly debilitating towards men. New technologies, increased pressures towards self-reliance, and extreme economic pressures are also linked to higher stress among men. This gender comparison, regarding whether men or women are less happy, occurs at a time when depression and anxiety are extremely high among American adults and youth; and happiness, according to several studies, is decreasing. In light of these concerns, future research must address these gaps in order to accurately assess men's well-being and social ties; and social change regarding efforts to increase well-being and community must be sensitive to needs more commonly associated with men (as well as women).
Networked Masculinities and Social Networking Sites: A Call for the Analysis of Men and Contemporary Digital Media
Authors: Light Ben
Published: November 2023

It is of course recognised that technology is gendered and is implicated in gender relations. However, it continues to be the case that men’s experiences with technology are underexplored and the situation is even more problematic where digital media is concerned. Over the past 30 years we have witnessed a dramatic rise in the pervasiveness of digital media across many parts of the world and as associated with wide ranging aspects of our lives. This rise has been fuelled over the last decade by the emergence of Web 2.0 and particularly Social Networking Sites (SNS). Given this context, I believe it is necessary for us to undertake more work to understand men’s engagements with digital media, the implications this might have for masculinities and the analysis of gender relations more generally. To begin to unpack this area, I engage theorizations of the properties of digital media networks and integrate this with the masculinity studies field. Using this framework, I suggest we need to consider the rise in what I call networked masculinities - those masculinities (co)produced and reproduced with digitally networked publics. Through this analysis I discuss themes related to digital mediators, relationships, play and leisure, work and commerce, and ethics. I conclude that as masculinities can be, and are being, complicated and given agency by advancing notions and practices of connectivity, mobility, classification and convergence, those engaged with masculinity studies and digital media have much to contribute.
Inner-City Rural: The Transmission of Problematic Black Male identities from Urban to Black Rural Communities in the United States
Authors: Oliver William
Published: November 2023

This paper introduces the term inner-city rural to describe a conceptual framework that seeks to explain the transmission of urban and street-based alternative constructions of black manhood identities to majority black rural counties in the United States. The central theoretical argument advanced in this paper is that exposure to urban street culture as it is represented in some versions of gangsta rap and hip hop music, videos and culture is a major mechanism by which marginalized African American males residing in rural communities come to internalize and enact problematic urban male street-based masculine identities.
Framing the involvement of men in gender equality in Europe: Between institutionalised and non-institutionalised politics
Authors: Bergmann Nadja , Scambor Elli , Wojnicka Katarzyna
Published: November 2023

In order to reach the main goal of the paper, the identification of the impact and effectiveness of strategies and measures which promote gender equality not only in connection to women but also men, an overview of institutionalised practices, men’s involvement in gender equality strategies like gender mainstreaming, as well as men’s participation in international and national networks, organisations and groups are presented. The identification of specific forms of institutionalised and non-institutionalised practices and politics is based on the theoretical model proposed by Michael Messner (2000) and concerns the situation in the European Union.
Phil’s Story. An Ethnographic Drama Relating one Man’s Experience of Australian Workplace Professional Age Discrimination
Authors: Brown Colin Martin
Published: November 2023

Phil’s story is based on one respondent’s interview which is embedded within my autoethnographic PhD thesis on Australian workplace age-discrimination. In using ethnographic convention to amplify this real-life drama, the paper uses first-person voice to extract and highlight the damage that workplace age discrimination is doing to the older professional Australian man. The paper focuses on ‘Phil’, a 58 year old indigenous Australian, former high level Government employee whose high-flying executive career is traumatically cut short. The downward spiral of his life resulted in him becoming just another run-of-the-mill contract worker. This story relates Phil’s anguish, shock, and disbelief at the treatment he received when he turned 50 and was made excess to current work requirements. His story is compelling and his voice essential to bring cognizance to the narrative of this ever present real-life workplace tragedy that has the potential to affect all Australians and all world inhabitants.
Proceso de aceptación de la homosexualidad y la homofobia asociados a la conducta suicida en varones homosexuales
Authors: Quintanilla Montoya Roque , Sánchez-Loyo Luis Miguel , Correa-Márquez Paola , Luna-Flores Fernando
Published: November 2023

Los varones homosexuales muestran 2 a 3 veces más probabilidad de suicidarse en comparación con sus pares heterosexuales. El objetivo del trabajo fue describir y comprender el proceso vivencial de la homofobia, sus efectos en el proceso de aceptación/negación de la orientación homosexual, asociada con el comportamiento suicida en varones homosexuales; e identificar factores de riesgo y protectores de la conducta suicida. Fue un estudio cualitativo, descriptivo y comparativo, con 3 varones homosexuales con intento de suicidio y 4 varones homosexuales sin antecedentes suicidas, mediante entrevistas a profundidad sobre: orientación sexual, redes sociales, homofobia y conducta suicida. Se identificó que la homofobia en la familia es la que repercute de mayor manera en los recursos psíquicos del homosexual, sustentada en “ideales” de la masculinidad hegemónica; aunado al acoso escolar homófobo fueron elementos fundamentales para el desarrollo de la homofobia internalizada. Se identificaron los apoyos de familiares y pares como factores de protección para disminuir los efectos negativos de la homofobia y favorecer la identificación positiva y la autoaceptación de la orientación homosexual. En conclusión, la homofobia familiar y el rechazo familiar al homosexual ante la revelación de la orientación homosexual son aspectos asociados a la conducta suicida en varones homosexuales.
Frogging It: A poetic Analysis of Relationship Dissolution
Authors: Faulkner Sandra L.
Published: November 2023

Often, themes in work and life intertwine; the author recognized that a cadre of poems she had written during the past several years were about relationship dissolution. The poems concerned romantic and friendship dissolution and the aspects of identity creation and loss this entails. The author presents the poems and makes an explicit connection to interpersonal relationship dissolution literature through the technique of poetic analysis. This analysis serves as an exemplar for how poetry as performative writing offers a valuable addition to interpersonal communication research through the poeticizing of relational dissolution as an everyday relational challenge.
Toward Better Collaboration in the Education of Students with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders: Integrating the Voices of Teachers, Administrators, Caregivers, and Allied Professionals
Authors: Job Jenelle Marie , Poth Cheryl Anne , Pei Jacqueline , Cassie Belina , Brandell Deborah , Macnab John
Published: November 2023

This exploratory study addresses the call for an increased presence of key stakeholders’perspectives in educational research involving students with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASDs) (Duquette, Stodel, Fullarton, & Hagglund, 2006a). Specifically, greater understandings are necessary to support the educational success of students with FASDs. The analysis of 11 focus groups and 3 interviews with teachers, administrators, caregivers, and allied professionals (total n = 60) revealed three themes: fostering relationships, reframing practices, and accessing supports. These findings have important implications for the use of a qualitaitve approach in generating evidenced-based educational practices for stakeholders reflective of enhanced communication and collaboration that better meet the needs of students with FASDs.
Challenging Frameworks for Understanding Teaching Practices in Higher Education: The End or the Beginning?
Authors: Guzmán-Valenzuela Carolina
Published: November 2023

Dominant conceptions of teaching in higher education imply that, essentially, there are two types of teaching approaches: the ‘content’ and the ‘student-focused’ approach. Against that background, this paper has a dual purpose. On the one hand, it initiates a critique of the contemporary teaching approaches framework. On the other hand, it offers some suggestions as to an appropriate methodology for researching teaching in higher education, given its critique of the teaching approaches framework. The methodology here is built around a detailed description and analysis of the teaching practices of two lecturers from different disciplinary fields in a Spanish University. Building on an observation of the micro-level of their teaching practices and taking into account students’ experiences, it is suggested that broad a priori categories are always going to be inadequate in capturing teaching practices in higher education.
Bones of the Earth
Authors: Correa José Miguel
Published: November 2023

Bones of the Earth is an experience in collective inquiry and visual creation based on arts-based research. Starting from the meetingof different subjectivities and through dialogue, planning, shooting and editing, an audiovisual text that reconstructs a reflexive process of collective creation is built. A sense of community, on-going inquiry, connections and social commitment inform the creative process. As a result, the video’s nearly five intense minutes are a metaphor for the search for personal meaning, connection with nature and intersubjective positioning in a world that undergoes constant change.
Out of Sight, Out of Mind: A Case Study of an Alternative School for Students with Emotional Disturbance (ED)
Authors: Hoge Matthew , Rubinstein-Avila Eliane
Published: November 2023

When the ‘least restrictive’ educational environment is deemed unsuccessful for students labeled as having emotional disabilities (ED), they are often placed in either self-contained classrooms (when available) or alternative schools. Despite these schools’ growing numbers, little is known about them and their students, who are segregated from the mainstream student population. This qualitative case study focuses on the perspectives of staff (i.e., the principal, school psychologist, teachers, and aids) in one such alternative school for students with ED. Based on interviews, findings revealed staff’s frustration with the: (1) school’s reputation within, and isolation from, the larger school district; (2) lack of follow up and communication with ‘sending schools’; (3) lack of professional development; and (4) lack of oversight from school district administration. The paper also conveys staff’s vision for addressing some of the challenges. These findings may contribute to the largely unsuccessful fulfillment of the school’s original intentionâ€”to return its students to their original schools (i.e., the ‘least restrictive’ educational environment). The authors argue that in-depth inquiry into such schools is a social justice issue.
Disrupting Ethnography through Rhizoanalysis
Authors: Masny Diana
Published: November 2023

This article interrogates principles of ethnography in education proposed by Mills and Morton: raw tellings, analytic pattern, vignette and empathy. This article adopts a position that is uncomfortable, unconventional and interesting. It involves a deterritorialization/ rupture of ethnography in education in order to reterritorialize a different concept: rhizoanalysis, a way to position theory and data that is multi-layered, complex and messy. Rhizoanalysis, the main focus of this article is not a method. It is an approach to research conditioned by a reality in which Deleuze and Guattari disrupt representation, interpretation and subjectivity. In this article, Multiple Literacies Theory, a theoretical and practical framework, becomes a lens to examine a rhizomatic study of a Korean family recently arrived to Australia and attending English as a second language classes. Observations and interviews recorded the daily lives of the family. The vignettes were selected by reading data intensively and immanently through a process of palpation, an innovative approach to educational research. Rhizoanalysis proposes to abandon the given and invent different ways of thinking about and doing research and what might happen when reading data differently, intensively and immanently, through Multiple Literacies Theory. Rhizoanalysis, a game-changer in the way research can be conducted, affords a different lens to tackle issues in education through research.
Compelling Counternarratives to Deficit Discourses: An Investigation into the Funds of Knowledge of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse U.S. Elementary Students’ Households
Authors: Kinney Angela
Published: November 2023

This study focused on household funds of knowledge or “historically accumulated bodies of knowledge and skills essential for household functioning and well-being” (Gonzalez, Andrade, Civil, & Moll, 2001). A Funds of Knowledge approach provides both a methodological and theoretical lens for educators to understand both themselves and their students in more complex ways. Participants included five culturally, economically, and linguistically diverse students and their families. The study setting was a middle- and working-class first-ring suburb in the Midwestern United States. Data collection included visits to home, church, and Sunday school settings; observations in Language Arts classroom settings; and informal conversations and ethnographic semi-structured interviews with students, parents, and teachers. Data sources included interview transcripts; fieldnotes and reflections on those fieldnotes; and data collected from each student’s school cumulative folder. I coded parent and child interview and home visit data to create a multifaceted portrait of each household. Findings reveal that households possess a breadth and variety of resources, skills, bodies of knowledge, and strengths. These findings provide compelling counterevidence to deficit discourses by demonstrating that these households possess valuable knowledge and experiences.
The Road to the Ivory Tower: The Learning Experiences of Students with Disabilities at the University of Manitoba
Authors: Moola Fiona J.
Published: November 2023

Although qualitative research on the learning experiences of disabled students at university is burgeoning, either/or, medical or social approaches are most often used to study disablement. In this study, I adopted an interpretive phenomenological analysis â€” which considers the fundamental imbrication of bodies, identities, and environments â€” to explore the learning experiences of students with disabilities at the University of Manitoba in Canada. While some students received social support to attend university, other students negotiated a challenging journey to higher education, characterized by low expectations for academic success. At university, the students reported bodily-social challenges to academic achievement that hindered the learning process. Students anticipated an uneasy future upon graduation, characterized by poor job opportunities and economic disparity. The findings suggest that great strides and much advocacy are still required for students with disabilities to be viewed as bodies that bear intellectual value in university settings. Researchers should consider the merits of phenomenological approaches to thinking about the body-social challenges that disabled students still face in the struggle for inclusive higher education.
¿Cómo se Forman las Creencias y Actitudes sobre el Aprendizaje de la Geometría de los Futuros Maestros de Primaria? Implicaciones para Programas de Formación de Profesores
Authors: Yang Kai-Ju
Published: November 2023

En mis interacciones personales con futuros maestros de primaria en una Universidad de la región norcentral de los EUA., muchos de ellos tenían creencias y actitudes negativas sobre el aprendizaje de la geometría. Aunque es importante encontrar maneras para ayudar a los futuros maestros a cambiar sus creencias y actitudes negativas, es mejor abordar este tema investigando primero cómo se formaron.Este estudio intentó documentar cómo las creencias y actitudes sobre la geometría de un grupo de futuros maestros de primaria se formaron antes y durante una clase de matemáticas y pedagogía.El marco teórico de McLeod (1989) de influenciar las creencias y actitudes de uno sobre eventos de acción específica, y objetos --- Representación, Discrepancia, y Metacognición --- fue utilizado para analizar datos de dos entrevistas con cada uno de los cuatro futuros maaestros.Los resultados confirmaron el marco teórico de McLeod pero también identificaron un cuarto factor, la comprensión del tema, jugando un papel importante en afectar las creencias y actitudes sobre la geometría de los futuros maestros de primaria.Si realmente podemos entender cómo las creencias y actitudes sobre el aprendizaje de la geometría de los futuros maestros se forman, podremos encontrar maneras de ayudarlos a cambiar orientaciones negativas, lo cual puede tener implicaciones positivas para el diseño de clases de pedagogía y matemáticas por futuros maestros de primaria que los prepararán mejor para ser buenos profesores de matemáticas. Palabras Clave: Creencias, Actitudes, Geometría, Formación de Docentes de Primaria.
Analyzing students’ difficulties in understanding real numbers
Authors: Voskoglou Michael , Kosyvas Georgios D.
Published: November 2023

Abstract This article reports on a study of high-school and of technologist students (prospective engineers and economists) understanding of real numbers. Our study was based on written response to a properly designed questionnaire and on interviews taken from students. The quantitative results of our experiment showed an almost complete failure of the technologist students to deal with processes connected to geometric constructions of incommensurable magnitudes. However, this didn’t prevent them in answering satisfactorily the other questions. The superiority of their correct answers with respect to those of high-school students, although the majority of them correspond to mediocre graduates of the secondary education, was evident in most cases. This is a strong indication that the age and the width of mathematical knowledge of the individual play an important role for the better understanding of the real numbers. The results of our experiment suggest also that the ability to transfer in comfort among several representations of real numbers helps students in obtaining a better understanding of them. A theoretical explanation about this is obtained through the adoption of the conceptual framework of dimensions of knowledge, introduced by Tirosh et al. (1998) for studying the comprehension of rational numbers. Following in part the idea of generic decomposition of the APOS analysis (Weller et al. 2009) we suggest a possible order for development of understanding the real numbers by students when teaching them at school. Some questions open to further research are also mentioned at the end of the paper. Keywords: Real, rational, irrational, algebraic and transcendental numbers, fractions, decimals, representations of real numbers.
Three Key Concepts of the Theory of Objectification: Knowledge, Knowing, and Learning
Authors: Radford Luis
Published: November 2023

In this article I sketch three key concepts of a cultural-historical theory of mathematics teaching and learningâ€”the theory of objectification. The concepts are: knowledge, knowing and learning. The philosophical underpinning of the theory revolves around the work of Georg W. F. Hegel and its further development in the philosophical works of K. Marx and the dialectic tradition (including Vygotsky and Leont’ev). Knowledge, I argue, is movement. More specifically, knowledge is a historically and culturally codified fluid form of thinking and doing. Knowledge is pure possibility and can only acquire reality through activityâ€”the activity that mediates knowledge and knowing. The inherent mediated nature of knowing requires learning, which I theorize as social, sensuous and material processes of objectification. The ideas are illustrated through a detailed classroom example with 9-10-year-old students.
Agency as Inference: Toward a Critical Theory of Knowledge Objectification
Authors: Gutiérrez José Francisco
Published: November 2023

This article evaluates the plausibility of synthesizing theory of knowledge objectification (Radford, 2003) with equity research on mathematics education. I suggest the cognitive phenomenon of mathematical inference as a promising locus for investigating the types of agency that equity-driven scholars often care for. In particular, I conceptualize students’ appropriation of cultural artifacts (e.g., algebraic symbols and forms) as semiotic means of objectifying their pre-symbolic inferences as conditional on their agency to carefully and incrementally construct personal meaning for these artifacts. To empirically ground this emerging approach, this study focuses on algebraic generalization (as a type of mathematical inference) and applies Radford’s framework to video data of two iterations of an instructional intervention conducted in a high school program for academically at-risk youth. I analyze and compare students’ acts of appropriation/objectification during whole-class conversations centered on pattern-finding tasks, in relation to the instructional mode adopted for each of the iterationsâ€”“direct instruction” vs. “inquiry-based.” The analysis shows that the implementation involving inquiry-based instruction enabled more equitable access to opportunities for agency-as-mathematical inference, whereas the implementation involving direct-instruction was ostensibly more productive. Implications for future equity research involving cognition-and-instruction analyses are discussed.
Un origen matemático vs. dos orígenes fenomenológicos: la significación del movimiento de objetos respecto del punto (0,0)
Authors: Miranda Isaias , Radford Luis , Guzmán José
Published: November 2023

En este artículo se analiza la evolución de las formas de significar, en estudiantes de grado 10, el origen de coordenadas de una gráfica d vs. t que informa sobre el movimiento simultáneo de dos objetos. Esta evolución es analizada a través de la teoría de la objetivación, la cual describe el saber como una forma codificada de acción y reflexión, y el aprendizaje como una transformación del sujeto que resulta de la toma de conciencia de la lógica histórico-cultural que subyace al saber. Desde el punto de vista metodológico, el aprendizaje se investiga como serie de procesos de objetivación; es decir, procesos sociales de toma de conciencia crítica en los que intervienen diferentes medios semióticos puestos en juego por los estudiantes (lenguaje, gestos, símbolos, artefactos, etc.). Los resultados indican la densidad epistemológica del concepto de origen cartesiano, así como las dificultades que implica la toma de conciencia sobre la importancia del punto (0,0) en la descripción del movimiento. Dicha toma de conciencia se caracteriza por un constante refinamiento de dotación de significados durante la interacción sucedida entre los estudiantes, el profesor y el problema a resolver.
An APOS analysis of natural science students’ understanding of integration
Authors: Maharaj Aneshkumar
Published: November 2023

This article reports on a study which used the APOS (action-process-object-schema) Theory framework and a classification of errors toinvestigate university students’ understanding of the integration concept and its applications. Research was done at the Westville Campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. The relevant rules for finding antiderivatives, the link between derivatives and antiderivatives, interpreting a definite integral as area under the relevant curve and their context-based applications were taught to undergraduate science students. This paper reports on the analysis of two students’ responses to questions on integrals and their applications. The findings of this study suggest that those students had difficulty in applying the rules for integrals and their applications, and this was possibly the result of them not having appropriate mental structures at the process, object and schema levels.
List of reviewers
Authors: Díez Palomar Javier
Published: November 2023

On behalf of REDIMAT we deeply appreciate contributions provided by the reviewers to the quality of this journal, during 2013. The journal owes this debt with those who have been peer reviewers during this period.
Examining the Impact of a Videocase-based Mathematics Methods Course on Secondary Preservice Teachers’ Skills at Analyzing Students’ Strategies
Authors: Martinez Mara Vanina , Castro Superfine Alison , Carlton Theresa , Dasgupta Chandan
Published: November 2023

This paper focuses on results from a study conducted with two cohorts of preservice teachers (PSTs) in a videocase-based mathematics methods course at a large midwestern university in the US. The motivation for this study was to look beyond whether or not PSTs pay attention to mathematical thinking of students, as shown by previous studies when engaging with video, and, in turn, characterize at a more specific level areas in which PSTs’ responses change. Our findings show that regarding PSTs anticipation of strategies, both cohorts showed a significant increase in the overall number of strategies PSTs were able to anticipate, and a significant increase in the mathematical depth of the anticipated strategies. However, there was no change in terms of PSTs identification and description of high school students’ strategies as displayed in video given that both cohorts of PSTs performed equally proficient at both pre- and post- tests.
Polynomial functions resulting from the multiplication of curves in the framework of the Research and Study Paths
Authors: Llanos Viviana Carolina , Otero Maria Rita , Colombo Rojas Emmanuel
Published: November 2023

This paper presents the results of a research which proposes the introduction of the teaching by Research and Study Paths (RSPs) into Argentinean secondary schools within the frame of the Anthropologic Theory of Didactics (ATD). The paths begin with the study of Q0: How to operate with any curves knowing only its graphic representation and the unit of the axes?, which was implemented for two consecutive years by 14-17 year-old students. The results of part of the paths that allows the study of the polynomial functions in the frame of RPS are hereby described. These results justify the introduction of a new pedagogy into schools as proposed by Yves Chevallard in order to study Mathematics in conventional courses of Secondary Education schools in Argentina. The scopes relative to the attitudes of the students which are necessary to face a questions-based education are outlined in this work.
Involving Students in Teacher Education Assessment? A Case Study of a Peer Evaluation Experience
Authors: López-Pastor Víctor Manuel , Castejón Javier , Pérez-Pueyo Ángel
Published: November 2023

This study covered the grading of partial exams as a learning strategy closely linked to a range of professional competencies and the development of better learning processes. It took place in three teacher education programs. After students undertook partial exams, these were marked in-situ by peers (using an ad-hoc marking scheme) and, later on, by the tutor. Furthermore, students responded to a questionnaire in which they gave their opinions regarding that peer-grading assessment experience. The purposes of the study were: (a) to compare the grades given by the students with those given by the tutors; and (b) to gather the students’ opinions on the experience. The results indicate that (a) the correlations between the grades given by the students and tutors ranged from .66 to .90, although the average grades of the student group were lower than those of the tutors; and (b) the students valued positively the experience of peer-grading as a learning activity.
The Effects of a Web-Based Vocabulary Development Tool on Student Reading Comprehension of Science Texts
Authors: Thompson Karen , Román Diego X. , Wientjes Greg , Hakuta Kenji
Published: November 2023

The complexities of reading comprehension have received increasing recognition inrecent years. In this realm, the power of vocabulary in predicting cognitive challenges inphonological, orthographic, and semantic processes is well documented. In this study,we present a web-based vocabulary development tool that has a series of interactivedisplays, including a list of the 50 most frequent words in a particular text, Googleimage and video results for any combination of those words, definitions, and synonymsfor particular words from the text, and a list of sentences from the text in whichparticular words appear. Additionally, we report the results of an experiment that wasperformed working collaboratively with middle school science teachers from a largeurban district in the United States. While this experiment did not show a significantpositive effect of this tool on reading comprehension in science, we did find that girlsseem to score worse on a reading comprehension assessment after using our web-basedtool. This result could reflect prior research that suggests that some girls tend to have anegative attitude towards technology due to gender stereotypes that give girls theimpression that they are not as good as boys in working with computers.
Family Education Improves Student's Academic Performance: Contributions from European Research
Authors: Flecha Ainhoa
Published: November 2023

There is a wide body of literature about the relation between families’ education andstudents’ academic performance. Several contributions have focused its analysis ondescribing the gap between children of academic families and non-academic families,especially those with low socioeconomic status from underprivileged neighbourhoods.These kinds of conclusions have had an impact on educational actions which start fromthe point that children from non academic and underprivileged families are condemnedto school failure. Findings from a large-scale European research project on schooling arerefuting these conclusions. This research has provided evidences on those types offamily and community participation that are contributing to educational success. Thispaper presents one of these types of participation, which is family education as aSuccessful Educational Action (SEA) that is improving students’ performance bycreating learning spaces between families and students where cultural and educationalinteractions are shared. Data provided here illustrates how these interactions contributeto accelerate children’s learning.
Reconsidering Education for Sustainable Society: An East Asian Perspective
Authors: Hi Kim Kyung , Kim Shinil
Published: November 2023

The authors propose an ecology-centered paradigm pursuing a harmonious relationship between mankind and the natural world and all of its living beings is a solution that enables man and nature to survive together. The realization of a way of living and social institutions that promote the co-prosperity of man and nature will require significant changes in Education. Accordingly, the will to achieve the goal should be equally strong. They argue that first change needed is in the mind-set and our behavior. Therefore, we need to change the direction of education first. Efforts should be made to break away from the education of the industrial era. The paradigm of education should be shifted from nature-exploitative education to new one, namely ‘nature-friendly education’. Most countries have used school education as a tool for economic growth, and consequently school education was mobilized in conquering and exploiting nature. Now the direction of school education should be reset toward nature-friendly education. In this attempt to shifting paradigm in education, Confucius’ ren-motivated education and learning proffers a satisfactory perspective.
Exploring the Readability of Assessment Tasks: The Influence of Text and Reader Factors
Authors: Wray David , Janan Dahlia
Published: November 2023

Readability is the degree to which a text is matched to its intended and actual reader. The factors influencing readability, both text factors and reader factors, have been widely researched from the standpoint of attempts to maximise reader understanding of texts. The application of understandings in the area has not, however, always been applied systematically to the design and writing of assessment tasks and consequently test items are sometimes less accessible to the intended test takers than they might be.This paper is an attempt to provide a wide ranging review of literature which bears on the task of the assessment designer in ensuring that assessment items measure what they are supposed to measure, and not just the reading abilities of the test takers.
The Roles of University Researchers in a University-School Collaborative Action Research Project - A Chinese experience
Authors: Wang Qiang , Mu Hongjia
Published: November 2023

Teacher research as an international movement since the 1970s has been advocated worldwide to promote school curriculum reform and the professionalization of school teachers. University-school collaborative action research is a new attempt to support school teachers who learn to do research in their classrooms while providing opportunities for university researcher to develop a better understanding of classroom practice with more effective strategies to support teacher change. Such collaborative research has been promoted in the recent curriculum reform in basic education in China. This paper reports on an action research project conducted by school teachers supported by university researchers in the Chinese context with a focus on examining the roles and gains of university researchers in this project. Data was collected through project meeting observations, questionnaires, interviews and participants’ reflective journals. Both quantitative and qualitative analysis methods were used respectively for analyzing the data collected. The purpose of this study is to understand better the nature of such collaborations and the gains as well as challenges on the part of university researchers so that implications can be drawn for establishing a sound university-school collaborative research body that promotes the professional learning of both parties.
The Crisis of Disengagement: A discussion on motivation change and maintenance across the primary-secondary school transition
Authors: Hung Cheng-Yu
Published: November 2023

The transition from primary to secondary education signals a process of developing and maturing physically and mentally, but this ‘rite of passage’ for some young adolescents is often associated with a drifting interest in school education. This phenomenon, caused by a decreased motivation for learning, has been observed by many relevant studies. This article adopts the psychological approach to study this long-lasting educational phenomenon while employing ‘intrinsic-extrinsic motivation theory’ and ‘goal theory’ to investigate the gap between primary and secondary schools as well as what possible pedagogies there are to maintain or stimulate the pupils’ motivation. An intrinsically motivated student acquires knowledge out of curiosity and interest, and they are willing to face the more difficult challenges that secondary education provides. As identified in the conclusion, the creation of a more integral educational system can alleviate the decrease in motivation while pupils undergo this period. A more amiable educational environment can be maintained that enhances the pupils’ self-concept, learning efficacy, and a sense of volition as well as self-determination to circumvent this transitional crisis.
The Effects of Two Direct Instruction Teaching Procedures to Basic Skills to Two Students with Disabilities
Authors: Fjortfoft Annelie , McLaughlin Thomas , Derby Mark , Everson Mary , Johnson Kathy
Published: November 2023

The first study focused on increasing her ability to identify letters and to write these letters. The research was conducted in a resource room setting located in a public school in a large urban school district. The effects of employing DI flashcards on letter recognition and letter writing were evaluated in a multiple baseline design. Overall the effects of the experiment were positive; the participant improved her accuracy letter identification accuracy and her skills at writing her letters from the alphabet. The time, cost, and effort needed for Experiment I was minimal and the student enjoyed the procedures. A second study was conducted with a first grade boy. We wanted to determine the effectiveness of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons along with a DI flashcard procedure to improve a first grade student’s ability to identify sounds and sight words within a public school behavior intervention (BI) classroom setting. Overall the effects of the second experiment were also quite positive. The participant improved his accuracy and ability to say the letter-sounds and target words. Suggestions for future research were made.
Influence of parenting style on the academic performance of middle school students
Authors: Domínguez González María José , Guasch Garcia Montserrat
Published: November 2023

Students who don't succeed in school are a persistent problem in our educational system. This fact shows that all the efforts to reduce this problem are not succeeding. One third of our students are left behind by the educational system; their results are discouraging. The measures to fight the academic failure are not working and that we have to put into practice new ways of analysis and treatment of this problem. This research explores the relationship between the way children perceive the parenting style of their parents and his o her own academic performance. In the intersection of both phenomena we find our hypothesis: the way parents socialise their children influences significantly on their academic performance. This research is orientated to decision taking process: the aim is to define the level of influence of the parenting style on academic outcomes. The main result is that parents acceptation/implication appears to be significantly linked to the school performance (this evidence shows a big area for new researches: the family). Our research confirms and frames the correlation between these two variables and underlies the family as a new scenario of pedagogical concern to explain and treat school failure.
Differences in Primary School Students’ Ratings about Themselves and the School
Authors: Habók Anita
Published: November 2023

L2L is a frequently used concept, which can be approached from different perspectives. In our theoretical background we provide an overview of the early and current research trends, then we approach the issue from the perspective of the Finnish framework, the second order learning and the learning how to learn approaches. Next, we present the results of the ’Me and the school’ questionnaire from the Finnish framework. Our participants were 5th and 6th grade primary school students. We found that this online questionnaire is a reliable tool for the Hungarian sample. Comparing the results of Grades 5 and 6, we did not register significant relationships between the grades, except for their ‘use of computer’. The most important differences were discovered between the genders, where significantly higher mean values were observed for girls. We also analysed the effects of mathematics and literature school results on some variables. It can be concluded that school results have a significant effect on students’ performance and attitude. While the effect of attitudes on students’ performance was not substantial, there was a stronger effect on students’ evaluation of own competencies in maths for both genders and in reading for boys.
The Dialogic Turn: Dialogue or Violence?
Authors: Puigvert Lidia
Published: November 2023

Individuals and social groups are increasingly using dialogue to take decisions, perform actions and solve conflicts in diverse social relationships, from international policies or globalization processes to personal friendships, labor relations or the intimacy of bedroom. When they do not use dialogue, they use violence or imposition: there are only two ways to proceed. The increase of dialogue does not imply that there is no violence in human and social relationships, obviously there is; but this phenomenon confirms that there exist many dialogic interactions and procedures in society which shed light to the process of radicalization of democracy, and thus need to be further analyzed from the social sciences. This article does so; it discusses the “dialogic turn” in the social sciences and illustrates it with the case of feminist theory and practice. Whereas in the past feminism had been a movement for few academic women often speaking for “others”, current dialogic feminism brings into egalitarian dialogue the voices of very diverse women who reach agreements regarding vision and action.
Aspire or Expire: Super-Adaptable Agents and Problematic Innovation
Authors: McGettigan Timothy
Published: November 2023

Humans are unique as a species because, with the help of well-defined problematics, humans alone are capable of redefining reality. A problematic can be understood as an exceptionally-challenging intellectual objective (e.g., heavier-than-air flight, building the first atomic bomb, curing disease, landing humans on the moon, developing artificially-intelligent computers, constructing faster-than-light speed spacecraft, etc.) that requires knowledge-seekers to invent new facts and redefine reality in order to achieve the hoped-for objective. Although scientists prefer to think that scientific inquiry is constrained to an exploration of empirical facts, in truth, scientific progress is often instigated more effectively by the pursuit of a compelling problematicâ€”in many cases, even by science fiction fantasies (Shatner, 2002)â€”rather than by an examination of established empirical facts (McGettigan, 2011). As such, science has proven to be the most effective means ever invented by humans to transform fantasies into reality.
The Social Nature of Attractiveness: How to Shift Attraction from the Dominant Traditional to Alternative Masculinities
Authors: Castro Marcos , Mara Liviu Catalin
Published: November 2023

This article explores the paradox that while muchemphasis has been put into educating boys in the alternative masculinities, the boys who hold these values are not the ones who are considered attractive in the social imaginary of a large part of the population. Attractiveness to different masculinity models is the result of the process of socialization. The authors argue that there is a mainstream process of socialization - which is not the only one - that promotes the attraction to the dominant traditional model of masculinities, while the opposite process is found with alternatives ones. Drawing from previous studies in the area of preventive socialization of gender-based violence and men’s studies, different aspects are highlighted showing how transformation is built in regards to provide new alternative models of masculinity.
External Influences and Higher Education Reform in Ethiopia: On Symbolic Power of the World Bank
Authors: Molla Tebeje
Published: November 2023

Increasingly national policy processes are intersected with and affected by global policy actors and ideas. In aid-recipient countries such as Ethiopia, donors use financial and non-financial means to influence national policy decisions and directions. This paper is about the non-financial influence of the World Bank (WB) in the Ethiopian higher education policy reform. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic power as a ‘thinking tool’, the paper aims to shed light on forms of symbolic capital that the Bank uses to generate a ‘misrecognisable’ form of power that regulates the HE policy process in Ethiopia. The findings show that the WB transforms its symbolic capital of recognition and legitimacy to establish a ‘shared misrecognition’ and thereby make its policy prescriptions implicit and hence acceptable to local policy agents. The Bank uses knowledge-based regulatory instruments to induce compliance to its neoliberal policy prescriptions. The paper therefore underscores the value of symbol power as an analytical framework to understand elusive but critical role of donors in policy processes of aid recipient countries.
Classroom Interaction and Pedagogic Practice: A Bernsteinian Analysis
Authors: Smith Stephanie C.
Published: November 2023

Language development through social interaction is a key element in early childhood pedagogy. Because children enter prekindergarten programs at an age in which language and social competencies are still developing, teachers of young children have a unique role in this key stage of development. However, the ways in which teachers socially construct their own roles as instructors and facilitators has a significant impact on the ways that they use language and interact with children in their classrooms. This subsequently affects the manner by which children learn to interact with each other. This is a Bernsteinian analysis of a dual case study of two low-income early childhood programs in Chicago. The pedagogies of the two programs require teachers to construct their roles differently, resulting in differences in language use and social interaction. This study evaluates resulting differences in child language use and how children learn to interact with each other differently in the two programs.