Public School Classes Research Articles

Mudanças nas condutas de saúde e o seu efeito na insatisfação com peso corporal em adolescentes

The aim of the present study was to establish whether changes in health-related behaviors are associated with changes in the satisfaction/dissatisfaction with body weight in youths. It was a prospective study that performed a secondary analysis of data from Project Saude na Boa, which included youths attending night classes in secondary public schools in Recife in the state of Pernambuco and Florianopolis in the state of Santa Catarina. Data on the youths' body type (thinness or excess weight) and degree of satisfaction/dissatisfaction with body weight and lifestyle (level of physical activity, participation in physical education classes, sedentary behavior and snacks, soda and alcohol intake) were collected at 10 schools from each town (five in the intervention group and five in the control group). The percentages of youths dissatisfied with their body weight were 50.5% and 48.6% at baseline and after intervention, respectively. The percentage of youths with body dissatisfaction due to thinness decreased (21.4% vs. 16.5%), while the percentage of youths with body dissatisfaction due to excess weight increased (29.1% vs. 32.1%). Approximately 41.2% of the youths with body dissatisfaction due to thinness and 18.3% of those dissatisfied due to excess weight became satisfied with their body weight after intervention. The intervention targeting health-related behaviors induced changes in the youths' degree of satisfaction with their body weight.

Tek Parti Döneminde Devrimsel Ric'atler: Bir Ric'at Örneği Olarak İmam Hatip Seminerleri Girişimi ve İmam Hatip Kurslarının Açılması

Tevhid-i Tedrisat Kanunu ( The Law on Unification of Education) was considered as an ideological tool by early republican elites. Despite the fact that diverging religious curriculum was out under state control, no religious curriculum was de facto allowed in education. Since 1945, the wide range of society including religious bureaucracy has mustered continuous criticism. One-party regime at that time aimed to develop some policies in enhancing ethical education of children against communist threat. In this context, even though there were some initiations to open religious education such as implementing particular classes, the authorities tried to solve the religious education issue by starting imam-hatip courses. This changing policy which contained religious classes in public schools, imam hatip courses, theology faculty, accomodating to make the pilgrimage visits to Mecca and opening religious tombs for visiting, was considered as a “revision” by the incumbent government authorities. This revision can be claimed as a retreating (ric’at) from the understanding of forbidding religion from social life.

Single-Sex Classrooms and Reading Achievement: An Exploratory Study

Gendered schooling is growing in the United States, but little research exists on single-sex classes in public elementary schools. This study sought to find out if single-sex classes in two elementary schools made a difference in boys' reading gains in 2008–2009, as judged by scores on the state's annual literacy test. In one school, boys in the boys' class gained significantly more than boys in the mixed class. In the other school, boys in the boys' class did not gain significantly more or less than boys in the mixed class, but they did gain significantly less than boys in the mixed class on a nationally normed reading test also given by the school.

School Choice and Segregation

Three arguments regarding racial equity have arisen in the school choice debate. Choice advocates charge that choice will improve access to quality schools for disadvantaged minority students (Chubb & Moe 1990; Coons & Sugarman, 1978; Godwin & Kemerer, 2002; Viteritti, 1999). Critics argue that choice is unlikely to benefit minority students, but they are divided as to why this may be the case. Some maintain that unfettered choice leads to racial segregation (Henig, 1996; Mickelson, 2005; Saporito, 2003); others maintain that while choice may be successful in reducing segregation at the building level, choice programs may be problematic to the extent that they segregate schools at the classroom level (Wells & Crain, 1997; Wells, Holme, & Vasudeva, 2000; Wells & Roda, 2009; West, 1994). I use data from the eighth-grade wave of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study to examine these questions. Results indicate that the racial composition of magnet schools is not statistically different from regular public schools; however, magnet schools are more heterogeneous at the classroom level, but only with respect to White/Hispanic racial composition. In particular, honors classes in magnet schools are significantly more diverse than honors classes in regular public schools, but only with regard to White/Hispanic diversity.

Literacy practices, texts, and talk around texts: english language teaching developments in colombia

This paper seeks to provide a window into the complexity of classroom interaction in English language classes in public secondary schools in Colombia. It will show the relationship between what goes on in public schools and classrooms, the wider policy context, and recent reforms. Through a detailed analysis of data collected in two schools and the interaction that takes place between the two teachers and their students around and about texts, this artcicle provides insights into the specific nature of the literacy practices, the texts used, and the particular ways in which the teachers and learners made sense of these texts. It examines how the students are learning to read in English in these classes, and what the teachers understand by ‘doing reading’ and ‘reading comprehension’.

"Projeto Aprendiz": interação universidade-escola para realização de atividades experimentais no ensino médio

O Projeto "Aprendiz" é uma iniciativa do Programa de Educação Tutorial da Biologia da UFC, cuja ação de destaque é o incentivo à reativação de laboratórios de aulas práticas de ciências em escolas públicas de Fortaleza. O objetivo desta pesquisa é investigar as expectativas e dificuldades dos docentes para a implantação de atividades experimentais, durante a aplicação do "Projeto Aprendiz", bem como a superação destes obstáculos. Buscamos desvelar o potencial que a interação universidade/escola pública, professores e licenciandos possui para a formação de docentes de Ciências e Biologia. Apesar das diversas dificuldades, o trabalho conjunto de professores em exercício e futuros docentes trouxe contribuição para a formação de ambos. Com a pesquisa, professores, licenciandos e pesquisadores tiveram a possibilidade de expressar suas concepções e refletir sobre a realização de atividades práticas nas escolas públicas.

Building <i>Precious Knowledge</i>: An Interview with Documentary Filmmaker Eren Isabel McGinnis

Eren Isabel McGinnis and Ari Luis Palos (see Figure 1) have been telling distinctive ethnic stories for well over a decade. Partners in the Tucson, Arizona-based film company Dos Vatos Productions (McGinnis produces and does sound; Palos shoots and directs), the two make documentaries and shorts that bring local color, human complexity, and a keen sense of historical context the kind of urgent social issues--immigration, race relations, and public education--that are too often misunderstood or oversimplified in contemporary discourse. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] One of their earliest collaborations, Beyond the Border (2001), movingly chronicles the struggles of four Mexican immigrant brothers make a living in the Kentucky Bluegrass region while coping with cultural barriers, homesickness, alcoholism, and the potential erosion of their Mexican identity. In The Spirituals (2007), Palos and McGinnis examine the history and vitality of African American spirituals through the performances of a choral ensemble whose majestic renditions of slave songs help keep the music alive. Shot in a poetic visual style and rooted in a concrete sense of place--be it Lexington, Oaxaca, or their current home base of Tucson--Dos Vatos's films give voice, as McGinnis puts it, to communities often silenced or stereotyped by mainstream media. In doing so, they affirm the vibrant but unheralded contributions of Latino Americans and African Americans the cultural heritage of the United States. In their rich and varied body of work, their current project--Precious Knowledge, a documentary about the fight save the embattled Ethnic Studies program in Arizona's Tucson Unified School District--may be their most politically urgent film date. Filmed at Tucson High Magnet School during the 2008-09 school year as the controversy over Ethnic Studies began reach a fever pitch, Precious Knowledge details the dramatic efforts of students, teachers, and community activists prevent state legislators from gutting Mexican American (Raza) Studies at Tucson High and shutting down Ethnic Studies across the state. (At this writing, a legal effort is underway challenge House Bill 2281, the legislation that was signed into law last May by Arizona governor Jan Brewer that calls for a ban on K-12 Ethnic Studies classes in the state's public and charter schools.) While much of the public face of the controversy has been dominated by opportunistic politicians who condemn Ethnic Studies as reverse-racist or anti-American without bothering understand its true aims, Precious Knowledge takes us inside classes at Tucson High capture lives transformed by a socially conscious curriculum. We meet flesh-and-blood students whose words and actions testify the role Mexican American Studies has played in helping reduce dropout rates among Chicano high schoolers and equip the students with the personal agency and critical self-awareness become productive citizens in their communities. As McGinnis and Palos neared completion of Precious Knowledge last fall (the film is slated air nationally on PBS in 2011), I interviewed McGinnis about the film and her work. McGinnis earned her BA in Anthropology from San Diego State University and a certificate in film and video theory and production from University College, Dublin. In addition her Dos Vatos projects, she has also made several documentaries as one half of Cafe Sisters Productions, a collaboration with director Christine Fugate that has yielded, among other films, the PBS POV documentary Tobacco Blues (1998). In our interview, conducted over e-mail in October and November 2010, McGinnis reflects on the challenges of making Precious Knowledge; the role that her own Mexican-Irish-American background has played in the movies she makes; and some of the intricacies of telling socially relevant stories through the medium of documentary film. Andrew Sargent: How did you and Ari originally come up with the idea make Precious Knowledge? …

The politics of Arabic language education: Moroccan immigrant children's language socialization into ethnic and religious identities

This paper focuses on issues of reproduction and the manufacturing of national/ethnic and religious identities in the deterritorialized space of the Moroccan immigrant diaspora. More specifically, this paper examines Moroccan immigrant children's language socialization into pan-Arabic and Islamic identities in relation to the teaching of the Arabic language to these younger generations of Moroccans, who have either already been born in Spain, or who immigrated to Spain with their parents when they were toddlers. Moroccan immigrant children in this study attend Arabic language classes in a Spanish public school—a relatively new program jointly funded by the Spanish and Moroccan Ministries of Education—and in after-school religious classes in a small oratory-mosque run by a local Islamic cultural organization. In this paper, I address similarities and differences in linguistic and literacy practices between these two contexts, paying particular attention to how the internal dynamism of the Moroccan community itself organizes adults’ socializing efforts in relation to language education, especially where there may be some conflicting interests in achieving literacy by religious and secular elements of the children's communities of origin. Comparing language and literacy practices in the fields of Arabic language classes at the school and in the mosque allows us to trace homologies, or similarity of organization in linguistic and cultural (re)production, across these two settings, but also to uncover different kinds of strategies teachers engage in and the differential effect pursued by putting these strategies to use in the classroom. Outlining both, processes of homology and heterogeneity, is particularly important to understand the degree of redundancy in language socialization practices, as well as the possible areas of disjuncture that may impinge upon children's ability to negotiate commonality of belonging in their multiple communities.

Contributions of the Model of Modelling Diagram to the Learning of Ionic Bonding: Analysis of A Case Study

Current proposals for science education recognise the importance of students’ involvement in activities aimed at favouring the understanding of science as a human, dynamic and non-linear construct. Modelling-based teaching is one of the alternatives through which to address such issues. Modelling-based teaching activities for ionic bonding were introduced. This topic was chosen because of both the high incidence of students’ alternative conceptions and its abstract nature, which justify the need for understanding complex models. The diagram Model of Modelling was used as a theoretical construct during the development of the teaching activities, which were implemented in a Brazilian medium level public school class (16–18 years old students). The data collected were the written material and models produced by the students, the content-knowledge tests, the video-recording of the lessons, and the observations and field notes of both the teacher and the researcher who observed the lessons. The analysis of such data enabled the production of case studies for each of the student groups. In this paper, we analyse one of the case studies, looking for evidence about the way that specific elements of the teaching strategy supported students’ learning. It supported our belief in the use of the Model of Modelling diagram as a theoretical construct with which to develop and analyse modelling-based teaching activities.

Language policy and the drawing of social boundaries

Educational institutions developed in Tucson, Arizona in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, during a critical time in cultural and political shifts of power between Anglo and Mexican elites in Southwestern United States. My qualitative analysis reconstructs language policies in the incipient educational system in Territorial Tucson. This article examines official and unofficial language policies in both public and private schools in Tucson that reflected this accommodation of power and the negotiation of a new racial hierarchy in the context of westward expansion. I argue that the private schools Mexican elites founded in this period maintained bilingual instruction and promoted biliteracy as a means of racially and linguistically distancing themselves from Anglos, Indians and Mexicans from lower socioeconomic classes in public schools.

Having ‘learning difficulties’: the inclusive education of disabled girls and boys in Vietnam

This article examines the ‘inclusive education’ strategy in Vietnam and the extent to which it facilitates learning in students with disabilities. After the introduction of the doi moi (renewal) policy in 1986, Vietnamese society went through a period of rapid transformation, including the educational sector. Debates on teaching means, curricula, learning, and the inclusion of children with disabilities in public school classes increasingly became a focus of concern. Supported by international aid organizations, the Vietnamese government initiated the implementation of an ‘inclusive education’ program which aims at mainstreaming the public school system in order to include all students regardless of disabilities. Even though the partners involved in the introduction of the ‘Inclusive Education’ program into Vietnam usually refer to it as a success, my data indicate that the program tends to amplify already identified problems in the public educational system mainly caused by overloaded and abstract curricula and a pervasive rote-learning tradition. The article shows how girls — disabled girls, in particular — are susceptible to pedagogical setbacks in the public school system.

O uso da canção popular na experiência filosófica em sala de aula

A volta da Filosofia como disciplina obrigatória aos currículos escolares do Ensino Médio gerou uma discussão cada vez mais intensa sobre o que e como ensinar essa matéria na Educação Básica. A escassez de materiais didáticos e a dificuldade que a Academia tem de aproximar-se do público externo, em especial dos jovens estudantes, são apenas alguns dos obstáculos a serem enfrentados pelos professores. Este trabalho tem por objetivo sondar as possibilidades e implicações do uso de canções do repertório popular brasileiro como ferramentas auxiliares para o ensino de Filosofia. Para isso, recorremos à contribuição de diversos educadores nesse assunto, em especial os que desenvolveram o processo de “experiência filosófica em sala de aula”. Nessa abordagem, apresentamos algumas propostas concretas de utilização de canções como ponto de partida para a experiência do filosofar em sala de aula. A canção popular, utilizada como recurso de sensibilização “preparatória” para a experiência filosófica, tem um grande potencial de aproximação com questões filosóficas presentes no cotidiano de seus ouvintes. O professor, atento a essas questões, poderá desenvolver o processo ensino-aprendizagem de uma forma lúdica, agradável e prazerosa para os educandos.

TRABALHANDO A EDUCAÇÃO AMBIENTAL A PARTIR DA PROBLEMÁTICA SÓCIO-AMBIENTAL DE UMA LAGOA COSTEIRA

The aim of this study was the development of environmental education activities focused on two public school classes at Florianopolis, SC, such activities were based on socio-environmental issues related to an urban coastal lagoon. Field trips, the built of a clay mockup and classroom dynamics were conducted from June to December 2006. Students were able to reflect about the problems and they also tried to suggest solutions.

Parental perception of oral health status of children in mainstream and special education classrooms

The aim of this study was to compare parental perceptions of oral health status and access to dental services by children in 34 special education and 16 mainstream public elementary school classes in San Mateo County, California. A self-administered parental survey was utilized and included questions about demographics, oral health, and dental utilization. The overall response rate was 58.8%. After adjusting for age and gender of the child, compared to mainstream, parents of students in special education classes were significantly more likely to report their children to have worse oral health (OR = 2.4, 95% CI 1.54, 3.67), be lacking a past year dental visit (OR = 1.96, 95% CI 1.01, 3.84), and have missed school days due to dental reasons (OR = 2.5, 95% CI 1.55, 4.17). Both groups rated their children's oral health inferior to the overall health rating (p < .001). The authors concluded that disparities exist between the two groups in parental perceptions of their children's oral health status and dental service utilization.

Interpersonal teacher behaviour in primary school classrooms: A cross-cultural validation of a Greek translation of the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction

The present study investigated the psychometric properties of a Greek translation of the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction Primary (G-QTIP). A sample of 273 primary school students from 17 Grade 5 and 6 classes in Cyprus public schools, as well as their teachers, participated in the study. Students completed a self-report questionnaire consisting of demographic questions and the G-QTIP. Teachers also rated students’ academic achievement in language and mathematics. The study also investigated the effects of students’ demographics and academic achievement on their perceptions. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the a priori structure of the instrument, but with a reduced number of items and with the removal of the Uncertain scale. In general, the G-QTIP is valid and reliable for use in Greek-speaking contexts.

Darwin, Dover, ‘Intelligent Design’ and textbooks

ID ('intelligent design') is not science, but a form of creationism; both are very different from the simple theological proposition that a divine Creator is responsible for the natural patterns and processes of the Universe. Its current version maintains that a 'Designer' must intervene miraculously to accomplish certain natural scientific events. The verdict in the 2005 case Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover School District, et al. (in Harrisburg, PA, U.S.A.) was a landmark of American jurisprudence that prohibited the teaching of ID as science, identified it as religiously based, and forbade long-refuted 'criticisms of evolution' from introduction into public school classes. Much of the science of the trial was based on biochemistry; biochemists and other scientists have several important opportunities to improve scientific literacy and science education in American public schools ('state schools') by working with teachers, curriculum developers and textbook writers.

Using Seminar Blogs to Enhance Student Participation and Learning in Public Health School Classes

We evaluated whether "seminar blogs" enhanced learning in a large graduate-level introductory public health school class. Sixty students were divided into 6 online blog groups. Students posted their assignments (case analyses, news commentaries), prompting comments from other students. Anonymous poll surveys of students were conducted at midpoint and at the end of the course. Sixty percent reported that blog participation enriched their learning quite a bit, 34% a small amount, and 6% not at all; 54% said that the blogs provided opportunities to learn from classmates. When comparing writing on the blog to speaking in class, 60% found it easier, 30% about the same, and 10% harder. About 65% said that skills attained by participating in blogs were useful for current or future work. Major criticisms involved time issues. Small seminar blogs offer opportunities for increased student participation, interaction, and learning. To be most effective and appealing, assignments for postings need to allow sufficient time for commentary. This educational technology has potential to expand the classroom experience and is worthy of further development and testing.

Elementary-Aged Children's Aesthetic Experiences with Music

This study examined the perceived aesthetic experiences of elementary school children. Sixty 4th graders, from 3 intact public school classes that included students identified as gifted and with special needs, listened to 'Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43, Variation 18,' by Rachmaninoff and simultaneously indicated responses by manipulating a Continuous Response Digital Interface (CRDI) dial. One week later, participants repeated the listening activity under identical experimental conditions. As in similar studies with adults, aggregated graphic analyses showed that many of the children's highest and lowest reactions tended to cluster at the same places, and test-retest reliability showed a high positive correspondence between the two listening sessions (r = .99). Although it is impossible to know if these 4th graders actually had aesthetic experiences, it seems clear that they did respond to this music. It was determined that 57 students, including most of those with special needs, successfully used the CRDI dial to indicate their reactions and 58 expressed comfort with the simplicity of its use. Additional analyses, which compared responses based on developmental statuses, found a wide range of correlations between children who were categorized as normally developing, gifted, or having special needs.

Association of Depression in Mothers of Disabled Children with the Child's Participation in Integrated Education

To measure depression in mothers of 5 to 7-yr.-old children with disabilities and to find out whether mothers' depression varied by sex of the child, 126 mothers from Ankara participated; 59 were mothers of children with disabilities who participated in integrated education and attended preschool classes in public schools and, as a comparison group, 67 were mothers of children with disabilities of similar age and characteristics who did not participate in integrated education while attending public and private schools. In the study, the Beck Depression Scale and General Information Forms were used. Depression in mothers of children with disabilities who did not participate in integrated education was higher than in mothers of children with disabilities who participated in integrated education.

Multiple Perspectives on the Development of an Eighth‐Grade Mathematical Discourse Community

Abstract In this article we examine the development, over 1 year, of mathematical discourse communities in 2 eighth‐grade mathematics classes in a suburban public middle school. The curriculum topics included probability, functions, graphing, data analysis, and pre‐algebra. The 50 students were heterogeneously placed; most were from upper‐middle‐class families. Data included videotaped classroom observations, field notes, and teacher reflections. We explored both the students’ growing competencies with mathematical discourse and changes in how the teacher attended to students’ ideas. We present the teacher’s impressions of the developing discourse community, and we applied 2 research‐based lenses, robust mathematical discussion to assess the strength of student discourse, and professional vision for classroom discourse to analyze the ways in which the teacher paid attention to, and reflected on, ideas students raised during discussion. Applying multiple perspectives highlighted the complex nature of devel...