来厦务工子女在初中教育的若干问题

改革开放以来,厦门作为最早的四个经济特区,吸引和接纳了大量来厦务工人员,伴随着进城务工潮而来的就是其子女(多数是未成年人)的教育问题,正确认识来厦务工子女在初中教育的若干问题,认真进行归因分析,找到解决问题的对策和建议,有助于实现教育最大化公平,构建人文、和谐、稳定的社会环境。     

Augustine and education in critical thinking

Augustine's concept of the deep self provides a basis for a complex and many‐faceted account of critical thinking. He uncovers the moral sources of thinking in the inner depths of the self and shows that critical thinking presupposes radical self‐reflection ready to face the truth about oneself. Self‐knowledge assumes transparency, consciousness of the corrupt desires and prejudices that distort one's thinking. Unresolved guilt endangers transparency and thereby makes it difficult to become aware of the vices distorting one's perspective on reality. That is why human beings need divine grace that gives them the courage to face their corruption.

For Augustine, the problem of critical thinking is part of a larger problem about how the human self and identity are formed, which factors influence the process, and how a person comes to know herself. Augustine writes an open account of his life in order to clarify this problem. His intention is to make sense of the nature of his self by thinking carefully who he is and how he became who he is.

Augustine seeks to find an answer to this question both philosophically and autobiographically, by analysing the factors that influenced the formation of his own identity and the development of his self‐knowledge and by reflecting philosophically on the nature of these influences. Reason is one essential part of the human soul. Since God has given reason to human beings, it must have a purpose. Augustine seeks to clarify this purpose by reflecting on fundamental epistemological questions: What is knowledge and where does it come from? What is the relationship of human reason to knowledge? How can one reach ultimate knowledge?

According to Augustine, human reason and perception have been formed to acquire knowledge about reality. If God had not made human reason and perception fitting for their task, knowledge would be completely unattainable. Since God has made human reason capable of acquiring reliable knowledge, reason has an important task in the spiritual development of human beings. It is especially useful when trying to make clear conceptual distinctions.

Reason does not, however, function independently of the will and the emotions. For reason to acquire a reliable grasp on reality and to understand things properly, the human heart must love the truth, the good and the right sufficiently to face its own prejudices and to gain self‐knowledge.

Critical thinking has, therefore, certain crucial preconditions, according to Augustine. The aim of this article is to clarify the structure of these preconditions. (1) In order to think critically, one has to distinguish between how reality appears to one and how it is in fact. (2) There is a close connection between willing and thinking, between one's deepest desires and one's view on reality. (3) One cannot distinguish reality from appearances unless one realizes how corrupt desires and prejudices distort one's perspective on reality. (4) In order to be able to face one's evil desires and become conscious of their distorting influence, one needs the courage to face one's depravity. Such a courage presupposes God's grace and his promise of forgiveness, since without divine grace human beings try to cover up the truth about themselves and remain unconscious of the distorting influence of their evil desires. (5) One needs a source of light that enlightens the deep recesses of the self and shows it in the true light but is yet external to the human being and independent of him. (6) This source of inner light has to be of a personal nature to provide the learner with the possibility of inner dialogue. Augustine assumes that God is the inner teacher of every human being. A crucial factor in the development of critical thinking is that one becomes more dialogically engaged with the inner teacher.     

Measurement of social-evaluative anxiety in junior high school students

This paper provides some initial normative and validity data on the Social Avoidance and Distress (SAD) and the Fear of Negative Evaluation (FNE) scales for junior high school students. Findings indicated: the level of social-evaluative anxiety does not significantly vary during the junior high school years or between sexes, junior high school students report similar levels of FNE to college students but less SAD, a significant positive correlation between treatment subjects' SAD scores and peer sociometric ratings of social-evaluative anxiety, and subjects treated for social anxiety reported significantly less SAD and FNE at follow-up assessment. Recommendations for future research and clinical use of the SAD and FNE are offered.     

Test anxiety in elementary school and junior high school students in japan

This study describes the sex difference, developmental trends of a modified Japanese version of the Test Anxiety Scale for Children (TASC, Sarason, Davidson, Frederick, & Waite, 1960) and presents evidence of negative effects of test anxiety on academic achievement. It was found that (a) the mean TASC scores for girls were found to be higher than boys across grades; (b) the developmental trends of anxiety scores showed the inversed V curves with the peak of 4th grades in elementary school, but in junior high school the curves were V shaped. Those results were explained in reference with selfdefensiveness, learning of anxiety, resistance to anxiety, and acquisition of self-concept; (c) the test anxiety was shown to have a negative effect on both academic achievement and intelligence test scores. Furthermore, it was to be also found in teacher-made tests that higher test anxiety students were inferior to lower in all the school subjects.     

Fostering critical religious thinking in multicultural education for teacher education

Religious diversity as a consequence of global immigration has become a cultural phenomenon of pluralism in society. The fear of indoctrination and the desire for religious freedom fuel the debate on whether to remove religion from school education. Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed offers a positive perspective on the debate by calling attention to the pedagogy of religious education in the pursuit of religious freedom for all human beings. Rather than transferring religious knowledge to students, the challenge for religious education is to foster critical religious thinking in them. Unfortunately, many teachers lack the confidence to address religious issues, as well as lacking support in the professional development of critical religious thinking. Hence, this article proposes a tentative model for fostering critical religious thinking that might fit into a course in multicultural education for teachers.     

景颇族初中生的民族社会化觉察及其特征

民族社会化觉察是指少数民族孩子对父母向他们传递的有关民族特征信息的认知。采用问卷调查、情境实验和故事补全任务考察景颇族初中生对母亲传递的民族社会化信息的觉察及特征。结果表明：(1)景颇族初中生觉察到的民族社会化信息包含促进和睦、文化社会化、促使不信任和偏见准备; (2)景颇族初中生对不同信息的觉察存在差异, 对促进和睦的觉察显著多于文化社会化和偏见准备, 对促使不信任的觉察最少; (3)在冲突情境中, 有无偏见线索影响被试对偏见准备的觉察; (4)被试的民族社会化觉察存在性别差异, 女生更多地觉察到促进和睦, 男生更多地觉察到促使不信任。整个研究表明, 青少年的民族社会化觉察存在着文化差异, 与美国少数族裔青少年觉察到母亲偏重于传递文化社会化、偏见准备不同, 景颇族初中生觉察到母亲偏重于传递促进和睦。     

初中生自我概念、应对方式及其关系的研究

以初中197名学生为被试,研究了初中生自我概念、应对方式的特点及关系.研究表明:(1)初中生在一般自我、自我价值感、身体自我方面存在性别差异,在一般自我、学业自我方面存在年级差异,在自我价值感与身体自我概念方面存在性别与年级的交互作用,女生的自我价值感、身体自我概念随年级升高而降低.(2)初中生在应对方式方面的幻想应对上存在性别差异,在求助应对、发泄应对方面存在年级差异.(3)自我概念各因子与问题解决、求助应对存在一定的显著正相关,自我概念越积极,越有可能以问题解决、寻求帮助来应对挫折和烦恼;自我概念部分因子对应对方式的部分因子存在着不同程度的显著回归效应.     

Conservatism of Israeli junior high school students: interethnic differences

The aims of the study were (a) to establish the factor structure characterizing Israeli junior high school students of Western and Oriental ethnic origin on the Children's Scale of Social Attitudes, (b) to compare the Israeli factor structure with those for school children from other societies, and (c) to examine whether the Israeli school children's factor structure resembled those for Israeli adults as well as for adults from other societies. Analysis indicated that Israeli junior high school children from both Western and Oriental ethnic groups were characterized by similar factors of general conservatism, namely, Religion, Antihedonism, and Punitiveness, although the Orientals were more conservative on these factors than the Westerners. In addition, the present factor structure resembled those for groups of school children as well as adults from other societies, reconfirming that factors of general conservatism have cross-cultural validity.     

Reading and formal thinking in Quebec high school students

According to Piaget, the development of formal thinking is one of the primary tasks of adolescence. Reading is also a developmental task. The failure of adolescents to develop formal thinking skills and increasing levels of illiteracy led the investigators to conduct a pilot study to see whether there is a correlation between high school students' scores on a test of formal thinking and those on a test of reading. Students' success on both tests was disappointingly low. Lack of motivation seems to be a major problem, and requires further investigation. Correlations between scores on the two tests were relatively low, although there is a suggestive similarity between the distribution of scores for formal thinking and those for vocabulary. General success on visual exercises suggests that graphic methods using computer-assisted instruction may be useful for developing formal thinking skills of adolescents.     

The development of optimism and perceived attainment from elementary school to junior high school

Optimism (a perception of future improvement of children's own achievement levels) and perceived present attainment were examined developmentally in relation to academic achievement and motivation. Subjects were 507 Japanese third-, fifth-, and seventh-grade children. After categorization as high or low on perceived attainment (H/L) and optimism (h/l), two (Hh, Ll), three (Hh, Lh, Ll), and four (Hh, Hl, Lh, Ll) groups were obtained in the third, fifth, and seventh grades, respectively. These groups showed characteristic features in terms of motivation- and achievement-related measures. Both optimism and perceived attainment explained the differences in scores on the measures between the two third-grade groups. In grades 5 and 7 perceived attainment was the primary factor explaining the group differences, while the optimism dimension was a secondary factor, whose influence was stronger in grade 7. The results are discussed in relation to the development of self-perceptions, as well as changes in learning environment between elementary school and junior high school.     

A motivational environment for behaviorally deviant junior high school students

A contingency management program was established in a junior high school to better manage and educate students having histories of severe misconduct. School administrators selected 46 eighth-graders having multiple suspensions for misbehavior. Students (N=32) in two of the schools remained in traditional programs, serving as controls, whereas students (N=14) in the third school participated in a token reinforcement program. Reinforcers provided in the afternoon were contingent upon achievement and discipline during morning academic periods. Home-based reinforcers were established to support school behavior. Compared with the control group, significant reductions in negative school behavior as well as greater increases in academic achievement were obtained for the treatment group, thus supporting the efficacy of contingency management for adolescent school misbehavior.Valuable assistance in developing the reinforcement program and curriculum materials was provided by William Brown, principal of the Anne Arundel County Learning Center. Thanks are also due: Dottie Dpwling and Joe Gentile, the teachers in the program; John Jedlicka, principal of Stemmers Run Junior High; and Donnie Williams, research assistant.     

Sense of justice in school and civic attitudes

Contending that justice experiences in school serve as a hidden curriculum that conveys messages about the wider society and impact student attitudes and behavior, we investigate the effects of students’ sense of distributive and (school) procedural justice on democratic-related attitudes: liberal democratic orientation (civil rights), social trust and institutional trust. The study was carried out among about 5,000 8th- and 9th-grade students in a national sample of 48 junior high schools in Israel in the 2010–2011 school year. The two-level data—individual and school—were analyzed by the hierarchical linear model (HLM7) program. Findings basically support our hypotheses: sense of distributive instrumental and, especially, of relational justice at school have a positive effect on liberal democratic orientation and on trust in people and in formal institutions. Furthermore, school (aggregate) sense of procedural justice adds to these positive effects and, in the case of democratic orientation, also interacts with instrumental justice and intensifies its effect on this outcome. However, these attitudes are also dependent on sectorial affiliation (Jewish secular, Jewish religious, Israeli–Arab), which explains a considerable portion of between-school variation in student attitudes.     

Electronic doors to education: study of high school website accessibility in Iowa

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and Sections 504 and 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities in all aspects of daily life, including education, work, and access to places of public accommodations. Increasingly, these antidiscrimination laws are used by persons with disabilities to ensure equal access to e-commerce, and to private and public Internet websites. To help assess the impact of the anti-discrimination mandate for educational communities, this study examined 157 website home pages of Iowa public high schools (52% of high schools in Iowa) in terms of their electronic accessibility for persons with disabilities. We predicted that accessibility problems would limit students and others in obtaining information from the web pages as well as limiting ability to navigate to other web pages. Findings show that although many web pages examined included information in accessible formats, none of the home pages met World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards for accessibility. The most frequent accessibility problem was lack of alternative text (ALT tags) for graphics. Technical sophistication built into pages was found to reduce accessibility. Implications are discussed for schools and educational institutions, and for laws, policies, and procedures on website accessibility.     

Rational-emotive therapy and the reduction of interpersonal anxiety in junior high school students

This study evaluated the effectiveness of rational-emotive therapy and rational-emotive imagery. Fifty-nine junior high school students who volunteered to participate in treatment for interpersonal anxiety were randomly assigned to rational-emotive therapy without imagery (RET), rational-emotive therapy with imagery (REI), relationship-oriented counseling (ROC), and waiting-list control (WLC) groups. Groups met for seven 50-minute treatment sessions during a three-week period. Assessments were conducted at pretreatment, posttreatment, and three-week follow-up. Both self-report and sociometric measures were used to evaluate treatment outcome. At postassessment, both the RET and REI groups were rated on sociometric measures as significantly less interpersonally anxious than the WLC group. Mean scores favored the RET and REI groups, but no significant differences between these groups and the ROC group were obtained. The self-report measure did not significantly differentiate between groups, but the REI group demonstrated significant pre- to follow-up changes. Both the RET and REI groups yielded greater reductions in irrational thinking than did the ROC and WLC groups. In addition, the pattern of the results supported the use of rational-emotive imagery as a component of rational-emotive therapy. The practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

初中生函数概念发展的研究

本研究通过测验法对北京市六所中学的802名初一至初三的学生进行调查,考察了初中学生函数概念的发展水平。结果表明,初中生函数概念的发展存在着较为特殊的年龄特征;学生所接受的学校教育内容显著地影响其函数概念的发展水平。但是,初中学生进行正与反、肯定与否定之间相互转化的辩证思维能力还较差;还有很大一部分(将近一半)的学生不能用运动、变化的观点来看待问题;初二是学生函数概念发展的一个转折点。从初二以后,学生无论是进行文字信息、还是图形信息加工的能力都有明显的增强,但将文字信息与图形信息进行转换的能力水平还很低;考察同类问题间的联系时,学生还不能脱离开问题的实际内容,概括化地理解抽象的数量关系。     

The rationality of science,critical thinking,and science education

This paper considers two philosophical problems and their relation to science education. The first involves the rationality of science; it is argued here that the traditional view, according to which science is rational because of its adherence to (a non-standard conception of) scientific method, successfully answers one central question concerning science's rationality. The second involves the aims of education; here it is argued that a fundamental educational aim is the fostering of rationality, or its educational cognate, critical thinking. The ramifications of these two philosophical theses for science education are then considered, and a science education which takes reasons in science as its fundamental feature is sketched.It is notwhat the man of science believes that distinguishes him, buthow andwhy he believes it. His beliefs are tentative, not dogmatic; they are based on evidence, not on authority or intuition (Russell 1945, p. 527).I believe ... that all teaching [in science] on the University level (and if possible below) should be training and encouragement in critical thinking (Popper 1970, pp. 52–53).This paper is mainly drawn from other publications. The first section is taken from my (1985); the second from (1988), Chapter 2; and the third from (1988), Chapter 6. Since what appears here are truncated versions of those discussions, I urge interested readers to look to those other works for fuller treatments of the issues here discussed.