Evaluation of open items using the many-facet Rasch model

The goal of this study is to analyze the quality of ratings assigned to two constructed response questions for evaluating the written ability of essays in Portuguese language from the perspective of the many-facet Rasch (MFR [15 J.M. Linacre, Many-facet Rasch Measurement, 2nd ed., MESA Press, Chicago, 1994. [Google Scholar]]) model. The analyzed data set comes from 350 written tests with two open-item tasks that were developed based on a rating process independently marked by two rater coordinators and a group of 42 raters. The MFR model analysis shows the measurement quality related to the examinees, raters, tasks and items, and classification scale that has been used for the task rating process. The findings indicate significant differences amongst the rater severities and show that the raters cannot be interchanged. The results also suggest that the comparison between the two task difficulties needs further investigation. An additional study has been done on the scale structure of the classification used by each rater for each item. The result suggests that there have been some similarities amongst the tasks and a need of revision for some criteria of the rating process. Overall, the scale of evaluation has shown to be efficient for a classification of the examinees.     

The legacy of Derrick Bell and Latino/a education: a critical race testimonio

In this article, we trace Bell’s influence in our lives from graduate students to teacher educators and engaged scholars, and note how we have always read Bell alongside and inseparable from Latino/a Studies and Latina/Chicana feminist thought. We highlight the powerful and fruitful tensions of these interconnections in addressing our curricular struggles and innovations, professional identities and scholarly trajectories. We address Bell’s theory of interest convergence to discuss the tensions and possibilities of personal ‘success’ in the academy by interweaving our testimonios with Critical Race and Latino Critical Race (LatCrit) scholarship in Latino/a education. Latina feminist scholars have re-worked the Latin American tradition of testimonio as a way to link individual stories to a collective story of Latina/o racialization in the US, and to epistemological racism in the academy. Our collective story centers the intersections of race with indigeneity, class, citizenship, language, gender and sexuality. We begin from the earliest influence of Bell’s counterstorytelling method for examining Latino/a students’ racializing experiences in higher education and move through other critical race work in Latino education that both directly and indirectly addresses Bell’s scholarship as these intersect with our intellectual journeys. Finally, we offer a story of the complex legacy of Bell’s anti-subordination and social justice scholarship for intellectual alliances, coalition building, and inter-, multi- and trans-disciplinary engaged scholarship.     

Constructing Childhood: Discourses About School Violence in the Greek Daily Press

This study explores the construction of discourses about childhood in the Greek daily press. It employs the theoretical frameworks of the new sociology of childhood and critical discourse analysis to question which discourses of childhood are constructed in the daily press presenting cases where children were the victimisers in school violent episodes. The study showed that while there are distinct discourses constructed in the texts such as the romantic childhood, the minority group childhood, the homogeneous childhood and the childhood as actor, these tend to co‐exist textually. Results are critically discussed in relation to the positioning of children through everyday practices such as the daily press.     

Multivariate geometric anisotropic Cox processes

This paper introduces a new modeling and inference framework for multivariate and anisotropic point processes. Building on recent innovations in multivariate spatial statistics, we propose a new family of multivariate anisotropic random fields, and from them a family of anisotropic point processes. We give conditions that make the proposed models valid. We also propose a Palm likelihood-based inference method for this type of point process, circumventing issues of likelihood tractability. Finally we illustrate the utility of the proposed modeling framework by analyzing spatial ecological observations of plants and trees in the Barro Colorado Island data.     

Implications of Sociopolitical Context for Career Services Delivery

This article analyzes the implications of sociopolitical context for career services delivery. Beginning with a reflection on the social foundations of the practice of career counseling, 4 specific Portuguese conditions are presented and discussed in light of existing knowledge in the field. The 4 underlying issues presented are (a) the impact of political changes on career services delivery, (b) the rigidity vs. flexibility of the educational system, (c) political and psychological perspectives on employment, and (d) the relationship between power and career services delivery. A research agenda founded in political anthropology is proposed that may enhance future career services delivery.     

Reviews

M. I. Finley, The Use and Abuse of History (1975), 254 (Chatto &; Windus, £4.50).

John H. Langbein, Prosecuting Crime in the Renaissance. England, Germany, France (1974), ix+321 (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, £7.50).

Hans‐Ulrich Wehler (ed.), Der Deutsche Bauernkrieg, 1524–1526 (1975), 356 (Geschichte und Gesellschaft, Sonderheft 1, Vandenhoek und Ruprecht, Göttingen, DM 39).

Mervyn James, Family, Lineage and Civil Society. A Study of Society, Politics and Mentality in the Durham Region 1500–1640 (1974), x+233 (Oxford University Press, £5.00).

C. W. Chalklin and M. A. Havinden (eds.), Rural Change and Urban Growth 1500–1800. Essays in English Regional History in Honour of W. G. Hoskins (1974), xxvi+360 (Longman, £8.50).

Peggy K. Liss, Mexico under Spain, 1521–1556. Society and the Origins of Nationality (1975), xvi+229 (University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, £7.50).

J. I. Israel, Race, Class and Politics in Colonial Mexico, 1610–1670 (1975), xiii+305 (Oxford University Press, £8.00).

Olwen H. Hufton, The Poor of Eighteenth‐Century France, 1750–1789 (1974), xiii+414 (Oxford University Press, £9.00).

B. R. Mitchell, European Historical Statistics 1750–1970 (1975), xx+827 (Macmillan, £24).

Edward Royle, Victorian Infidels (1974), viii+357 (Manchester University Press, Manchester, £6.00).

Verena Martinez‐Alier, Marriage, Class and Colour in Nineteenth‐Century Cuba. A Study of Racial Attitudes and Sexual Values in a Slave Society (1974), x+202 (Cambridge University Press, £4.40).

John Burnett (ed.), Useful Toil. Autobiographies of Working People from the 1820s to the 1920s (1974), 364 (Allen Lane, £5, paperback £2.50).

A. Allan MacLaren, Religion and Social Class: The Disruption Years in Aberdeen (1974), xii+268 (Routledge, £4.95).

David Jones, Chartism and the Chartists (1975), 229 (Allen Lane, £6.00, paperback £3.00).

Robert Gellately, The Politics of Economic Despair: Shopkeepers and German Politics 1890–1914 (1974), xvi+317 (Sage Publications, £6.00).

Alan A. Jackson, Semi‐Detached London: Suburban Development, Life and Transport 1900–39 (1973), 381 (George Allen and Unwin, £6.50).     

Imagining contact reduces prejudice in preschool children

We examined the effectiveness of an imagery‐based strategy designed to reduce prejudice in preschoolers in Italy. Three studies involving different target groups (disabled children, Black children) were conducted within Italian preschools. Children (4–6 years) were asked to imagine and draw meeting an outgroup member (Studies 1 and 2) or to imagine writing a letter to an outgroup member (Study 3). Results revealed that preschoolers in the experimental condition, relative to a control group, reported less intergroup bias in the form of contact intentions and resource allocation as well as greater behavioral inclusiveness; effects were mediated by improved intergroup attitudes. Our findings are important in understanding ways that promote positive intergroup relations in ways that align with the interests of young children.     

The role of prosody in infants’ preference for speech: A comparison between speech and birdsong

Speech preferences emerge very early in infancy, pointing to a special status for speech in auditory processing and a crucial role of prosody in driving infant preferences. Recent theoretical models suggest that infant auditory perception may initially encompass a broad range of human and nonhuman vocalizations, then tune in to relevant sounds for the acquisition of species‐specific communication sounds. However, little is known about sound properties eliciting infants’ tuning‐in to speech. To address this issue, we presented a group of 4‐month‐olds with segments of non‐native speech (Mandarin Chinese) and birdsong, a nonhuman vocalization that shares some prosodic components with speech. A second group of infants was presented with the same segment of birdsong paired with Mandarin played in reverse. Infants showed an overall preference for birdsong over non‐native speech. Moreover, infants in the Backward condition preferred birdsong over backward speech whereas infants in the Forward condition did not show clear preference. These results confirm the prominent role of prosody in early auditory processing and suggest that infants’ preferences may privilege communicative vocalizations featured by certain prosodic dimensions regardless of the biological source of the sound, human or nonhuman.