Teacher salaries in Latin America: A review

In this paper we use data from household surveys of 12 Latin American countries to assess how teacher salaries compare to workers in other occupations. The results show great variability from one country to another, ranging from an apparent underpayment of teachers in Bolivia by 35% relative to the control group, and a respective overpayment of 65% in Colombia. However, when statistical controls are introduced for the differential education, hours worked and gender composition between teachers and the comparison group, much of the earnings differential between the two groups disappears. On the basis of this finding, we cannot support the position that teachers are either overpaid or underpaid.     

Language Brokering and Depressive Symptoms in Mexican‐American Adolescents: Parent–Child Alienation and Resilience as Moderators

This study aimed to untangle the mixed effects of language brokering by examining a contextual factor (i.e., parent–child alienation) and a personal attribute (i.e., resilience) that may relate to adolescents’ feelings during translating (i.e., sense of burden and efficacy) and that may moderate the association between such feelings and adolescent depressive symptoms. Participants included 557 adolescent language brokers (M_age = 12.96) in Mexican‐American families. Results showed that adolescents with a strong sense of alienation from parents or low resilience (a) experienced more burden or less efficacy in translating and (b) were more susceptible to the detrimental effects of feeling a sense of burden and the beneficial effects of experiencing a sense of efficacy, as measured by depressive symptoms.     

Teacher collegiality and electronic communication: A study of the collaborative uses of email by secondary school teachers in Uruguay

Teacher collegiality has been consistently highlighted in recent years as a crucial factor in the success of processes of educational change and professional development. Consequently, there is considerable interest both from researchers and practitioners, in investigating strategies capable of supporting interactions and collaborations between teachers. Research, mostly carried out in industry, suggests that computer‐mediated communication (CMC) technologies may support collegiality in a diversity of contexts. Following the technological developments of the last few years, which have driven down the costs and complexity of computers and telecommunications, CMC technologies are becoming increasingly available to schools around the world. One of the more widespread of these new CMC technologies is electronic mail. The aim of this article is to discuss some of the results of a research project that investigated the potential of electronic mail for supporting the development of collegiality and professional exchange among secondary school teachers in Uruguay. At the time of this study, relatively little research had been carried out into the use of electronic mail for professional purposes by schoolteachers, especially in Latin America. The evidence suggests that email may support the formation of communities of highly committed users, where seeking and sharing professional resources are accepted behaviours.     

Career Dilemmas in Career Counseling Groups: Theoretical and Practical Issues

A career dilemma is a hypothetical or real situation in which a character is confronted with several career options each of which has advantages and disadvantages. The main purpose of presenting and discussing a dilemma in career counseling groups is to confront several appraisals of the situation in order to promote more complex thinking about career choices. Another important aim of this technique is to enhance interaction between group members and to analyze similar career dilemmas that the group participants have experienced in the past. The use of the discussion of career dilemmas is described, especially the role of the career counselor, and some suggestions for future research are presented.     

The Effects of Teacher Professional Development on Children’s Attendance in Preschool

Abstract

Student absenteeism is a widespread and critical issue in early childhood education. Current efforts to reduce student absenteeism in both preschool and K–12 settings have largely been family- and parent-focused interventions. Yet, interventions targeting teachers and schools may similarly be effective tools to improve student attendance. We utilize data from a large-scale, experimental evaluation of an early childhood professional development intervention to examine whether it impacted children’s absenteeism and chronic absenteeism. Although the professional development targeted the quality of teacher-child interactions and did not target children’s absenteeism, we find that the professional development reduced student absence rates by 1.0 percentage points (equivalent to approximately an additional 1.9?days of preschool). The professional development also reduced chronic absenteeism by 6.0 percentage points. Impacts were concentrated among lower-income children. Implications for policies targeting student absenteeism in preschool settings are discussed.     

What catches the eye in class observation? Observers’ perspectives in a multidisciplinary peer observation of teaching program

Peer Observation of Teaching has raised a lot of interest as a device for quality enhancement of teaching. While much research has focused on its models, implementation schemes and feedback to the observed, little attention has been paid to what the observer actually sees and can learn from the observation. A multidisciplinary peer observation of teaching program is described, and its data is used to identify the pedagogical aspects to which lecturers pay more attention to when observing classes. The discussion addresses the valuable learning opportunities for observers provided by this program, as well as its usefulness in disseminating, sharing and clarifying quality teaching practices. The need for further research concerning teacher-student relationships and students’ engagement is also suggested.     

Iberian colonial science

The Portuguese and Spanish empires were both global and long lasting. This essay focuses on colonial Spanish America, particularly on the practices of natural history. It also suggests that chivalric-epic ideologies permeated early modem epistemologies, including those of the French and the British. The essay criticizes the application of nineteenth-century models of empire to the understanding of the early modern composite monarchies in the New World. Finally, it explores the ways metropolitan natural philosophy was transformed in the New World kingdoms to bolster patriotic identities.     

Bridge pressure flow scour at clear water threshold condition

Bridge pressure flow scour at clear water threshold condition is studied theoretically and experimentally. The flume experiments reveal that the measured scour profiles under a bridge are more or less 2-dimensional; all the measured scour profiles can be described by two similarity equations, where the horizontal distance is scaled by the deck width while the local scour by the maximum scour depth; the maximum scour position is located just under the bridge about 15% deck width from the downstream deck edge; the scour begins at about one deck width upstream the bridge while the deposition occurs at about 2.5 deck widths downstream the bridge; and the maximum scour depth decreases with increas-ing sediment size, but increases with deck inundation. The theoretical analysis shows that: bridge scour can be divided into three cases, i.e. downstream unsubmerged, partially submerged, and totally submerged. For downstream unsubmerged flows, the maximum bridge scour depth is an open-channel problem where the conventional methods in terms of critical velocity or bed shear stress can be applied; for partially and totally submerged flows, the equilibrium maximum scour depth can be described by a scour and an inundation similarity number, which has been confirmed by experiments with two decks and two sediment sizes. For application, a design and field evaluation procedure with examples is presented, including the maximum scour depth and scour profile.