Factors affecting learning of Mexican primary school children

This paper isolates factors affecting Mexican primary school children's grade repetition rates and their educational outcomes, as measured by reading and math scores on a standardized test. We estimate an econometric production function for primary school education where the endogenous variables are language achievement, math achievement and grade repetition for individual children. The empirical results indicate that gender, socioeconomic status, parental education levels and past repetition of a grade are significant and common determinants of the endogenous variables. This study also shows that more teaching hours and increased student-teacher interaction, coupled with improved facilities and libraries, improve children's math and language achievement scores. Policy implications flowing from these results are outlined.

Ecocritical Theology Neo-Pastoral Themes in American Fiction from 1960 to the Present

Ecocritical theology relates to American fiction as it connects nature and spirituality. In my development of the term “neo-pastoral” I begin with Virgil’s Eclogues to serve as examples for spiritual and nature related themes. Virgil’s characters in “The Dispossessed” represent people’s alienation from the land. Meliboeus must leave his homeland because the Roman government has reassigned it to their war veterans. As he leaves Meliboeus wonders why fate has rendered this judgment on him and yet has granted his friend Tityrus a reprieve. Typically, pastoral literature represents people’s longing to leave the city and return to the spiritual respite of the country. When Meliboeus begins his journey he does not travel toward a specific geographical location. Because the gods have forced him from his land and severed his spiritual connection to nature he travels into the unknown. This is the starting point from which I develop neo-pastoral threads in contemporary literature and discuss the alienation that people experience when they are no longer connected to a spirit of the land or genius loci. Neo-pastoralism relates Bakhtin’s idea of chronotope and the expansion of the narrative voice of the novel to include the time/space dialogic. Neo-pastoral fiction shows people in their quest to find spirituality in spite of damage from chemical catastrophic events and suggests they may turn to technology as an ideological base to replace religion. The (anti) heroes of this genre often feel no connection with Judeo-Christian canon yet they do not consider other models of spirituality. Through catastrophes related to the atomic bomb, nuclear waste accidents, and the realization of how chemical pollutants affect the atmosphere, neo-pastoral literature explores the idea of apocalypticism in the event of mass annihilation and the need for canonical reformation. The novels explored in this dissertation are John Updike’s Rabbit, Run; Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49; Bernard Malamud’s The Fixer; Don DeLillo’s White Noise; Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead; Toni Morrison’s Paradise; and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road

Setting the Stage: Dr. Theora England and the Theatre Program

The story about the theatre program at Northwestern, including samples from Dr. England\u27s extensive scrapbooks.https://nwcommons.nwciowa.edu/theoranarrative/1000/thumbnail.jp

SEAFOOD SAFETY PERCEPTIONS AND THEIR EFFECTS ON ANTICIPATED CONSUMPTION UNDER VARYING INFORMATION TREATMENTS

This paper identifies factors that influence consumers' seafood safety perceptions and examines how these perceptions affect consumers' anticipated consumption when consumers are provided with additional information relevant to seafood. A recursive system of equations is specified describing consumers' safety perceptions as a function of past experience with seafood, recreational harvest activities, and risk-taking behavior, and describing the influence of safety perceptions on consumers' anticipated demand response to hypothetical information concerning seafood. A telephone survey of randomly selected Rhode Island consumers provided data for the analysis.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Keith Allen Interview

An interview of Keith Allen over his time working at Northwestern College with Dr. Theora Englandhttps://nwcommons.nwciowa.edu/theorareflections/1030/thumbnail.jp