Powerful Voicings: The Exercise of Voice at an Anarchist-Inspired Alternative School

This qualitative case study explored the development and exercise of voice at City Workshop, an anarchist-inspired alternative school for middle and high school students. Drawing from the dialogic tradition, I defined student voice as the complex and varied ways students express understanding, make themselves heard, and exercise agency over their educational experiences. In this study, I sought to move beyond traditional approaches to student voice that frame its meaning in instrumental terms and focus instead on its ontological and political dimensions. Through individual and focus group interviews, participant observations, document analysis, and a grounded theory approach to data analysis, I examined how students at City Workshop exercise their voices and how the educational practices of the school empower student voice. This study’s findings revealed the scope and power of student voice extended far beyond its practical effects. As demonstrated through the study, student voice was embodied in things students said, things they did not say, patterns of listening and dialogue, and even the environment itself. Relatedly, I learned student voice is empowered through dialogic governance and relational pedagogy, practices that invite students to play more meaningful roles as both individuals, learners, and community members. I also found City Workshop empowered voice by encouraging students to engage with issues of equity, power, and justice across a wide variety of settings and contexts, while dismantling barriers that restrict participation and engagement. Finally, the significance of this study lies in the attention it draws to the viability of experimental, dialogic approaches to schooling rooted in anarchist-inspired traditions and committed to broader educational transformation

That\u27s IrrELEPHANT: Children\u27s Judgments of Relevant and Irrelevant Animal Observations

Abstract: The ability to make judgments about different kinds of evidence is an important skill for learning about science. This study investigated if children recognize how helpful relevant and irrelevant information is for evaluating biological explanations, and whether their judgments change with age. Participants were 24 7- and 8-year-olds and 26 9- and 10-year-olds. Children heard a statement about an animal\u27s behavior. Then children heard an explanation for that behavior followed by 2 different observations. One observation was about the same animal but was irrelevant to the explanation. The other observation was about a different animal, but was relevant to the explanation. Children rated the helpfulness of each observation. Older children were less likely to rate the observations as helpful than younger children. More importantly, both age groups rated different animal-relevant observations as more helpful than the same animal-irrelevant. The findings suggest that when children are learning about science, they can differentiate between kinds of evidence regardless of the topic. However, they may still require assistance from educators in order to make more accurate judgments.https://ir.library.louisville.edu/uars/1008/thumbnail.jp

White Men in White coats: Children’s Attributions of Scientific Knowledge based on Race and Gender

Children use others’ characteristics (e.g., intelligence and niceness) to evaluate how much a person knows (Landrum et al., 2016). However, little is known about how gender and race influence children\u27s perception of adults\u27 scientific knowledge. The current study examined how children ages 5-8 (N = 25; 11 girls, 14 boys) perceive adults’ scientific knowledge. In the first task, children saw 8 different adults of varying race and gender (White man, White woman, Black man, Black woman) and rated their knowledge using a five-point scale. Children then chose one person out of two adults who they thought knew more about a scientific topic across 12 trials. In the last task, children saw 4 different adults of varying race and gender and chose which person was the scientist. Preliminary analyses showed no significant differences between children’s knowledge ratings and selection of Black and White men and women. However, children chose White men as scientists in the greatest proportion of trials. The current study will expand our understanding of how children’s perception of an adult’s scientific knowledge is impacted by the adults’ race and gender

Differences in Proinflammatory Cytokines and Monocyte Subtypes in Older as Compared With Younger Kidney Transplant Recipients.

Background:The number of elderly patients with end-stage kidney disease requiring kidney transplantation continues to grow. Evaluation of healthy older adults has revealed proinflammatory changes in the immune system, which are posited to contribute to age-associated illnesses via "inflamm-aging." Immunologic dysfunction is also associated with impaired control of infections. Whether these immunologic changes are found in older kidney transplant recipients is not currently known, but may have important implications for risk for adverse clinical outcomes. Methods:Three months after transplant, innate immune phenotype was evaluated by flow cytometry from 60 kidney transplant recipients (22 older [≥60 years] and 38 younger [<60 years old]). Multiplex cytokine testing was used to evaluate plasma cytokine levels. Younger patients were matched to older patients based on transplant type and induction immune suppression. Results:Older kidney transplant recipients demonstrated decreased frequency of intermediate monocytes (CD14++CD16+) compared with younger patients (1.2% vs 3.3%, P = 0.007), and a trend toward increased frequency of proinflammatory classical monocytes (CD14++CD16-) (94.5% vs 92.1%) (P = 0.065). Increased levels of interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) were seen in older patients. Conclusions:In this pilot study of kidney transplant recipients, we identified differences in the innate immune system in older as compared with younger patients, including increased levels of IFN-γ. This suggests that age-associated nonspecific inflammation persists despite immune suppression. The ability to apply noninvasive testing to transplant recipients will provide tools for patient risk stratification and individualization of immune suppression regimens to improve outcomes after transplantation

Stay and Play with Mickey Mouse: Familiar Characters Increase Children’s Exploratory Play

When children are introduced to a novel toy, they explore to discover how the toy works, but do not always discover all of the functions (Bonawitz et al., 2011). Research has shown that children prefer objects with a familiar character on them (Danovitch & Mills, 2014). This study investigates whether the presence of a familiar character’s image on a novel toy encourages exploratory play. Four- and 5-year-olds (n = 40) were presented with a novel toy, containing 5 different functions, that either displayed an image of their favorite familiar character or an image of that character’s color scheme. Children were given up to 5 minutes to play with the toy. Children’s play was coded for the number of functions they discovered and how long they played with the toy. Results showed no significant difference between conditions for number of functions discovered. However, children who were given a toy with their favorite character’s image on it spent significantly more time exploring the toy than children who had a toy with the character’s color scheme on it. These findings suggest that seeing a familiar character on an object promotes children’s exploration of that object.https://ir.library.louisville.edu/uars/1010/thumbnail.jp

Phone a Friend or Ask Alexa? Children’s Trust in Voice-Activated Devices

Voice-activated devices such as Google Home, Siri, and Alexa are in many homes and children are interacting with these devices. It is unclear if they treat these devices the way they treat human informants. Children prefer human informants that are reliable and familiar. This study examined whether children believe voice-activated devices provide accurate information. Participants included 40 4- and 5-year-olds and 40 7- and 8-year-olds. Children were introduced to two informants: the experimenter’s good friend and the experimenter’s new device. Children heard questions about personal information (e.g., the experimenter’s favorite color), facts that do not change (e.g., the color of a kiwano fruit), and timely information (e.g., which state had the most rain yesterday). After the informant provided an answer, the child indicated whether the answer was correct. Older children were significantly more likely to trust the device’s stable fact responses and the human informant’s personal fact responses. Surprisingly, younger children did not show greater trust for either informant for stable facts, but were significantly more likely to trust personal facts given by the device. These findings suggest that younger children have greater difficulty than older children trusting the appropriate informant, and thus need more guidance from adults to understand and use voice-activated devices.https://ir.library.louisville.edu/uars/1036/thumbnail.jp

Should heart, lung, and liver transplant recipients receive immunosuppression induction for kidney transplantation?

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/74619/1/j.1399-0012.2009.00973.x.pd

How Children Seek Out Information from Technological and Human Informants

Abstract Members of the current generation of young children have been exposed to technological informants, primarily consisting of devices that search the Internet for information, nearly since birth. However, little is known about how young children explore information using these digital sources. To address this issue, 30 preschool children generated questions about unfamiliar animals that were to be answered by either a human or technological informant (i.e., an Internet search program). Children also completed a measure of biological and psychological attributions to different types of information sources. Overall, children generated similar numbers of questions for each informant, and a similar proportion of their questions were causal in nature. Children also attributed few biological and psychological characteristics to the Internet search program. This suggests that, despite understanding that technological devices share few biological and psychological properties with people, young children seek out information in similar ways from human and technological information sources