The United States of America and Scientific Research

To gauge the current commitment to scientific research in the United States of America (US), we compared federal research funding (FRF) with the US gross domestic product (GDP) and industry research spending during the past six decades. In order to address the recent globalization of scientific research, we also focused on four key indicators of research activities: research and development (R&D) funding, total science and engineering doctoral degrees, patents, and scientific publications. We compared these indicators across three major population and economic regions: the US, the European Union (EU) and the People's Republic of China (China) over the past decade. We discovered a number of interesting trends with direct relevance for science policy. The level of US FRF has varied between 0.2% and 0.6% of the GDP during the last six decades. Since the 1960s, the US FRF contribution has fallen from twice that of industrial research funding to roughly equal. Also, in the last two decades, the portion of the US government R&D spending devoted to research has increased. Although well below the US and the EU in overall funding, the current growth rate for R&D funding in China greatly exceeds that of both. Finally, the EU currently produces more science and engineering doctoral graduates and scientific publications than the US in absolute terms, but not per capita. This study's aim is to facilitate a serious discussion of key questions by the research community and federal policy makers. In particular, our results raise two questions with respect to: a) the increasing globalization of science: “What role is the US playing now, and what role will it play in the future of international science?”; and b) the ability to produce beneficial innovations for society: “How will the US continue to foster its strengths?

‘‘The Soldiers Came to the House’’: Young Children’s Responses to The Colour of Home

This article begins by reflecting on the present refugee crisis and its relevance to children in the UK. It identifies the need for teaching about the refugee experience to young children and argues that literature can provide a conduit for this. Sincethemillenniumtherehasbeenarapidincreaseinthenumberofbookspublished forchildren whichtake thisastheir theme, aimed atever-youngerreaders.Takingasa case study The Colour of Home by Mary Hoffman, a picturebook commonly used in lower primary classrooms, the article considers how this text promotes understanding and validates the circumstances of refugees. It closely examines the motivations and aims of the writer, how the book was mediated by teachers in the primary classroom, and how refugee and non-refugee children read and responded to it. Findings are presented from an interview with Mary Hoffman herself, juxtaposed with data from threeclassroomssuggestingthatpupilsgainedvaluableinsightintoacomplicatedand controversial issue. However the research concludes that viewing children through a refugee/non-refugee binary was reductive in not recognising the multi-layered nuances of meaning which were constructed by young readers who brought to bear a wide variety of individual life and family experiences. Furthermore, teachers in the study played a powerful role in mediating the texts when sharing them in the classroom, and devised a selection of stimulating resources to provoke reader response in terms of empathy, ‘‘social action’’, and some critical literacy