When Youth Dialogue: A Pedagogic Framework for Changing the Conversation About Migration

How should educators teach about one of the most complex and pressing issues of our times? This paper presents an empirically-grounded framework to help educators understand the opportunities and challenges of engaging youth around the topic of migration, including migration involving refugees. It stresses the importance of inviting youth to dialogue in ways that involve slowing down, sharing stories, and making connections. The framework emerged from a design-based research study involving an experimental online learning community and curriculum on the topic of human migration. Posts and comments involving 140 teens from seven countries were closely analyzed using a modified grounded theory approach that incorporated constructivist principles. 14 interviews with participating educators also informed the analysis. The framework proposes that youth be supported to develop (1) curiosity and engagement about individual migration stories and migration in general, (2) nuanced understanding of the complex and diverse factors that help shape historical and contemporary migration experiences, and (3) critical awareness of their own and others’ perspectives on migration and migrants. A visual representation is provided. Specific examples of student dialogue are unpacked to illustrate the framework, with discussion of the following cognitive and affective challenges: “the Three O’s” of overgeneralization, overconfidence, and othering. The paper argues that youth of all backgrounds need opportunities to learn about migration in ways that allow them to leverage their various experiences and perspectives and engage with one another in meaningful, authentic ways

Ostensive addressing as an approach in the Tshivenda translation dictionaries: an analysis

Thesis (M.A. (African Languages)) --University of Limpopo, 2005Pictures play a role in dictionaries as they show what a particular object looks like. African languages do not always have readily available translation equivalents for some of the English words, and also, English does not always have translation equivalents for Tshivenda cultural bound words. The study has been undertaken to try to solve the problem of lack of equivalents when English and Tshivenda are used as the treated languages in a bilingual dictionary. The study discovered that lexicographers of Tshivenda-English and English-Tshivenda dictionaries do not always give direct and appropriate translation equivalents for English scientific and technological terms in Tshivenda and translation equivalents for Tshivenda cultural bound words. The study found that these lexicographers end up giving transliteration of scientific and technological terms and even a mere borrowing of Tshivenda cultural terms as translation equivalents. In this case the study recommends that Ostensive addressing be introduced in Tshivenda – English and English – Tshivenda bilingual dictionaries as a solution to the problem of lacking equivalents and that pictures not be used excessively but only where necessary and be given immediately after the lemma in the microstructure of a dictionary

Feature biases in early word learning : network distinctiveness predicts age of acquisition

Do properties of a word’s features influence the order of its acquisition in early word learning? Combining the principles of mutual exclusivity and shape bias, the present work takes a network analysis approach to understanding how feature distinctiveness predicts the order of early word learning. Distance networks were built from nouns with edge lengths computed using various distance measures. Feature distinctiveness was computed as a distance measure, showing how far an object in a network is from other objects based on shared and non-shared features. Feature distinctiveness predicted order of acquisition across all measures; words that were further away from other words in the network space were learned earlier. The best distance measures were based only on non-shared features (object dissimilarity) and did not include shared features (object similarity). This indicates that shared features may play less of a role in early word learning than non-shared features. In addition, the strongest effects were found for visual form and surface features. Cluster analysis further revealed that this effect is a localized effect in the object feature space, where objects’ distances from their cluster centroid were inversely correlated with their age of acquisition. Together, these results suggest a role for feature distinctiveness in early word learning

Active Drumming Experience Increases Infants' Sensitivity to Audiovisual Synchrony during Observed Drumming Actions

In the current study, we examined the role of active experience on sensitivity to multisensory synchrony in six-month-old infants in a musical context. In the first of two experiments, we trained infants to produce a novel multimodal effect (i.e., a drum beat) and assessed the effects of this training, relative to no training, on their later perception of the synchrony between audio and visual presentation of the drumming action. In a second experiment, we then contrasted this active experience with the observation of drumming in order to test whether observation of the audiovisual effect was as effective for sensitivity to multimodal synchrony as active experience. Our results indicated that active experience provided a unique benefit above and beyond observational experience, providing insights on the embodied roots of (early) music perception and cognition

Foreign Direct Investment, Economic Growth and Employment creation: A Causality Analysis from Namibia

The research explored the long-term relationship between FDI, GDP and host country employment by using sector-wise panel data from 1991 to 2017 in Namibia. The study applied unit root testing and Cointegration test to test for the presence of a cointegration relationship between the variables. Also, a vector autoregression model short-run causality among the variables was examined. In the end, Impulse response functions are estimated. The research found both a short term and long-term causality going from FDI inflow to employment. Impulse responses show that both GDP and employment respond positively to an exogenous shock in FDI inflow. However, the employment response to FDI inflow shock is smaller than that of GDP response. The paper also concludes that FDI has no causal effects on economic growth in Namibia. It means that economic growth is not contributed by the FDI significantly the results in this research have some significant policy implications. Therefore, as the results suggest that the FDI inflow has a positive impact on employment, because of the results, the researcher also recommends that Namibia pursue the policy of attracting foreign firms aggressively and create all the conditions required for attracting foreign direct investment in order to create further employment opportunities

Indigenous knowledge and environmental education : a case study of selected schools in Namibia

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In some contemporary discourses, a new dimension of knowledge is increasingly being recognised. Sustainable development is no longer the exclusive domain of western science and technology. There is a growing interest in the role that indigenous people and their communities can play in sustainable development. The integration of indigenous knowledge (IK) into formal school curricula, especially environmental education (EE), is seen as a key approach to making education relevant to rural students. This will also promote the intellectual diversity required to manage the scope, complexity and uncertainty of local and global environmental issues. This study is guided by constructivist approaches and postcolonial perspectives that recognise the differences between IK and western sciences but at the same time concerned with ways in which the two can work together. In particular, this study uses a qualitative case study of selected schools in the Northern part of Namibia to investigate how IK can be used to support EE in rural schools. The National (Namibian) Curriculum for Basic Education and the Life Science curriculum documents have been analysed, focusing specifically on how IK is coupled with EE at school level. The review of the curriculum documents revealed that IK is not only ignored and underutilised in schools, but also systematically undermined as a potential source of knowledge for development. The curriculum continues to reinforce western values at the expense of IK. To gain more insight into existing EE practices in schools and the role that local knowledge can play in school syllabi, six teachers, two advisory teachers and two traditional leaders were carefully selected and interviewed. The basis for this was to possibly challenge and address the needs that learners and their environment have. The participants in this study embraced the inclusion of IK in EE. However, the processes of combining IK with science may be constrained by challenges related to: teachers‟ attitudes, the design of the curriculum, and the way learner-centered education is conceptualised and practiced in schools. The study suggests that, to incorporate IK into EE effectively may require a shift away from the current strong subject-based, content-focused and examination driven EE curriculum. A cross-cultural Science Technology and Society (STS) curricula that includes a broad range of disciplines and provides a context within which all knowledge systems can be equitably compared and contribute to our understanding of the environment is proposed as an alternative curricula framework