Household Possessions and Parental Support in Mexican Students with High Scientific Competencies in PISA 2015

<p style="text-align:justify">Traditionally secondary studies on achievement on Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA) tests point to the significant impact of socioeconomic status and cultural backgrounds of families as well as the role of parental involvement, which in some cases has had a negative impact on achievement. For this article, a model of structural regression was tested, with structural modelling software. This model included the following factors: domestic and educational assets, parental support for students, parents’ perceptions about science, and science competencies among 214 high performing Mexican students on PISA tests in 2015. This resulted in a structural regression model with a goodness of fit, where science competencies were a positive significant variable, impacted by domestic and educational assets and parental involvement. An additional restricted model with four variables manifested as mediators, revealed that science competencies were predicted positively and significantly by domestic and educational assets, and by the manifest parental emotional support variable. Variables related to ownership of educational and cultural assets and resources, as well as parental support, particularly emotional parental support, have positive and significant impact on science competencies.</p>

A path is emerging: Steps towards an LGBT+ inclusive education for Mexican students

Mexican schools are in crisis, where LGBT+ students face constant violence and discrimination. In the past decade, civil society has led the way in evaluating school climate and assessing LGBT+ students’ needs in Mexican schools. Unsurprisingly, individuals most affected by this violence and discrimination, LGBT+ individuals, have pushed these efforts forward as they conduct research, create resources, and facilitate workshops. In this article, we show how civil society has been the leader on advocating for LGBT+ inclusive education in Mexico. We justify this claim by exploring the existing research at the national, regional, and international levels, showing that much of what is present stems from civil society’s ongoing efforts. We then analyze the current legal framework aimed at protecting students against discrimination. We also discuss existing tools and advancements designed to promote inclusive classrooms, from both a public policy and civil society perspective. We conclude by punctuating the necessity and urgency of utilizing civil society in reforms that advocate for inclusion to better formulate public policies and establish direct, sustainable ties to the individuals and communities most in need.

Promoting Student-Centred Language Learning Via eTandem The Case of Mexican and South African Students

eTandem is a type of virtual and synchronic way of learning an additional language in collaboration with peers who speak the target language and who are also learning their counterparts’ language. eTandem is usually incorporated as part of the activities that students have to complete whilst learning a language. However, these virtual activities are seldom part of the curriculum or the course syllabus and they are hardly ever part of the assessment process. The aim of this paper is to highlight the benefits of learning a language as the means of promoting a student-centred learning approach through autonomy, peer and self-assessment, self-reflection, feedback and by using the language to understand cultural and intercultural differences. The study was carried out via eTandem activities between Mexican students learning English and South African students learning Spanish. The results suggest that virtual exchanges whilst learning a language foster a wide ray of social, cultural and pragmatic means of learning a language in context. This paper has implications in promoting the inclusion of blended language learning in higher education settings.

Typologies of navigation on digital platforms: the case of students from southern Tamaulipas

This paper presents the results of research in the southern conurbation of Tamaulipas analyzing the types of internet browsing of some young Mexican students between the age of 15 and 29, to characterize the most significant variables in each type of navigation (such as sociodemographic and access), and contrast, in each one, digital skills, self-perceptions and experiences of using technology that describe each profile. The methodology used is quantitative, using a principal component analysis (PCA) that identified five types of navigation. Subsequently, a regression analysis was applied to present the variables that characterize each type of user. In the results, five types of navigation were identified: information search, collaborative, entertainment, communicative-playful and socializing, where the condition of access continues to be a crucial aspect. Although no differences were identified based on the age, educational level, or occupation of the young people, a strong gender component prevails. This work invites reflection on the importance of exploring and recognizing that not all young people navigate in the same way, and not with the same intensity or skills to face the new capacities that society demands to be functional and competitive in digital environments.

Experiences of Mexican teenage students when choosing a math degree: A mathematical narrative identity study

There is little qualitative research on mathematics education focused on the experiences of young students when choosing a mathematics degree and how these experiences are assimilated into their mathematics life stories. The objective of this narrative inquiry is to identify the experiences of Mexican students who choose a mathematics degree through their mathematics life story. The conceptualization of a mathematical narrative identity divided into motivations, sources of motivation, and expectations allowed the identification of the following: (1) motivation of Mexican students for choosing a math degree, (2) sources of this motivation, and (3) future expectations related to this choice. This qualitative study was conducted based on a case study to prepare an in-depth analysis of multiple cases and frame them into a general description. Data was gathered from 47 interviews to collect students’ mathematics life stories. The four thematic analyses gave the following results: (1) the three main motivations were “liking mathematics”, self-efficacy belief, and the desire to become a “good teacher”, (2) the two main expectations were “being a good teacher” and “learning more mathematics”, and (3) the four main sources of motivations were self-efficacy belief, having “good teachers”, indirect experiences, and mastering knowledge. Results have similarities with the importance of self-efficacy beliefs and differences between “liking mathematics” and the desire to become a “good teacher” regarding the psychological explanations about the motivational forces to choose a math degree.

Looking in the mirror: the global '68 through the Brazilian daily press

PurposeThis article explains the process of construction and configuration of the Brazilian social imaginary on the global '68 using the daily press as source material.Design/methodology/approachIt looks at the narratives conveyed by the press about the condition, situation, motivations, aspirations and capacity for action of young university students. The analysis is focused mainly on the usage of totalitarian language and permits an in-depth view of the reality of life in Brazil at the time and the role played by the students in the resistance to the dictatorship. It also includes an analysis of how other students' protests of 1968 – in Poland and Mexico – were portrayed through the media, and how they helped to shape the collective imaginary about Brazilian university students, situating it in a conjuncture of broader dimensions and connections.FindingsThe youth of Brazil, Poland and Mexico were represented as active political and social subjects, capable of defying, and sometimes profoundly upsetting, the established order. Violence and the discourse of violence were constant unifying elements in the narratives created by the daily press. This helped generate an image of university students which portrayed them as a rebellious, revolutionary and/or subversive sector of the population, responsible for one of the most extensive and profound social and political crises which those countries had experienced in decades.Originality/valueThis is the first study of the Brazilian reception of the '68 Polish and Mexican students' protest and its implications for the social narrative of students' resistance in Brazil.

EFL Teachers’ Challenges to Write Content and Language Objectives for CBI Lesson Plans at a Mexican University

This study aims at documenting the challenges that three Mexican students participating in a Content-Based Instruction (CBI) module from a Master’s (MA) program in English Language Teaching (ELT) face when writing content and language objectives for CBI lessons. Through qualitative research based on a content analysis design, one lesson plan of each MA student (n=3) was analyzed using criteria proposed by well-known researchers. Results revealed that MA students wrote clear content objectives. The major challenge of content objectives was found in the observability of these objectives. Language objectives were less successful, as most of them were rated as not clear. Moreover, language objectives focused almost exclusively on language skills and grammar and language structures. Finally, the verbs used in the language objectives demanded a low-order cognitive category from students. Despite being EFL trained teachers, these MA students had more challenges in writing language objectives than content objectives. Thus, material, examples, and directions provided to students should explicitly draw students’ attention to the most common challenges to help overcome them.

Stance-taking: reporting verbs in citations in EFL undergraduate theses

ABSTRACT L2 writers tend to have difficulties in using reporting verbs (Bloch, 2010) because the choosing of reporting verb needs some considerations: the stance of the author whose claims are being reported, the stance of the writer, and the interpretation of the writer (Thompson and Ye, 1991). This article explores stance-taking in reporting verbs in the context of citations in undergraduate theses written by Mexican students in English as a Foreign Language. The corpus consists of thirty undergraduate theses written by non-native speakers of English in the field of English Language Teaching. I use corpus linguistics tools, i.e., concordances for the analysis of stance-taking which makes the expressions observable in their context. The findings show that undergraduates use reporting verbs to express their stance in their theses and that this varies depending on the chapter. This paper suggests a category of reporting verbs that is commonly used in EFL academic writing within the ELT discipline. I propose some educational implications, stressing the need to make students and their instructors aware that the choice of reporting verbs is not just a matter of stylistic choice, but it can be an expression of authorial identity.