Vandana Thadani

The Possibilities and Limitations of Curriculum-Based Science Inquiry Interventions for Challenging the “Pedagogy of Poverty”

Low-income and minority students in the U.S. are disproportionately subjected to didactic, teacher-controlled instruction—a phenomenon called “the pedagogy of poverty” (Haberman, 1991). This study examined the role that curriculum-based interventions could play in addressing these equity issues in science education. Eight teachers from three demographically diverse urban schools participated. Teaching in intervention classrooms was more inquiry-based and less didactic than in control classrooms, and differences in control/intervention teaching were most pronounced at the two higher-need schools. Learning benefits were found for intervention students at these two schools. Findings suggested both potential and limitations of curriculum-based interventions in challenging the pedagogy of poverty.

First-Year College Women's Motivations for Hooking up: A Mixed-Methods Examination of Normative Peer Perceptions and Personal Hookup Participation

ABSTRACT. This study used content analysis techniques to explore 221 first-year college womens perceptions of female peers’ reasons (i.e., normative perceptions) for hooking up. Data on personal participation in hooking up were also collected. The well-established Drinking Motives Questionnaire (Cooper, 1994) was used as a framework for coding positive (enhancement or social) and negative (coping or conformity) normative hookup motivations. Participants most commonly indicated that enhancement reasons motivated peers’ hookup behaviors (69.7%). Coping (23.5%), external (21.7%), social (19.5%), and conformity (16.3%) motives were cited less frequently. Furthermore, women who had hooked up since matriculating into college (61.5%, n = 136) were significantly more likely to state that their female peers hook up for enhancement reasons (a positive motive), but they were significantly less likely to perceive that typical female peers hook up for coping or conformity reasons (negative motives) (ps < .001). Findings indicate not only that college women uphold overwhelmingly positive perceptions for peers’ hooking up, but there appears to be a strong relationship between college womens own hooking up participation and the positive versus negative attributions they ascribe to hooking up among their peers. This study extends the understanding of college womens perceptions and potential influences of hooking up and provides implications for harm reduction efforts.