Showing papers by "James J. Collins published in 1982"

Discourse Style, Classroom Interaction and Differential Treatment

Abstract: The implications of ability-tracking for educational inequality are well known and controversial. Few studies, however, have been successful in capturing the interplay between students' discourse style, teacher expectations in particular classroom tasks and achievement outcomes. In what follows I will discuss the apparent influence of tracking on the kind of reading instruction students receive in urban school systems. The discussion will focus on how the discriminatory treatment reported by various researchers is perpetuated in face-to-face classroom interaction. Two schools are reported upon in which differential treatment assumes different forms, but always entails, for one group, a denial of access to practice in comprehending texts. In ethnographic studies seeking to identify the ways in which the structure of public schooling contributes to the perpetuation of social inequality, one of the most provocative findings has been that larger patterns of stratification in terms of race and class are reproduced in the organization of school environments. Research conducted during the last decade has shown that teachers consistently differ in their treatment of students in inner-city versus suburban schools (Leacock, 1969), and further, that within the same school, social class plays an important role in the assignment of students to ability groups (Rist, 1971; and Rist, 1977, and citations therein). Additionally, detailed study of classroom reading groups has shown that much less time is devoted to the actual task of reading in low-ranked groups; that non-verbal interaction in these groups is tightly structured; and, most important, that the process of successful and unsuccessful learning is collaborative (McDermott, 1976). Because all learning results in part from social interaction, a major goal in the studies reported on was to see whether methods of conversational analysis could be profitably applied to the study of classroom interaction. One reason for the focus on conversation was that several recent studies of early language learning have shown that mothers' conversational strategies with children affects the rate of initial language acquisition; that is, social interaction influences the acquisition of basic linguistic

The contribution of medical measures to the decline of mortality from respiratory tuberculosis: an age­ period-cohort model

Abstract: The decline of mortality in the more developed nations has been related to two major influences, economic development and the introduction of medical measures. The contribution of medical measures has been a source of continuing controversy. Most previous studies employ either a birth cohort or calendar year arrangement of mortality data to address this controversy. The present study applies an age-period-cohort model to mortality from respiratory tuberculosis in England and Wales, Italy, and New Zealand in an attempt to separate economic influences from that of medical measures. The results of the analysis indicate that while the overall contribution of medical measures is small when examined by calendar year, specific birth cohorts both in Italy and in England and Wales benefited substantially from these measures. The environmental conditions in New Zealand, however, were such that the introduction of medical measures barely affected declining mortality levels from respiratory tuberculosis.