Although the state ruled that schools must support Darwin's theory, creationists are singing the praises of Friday's decision.

Britney Spears didn't invent the dirty pun in her new song title. She stole it from Joyce and Shakespeare.

In his new book, "Work Hard. Be Nice.", Jay Mathews claims that the Knowledge Is Power Program is the "best" program serving severely disadvantaged, minority-group students in America today.

An analysis of Comcast's new advertising campaign. This series may be worth checking out for those researching advertising.

An opinion piece, but offers some interesting theories on the future of publishing and Kindle.

A round-table posting. Definitely NOT scholarly, but could provide interesting "man on the street" commentary.

The author of a new book says no, and talks about how a site spawned by an Ayn Rand enthusiast became our most popular encyclopedia. This is an interview about the book. Those of you interested in this should check out the book being discussed.

We sought to determine whether literacy mediates the relationship between education and glycemic control among diabetes patients. Methods: We measured educational attainment, literacy using the Short Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (s-TOFHLA), and glycemic control (HbA1c) in 395 diabetes patients at a U.S. public hospital. We performed path analysis to compare two competing models to explain glycemic control. The direct effects model estimated how education was related to HbA1c; the mediational model estimated the strength of the direct relationship when the additional pathway from education to literacy to HbA1c was added. Results: Both the model with a direct effect of education on HbA1c and the model with literacy as a mediator were supported by good fit to observed data. The mediational model, however, was a significant improvement, with the additional path from literacy to HbA1c reducing the discrepancy from observed data (p<0.01). After including this path, the direct relationship between education and HbA1c fell to a non-significant threshold. Conclusions: In a low-income population with diabetes, literacy mediated the relationship between education and glycemic control. This finding has important implications for both education and health policy. (Abstract taken from JSTOR.)

The idea of media literacy prompts an increasingly divisive debate between educators who wish to protect children from the commercialization of global markets and those who challenge critical media studies as misguided, outdated, and ineffective. We have provided a historical overview of changing conceptions of media literacy as preparation and protection in market society, arguing that contemporary concerns about children's fast food marketing and sedentary lifestyles call for new approaches to the education of citizen-consumers in a risk society. Our case study demonstrates that a media education programme can provide scaffolding for children's critical thinking about their sedentary lifestyles and media consumption. (Abstract taken from JSTOR.)

Literacy is a continuous, multidimensional indicator of proficiency in using written language. This essay reviews several recent books on literacy, and suggests some profound theoretical issues about consumer behavior inspired by a sociocultural perspective on literacy. In particular, ties between literacy and six diverse research programs on consumer behavior are highlighted: responses to persuasion; affect and decision making; the meanings of products and brands; social marketing of health behaviors; consumption, identity, and resistance; and the impact of the internet on consumer behavior. In addition, questions both interesting and troubling about the impact of consumption on literacy are raised in the hope of encouraging future research. (Abstract taken from JSTOR.)

This article considers the different kinds of learning that are appropriate for the rapidly expanding range of writing that constitutes an everyday part of most people's working lives. It discusses the importance and demands of everyday writing in work, and the role of formal education in preparing people for the localised learning about writing that is necessary upon entering work. It considers the issue of the transfer of knowledge, and argues that both metacognitive and conceptual understandings about writing are crucial elements in enabling people to transfer and adapt foundation literacy skills to the workplace.

This article reports on a small-scale study which examined the home literacy practices of a group of 3 and 4 year-old children in a working-class community in the north of England and explored how far these practices were reflected in the curriculum of the nursery the children attended. The data illustrate that there was a dissonance between out-of-school and schooled literacy practices and that there was more evidence of nursery literacy practices infiltrating the home than vice versa. Children's literacy practices in the home were focused on media and popular cultural texts and the article argues for greater recognition of these contemporary cultural practices in early years policy documentation and curriculum guidance. (Abstract taken from JSTOR.)

In this prospective study home literacy is considered a multifaceted phenomenon consisting of a frequency or exposure facet (opportunity), an instruction quality facet, a parent-child cooperation facet, and a social-emotional quality facet. In a multiethnic, partly bilingual sample of 89 families with 4-year-old children, living in inner-city areas in the Netherlands, measures of home literacy were taken by means of interviews with the parents and observations of parent-child book reading interactions when the target children were ages 4, 5, and 6 years. At age 7, by the end of Grade 1, after nearly 1 year of formal reading instruction, vocabulary, word decoding, and reading comprehension were assessed using standard tests. Vocabulary at age 4 and an index of the predominant language used at home were also measured in order to be used as covariates. Correlational and multiple regression analyses supported the hypothesis that home literacy is multifaceted. Home literacy facets together predicted more variance in language and achievement measures at age 7 than each of them separately. Structural equations analysis also supported two additional hypotheses of the present research. First, the effects of background factors (SES, ethnicity, parents' own literacy practices) on language development and reading achievement in school were fully mediated by home literacy, home language, and early vocabulary. Second, even after controlling for the effects of early vocabulary and predominant home language, there remained statistically significant effects of home literacy, in particular, opportunity, instruction quality, and cooperation quality. (Abstract taken from JSTOR.)

Using an ethnography of discourse approach, this article argues that literate interactions in a rural eastern Kentucky community are strongly linked to symbolic values assigned to self through the gender-based division of reading and writing labor. Noting that literate practices are God-given attributes of women's "nature," it describes how literate interactions provide contexts in which a woman can negotiate her social, religious, and cultural identity. What constitutes acceptable literate forms is culturally constrained by a tension between maintaining "country" values while assimilating those "proper" women's literate forms which augment, rather than replace, oral forms. Men's identities are not linked to these literate practices, creating minimal or non-literate behavior. These cultural constructs of literacy affect both men's and women's behavior in classroom, workplace, or urban interfacing situations, affecting mobility problems. (Abstract taken from JSTOR.)

Science literacy is frequently touted as a key to good citizenship. Based on a two-year ethnographic study examining science in the community, the authors suggest that when considering the contribution of scientific activity to the greater good, science must be seen as forming a unique hybrid practice, mixed in with other mediating practices, which together constitute "scientifically literate, good citizenship." This case study, an analysis of an open house event organized by a grassroots environmentalist group, presents some examples of activities that embed science in "good citizenship." Through a series of vignettes, the authors focus on four central aspects: (1) the activists' use of landscape and spatial arrangements, (2) the importance of multiple representations of the same entity (e.g., a local creek), (3) the relational aspect of knowing and becoming part of a community, and (4) the insertion of scientific into moral discourse, resulting in what they call a "stewardship triad." (Abstract taken from JSTOR.)

Using a nationally representative sample of 13,609 kindergarten children in 2,690 classrooms and 788 schools from the base year of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999, along with three-level hierarchical linear models, this study investigates the impact of early literacy instruction on kindergarten children's learning, as measured by direct cognitive test scores, indirect teacher ratings of children's achievement in language and literacy, and indirect teacher ratings of children's approaches to learning. Two composite measures of phonics and integrated language arts are constructed from teachers' reports of their instructional practices. Findings show that classroom mean outcomes were significantly higher when classroom teachers reported using both integrated language arts and phonics more often. However, children with low initial performance benefited less from integrated language arts instruction, as measured by direct measures of achievement; such differential effects of instruction were not observed for teacher ratings of children's achievement and learning style. Policy implications of the findings are discussed. (Abstract taken from JSTOR.)

Children's drawings about reading and writing have unrealized potential for helping uncover the literacy narratives students bring to school and use to make sense of reading and writing. In this article, we highlight how one boy's drawing about literacy revealed his interpretation of his school's policy on violence as a topic of writing, which tended to constrain his interest in writing. His drawing reinforced the importance of adopting multiple perspectives to interpret the various texts that students produce. (Abstract taken from JSTOR.)

Many older adults in Medicare managed care programs have low health literacy, and this may affect use of preventive services. Objectives. To determine whether older adults with inadequate health literacy were less likely to report receiving influenza and pneumococcal vaccinations, mammograms, and Papanicolaou smears than individuals with adequate health literacy after adjusting for other covariates. Research Design. Cross-sectional survey; home interviews with community dwelling enrollees. Subjects. Medicare managed care enrollees 65 to 79 years old in four US cities (n = 2722). Measures. Short Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults and self-reported preventive service use. Results. In bivariate analyses, self-reported lack of preventive services was higher among individuals with inadequate health literacy than those with adequate health literacy: never had an influenza vaccination: 29% versus 19% (P = 0.000); never had a pneumococcal vaccination: 65% versus 54% (P = 0.000); no mammogram in the last 2 years: 24% versus 17% (P = 0.017); never had a Papanicolaou smear: 10% versus 5% (P = 0.002). After adjusting for demographics, years of school completed, income, number of physician visits, and health status, people with inadequate health literacy were more likely to report they had never received the influenza (OR, 1.4% 95% CI, 1.1-1.9) or pneumococcal vaccination (OR, 1.3; 95% CI, 1.1-1.7), and women were less likely to have received a mammogram (OR, 1.5; 95% CI, 1.0-2.2) or Papanicolaou smear (OR, 1.7; 95% CI, 1.0-3.1). Conclusions. Among Medicare managed care enrollees, inadequate health literacy is independently associated with lower use of preventive health services. (Abstract taken from JSTOR.)

Current emphasis in curricular design for FLES programs dedicates little time to the development of second language literacy in foreign language learners in the elementary school. A focus on developing these literacy skills is essential, if communicative competence is to be the goal in a fully articulated K-12 curriculum for Spanish. The vehicle necessary for developing these skills lies in curricular objectives that emphasize literacy and in teacher development programs that foster the growth of this instructional skill in FLES teachers. In light of a theoretical discussion of the need for group reading instruction, an instructional unit serves as a model for developing the first and second language literacy of early elementary language learners. (Abstract taken from JSTOR.)

The authors report on the results of a telephone survey of 1,001 employees of seven large corporations conducted for the Business Roundtable as part of its public policy program. A set of 20 questions keyed to the Voluntary National Content Standards in Economics was embedded in the survey. A measure of economic literacy was constructed from the survey results. Greater economic literacy was associated with more overall education, more college economics coursework, high incomes, and being male. An examination of individual test questions revealed that previous college economics had substantial effects on employees' current economic literacy. (Abstract from JSTOR.) This journal, The Journal of Economic Education, may be worth checking out for those studying financial literacy.