Previous research shows that there is a correlation between attitudes and academic achievement. In this article, we analyze for the first time the impact of interactive groups (IG) and dialogic literary gatherings (DLG) on the attitudes that students show towards learning. A quantitative approach has been performed using attitude tests validated by previous research. The data suggest that in both cases, the participants show positive attitudes. The social context has an important influence on students’ attitudes. The items with higher correlations include group work, mutual support, and distributed cognition. In the case of IGs, group work is much more appreciated, while in the case of DLGs, self-image and self-confidence are the two most clearly valued attitudes. The positive impact of IGs and DLGs on students’ attitudes may have potential for teachers in transforming their practices and decision-making within the classroom.

Schools as learning communities have been recommended by the European Commission as an effective model to support school quality and development. Aiming at studying how these schools are achieving such positive results, this article focuses on the analysis of a particular classroom intervention called ‘interactive groups’. A five-year longitudinal case study has been conducted in a socio-economically deprived urban school under the European Union-funded large-scale research project INCLUD-ED: Strategies for Inclusion and Social Cohesion in Europe from Education. Descriptive and interpretative analysis was conducted based on quantitative indicators on school performance in mathematics and including qualitative data from classroom observations and interviews with pupils, parents and teachers. Particularly, the authors aim to explore in which ways and under which conditions dialogic interactions take place in culturally diverse small groups when doing interactive groups in mathematics. Data on school performance in mathematics shows a sustainable improvement over time. Families, teachers and students seem to link the interactions in interactive groups with an improvement in their relationships in the school and in the community. The authors conclude that the dialogical approach identified in interactive groups among students, teachers and parents improves students’ achievement and increases the potential of community-based mathematical interventions in primary classrooms. Lessons learned from this study have informed educational policies in Europe.

Recent advancements in the social impact assessment of science have shown the diverse methodologies being developed to monitor and evaluate the improvements for society as a result of research. These assessment methods include indicators to gather both quantitative and qualitative evidence of the social impact of science achieved in the short, medium, and long terms. In psychology, the impact of research has been mainly analyzed in relation to scientific publications in journals, but less is known about the methods for the social impact assessment of psychological research. Impact assessment in the domains of educational psychology and organizational psychology presents synergies with bottom-up approaches that include the voices of citizens and stakeholders in their analyses. Along these lines, the communicative methodology (CM) emerges as a methodology useful for the communicative evaluation of the social impact of research. Although the CM has widely demonstrated social impact in the social sciences, less is known about how it has been used and the impact achieved in psychological research. This article unpacks how to achieve social impact in psychology through the CM. In particular, it focuses on the theoretical underpinnings of the CM, the postulates linked to psychological research and some key actions for the implementation of the CM in relation to the design of Advisory Committees, working groups, and plenary meetings in research. Furthermore, it shows how the CM has been implemented in illustrative cases in psychological research. The article finishes with a conclusion and recommendations to further explore the ways in which the CM enables the social impact of research in psychology.

This critical ethnographic study of an after-school mathematics club for elementary-aged Latina/o youth focuses on connecting critical, community, and mathematical knowledge in the context of authentic, community-based investigations. We present cases of two extended projects to highlight tensions and dilemmas that emerged, particularly tensions related to ensuring rich mathematics in the contexts of projects that were personally and socially meaningful to the students. Our analysis offers insights into critical mathematics education with elementary aged students, and has the potential to counter dominant deficit perspectives of Latina/o youth. Additionally, the findings of this study inform critical approaches to teaching mathematics in schools attended by marginalized students in order to reverse prevalent trends of our educational system failing these students.

This research is presented in a way that provides useful knowledge for successful problem posing by mathematics pre-service teachers. We present a review of the concept of mathematical creativity (by different authors) and review studies that underline the relevance of problem posing in teaching...