Theory of mind and social interest in zero-acquaintance play situations

Many studies have examined associations between children's theory of mind and social behavior with familiar peers, but to date none have examined how theory of mind might relate to behavior toward unfamiliar peers in a play setting. Forty-four 4-year-olds (21 girls, 23 boys) participated in standard theory-of-mind tasks and in a play session with 3 or 4 other children who were unfamiliar. Children were also tested on general vocabulary ability. No relations were found between theory of mind and social engagement. However, positive associations were found between theory of mind and time spent observing, but not interacting with, other children. Possible explanations of the links between theory of mind, temperament, and social interest are considered.     

试论农村家庭教育资源合理开发与运用

现今,农村教育非常薄弱,家庭教育也显不够,开发有创新性的教育资源是当今农村教师和家长的重要任务之一。农村拥有的家庭教育资源十分丰富,有一定的教育价值,我们如何有效地把农村家庭教育资源开发并且利用起来。这需要多方努力来实现。     

百年来中国的大学自治与社会干预

中国现代高等教育制度自1904年确立以来,面临的重要命题之一就是调适大学自治与社会干预的关系。中国的大学自治经民国初年奠基之后,一直未能得到充分发展,社会干预尤其是政治干预始终保持着强劲态势。这既与中国现代化的特殊路径和背景有关,更有着深刻的教育的内部原因。但在新的时期、新的条件下,中国的大学自治与社会干预的关系出现了值得注意的新动向。     

重庆市中学教师社会支持的现状分析

采用“社会支持”量表对重庆市的400名中学教师进行了问卷调查,通过分析发现：重庆市中学教师社会支持在性别上不存在显著差异,在主观支持和对支持的利用上存在显著的城乡差异,在主观支持上存在显著文化程度差异,在社会支持和主观支持上存在显著的教龄差异,社会支持对心理幸福感有积极影响。     

Sexual maltreatment of unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors from the Horn of Africa: A mixed method study focusing on vulnerability and prevention

ObjectivesThe study described in this paper sought to identify the social, cultural, and political factors that effect African unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors’ (UASM) vulnerability to sexual maltreatment in England. It aimed to illuminate how child protection measures could be strengthened for this highly marginalized group.MethodsA mixed method approach was used. Former UASM from Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia who had been sexually maltreated in the UK were interviewed in-depth. Prior to the interviews they all completed a questionnaire which captured their biographical details as well as sensitive but factual information.ResultsOf the 53 (N = 53) former UASM who participated in the study only 2 were males. Most arrived in the UK aged 15–17. A range of sexual maltreatment, from sexual harassment to rape was reported. Three quarters experienced more than 1 incident. Most initial incidents happened in the first 12 months of their arrival in the UK. Two perpetrators were female carers. Many participants reported being groomed and sexually maltreated by people from their own country. Many described being seriously sexually maltreated, particularly by groups of young males living in the same accommodation or nearby, some reportedly also asylum seekers. Participants that had been warned of the dangers of sexual maltreatment were more likely to both disclose and to seek professional help.ConclusionsProfessionals should assume that UASM will suffer sexual maltreatment in their host country if not protected adequately, which they are unlikely to disclose. They are likely to need more protection from outside sources and help to develop their personal resources than many have received in the past.Practice implicationsPreventative measures include provision of safer environments, ideally single sex housing; more monitoring and supervision; more opportunities to develop trustworthy relationships and have emotional needs met; greater opportunities to develop language skills/access to interpretation; early information regarding the social system, culture, and sexual maltreatment; and improved professional awareness and competence in dealing with minors from other cultures.     

Social Movements in Brazil and their Educational Work

Using a distinction first proposed by Alain Touraine between historic and social movements, Ghanem's review of grassroots initiatives in Brazil argues that, despite differences in composition and aims, movements such as the landless rural workers, indigenous groups, and the women's movement in Brazil have attempted to shift the current socioeconomic order toward a new equilibrium – a process that is, however, not yet complete. In Ghanem's view, these movements are best described as historic movements. Addressing their educational aims, the author finds that they tend to fall into two types: (1) the self-provision of knowledge related to the set of problems that gave rise to their movement in the first place; (2) the striving for access to knowledge that is due to them as citizens and yet not given to them by the state. Often, social movements in Brazil are obliged to offer educational services through their own resources, services which are characterized by precarious conditions and which make the right to quality education still a distant dream.     

Educational use of social networking technology in higher education

This study explored how social networking technology can be used to supplement face-to-face courses as a means of enhancing students' sense of community and, thus, to promote classroom communities of practice in the context of higher education. Data were collected from 67 students who enrolled in four face-to-face courses at two public universities in Taiwan. Findings indicated that the majority of participants developed strong feelings of social connectedness and expressed favorable feelings regarding their learning experiences in the classes where social networking sites were used as a supplementary tool. Learner difficulties and concerns of instructors about the educational use of social media are addressed with recommendations for future research and practice.     

The experiences of disabled pupils and their families

In this article, Ann Lewis, Professor of Education at the University of Birmingham, and Ian Davison, Jean Ellins, Louise Niblett, Sarah Parsons, Christopher Robertson and Jeremy Sharpe from the research team provide a summary of discussions and selected recommendations arising from four linked projects run between 2004 and 2006. The projects were funded by the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) and looked into the experiences of disabled pupils and their families across England, Scotland and Wales. A central aim of the research was to identify the key concerns and priorities in relation to their experiences of education for children and young people with special educational needs (SEN) or disabilities and their families in the UK. The research encompassed a UK-wide parent survey (N=1776); in-depth case studies of individual children and young people (N=36); group case studies (of, for example, school councils) (N=3); and a series of project advisory groups involving disabled people. Underlying these aspects was an emphasis on the importance and validity of hearing directly from (potentially all) children and young people themselves. Thus the work meshes closely with initiatives worldwide concerning the recognition of children's'voice'in matters that concern them. The authors are not aware of any comparable evidence which focuses in-depth on a wide cross-section of pupils with disabilities or special needs and their families in the UK-wide educational context and which is located alongside concurrent authoritative data concerning the views of parents and carers.     

Student perceptions of support services and the influence of targeted interventions on retention in distance education

To improve student retention in distance education, Simpson suggested in 2003 that institutions analyse their own retention characteristics and ‘spot the leaks.’ In 2008 the Centre for Distance Learning at Laidlaw College, New Zealand, employed two part‐time academic support coordinators in an effort to improve student retention and success. This study compares the retention statistics for first‐time student outcomes across two semesters, one without and one with specific course retention interventions. Results are benchmarked across national data. Interviews with students who were retained revealed that students frequently attribute their success to their own efforts. Student support services in distance education might therefore be perceived by its beneficiaries as a ‘hygiene’ factor (Herzberg, 1968, 2008) in that their presence is not generally appreciated by students. However, their absence is noticed. The similarity of this finding with Shin’s institutional transactional presence (2002, 2003) is also explored.     

Influence of Callahan's vulnerability thesis on Thought and Practice in Educational Administration, 1962 to 1992

This article, a reconsidering of both the benefits and the consequences of the Brown v. Board of Education (1954; Davis and Graham, 1995) case, posits determinations as to the historical significance of the U.S. Supreme Court justices' decision. Carefully weighing the words of the justices renders a position that the decision of the Court and the intention of the Court do not fall in alignment with one another. And despite the rightness of the decision and all that has been reaped in the way of its benefits, still, the decision's unarticulated language has rendered a greater significance and has placed enduring consequences on the public education system, as well as in the greater context of race as a whole.     

The purposes of social sciences in engineering education and their implementation at the Eindhoven University of Technology

This paper is a report on a course development project combining self-paced study with lectures, the objectives being the introduction of engineering students to philosophy and the social sciences.     

Relationships among cooperation-competition and locus of control in social and academic situations among children in traditional and open classrooms

The relationships among cooperation-competition, perceptions of locus of control in social situations, and perceptions of locus of control in intellectual-academic situations was compared among 89 fourth- and fifth-grade students in traditional and open classrooms. Children from the open education setting displayed substantially more cooperative behavior on Madsen's marble-pull game than children from the traditional school. They also made significant gains in cooperative behavior from the first to the second trial, while the difference between trials was not significant for the traditional students. Traditional students displayed significantly higher internality for locus of control in academic settings, while perceptions of locus of control in social settings did not differ for the two groups. Academic and social locus of control judgments were significantly correlated for the open education students, but not for the students from traditional classrooms.     

The relationship of academic and social cognition to behaviour in bullying situations among Greek primary school children

This research explored links between cognition (both social and academic) and children's behaviour in a bullying situation (participant roles). Participants were 186 fourth to sixth grade boys and girls from four primary schools in central Greece. Six categories of social cognition (self-efficacy for assertion, self-efficacy for aggression, expectations that aggression will lead to rewards, expectations that aggression will lead to victim suffering, the value placed on rewards and the value placed on suffering in the victim) and two categories of academic cognition (self-efficacy for learning and performance and the self-regulatory strategies used while solving problems) were investigated in connection to six participant roles (bully, victim, assistant, reinforcer, defender and outsider). Results suggest that there are differential associations between cognitions and the roles that children take in bullying situations, according to gender. Academic self-efficacy combined with certain social cognitions predicted both victimisation and bullying behaviour. Self-regulatory strategies combined with social cognitions similar to victim's and bully's predicted both assistant and reinforcer behaviour, while none of the cognition measures predicted defender or outsider behaviour. Implications for interventions against bullying are briefly discussed.     

进化心理学中的教育理念及其启示

进化心理学的诞生,特别是进化教育心理学与进化发展心理学的发展,为解释当前教育问题和教育现象提供了新的视角。进化理论把人类知识分为生物初级知识和生物次级知识,重新诠释了教育,特别是学校教育存在的必要性和价值;进化发展心理学对＂发展＂概念的独到诠释,给当前盛行的＂超前教育＂以警示;进化理念下对不同知识类型儿童学习方式的区分,启发教育工作者重新认识接受学习的价值;学习动机偏差理论解释了为什么大多数学生不喜欢学习,也启发教育者重新审视外部动机激发的意义;进化理念下的性别差异解释了当前教育领域中常见的性别学习偏好,也给教育教学提供了重要的启迪;进化心理学对几种儿童＂问题行为＂的全新阐释为今后教育提供了新的思路。     

孔孟社会思想差异与其不同的历史影响

儒家文化一直被视为中国传统文化的主流。而儒家文化自唐宋以后又被概之以“孔孟之道”。这样,孔孟两个思想家之间的判别便被泯没了。但事实上,二者在思想倾向、学说内容上的差异却是巨大的,二者对中国历史的影响也是不同的。