Teachers' knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about child abuse and its prevention.

In considering the great responsibility placed upon teachers to involve themselves in child abuse prevention, education, and detection, the National Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse (NCPCA) conducted a nationwide survey of teachers from 40 school districts in 29 randomly selected counties. The survey explores teachers knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about child abuse and its prevention. Five hundred and sixty-eight teachers responded, revealing that while the majority of teachers confront child abuse among their students, they are provided insufficient education on how to address it. Other findings are reported with respect to teachers' reporting behavior, potential barriers to reporting, child assault prevention programs, and corporal punishment in schools.     

Involving parents through school letters: mothers,fathers and teachers negotiating children's education and rearing

The present article explores home–school relations by analyzing how Swedish teachers and parents negotiate responsibility for children's education and rearing through school letters. It draws on participant observations using a video camera in families, interviews with parents, and analysis of school letters written by teachers to parents. The division of public and private responsibility for children is negotiated in terms of expertise. Teachers position themselves as ‘educational experts’, and are able to prescribe how parents are supposed to be involved in children's education. Teachers construct parents as ‘rearing experts’, and ask them to take responsibility for their children's behavior in school by disciplining them at home. The prescribed parental subject is adopted by parents, particularly mothers, as they position themselves as involved parents.     

"The Courage to Educate"

1. Reflections on Our Future

Problems of education move each generation of parents and each epoch anew. In the process of social and historical change, traditions and customs, and the institutions, goals, and norms of education, upbringing, and specialized training, are not received without question in the educative interchange between the generations. Depending on the requirements of individual circumstances, as well as the social situation as a whole, they are examined anew; new aspects are emphasized as problems to be solved; and they are accommodated to new relationships and new forms of consciousness in keeping with their validity and import. This process of questioning and reorientation is always controversial; the point of emphasis and general tendency vary, however, depending on whether the new generation itself is the driving force, unsettling the generation of its parents and teachers, and appealing to their commitment to offer guidance and provide orientation; on whether and how the older generation reacts — with lack of understanding or a readiness for dialogue, with the courage to assume responsibility, or with authoritarian firmness; and on how social and political forces and institutions — associations, mass media, the church, science, and the parties in parliament — attempt to intervene in and guide this process.     

Self-esteem enhancement in deaf and hearing women: success stories

The present study is a retrospective exploration of the process of self-esteem enhancement in 23 women, 9 culturally Deaf and 14 hearing, for purposes of both individual and group comparisons. A qualitative design was used to examine material from in-depth interviews to generate themes relating to the ways these women describe the concept of their self-esteem and how they have enhanced their own self-esteem. Both groups of women described self-esteem in conceptually equivalent terms, with most in each group identifying themselves as "capable." A distinction was found in the specific words used by each of the two groups. Of the top eight rank-ordered themes, five were similar in importance for both groups. Deaf women were more likely to report education as a factor in self-esteem enhancement, and to cite language and communication as a critical component in self-esteem enhancement. No hearing women reported on those factors. Implications for social work with culturally Deaf women, self-esteem work with women, and future research are discussed.     

Perceptions of school: parents of children enrolled and not enrolled in the Swedish special education programme—a longitudinal approach

The aim of this study was to explore perceptions of parents in Sweden of children with special education needs, including whether perceptions varied with regard to the child’s age, diagnosis or placement. The parents’ general perception of their degree of effort to influence their child’s education, as well as their perceived degree of influence, were analysed. The findings demonstrated relationships between child’s age and parental perceptions, suggesting that parents of older children with special education needs, regardless of diagnosis or placement, do not want to disengage themselves from their child’s education. The results also revealed that placement affected parental perceptions of their child’s school situation, with parents of children enrolled in the special education programme being more satisfied with their relationship to school and the teachers’ knowledge than parents whose children were not enrolled. Findings also revealed positive correlations between parents’ perceived degree of effort and their perception of having influenced their child’s school situation. The results are discussed in terms of improving family–school linkages within a systems framework.     

我国民办高等教育的社会责任剖析

社会责任是民办高等教育存在和发展的主导价值和重要使命,也是民办高等教育存在和发展的内在需求。随着民办高等教育机构对社会公共生活影响的日益增强,其社会责任问题受到了越来越多的关注。民办高等教育在谋求自身发展的同时,要全面承担起社会责任。     

论现代家庭教育对个体发展的负功能

在家庭教育中,家长溺爱、压制的教育方式、忽视孩子的情感需求、过高的期望、不良的教育方法等,会对孩子健康的个性和心理发展造成障碍。家庭教育负功能存在的根源在于:作为人的教育者本身的未完成性、历史性、主观性,家长本位观念下爱的异化,现实社会中教育的功利导向。     

Self-esteem and early background of abusive mothers

Thirty-six mothers whose children had been abused were interviewed and compared with 36 mothers matched for social class and ethnic background. The abuse group mothers had lower self-esteem than the comparison mothers as judged by their desire that their children should not grow up to be like themselves or their partners. They were also less likely to discuss their problems with other people. They were less likely than the comparison mothers to have been brought up by their own parents. They had significantly more negative feelings than the comparison mothers towards their fathers when they were children and these negative feelings persisted into adult life. It is important that emphasis on treatment programs for these mothers should be placed on building up self-esteem and skills in interpersonal relationships.     

知识经济对教育的影响与教育改革

从教育优先化、教育素质化、教育科学化、教育社会化、教育国际化、教育超前化和教育终身化等七个方面详细分析了新科技革命给教育带来的影;从努力造就过硬的教师队伍、确定合理的知识和能力结构、重新设计教育内容、不断改进教育技术、积极开展创造教育和大力推动在职教育等六个方面论述了在新科技革命下如何进行教育改革的问题。     

Special support and neighbourhood school allocation in Finland: a study on parental school choice

Although freedom of parental school choice has expanded to the Finnish education system, the government has maintained the principle of neighbourhood school allocation. Moreover, the Finnish education system has recently undergone a reform of its special needs education; all pupils are entitled to receive support in three categories of general, intensified or special. The focus of this article is to examine parental positions on school choices in relation to the parents’ social class and their children’s support needs in basic education. The results of the study are based on a quantitative questionnaire, which collected responses from 208 participants drawn primarily from four different municipalities in Finland. The study found that the category of a child’s support, rather than the socio-economic class of the parents, determined the child’s school allocations. Furthermore, the more support the parents felt their children needed, the more importance they placed on special education practices and less on the neighbourhood school allocation. In addition, the parents’ opinions were found to differ based on social class, rather than category of support. In conclusion, we argue that the social segregation of students with special educational needs can be avoided, if the principle of neighbourhood school allocation is preserved.     

大学生社会责任感的发展特点及影响因素

社会责任感指个体对社会责任的态度、动机和策略等方面表现出来的稳定的心理倾向。研究采用《大学生社会责任心理量表》对817名大学生施测,探讨大学生社会责任感的发展特点以及影响因素。结果发现：（1）大学生总的社会责任感属于中等偏上的水平。（2）对性别和年级差异的分析发现,女生的社会责任感水平显著高于男生,年级差异不显著。（3）对家庭背景变量的分析发现,是否是独生子女在社会责任感各维度上差异不显著,父母的教育方式对大学生的社会责任感影响显著。（4）对受同伴欢迎程度的分析发现,自我评价为很受欢迎的或较受欢迎的大学生的社会责任感水平高于自我评价为不受欢迎和较不受欢迎的大学生。     

自尊的本质探寻与教育关怀

自尊是个体生命存在状态的机源,它构成个体人格的核心,具有本体论的意义。自尊水平直接影响人现实的社会生活。在关系世界中生成的自尊才是真正的自尊,只有在自尊的调节下才会生成和谐的关系世界。自尊的教育引导人去反思自我保护,自尊的教育调节人去学会适应,自尊的教育关爱人去形成健全人格。     

‘It’s the parents’: re-presenting parents in school bullying research

Public discourse about school bullying is frequently underscored by debates about the relative roles and responsibilities of parents and schools in preventing bullying. Such debates are often characterised by a sense of recrimination, with blame apportioned according to perceived negligence. In this article, I provide a critique of ways in which parents have been represented in school bullying research, and consider how these representations inform public discourse about parents in relation to bullying. I argue that prevailing representations of parents in terms of responsibility and risk are a product of the dominance of psychological conceptualisations of bullying as individual pathological behaviour which stems from child development problems associated with poor parenting. As I show, this is but one of a number of ways in which bullying has been conceptualised in the research literature and provides a limited view of parents in relation to a complex social and cultural problem. I suggest that post-structural approaches to bullying research provide an important opportunity to broaden our understanding of how parents are positioned in the social and institutional systems of power in which bullying, and responses to it, takes place; and to move beyond current counter-productive discourses of responsibility and blame.     

Teasing apart the child care conundrum: A factorial survey analysis of perceptions of child care quality, fair market price and willingness to pay by low-income, African American parents

Child care quality plays a crucial role in children's social and cognitive development. While child care quality is a critical issue for all children, it matters more for low-income children. Policy makers have increased the emphasis on allowing parents, not government, to make decisions about the type of care they want for their children. Yet most research on child care quality has focused on how child care professionals, not parents define high quality care. This study investigates how low-income families evaluate child care quality by examining the child care preferences of a sample of low-income African American parents. We employ the factorial survey method, a method used in sociological research to assess people's perceptions and rankings of individual attributes associated with complex multidimensional phenomena. The factorial survey method permits a simultaneous assessment of how respondents evaluate and make tradeoffs among multiple child care characteristics. We assess the impact of child care characteristics on respondents’ perceptions of child care desirability, fair market value, and willingness to pay. Findings indicate that parents’ definition of quality focused squarely on the care giving environment, specifically the qualifications, experience, training and behavior associated with the child care provider. The type of care facility—family, center, relative or neighbor care was largely irrelevant to this sample of parents. Parents believed that the characteristics they defined as desirable child care situations were worth more, and parents were willing to pay more for these characteristics. These parents also defined quality in terms of race and class, and they wanted racial and economic diversity. This research suggests parents may choose lower quality care, not because they do not know what quality is or because they define quality care differently, but because such care may be neither available nor affordable in their communities.     

Chinese Parents’ Expectations and Child Preacademic Skills: The Indirect Role of Parenting and Social Competence

Research Findings: This study examined how parenting styles and child social-emotional functioning may help explain the indirect relations between Chinese parents’ expectations for their preschool-age children’s social-emotional development and their children’s preacademic skills. A total of 154 parents with preschool-age children were recruited from 7 preschools located in northeastern China. The results showed that when parents expected their child to master social-emotional skills at a younger age or when they placed more value on social-emotional skills, they were more likely to adopt authoritative parenting, their children had better social competence, and finally their children showed better preacademic skills. The findings not only provided support for the interconnections between Chinese young children’s social-emotional functioning and preacademic skills but also revealed parenting styles and child social competence as potential pathways through which parents’ social-emotional expectations relate to children’s preacademic skills. Practice or Policy: The findings can be used to facilitate parent education efforts to help contemporary Chinese parents reflect on and even adjust their developmental expectations for young children. Parental expectations can also be an important element to consider in prevention and intervention programs that are designed to improve young children’s social-emotional and preacademic skills.     

Reclaiming the students – coping with social media in 1:1 schools

There is a debate about the advantages and disadvantages of using social media in education. Drawing on interviews and surveys with students and teachers in three Swedish schools, this study finds that students as well as teachers find much of the students' social media use distractive to learning. We investigate this by means of an interpretative study of students' and teachers' experiences. We find that concerns relate to how social media use makes students less social, how weaker students are more likely to get distracted, how teachers lack strategies for tackling the problem and how the responsibility of the use is delegated to the students. We discuss how the distractive use of social media is made possible as a result of education policies requiring a higher degree of individual work, individual responsibility, and educational choices for students. Teachers and school leaders need to jointly reclaim the students and coping strategies for the distractive use are urgently needed.     

流动儿童社会支持与自尊的关系研究

目的:了解流动儿童社会支持、自尊及二者关系,为更好地采取教育措施提供依据。方法:采用社会支持量表(SSRS)和自尊量表(SES)对4~6年级402名小学生进行研究。结果:流动儿童的社会支持状况更差,流动儿童社会支持总分显著低于非流动儿童;流动儿童自尊得分高于非流动儿童,但两者之间差异不显著;流动儿童社会支持总分、主观支持和支持利用度与自尊呈显著负相关;社会支持总分对自尊具有显著预测作用。结论:家庭、学校和社会应给予流动儿童更多关注和支持,并注重其内心感受。     

高职学生不良个性的表现及矫治

根据调查显示,高职学生的不良个性主要表现在自负、自私、依赖、偏激、好虚荣与优柔寡断。这是由于过强保护自尊心使他们产生自负的心理;家庭教育方式的不正确,使他们产生了自私、依赖心理;缺乏辩证思想使他们产生偏激心理;认知偏差与人格缺欠使他们产生好虚荣的心理。为此,要使学生学会正确评价自己与接受批评,告诫家长不要溺爱孩子,培养学生的劳动习惯,教会学生为别人做事,加强学生人格训练,使他们敢于承担责任和义务。     

The gendered boundaries of child‐centred education: Elsie Ripley Clapp and the history of US progressive education

This paper analyses how historical narratives of the 1930s conflict between child‐centred and social reconstructionist factions of US progressive education reinforce gendered constructions of education. The split between these two groups has been drawn along lines of gender with child‐centred education associated with female educators focused on individual development and social reconstructionists comprised of university male faculty working for social justice. The work of Elsie Ripley Clapp, an active proponent of rural progressive education in the 1920s and 1930s, is used to illustrate the limitations of accepted categorisations of progressive education. The focus on Clapp points to new ways of framing the ideological tensions within the progressive education movement and highlights how the politics of gender influence which educators are remembered as leaders and activists. The paper argues that the recent renewal of interest in social reconstructionism should include a critique of its oppositional and hierarchical relation to female progressive educators.     

Early childhood education and care educators supporting parent-child relationships: a systematic literature review

Building strong relationships between children and parents is vital for children’s social and emotional development. A majority of children attend early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings where they experience a range of relationships (educator–child, educator–parent, parent–child). Educators build relationships with children and parents, yet their influence on parent–child relationships is not well understood. Therefore, an evaluation of interventions/programs designed to promote parent–child relationships in ECEC settings (long day care, occasional care and preschool) and a range of settings (play groups, community groups and health centres) was conducted. The search revealed 21 peer-reviewed studies and seven interventions: two conducted in ECEC settings and five in a range of parent–child support settings. All studies reported intervention efficacy, yet none examined educators’ influence on parent–child relationships. Investigation into current educator practices is recommended to ensure educators are supported to promote and nurture parent–child relationships, consequently strengthening children’s social and emotional development.