Attitudes of Greek parents of primary school children without special educational needs to inclusion

Successful inclusion of children with special educational needs (SEN) in school settings depends largely on the attitudes of parents of peers without SEN. The purpose of the present study was to explore the attitudes of Greek parents of primary school children without SEN towards inclusion. The participants were 338 parents (182 fathers, 156 mothers), aged 27 to 58 years (mean age = 39 years and 5 months). They were asked to complete the My thinking about inclusion scale and a further short questionnaire. The findings revealed that Greek parents of primary school children not identified as having SEN had an overall positive attitude towards inclusion. Gender differences were also established—fathers held more positive attitudes towards inclusion than mothers, even when controlling for age, educational level and the presence of a child with SEN in their child’s classroom. However, mothers were overall more willing than fathers to engage themselves and their child in interaction with a child with SEN.     

Gender Differences in Social Mastery Motivation and Its Relationships to Vocabulary Knowledge,Behavioral Self-Regulation,and Socioemotional Skills

The present study investigated gender differences in social mastery motivation, vocabulary knowledge, behavioral self-regulation, and socioemotional skills and examined the relationships among this knowledge and these skills by gender. Participants were 134 Chinese children (68 boys, M age = 3.80; 66 girls, M age = 3.89) and their parents recruited through local kindergartens’ parent groups. The children were administered measures of social mastery motivation, vocabulary knowledge, behavioral self-regulation, and nonverbal intelligence. Parents reported their education level and children’s socioemotional skills. Research Findings: Results revealed that boys exhibited more social mastery interactions than girls, and girls showed better behavioral self-regulation and socioemotional skills than boys. Girls with higher social mastery interaction frequency demonstrated better vocabulary knowledge and socioemotional skills, whereas boys with higher social mastery interaction frequency showed lower behavioral self-regulation. Boys, who showed more positive affect during social mastery interactions, tended to have better expressive vocabulary, which facilitated their behavioral self-regulation. Practice or Policy: Findings highlight social mastery motivation as a potential factor that facilitates children’s early development, but it may contribute to boys and girls in different ways.     

Teacher–Student Conflict and Preschoolers’ Adjustment in the Transition to Primary School: The Role of Child Self-Regulation and Parents’ Positive Relations With Others

Research Findings: This study examined the contribution of teacher-student conflict at kindergarten to the child’s school adjustment in primary school using a Hong Kong sample. It investigated self-regulation as a mediator and parents’ positive relations with others as a moderator in that transition. At Time 1 (T1), kindergarten teachers reported their levels of conflict with individual children (N = 324, 168 girls), whereas children’s self-regulation was assessed with a Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders Task. Fathers and mothers also rated their positive relations with others. At Time 2 (T2; 8 months later), when children were enrolled in primary school (N = 247, 126 girls), primary school teachers rated how well they adjusted to the new school. Moderated mediation analyses showed that although the direct effect of T1 teacher-student conflict on T2 school adjustment was not significant, the indirect effect of self-regulation was. T1 teacher-student conflicts were negatively related to children’s self-regulation, which in turn predicted subsequent school adjustment. Interestingly, this indirect effect was significant only when parents’ positive relations with others were low rather than high. Practice or Policy: The findings highlight the importance of both a warm and caring relationship in the home and self-regulation to successful school transition.     

Bad boys,good girls? Implicit and explicit attitudes toward ethnic minority students among elementary and secondary school teachers

Teachers’ attitudes toward ethnic minority students might differ by students’ gender and the type of school teachers are working in because of different motivations for teaching and different school practices. Hence, the aim of the current research was to investigate elementary (n = 82) and secondary school (n = 82) teachers’ implicit and explicit attitudes toward male and female ethnic minority students. Teachers worked on either a male or a female Implicit Association Test and filled out a gender-specific questionnaire for measuring explicit attitudes. The results showed that elementary and secondary school teachers had negative implicit attitudes toward ethnic minority students, independent of students’ gender. Whereas secondary school teachers were implicitly more positive toward boys, elementary school teachers were implicitly more positive toward girls. Elementary school teachers were more enthusiastic about teaching ethnic minority boys than girls. The findings provide the first insights into differences in attitudes between elementary and secondary school teachers.     

‘Power,regulation and physically active identities’: the experiences of rural and regional living adolescent girls

Drawing on interpretations of Foucault's techniques of power, we explored the discourses and power relations operative between groups of girls that appeared to influence their participation in Physical Education (PE) and outside of school in sport and physical activity (PA) in rural and regional communities. Interviews and focus groups were conducted in eight secondary schools with female students from Year 9 (n = 22) and 10 (n = 116). Dominant gendered and performance discourses were active in shaping girls’ construction of what it means to be active or ‘sporty’, and these identity positions were normalised and valued. The perceived and real threat of their peer's gaze as a form of surveillance acted to further perpetuate the power of performance discourses; whereby girls measured and (self) regulated their participation. Community settings were normalised as being exclusively for skilled performers and girls self-regulated their non-participation according to judgements made about their own physical abilities. These findings raise questions about the ways in which power relations, as forged in broader sociocultural and institutional discourse–power relations, can infiltrate the level of the PE classroom to regulate and normalise practices in relation to their, and others, PA participation.     

Parental attitudes about teenage pregnancy: impact on sexual risk behaviour of African-American youth

African-American youth suffer disproportionately from sexual risk consequences including unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. Parents educating young people about sex may be one approach to reduce sexual risk behaviour among this population. The purpose of this study was to determine young people's perceptions of parents' attitudes about sex and assess whether these perceptions affect sexual risk. Data were collected from 560 African-Americans, aged 9–19 years. Most (73.4%) thought their parents would be unhappy if they got someone pregnant/got pregnant, with more girls feeling this way than boys (p = 0.013). Sexually active boys who thought their parents would be unhappy if they got someone pregnant reported fewer sexual partners within the past year (p < 0.01) and fewer sexual encounters in the past 3 months (p = 0.01) compared to those whose parents would think otherwise. Our research illustrates that parents' explicit and unstated attitudes are apparent to their offspring, and young people's perceptions can impact their risk behaviour. As such, early and often sex education communication between parents and young people should be encouraged. Sexual health interventions encouraging parents to educate about sex and its consequences could enhance the health of young African-Americans.     

Greenhouse affect: the relationship between the sustainable design of schools and children’s environmental attitudes

This study aims to determine if primary school children’s environmental attitudes can be predicted by whether their school had been designed or adapted for sustainability. A New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale for children was adopted to measure attitudes, with supplementary questions added to align this scale to the Australian context of the study. In addition, the original adult NEP scale was used to determine relationships between children’s environmental attitudes, their School Design and their Parents’ and Teachers’ Environmental Attitudes. Data collected from grade 4, 5 and 6 primary school children, their parents and teachers were analysed via three multiple regressions. The results indicate that sustainable design in schools improves the environmental attitudes of children towards perceptibly green building features, such as solar panels, the use of recycled water, natural daylighting and outdoor classrooms including food-producing gardens.     

Gender Differences in Child Aggression: Relations With Gender‐Differentiated Parenting and Parents’ Gender‐Role Stereotypes

This longitudinal study examines the association between child gender and child aggression via parents’ physical control, moderated by parents’ gender‐role stereotypes in a sample of 299 two‐parent families with a 3‐year‐old child in the Netherlands. Fathers with strong stereotypical gender‐role attitudes and mothers were observed to use more physical control strategies with boys than with girls, whereas fathers with strong counterstereotypical attitudes toward gender roles used more physical control with girls than with boys. Moreover, when fathers had strong attitudes toward gender roles (stereotypical or counterstereotypical), their differential treatment of boys and girls completely accounted for the gender differences in children's aggressive behavior a year later. Mothers’ gender‐differentiated parenting practices were unrelated to gender differences in child aggression.     

Relations between colorblind socialization and children's racial bias: evidence from European American mothers and their preschool children

To examine European American parents’ racial socialization, mothers (n = 84) were videotaped while reading 2 race‐themed books to their 4‐ to 5‐year‐old children and completed surveys concerning their racial attitudes and behaviors. Children completed measures of their racial attitudes and both groups (mothers and preschoolers) predicted the others’ racial attitudes. Results indicated that nearly all mothers adopted “colormute” and “colorblind” approaches to socialization. Furthermore, neither children nor mothers accurately predicted the others’ views. Children’s racial attitudes were unrelated to their mothers’ attitudes but were predicted by their mothers’ cross‐race friendships; those children whose mothers had a higher percentage of non‐European American friends showed lower levels of racial biases than those children whose mothers had a lower percentage of non‐European American friends.     

Why do girls do better in reading than boys? How parental emotional contagion explains gender differences in reading achievement

Previous studies that attempted to explain why girls often perform better than boys in reading have emphasized the role of values and beliefs, with little attention paid to the role of emotions. This study focused on the role of parent–child emotional contagion in explaining gender differences, by investigating how parents’ reading emotion predicts students’ reading emotion and subsequent reading achievement. The data that was used was from a subsample of students from the Program for International Students Assessment (n = 84,429) from 14 countries. Multi-group structural equation modeling was conducted to assess a model of parents’ enjoyment of reading predicting reading achievement through students’ enjoyment of reading. Results provided support for a model of parents’ enjoyment of reading, predicting students 'enjoyment of reading, and subsequent reading achievement for both girls and boys. However, the indirect effect of parents’ enjoyment of reading on reading achievement through students’ enjoyment of reading was found to be stronger in girls than in boys. Findings emphasize the important role of parents’ emotions on student outcomes and how gender biases in a certain context can affect the extent to which parents’ emotions can influence student achievement.     

From reading strategy instruction to student reading achievement: The mediating role of student motivational factors

This study investigated the associations among reading strategy instruction, student motivational factors (i.e., attitudes toward reading, reading self‐concept, and motivation to read), gender, and reading achievement. The analyses were conducted using the Hong Kong sample (students at Level 1, n = 3,875 and teachers at Level 2, n = 133) from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study 2011 through multilevel structural equation modeling. The results showed that, first, the relation between the frequency of reading strategy instruction and student reading achievement was mediated by student attitudes toward reading. Second, the frequency of reading strategy instruction was significantly related to student attitudes toward reading and motivation to read and student attitudes toward reading was significantly associated with reading achievement. Finally, girls had more positive attitudes toward reading, more positive reading self‐concept, higher motivation to read, and higher reading achievement than boys. These findings may shed light on how teachers should arrange their reading strategy instruction to interplay with student attitudes toward reading and motivation to read and to help improve reading achievement.     

Parents’ Perceptions of and Responses to Children’s Emotions: Relations With Meta-Emotion Philosophy and Adult Attachment

Objective. This study investigated how parents’ perceptions of, feelings toward, and anticipated responses to children’s emotions relate to parents’ meta-emotion philosophy and attachment. Design. Parents (112 mothers and 95 fathers) completed an online research study where they viewed photographs of unfamiliar girls and boys (aged 10–14 years) displaying varying intensities of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, and neutral expressions. Parents labeled the emotion, identified the emotion’s intensity, and reported their mirrored emotion and responses. They also completed measures assessing their meta-emotion philosophy and attachment. Results. Meta-emotion philosophy predicted parents’ responses to children’s negative emotion, in that greater emotion-coaching predicted greater accuracy in labeling emotions (boys only), a greater likelihood to interact with children, and for mothers to be further from the mean in either direction in their mirrored emotion. Attachment also predicted parents’ responses to children’s negative emotions: Parents higher in anxiety reported more mirrored emotion, and those higher in avoidance reported less mirrored emotion, lower intensity, and less willingness to interact (boys only). In exploratory models for positive emotion, parents’ meta-emotion philosophy did not predict their responses, but parents higher in attachment avoidance rated girls’ positive emotions as less intense, reported less mirrored emotion, less willingness to interact, and less supportive responses, and those higher in anxiety showed the opposite pattern. Conclusion. Despite methodological limitations, results offer new evidence that parents’ ratings on a standardized emotion perception task as well as their anticipated responses toward children’s emotion displays are predicted by individual differences in their attachment and meta-emotion philosophy.     

Mothers’ Goals Influence Their Responses to Children’s Performance: An Experimental Study in the United States and Hong Kong

This research examined the role of mothers’ self-worth and self-improvement goals in their responses to children’s performance in the United States (80% European American) and Hong Kong (100% Chinese). Mothers (N = 330) were induced to prioritize self-worth or self-improvement among children (M_age = 10.24 years; 48% girls) . Mothers induced to prioritize self-worth (vs. self-improvement) used more success-oriented responses in both regions (ds = 0.53 and 0.35). Mothers induced to prioritize self-improvement (vs. self-worth) used more failure-oriented responses only in the United States (d = 0.29). Mothers’ success-oriented responses predicted more positive beliefs and affect in a cognitive task among children (βs = .10–.18). Taken together, the findings support the importance of parents’ goals in the socialization process.     

Children’s stereotypes of older adults: Evaluating contributions of cognitive development and social learning

Past research has investigated the development of stereotypes surrounding race and gender in children; however, there is a lack of literature examining the development of children’s stereotypes of older adults. In this study, 163 children from four grades: first (n = 44), fourth (n = 49), fifth (n = 35), and eighth (n = 35) completed a new trait-rating questionnaire assessing their stereotypes of older adults. Children’s stereotypes of older adults were largely positive. Younger children described older adults in more positive, but more stereotyped, ways than older children. Older children’s views shared a stronger relationship with those of their parents and peers compared to younger children. Together, these results support both cognitive development and social influences as contributing factors to the formation of children’s stereotypes of older adults.     

Engaging White parents to address their White children's racial biases in the Black-White context

Multiple studies (n = 1065 parents, 625 females, 437 males, 3 nonbinary, 99.06% White; n = 80, 5 to 7-year-old children, 35 girls, 45 boys, 87.50% White; data collection September 2017–January 2021) investigated White U.S. parents' thinking about White children's Black-White racial biases. In Studies 1–3, parents reported that their own and other children would not express racial biases. When predicting children's social preferences for Black and White children (Study 2), parents underestimated their own and other children's racial biases. Reading an article about the nature, prevalence, and consequences of White children's racial biases (Study 3) increased parents' awareness of, concern about, and motivation to address children's biases (relative to a control condition). The findings have implications for engaging White parents to address their children's racial biases.     

Environmental attitudes of young people in Turkey: effects of school type and gender

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of school type (private and public) and gender on sixth, seventh, eighth and tenth grade students’ attitudes toward the environment. A total of 1497 students (n?=?765 girls; n?=?715 boys; and n?=?17 gender not provided) attending public (n?=?603) and private schools (n?=?892) located in Ankara participated in the study. A 45‐item Likert‐type questionnaire consisting of four dimensions, namely, awareness of environmental problems, national environmental problems, solutions to the problems and awareness of individual responsibility, was used to measure students’ environmental attitudes. A two‐way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted to determine the effect of school type and gender on four dimensions of the environmental attitude questionnaire. Results showed that school type and gender had a significant effect on the collective dependent variables. Univariate ANOVAs indicated that mean scores on each dimension of the questionnaire were significantly different for students in public and private schools. Moreover, there was statistically significant mean difference between boys and girls with respect to scores on each dimension of the questionnaire. It is concluded as a result of the study that, although there are differences between categories of individuals, there is a widespread support for conservation of the environment among young people living in Ankara/Turkey.     

Do home numeracy and literacy practices of Greek and Canadian parents predict the numeracy skills of kindergarten children?

Children’s experiences with early numeracy and literacy activities are a likely source of individual differences in their preparation for academic learning in school. What factors predict differences in children’s experiences? We hypothesised that relations between parents’ practices and children’s numeracy skills would mediate the relations between numeracy skills and parents’ education, attitudes and expectations. Parents of Greek (N = 100) and Canadian (N = 104) five‐year‐old children completed a survey about parents’ home practices, academic expectations and attitudes; their children were tested on two numeracy measures (i.e., KeyMath‐Revised Numeration and next number generation). Greek parents reported numeracy and literacy activities less frequently than Canadian parents; however, the frequency of home numeracy activities that involved direct experiences with numbers or mathematical content (e.g., learning simple sums, mental math) was related to children’s numeracy skills in both countries. For Greek children, home literacy experiences (i.e., storybook exposure) also predicted numeracy outcomes. The mediation model was supported for Greek children, but for Canadian children, the parent factors had both direct and mediated relations with home practices.     

The Home Literacy Environment and Preschool Children's Reading Skills and Interest

Research Findings: This study explored the association between the home literacy environment (HLE), conceptualized as comprising parents’ reading beliefs and home literacy practices, and preschoolers’ reading skills and reading interest. It also identified factors in the HLE that predict emerging reading competence and motivation to read. A total of 193 children age 6 years from 14 preschools across Singapore and their parents participated in the study. The parents completed a reading belief inventory, a family literacy activity inventory, and a demographic questionnaire that surveyed the child's reading interest. The children were administered a battery of standardized literacy tests. The study found a moderate relationship between the HLE and children's reading competencies and a strong relationship between the HLE and children's reading interest. When parents’ education level and children's age were controlled, hierarchical multiple regression analyses found that family literacy activities contributed more unique variance to children's reading outcomes and reading interest than did parents’ reading beliefs. Active parental involvement was the strongest component of the HLE, with parent–child engagement in reading and writing emerging as the best predictor of both the child's emerging reading skills and reading interest. With respect to reading beliefs, parents’ efficacy in supporting literacy development before their child attended school positively predicted reading competence, as did parents’ affect and verbal participation in fostering reading interest. However, verbal participation negatively predicted Singapore children's reading competence. Practice or Policy: The implications of the results were discussed.     

Can earlier literacy skills have a negative impact on future home literacy activities? Evidence from Japanese

We examined the cross‐lagged relations between the home literacy environment and literacy skills in Japanese, and whether child's gender, parents' education and child's level of literacy performance moderate the relations. One hundred forty‐two Japanese children were followed from Grades 1 to 2 and assessed on character knowledge, reading fluency and spelling. Their parents responded to a questionnaire assessing the frequency of their teaching and shared reading. Results showed that parent teaching increased and shared reading decreased from Grades 1 to 2. Cross‐lagged path analysis indicated that the literacy skills in Grade 1 were negatively associated with parent teaching in Grade 2. The results further suggested that more educated parents of higher performing children, particularly boys, adjusted their involvement to their children's literacy skills, while less educated parents of lower performing children did not. These findings indicate the importance of parents' sensitivity to their child's performance. What is already known about this topic

• Home literacy environment (HLE) plays an important role in children's literacy acquisition in Western and some East Asian contexts.
• Children's early reading skills can have an impact on later HLE.
• The direction of the relationship between HLE and children's reading skills may change from positive in Kindergarten to negative in Grade 1.

What this paper adds

• In line with the findings of previous studies in other languages, Japanese parents adaptively adjust their home literacy activities to their child's literacy skills.
• The effect of children's literacy skills on later shared reading is stronger among boys than among girls.
• More educated parents of higher performing children adjust their involvement to their child's literacy skills, while less educated parents with lower performing children do not.

Implications for theory, policy or practice

• We should encourage parents to be sensitive to their child's literacy skills to help them build a foundation that will boost future literacy development.
• This can be particularly true of less educated parents with poorly performing children.
• We should encourage educators to communicate the children's literacy achievement to their parents and also suggest the means by which HLE could be beneficial for their children's literacy development.

     

Effects of cooperative learning on second graders’ learning from text

Two studies were conducted to investigate the effects of cooperative learning on second‐graders’ motivation and learning from text. In Study 1, students (n = 160) in cooperative learning groups were compared with their counterparts (n = 107) in traditional instruction groups. The results revealed a statistically significant difference between the two groups, with more favourable perceptions of teachers’ instructional practices and better reading comprehension in the instructional intervention groups than in the traditional instruction groups. In Study 2, 51 second‐graders participated in the instructional intervention programme. The results showed that students’ positive cooperative behaviour and attitudes were related to their motivation and reading comprehension. When students perceived that their peers were willing to help each other and were committed to the group, they tended to be more motivated and performed better in reading comprehension.