Does Parental Mind‐Mindedness Account for Cross‐Cultural Differences in Preschoolers’ Theory of Mind?

This study of 241 parent–child dyads from the United Kingdom (N = 120, M_age = 3.92, SD = 0.53) and Hong Kong (N = 121, M_age = 3.99, SD = 0.50) breaks new ground by adopting a cross‐cultural approach to investigate children's theory of mind and parental mind‐mindedness. Relative to the Hong Kong sample, U.K. children showed superior theory‐of‐mind performance and U.K. parents showed greater levels of mind‐mindedness. Within both cultures parental mind‐mindedness was correlated with theory of mind. Mind‐mindedness also accounted for cultural differences in preschoolers’ theory of mind. We argue that children's family environments might shed light on how culture shapes children's theory of mind.     

Uncovering Students’ Environmental Identity: An Exploration of Activities in an Environmental Science Course

This study at a public high school in the Northeastern United States explores how students’ environmental identities are affected by various activities in an Environmental Science course. Data was collected as part of an ethnographic study involving an Environmental Science teacher and her tenth–twelfth grade students. The results focus on interviews with 10 students and the teacher, conducted at three points during the semester-long course. The findings illuminate ways in which students’ identities (environmental and consumer-materialist) are affirmed or disconfirmed during classroom activities, the importance of establishing personal connections with environmental issues, and challenges related to the teaching of controversial environmental issues.     

Toward harmonious East–West educational partnerships: a study of cultural differences between Taiwanese and Norwegian engineering students

The collaboration activities between educational institutions in the East and the West are on the increase as an increasingly globalized economy requires graduates to have the skills to work across cultural divides. Such collaborations are difficult and require patience. One challenge is that students or teachers may have misconceptions about aspects of the other culture that may cause problems. This study sets out to identify what values students in typical Eastern and Western societies associate with a good student, good student behavior, good teachers and good lectures with the purpose to identify discrepancies. This study is based on the results of a pair-wise ranking questionnaire completed by 233 Taiwanese and Norwegian students of both engineering and non-technical subjects. The results confirm some established beliefs regarding culturally related differences. However, several issues were found to be culturally neutral, and cultural differences were identified for several issues that were predicted to be culturally neutral. The results of this study may be useful to educators involved in East–West internationalization.     

Between East and West: Sappho Leontias (1830–1900) and her Educational Theory

The paper presents one of the most prominent Greek women teachers and educators of the nineteenth century, and a leading figure of Greek women’s education in Ottoman territory, Sappho Leontias (1830–1900). Within a transnational framework and based on the study of the writings of Sappho Leontias, the paper presents her educational views, theory and philosophy and focuses on her connections to educational thought and activity “beyond ethnic/national borders”, investigating the influences on her theoretical schema. A secondary intention of the paper is to present the influence Leontias exercised on the education of her times through an overview of her educational activity. The historical and social conditions of the time and place, as well as gender ideologies, are taken into consideration; the paper supports the position that they affect or shape individual projects and choices to a great extent.     

Exploring The Issues of Incorporating Cultural Differences in Education: A Curriculum Journey in Playwriting

In response to a mandate to develop a more welcoming university for students, especially those of Aboriginal inheritance, we set out on a journey for ways of accommodating cultural differences in our university classrooms. Over the course of a year, we met regularly and audiotaped our conversations. By talking, transcribing, writing, and rewriting, we carried our understandings forth in a recursive manner. In our efforts to represent the ideas that arose in our conversations, the conceptual movements in our thinking, and the insights that evolved, a play took shape. In the play, three characters evolve their understandings over the course of four acts. In this article, we reflect on the conditions that produced the play; we comment on the process of writing the play; and we share the understandings, insights, and transformations that occurred in our desire to live well amidst differences.     

On Translation Strategies of Idioms from the Perspective of Cultural Schema Theory—A Case Study of Jenner's Journey to the West

Idioms, which contain abundant cultural contents and profound truths, are known as one of the features of Chinese. And schemata refer to the knowledge and experience in human brain. The differences of cultural schemata will bring about difficulties and challenges to translation. Through an analysis of the translation strategies in Jenner's Journey to the West, this paper is aimed to find out in different cultural schemata what translation strategies the translator will adopt to activate or adjust the cultural schemata in readers' brain so as to help them solve the problems of cultural factors during their reading.     

The Winds of Change in Russian Higher Education: is the East moving West?

In the last 30 years, major changes have taken place in the public sector worldwide under the rubric of New Public Management [NPM]. The education sector is perhaps one of the key areas drawing an intense interest and discussion in the wake of NPM. The Russian State seems to be no longer an exception to this global trend. In line with this, the Russian education sector was declared as a large-scale top priority national project in the late summer of 2005, which was aimed to help raise the living standards of each Russian citizen. This empirical paper seeks to reveal the major institutional and legal changes taking place in Russian higher education over time. This insight is vital as it points to the contexts in which Russian public universities operate. To make the acquaintance of a system of Russian higher education, this research sketches its evolution. It commences from the Soviet era to the present time, highlighting the most significant government initiatives.     

An Assessment of Turkish Young Pupils’ Environmental Literacy: A nationwide survey

The purpose of this nationwide survey was to assess young Turkish pupils’ environmental literacy (EL) level by considering six EL components. The sample of the study comprised of 2,412 fifth graders selected from 78 elementary schools (26 private and 52 public) in 26 provinces of Turkey. Data were obtained through the use of an elementary school environmental literacy instrument (ESELI) including five parts and total of 75 items. The results revealed that the composite EL score of the students was found to be 149.66 (SD = 26.19), suggesting a moderate level of EL among 61% percent of the students (n = 1,545). On the other hand, more than a quarter of the participants (27.3%, n = 659) held high level EL, whereas only 22 students (0.9%) showed low level EL. The implications of the results to policy, practice, and further research were discussed at the end of the study.     

Correction to: An application of importance-performance analysis to students’ evaluation of teaching

Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability -     

对伊懋可著作 The Retreat of the Elephants:An Environmental History of China 的浅见

以 The Retreat of the Elephants:An Environmental History of China 为中心,讨论中国的国家权力对环境的影响,以环境、人民、皇帝和天都构成政治理论的一部分,修正伊懋可的看法.其次,展现树林在信仰中善恶混沌的面向.最后,补充大象不能被人类驯化的可能原因.文章肯定伊懋可对论述人类与环境互动模式的贡献,但修正其关于统治者与被统治者间关系的观点,并提出对信仰的不同解读     

Adoptive Parenting Cognitions: Acknowledgement of Differences as a Predictor of Adolescents’ Attachment to Parents

SYNOPSIS

Objective. Adoptive parents’ acknowledgment of differences is defined as the propensity to think that adoptive and nonadoptive families are different in important ways. Few studies have examined the implications of such cognitions for the parent–child bond. Design. Structural equation modeling was utilized to examine the relation between adoptive parents’ acknowledgment of differences and adolescents’ later attachment to their parents in a sample of within-race domestic infant adoptions. Data from 189 adoptive families were drawn from two waves (middle childhood, adolescence) of the Minnesota/Texas Adoption Research Project, a longitudinal study of openness in adoption. Results. Levels of acknowledgment of differences displayed by the adoptive mother and adoptive father during middle childhood positively predicted adopted adolescents’ feelings of attachment toward the respective parent 8 years later. This relation depended on adopted adolescents’ attitude toward adoption-related communication during middle childhood as well as the adoptive family’s level of openness during middle childhood. Conclusions. Acknowledgment of differences in adoptive families has positive implications for the parent–child bond.     

Account of practice: transferring the ‘drawer of nonsense’ from a DBA-program to daily professional practice

This article attempts to build a cross-reference between a Doctoral program in Business and Administration (DBA) and the concept of ‘Action Learning’ made known within this programme, while also highlighting the relevance for ‘Action Learning’ in the authors professional daily life. The experiences made during the studies, when the concept of Action Learning was first introduced and applied, are gleaned and thus compared to the professional problems encountered by consultants in the financial industry. The chances and benefits for the professional life are highlighted, and suggestions are made to enrich the student experience while attending a DBA-program.     

An Examination of Changes to State Civic Education Requirements, 2004–2016

Across the country, states are considering policies that support civic learning among youth. Recent initiatives at the state level have changed graduation requirements and state assessments around high school civics. These initiatives can be grouped into three types: coursework, assessments, and accountability. The first type, coursework, refers to whether a state’s graduation requirements include a course in civics. The second, assessments, encompasses state requirements that students be assessed on civics or citizenship education. The third type, accountability, refers to whether a state’s accountability system includes state assessments in civics or citizenship education. The purpose of this study is threefold: (1) to describe state policies in civics education and the variation in them among the American states, (2) to document the changes in state policies between 2004 and 2016, and (3) to help unpack the reasons behind changes to civics education policy among the American states. We find considerable variation in civics education policies across states, as well as substantial changes within states over time. Using event history analysis, we exploit the variation to examine the extent to which political, economic, and demographic factors inside a state as well as the actions of neighboring or regional states condition adoption of assessment policies. We find evidence that the proportion of Hispanic and black populations in a state are positively associated with adoption and discuss implications and areas for future research.     

A Comment on “The Adventures of Lead Commander: An Environmental Education Program to Prevent Lead Poisoning in Young Children”

Abstract

This article comments on a study designed to examine the effectiveness of the family-based, environmental education lead-poisoning program, The Adventures of Lead Commander (Marlowe & Trathen, 1996). Design and methodological weaknesses, such as the use of hair lead concentrations as a biomarker, call into question conclusions reached in the study. The effectiveness of the educational program cannot be ascertained from the data collected. It should be stressed, however, that environmental education projects such as The Adventures of Lead Commander are important in helping to educate the public and school children about lead poisoning and ways of minimizing exposure to this neurotoxin. Education and removal of lead sources are primary methods of reducing lead exposure.     

From Book to Screen: Adopting Cinematic Adaptations of Literature in the EFL Classroom to Hone Students’ Critical Thinking Skills

In light of the paramount value placed on critical thinking (CT) in higher education and the scarcity of research into the use of cinematic adaptations to this end, this study investigated the incorporation of film into the source literature to hone students’ cognitive skills in the areas of analysis, inference, evaluation, induction, and deduction. Participants were 50 third-year students of English as a foreign language (EFL) enrolled in a university in eastern Algeria for academic year 2015–2016. During the fall semester, the treatment group (n = 24) and the control group (n = 26) took a regular literature course. In the spring semester, the treatment group took a film-literature course and the control group, a reading-only course that drew on Facione's IDEAS critical thinking model. The California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) was used as a pretest and posttest. Empirical findings indicated that both groups performed on par in all cognitive areas of CT with the exception of inference, wherein the film group outperformed the reading-only group in this dimension.     

Development of Math Attitudes and Math Self-Concepts: Gender Differences,Implicit–Explicit Dissociations,and Relations to Math Achievement

Three hundred and ninety-one children (195 girls; M_age = 9.56 years) attending Grades 1 and 5 completed implicit and explicit measures of math attitudes and math self-concepts. Math grades were obtained. Multilevel analyses showed that first-grade girls held a strong negative implicit attitude about math, despite no gender differences in math grades or self-reported (explicit) positivity about math. The explicit measures significantly predicted math grades, and implicit attitudes accounted for additional variance in boys. The contrast between the implicit (negativity for girls) and explicit (positivity for girls and boys) effects suggest implicit–explicit dissociations in children, which have also been observed in adults. Early-emerging implicit attitudes may be a foundation for the later development of explicit attitudes and beliefs about math.     

Differentiating the Sources of Taiwanese High School Students’ Multidimensional Science Learning Self-Efficacy: An Examination of Gender Differences

The main purpose of this study was to investigate Taiwanese high school students’ multi-dimensional self-efficacy and its sources in the domain of science. Two instruments, Sources of Science Learning Self-Efficacy (SSLSE) and Science Learning Self-Efficacy (SLSE), were used. By means of correlation and regression analyses, the relationships between students’ science learning self-efficacy and the sources of their science learning self-efficacy were examined. The findings revealed that the four sources of the students’ self-efficacy were found to play significant roles in their science learning self-efficacy. By and large, Mastery Experience and Vicarious Experience were found to be the two salient influencing sources. Several gender differences were also revealed. For example, the female students regarded Social Persuasion as the most influential source in the “Science Communication” dimension, while the male students considered Vicarious Experience as the main efficacy source. Physiological and Affective States, in particular, was a crucial antecedent of the female students’ various SLSE dimensions, including “Conceptual Understanding,” “Higher-Order Cognitive Skills,” and “Science Communication.” In addition, the variations between male and female students’ responses to both instruments were also unraveled. The results suggest that, first, the male students perceived themselves as having more mastery experience, vicarious experience and social persuasion than their female counterparts. Meanwhile, the female students experienced more negative emotional arousal than the male students. Additionally, the male students were more self-efficacious than the females in the five SLSE dimensions of “Conceptual Understanding,” “Higher-Order Cognitive Skills,” “Practical Work,” “Everyday Application,” and “Science Communication.”     

Lifelong Learning Between “East” and “West”: Confucianism and the Reflexive Project of the Self

Current theory, policy, and practice of lifelong learning are strongly influenced by ideas about the transformations that are taking place in contemporary societies. One influential set of ideas emphasizes that because of the rapid changes that are taking place in the (late-) modern world and because of the erosion of traditions, there is a constant need for individuals not only to learn new skills and knowledge in order to be able to adjust themselves to the changes, but also to reflexively (re)construct one’s self. Anthony Giddens has referred to this as the “reflexive project of the self.” It thus becomes a lifelong learning task. In this paper we raise some critical questions about Giddens’s views and their implications for lifelong learning. On the one hand we show, using ideas from Charles Taylor, that the construction of the self does not necessarily have to be understood in the reflexive and individualistic terms suggested by Giddens. With Taylor we argue for the importance of the social, moral, and intersubjective dimensions of the construction of the self. Against this background we then discuss ideas from Confucianism that also highlight the social, moral, and intersubjective dimensions of understanding the self. The latter view is not simply a theoretical option but actually continues to influence the ways in which a large part of the world population views their lives and their selves. Both for theoretical and practical reasons we therefore suggest that there is a need to take a broader outlook on what the personal dimensions of lifelong learning in contemporary society might look like.