The intergenerational effects of parental schooling on the cognitive and non-cognitive development of children

This article, using the National Child Development Study, estimates the causal relationship between parents’ schooling and children's cognitive and non-cognitive development using the 1947 compulsory schooling legislation in Great Britain. The least squares estimates suggest strong correlations between parental education and these developmental indicators. However, the instrument variable estimates are not sufficiently precise to find that either parent's schooling has a beneficial effect on children's cognitive and non-cognitive development.     

The effects of armed conflict on schooling in Sub-Saharan Africa

In the past decades, most of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have been affected by armed conflicts. By means of a time-series cross-sectional (TSCS) database, we attempt to measure the impact of war on a sample of 43 countries in Africa from 1950 to 2010. These conflicts, and especially civil wars, are shown to have a strong negative effect on the educational performances of the countries studied. The rate of children not attending school, as well as secondary school enrollment rates, seems particularly sensitive to periods of conflict. It also appears that government expenditures in social sectors including education are a positive factor in increasing school enrollment. In contrast, military expenditure is significantly and inversely related to schooling opportunities. Thus, if an extra 1% only of the GDP were allocated to education expenditure, the rate of children not attending school would decrease by 1.7%, the primary and secondary completion rates would increase respectively by 4.4% and by 2.6%. The gender analysis shows that education expenditures provide a better retention of girls in the school system.     

Schooling effects on intelligence development: evidence based on national samples from urban and rural China

The current research investigated the variability of school effects on intelligence development in considering two economically and socially distinct groups of children. The data came from a nationally representative sample of primary school children from urban and rural areas of China. Two standardised reasoning tests were used to assess fluid intelligence. The between-grade regression discontinuity approach was applied to disentangle the schooling effect from the age effect. Results showed that the combined effects of schooling and age were 5.09 intelligence points per year, in which the schooling effect (4.37 points) was larger than the age effect (.72 points). The patterns of schooling and age effects were different in urban and rural subsamples. For the urban subsample, the schooling effect was smaller than the age effect for children from grade 1 to 3, but the schooling effect became larger than the age effect from grade 4 to 6. For the rural subsample, however, the schooling effect was always larger than the age effect. The effect of one year of schooling for rural children (5.59 points) was larger than that for urban children (3.15 points). These results suggest that schooling effects are closely related to the context where children are growing up.     

The effects of morphological versus phonological awareness training in kindergarten on reading development

The aim of this study was toinvestigate the long-term effects of twodifferent training programs in kindergarten onreading development. One group received aprogram focusing on the phonological structureof words, while a second group received aprogram focusing on morphology. Both groupsalso had some print exposure focusing onphonological or morphological elementsrespectively. During their last pre-schoolyear, participants received training for 30minutes per week for a total of 17 weeks. Acontrol group received no intervention but wasregularly visited by the researcher and hadextensive print exposure. Both trained groupsshowed improvements in phonological,morphological and reading skills in comparisonto the Control Group. The effects of trainingvaried according to mother's educational level:Children of relatively highly educated mothersentered the pre-school training with betterdeveloped metalinguistic abilities thanchildren of less well educated mothers.Significant interactions between the groups andthe mother's educational level, for some of theschool reading measures, indicated thatdifferent training programs had differenteffects on different groups of children.Children of poorly educated mothers profitedthe most from metaphonological training whilechildren of highly educated mothers profitedthe most from metamorphological training.     

小学德育工作中存在的问题及解决方法

习近平主席对教师提出了"三个牢固树立"的要求,希望全国广大教师牢固树立中国特色社会主义理想信念,带头践行社会主义核心价值观,自觉增强立德树人、教书育人的荣誉感和责任感,学为人师,行为世范,做学生健康成长的指导者和引路人。由此可见,立德树人在教师教学工作具有重要地位。德育工作在整个学校教育中占有举足轻重的地位,学校应给予十足的重视。     

Toward a research and development agenda for successful schooling practices

Currently in the UK there is much pressure to increase the recruitment and retention of ethnic minority teachers, not only to respond to the continuing shortage, but to develop a teaching force that reflects the diversity in the UK population and provides role models for ethnic minority students. There is, however, little research on how ethnic minority teachers cope with the demands of the profession, especially in their first year. The introduction by the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) of an induction period for Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs) in 1999 was an attempt to create a programme of individual support and monitoring to provide NQTs with a bridge from Initial Teacher Training (ITT) to becoming established in their chosen profession. We believe it is now timely and important to examine how ethnic minority beginning teachers experience these new arrangements. In this paper we, therefore, explore the induction experiences of British teachers of Asian and African Caribbean origin in three Local Education Authorities (LEAs) in the North West of England. We conclude that the NQTs are being provided with equal opportunities by their employers and that affirmative action may have been undertaken by a few of these employers during the recruitment and selection process, although some anecdotal evidence is also presented of discrimination. Further, the paper suggests that the majority of the NQTs find their schools and LEAs supportive and the induction process valuable, although it highlights the need for additional support in some individual cases.     

Understanding emancipatory forms of educational leadership through schooling justice work: an action research study into second chance schooling development

Concerned about the phenomena of early school leaving in our region, we are two teachers who initiated and developed a new school from the ‘ground up’ to re-engage young people disenfranchised with schooling back into formalised learning. Using critical action research methodology over a three and a half year developmental period, this endeavour involved us in exercising particular dimensions of leadership to engineer a sustainable second chance school. Twelve years after its development, the school continues with enrolments of over 100 senior secondary students in recent years. The schooling justice work we pursued during the developmental period drew us into ‘emancipatory’ leadership work that called us to be; (1) teacher activists embracing social entrepreneurial strategies imbued with (2) relational sensibilities, and (3) architects of socially just school design informed by (4) critical praxis within a university led professional learning community. The ‘second chance school’ has re-engaged over 1000 students back into formalised learning since its inception and has offered pathways into post-school tertiary study, apprenticeships and training for the majority of these students.     

Characterizing mature human intelligence: Expertise development

Results from a study of 263 male players at 48 levels of expertise in the game of GO, and ranging from 18 to 78 years of age, suggest a need to revise the extended theory of fluid (Gf) and crystallized (Gc) intelligence to take account of continued development of intelligence throughout adulthood. The extended theory of Gf–Gc is based on evidence that Gf, short-term apprehension and retrieval (SAR) and cognitive speed (Gs), decline with age over adulthood. Results from a number of studies, however, suggest that within the domains of expertise, high levels of reasoning, feats of memory and speeded thinking similar to Gf are displayed by older adults. To explore this hypothesis, measures of reasoning, memory and cognitive speed were constructed within the domain of expertise related to playing the complex game of GO. Analysis of the structure of the GO-embedded measures and standard measures of Gf (SAR and Gs) indicated a form of short-term memory — labeled expertise working memory (EWM) — that had substantially wider span than the short-term working memory (STWM) of SAR. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that long-term working memory is built up during the course of developing high levels of expertise. The results also suggest that a form of expertise deductive reasoning (EDR), utilizing EWM and incorporating large stores of knowledge, is distinct from Gf. Expertise cognitive speed (ECS), however, was not found to be reliably distinct from the Gs factor. Analyses of cross-sectional age differences indicate an age-related decline in both EDR and EWM, but as higher levels of expertise are reached, age-related decline does not occur. To the extent that there is continued press to advance expertise throughout adulthood, there may be improvement, not decline, in the EDR and EWM forms of intelligence.     

Absolute effects of schooling as a reference for the interpretation of educational intervention effects

Knowledge of the absolute effects of schooling provides a useful reference for the interpretation of the effectiveness of educational interventions. We use discontinuities in test scores between the oldest pupils in one birth cohort and the youngest in the next to assess the absolute effects of schooling. Our study includes 90 % of all pupils in year-groups 4–6 of primary education (ages 7–10) in Northern Ireland. Assignment to year-groups is strictly determined by date of birth in Northern Ireland. This creates a situation which parallels randomized controlled experimentation. The findings support the view that the guidelines suggested by Cohen (in 1969) may be overly ambitious when evaluating the effectiveness of educational interventions.     

The effects of preliteracy knowledge,schooling, and summer vacation on literacy acquisition

What causes the literacy gap and can schools compensate for it? The authors investigated 3 drivers of the gap: preliteracy knowledge, schooling, and the summer vacation. Longitudinal literacy data over 5 time points were collected on 126 five-year-olds attending higher or lower socioeconomic status (SES) schools during their first 15 months of school. There were several noteworthy findings: (a) gaps in preliteracy knowledge at school entry favor higher SES schools, (b) preliteracy knowledge predicted later progress over and above SES and gender, (c) during the school year there was a widening of the gap between higher SES schools and lower SES schools in reading and spelling skills, and (d) children attending lower SES schools exhibited losses during summer whereas children attending higher SES schools nearly always gained. Contrary to previous studies, the present results indicated that when there are concentrations of children from higher and lower SES in schools located in the children's respective SES areas, the achievement gap widens.     

Modeling effects on the intelligence test performance of test-anxious children

To evaluate the efficacy of modeling techniques for enhancing the performance of test-anxious children, 96 low-, middle-, and high-test-anxious children were assigned to one of three modeling conditions varying in degree of task structure and information provided about a testing session. Children either viewed a modeling film depicting an anxious peer overcoming test anxiety during a test session (Observation condition); viewed a similar film in which the examiner instructed the anxious child in coping techniques (Coping condition); or saw an unrelated film (Control condition). Contrary to expectations, no film nor anxiety effect nor any interactions were significant. Failure to replicate previous studies was attributed to control of examiner bias, superior statistical and experimental controls, and to differences in subject characteristics. The efficacy of modeling films in enhancing rapport during the test situation has not been conclusively demonstrated.     

Some thoughts about resilience versus positive development, main effects versus interactions, and the value of resilience

Interaction effects are the defining feature of resilience and resilience research and are responsible for the unique contributions of this field of study to our understanding of human development. The methodological and statistical challenges posed by interaction effects do not, by themselves, undermine the value of resilience as a construct.     

Artificial intelligence knowledge acquisition techniques for instructional development

Knowledge engineering techniques for developing expert systems may also be useful for instructional development. A review of knowledge engineering focusing on knowledge representation and knowledge acquisition suggests ways in which these methods could be adapted to developing instructional systems. As further work is done on intelligent computer-assisted instructional systems and other complex instructional development projects, knowledge engineering skills may become more important for the instructional developer.     

人脑的可塑性与智力开发

现代自然科学和社会科学的发展证明人脑具有可塑性。人脑的可塑性不但与人的学习能力、记忆能力有着密切的关系,而且与人的创造性思维密切相关;同时,人脑的可塑性对人的多元智力的开发具有重要的作用和意义。     

智力理论的最新发展探析

智力发展理论一直是心理学研究领域最有意义和最活跃的课题之一。近20年来智力理论的最新发展和演变，包括传统智力理论、戴斯的PASS理论、斯腾伯格的三元智力理论和成功智力理论、加德纳的多元智力理论、塞西的生物生态学理论、情绪智力理论以及神经可塑性模型。分析近20年来智力理论发展的趋势及未来智力理论发展的取向，可以清楚地看到，传统单维的智力理论正在走向宽泛和繁荣。