Self-Regulation and Economic Stress in Children of Hispanic Immigrants and Their Peers: Better Regulation at a Cost?

Research Findings: Although there is a well-established relationship between economic stress and children’s self-regulation, few studies have examined this relationship in children of Hispanic immigrants (COHIs), a rapidly growing population. In a sample of preschool children (N = 165), we examined whether economic stress predicted teacher evaluations of children’s self-regulation, whether economic stress predicted children’s physiological reactivity (via cortisol levels), and whether economic stress had a similar effect on self-regulation and children’s cortisol for COHI versus nonimmigrant children. Greater economic stress was associated with poorer child self-regulation and heightened physiological reactivity across a challenging classroom task for the sample as a whole. However, when we examined children by group, greater economic stress was associated with poorer teacher-reported self-regulation for nonimmigrant children only. In contrast, greater economic stress was related to greater cortisol reactivity across a challenge task for COHIs but not for nonimmigrants. Practice or Policy: Results demonstrate the importance of considering physiological indices of self-regulation (heightened stress physiology), in addition to traditional external indices (teacher report), when assessing self-regulation or risk more generally among preschool samples that are diverse in terms of ethnicity, economic risk, and parents’ nativity.     

Geiogamah’s 49 and Reconstruction of American Native Cultural Identity

Cultural identity in Geiogamah’s play 49 represented a common concern of contemporary American Indian writers.Geiogamah highlighted the renewal and reconstruction of tribe tradition and cultural identity for native Indians.He stressed the imperative of maintaining ethnic tradition in identity quest by way of cultural rejuvenation,and ritual experience.The play dem onstrated that the way for the Indians in the modernization is to protect national culture,return to the tribe tradition and face the social reality.     

Greek American Ethnic Identity,Cultural Experience and the ‘Embodied Language’ of Dance: Implications for Counseling

This ethnographic study aims to contribute to better counseling services for the Greek American population in the U.S. by providing cultural knowledge and insight into one of the smaller ethnic groups that has been overlooked in the literature. More specifically, it explores the role of the ‘embodied language’ of dance in the formation of Greek American ethnic identity and the transmission of sociocultural knowledge and practices. The findings suggest that ethnic dances constitute a significant medium of transmission of cultural knowledge, and socialization into the life of the Greek American community through role modeling and intergenerational contact, as well as opportunity for fellowship and interaction with people who share common practices and traditions. All of the above contribute to a strong identification with the particular community and the development of ethnic identity. Implications for research and theory development in counseling, taking into account the embodied construction of ethnic identity, are also discussed.     

On the Advantages and Defects of the American Structuralism

During the years at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century when Saussure was working out his ideas in Europe, synchronic linguistics was emerging independently, and in a very different style, in America, under the leadership of the anthropologist Franz Boas. Boas set a direction for American linguistics. The school founded by Boas was called structural linguistics. Beside Boas, the other two major representatives of this school during this period were: Sapir and Bloomfield.     

Cope,Conform, or Resist? Functions of a Black American Identity at a Predominantly White University

This study organized five black American undergraduate students into a participatory action research (PAR) team to examine Cross and Strauss’ (1998) and Cross, Smith, and Payne's (2002) functions of blackness theory (i.e., bonding, code switching, and individualism) within a sample of black American students, frontline staff (i.e., janitors), and faculty at a predominantly white institution (PWI) or university. The racial-ethnic lived experiences of black Americans at a PWI can reveal outcomes in terms of employee performance and student academic and social experience. Data were collected from four student focus groups (i.e., general student body, students in Greek organizations, student athletes, and student leaders), one frontline staff focus group, five individual faculty interviews, and one individual interview with a female student athlete. Each participant completed a demographic survey. Also, extensive field observations were taken of participants at this particular PWI. Findings revealed how black Americans use bonding, code switching and individualism as functions of a racial identity when navigating a PWI as a mainstream environment. Data suggest very little bonding took place across the three subsamples (i.e., students, frontline staff, and faculty) and bonding practiced by black Americans at this PWI was found to exist most often within subpopulations, specifically within students and frontline staff. Participants, overall, were comfortable with code switching between a professional identity and a more racial, black American and/or social identity. Also, a number of participants understood their individuality to be more salient than a racial or black American identity. Implications for PAR projects with black American college students are also discussed within this article.     

Elementary? Question answering,IBM’s Watson,and the Jeopardy! challenge

In this article, we start with John McCarthy’s definition of Artificial Intelligence and describe select approaches to its sub-areas: natural language processing and question answering. We then outline the challenge that IBM Research undertook to build Watson, a question-answering computer system that would compete at the level of a human champion in real time on the American TV quiz show Jeopardy!. We describe the rules of Jeopardy! and list issues that any contestant faces in competing on Jeopardy!. We describe how IBM’s Watson system addresses these issues with its metrics and DeepQA architecture. We briefly describe how Watson performed in the Jeopardy! Challenge shows, and conclude with some thoughts about Watson and its potential applications.     

Philosophy across the Curriculum and the Question of Teacher Capacity; Or,What Is Philosophy and Who Can Teach It?

Pre‐college philosophy has proliferated greatly over the last few decades, including in the form of ‘philosophy across the curriculum’. However, there has been very little sustained examination of the nature of philosophy as a subject relative to other standard pre‐college subjects and the kinds of expertise an effective philosophy teacher at this level should possess. At face value, the minimal academic preparation expected for competence in secondary philosophy instruction, compared to the high standards for teaching other subjects, raises questions and concerns. In this paper I make some provisional observations about the subject of philosophy and how it is taught from p4c through to the post‐secondary level. I begin by examining the concept of ‘philosophy across the curriculum’ and offer a working analysis of the main features of philosophy's form and content that enable us to determine its relevance to, and difference from, other subjects. Next, I examine and critique what I term the ‘populist’ conception of philosophy, which correlates to lower expectations of teacher training, and use my own experience of teaching philosophy across the curriculum to shed doubt on the viability of this approach. In the third section I consider what I term the ‘autonomous’ conception of philosophy, which correlates to more stringent expectations of teacher capacity, and explain why it is preferable to the populist conception with some qualifications. I conclude by reflecting on how philosophy compares to other subjects that are advanced cross‐curricularly and argue for more training of high school philosophy teachers.     

Collective Identity and the Burden of “Acting White” in Black History,Community, and Education

After more than 15 years of comparative study of minority education, I concluded that I would have to study two additional factors, namely collective identity and cultural frame of reference to more fully explain the variability in minority school performance. In 1986, I published an article with Signithia Fordham on how oppositional collective identity and cultural frame of reference or oppositional culture contributed to Black students' school performance. Many critics have misinterpreted the joint article and even constructed a different thesis of oppositional culture than the one we proposed in the joint article. The thesis is that Black students do not aspire to or strive to get good grades because it is perceived as acting White. Furthermore, they have translated my cultural–ecological theory into an oppositional culture theory. I am writing this paper to correct the misinterpretations of the joint article in order to advance scholarship on the subject. I begin by explaining the meaning of collective identity and distinguishing it from other concepts of identity. Specifically, I summarize the evolution of oppositional collective identity and cultural frame of reference or oppositional culture among Black Americans and discuss the Black experience with the burden of acting White in the contemporary United States. Finally, I suggest some continuity between Black historical and community experiences with the burden of acting White, as experienced by Black students.     

Pupils’ Learning,Identity and Social Context: the case of Mary∗

ABSTRACT

This paper provides an analysis of social factors which influence the sense of identity and approach to learning of young children. The analysis is set in the context of a critique of national education policies which fail to appreciate the importance of the engagement of learners in learning processes. However, it focuses at a more detailed level on the social dynamics between children and parents, siblings, peers and teachers and the ways in which these evolve over time and influence identity. A model of key factors and processes is presented which draws on both symbolic interactionism and social constructivism and its use is illustrated through a detailed case study of the learning of one child over a three‐year period.

     

ITE and Form Tutoring: A Question of Responsibility?

In recent guidelines offered to its inspectors, the Office for Standards in Education stressed the importance of monitoring the work not only of subject teachers but also of class tutors. Traditionally, programmes of initial teacher training have largely neglected preparation of their students for the centrality of this role. With the recent move to school‐based ITE there is clear opportunity for PGCE courses to address this shortfall. This paper considers the implications of a programme of initial training in form tutoring from the point of view of the School and Higher Education. It draws on recent research carried out within the Bath University PGCE Partnership scheme and specifically on the author's work as a PGCE tutor.     

Reclaiming the Rhetoric of Reies López Tijerina: Border Identity and Agency in “The Land Grant Question”

Chicano activist Reies Tijerina's speech known as “The Land Grant Question” provides a point of analysis in this article for assessing contradictory understandings of Tijerina and his movement, La Alianza Federal de Mercedes. The author explores how in both its rhetorical content and form, Tijerina's speech navigated and negotiated identity and agency for the Alianza and Mexican Americans. The speech represents border rhetoric, a type of vernacular discourse that migrates across borders, sustains contradictions, and crafts a middle space. Reclaiming Tijerina's rhetoric extends Chicano movement studies, illuminates notions of rhetorical agency, and highlights a rhetorically-inflected notion of the border.     

An examination of Hispanic college enrollment and graduation: Has the Texas Closing the Gaps plan been successful?

The purpose of this study is to assess the effectiveness of the Texas “Closing the Gaps by 2015” plan to increase Hispanic enrollment into and graduation from institutions of higher education. This study uses Interrupted Time Series with Comparison Group to analyze 26 years of student cohorts in Texas universities. Controlling for historical enrollment and graduation growth as well as population growth, the results show that Hispanic college enrollment significantly increased as a result of the plan, but graduation did not. Several recommendations are offered for those states that wish to emulate Texas policies of increasing college enrollment and graduation of Hispanics.     

Becoming a “Model Minority”: Acquisition,Construction and Enactment of American Identity for Korean Immigrant Students

While the “model minority” stereotype of Asian Americans and its negative effects has been documented elsewhere, relatively little attention has been paid to how recent Asian immigrant students begin to embrace the stereotype while in schools. This study explores the identity formation process for a group of recent Korean immigrant students as “model minority” in an urban high school to empirically document the process. Through interviews and observations, I learned that the immigrants acquired an unauthentic American identity as a racial minority, constructed their status as “model minority” in response, and enacted the stereotype as they sanctioned those who couldn’t live up to the stereotype. The aim is to add to the body of knowledge on the school experiences of recent Asian immigrants.     

Citizens or cosmopolitans? Nationalism, internationalism, and academic identity in the early American republic

Historically, the changing roles of academics have often been associated with changing relations between scholarship and the state. What functions did the state expect scholars to fulfill? Using a historical–biographical approach, this essay considers the example of early nineteenth-century astronomer Ferdinand Rudolf Hassler, who immigrated to the United States from Switzerland in 1805 and whose contributions to various scientific projects during the next decade (i.e., the final decade of the Napoleonic Wars) revealed a key shift in modern academic identity—a shift from cosmopolitanism to nationalism shaped by the political anxieties and geopolitical uncertainties of his time. Hassler’s involvement with a US coastal survey and the construction of a US national observatory raised doubts about the extent to which a scholar (particularly an immigrant scholar) could be a “cosmopolitan” and a “servant of the state” simultaneously. Hassler, like others of his generation, failed to balance these competing and perhaps fundamentally incompatible roles. His case, together with his own commentary on his experiences, sheds light on similar dilemmas facing so-called global scholars today.