Enhancing Student Motivation and Learning: Experiences with a Simple Simulation

This paper examines the author's experiences in an introductory course in international relations with a simple simulation. The objective is to encourage others who have not yet done so to try using a simple simulation. After a brief review of the literature on simulations, it shows how the simulation is an easy and effective way to motivate students, improve social relations among students, and enhance learning. By participating in the simulation, students gain insights from their personal experiences. They gain insights into some of the problems confronting foreign policy makers and into the essence and limitations of the dominant approach to the study of international relations which provides the underlying assumptions upon which the simulation rests. Because it is a simple simulation it is easy to use early in an introductory course, but its very simplicity means it must not be used later in the course when a more complex simulation would be required. The paper encourages others to try simple simulations and makes some general observations for easy, early and effective use of them.     

How Early Childhood Teachers Perceive the Educational Needs of Military Dependent Children

Military dependent children remain a largely unexplored subject, particularly in early childhood education. In an effort to fill the gap in the current literature, this research study focuses on how early childhood teachers perceive the educational needs of military dependent children. Previous research in the areas of geographic mobility, parental separation, and socioemotional needs are reviewed and used as a platform for this study. The study includes a survey developed by the researcher used in conjunction with Teacher Observation of Classroom Adaptation—Checklist to further examine the needs of these children from the perceptions of their teachers. The results of the study demonstrate that while early childhood teachers do not perceive a significant difference between military and nonmilitary dependent children in the socioemotional domains of prosocial behavior, concentration, and disruptive behavior, they do believe there is a difference related to stability. Additionally, early childhood teachers noted a negative socioemotional and academic impact related to parental separation and a negative academic impact related to geographic mobility. Teachers’ responses indicated mixed beliefs about the social impact of frequent relocations.     

Early Attachment Relationships as Predictors of Preschool Children's Emotion Regulation with a Distressed Sibling

The present study examined (1) the emotion regulation of preschool children by observing their emotional responses to a distressed younger sibling during a separation episode; (2) whether children's regulatory responses were related to sibling interaction observed during the separation episode, and (3) whether individual differences in these children's regulatory responses and the quality of sibling interaction could be predicted from early attachment relationships. Older siblings who ignored their younger siblings' distress were more likely to experience personal distress and use avoidant coping strategies. Emotion regulation strategies were related to the quality of sibling interaction such that older siblings who offered comfort to a distressed younger sibling were more likely to express positive affect in sibling interaction, whereas older siblings seeking adult assistance were less likely to engage in conflict and hostile behavior with a younger sibling. Preschool children who had an insecure-resistant infant-mother attachment at 1 year, were more likely to seek comfort from their younger siblings and engaged in more sibling conflict and hostility when they were 4 years old. The quality of infant-father attachment relationships was not significantly related to the child's emotion regulation at 4 years of age. Results are discussed with respect to the social origins of preschool children's emotional self-regulation and the consequences of emotional dysregulation in preschool settings.     

Let’s begin with ourselves: attempting resonance responses in the exchange of researchers’ professional autobiographies

The economic, social, cultural, technological and labour changes experienced by Spanish universities in the last 40?years have had their impact on the professional lives of the university teachers. Our methodological decision to study, through the construction of life histories, how scholars cope with social and institutional changes in their professional lives led us to start by writing our professional autobiographies which were followed by a resonance practice in which each of us wrote a response to a partner’s autobiography. Results show that our responses appeared to have three different functions: give some feedback to our partners, tell our group our position about our partner’s autobiography and make sense of it for us. It became clear that writing about our resonance responses is a difficult task for academics like us and that our texts were bound by the position each one occupied in the research group and at the university. Our experience lets us rethink the interweaving of reflexivity, personal practical knowledge and resonance. The tension between our academic rationality and our efforts to give spontaneous resonance responses shows that even with narrative researchers, changing one’s personal practical knowledge may conflict with a rationalist point of view.     

Alternative schools and the crisis of education in developed countries

One of the growing concerns of educationists is the rigidity of traditional educational systems and their apparent inability to respond to social change, much less to stimulate it. Out of this concern with the inadaptation, in particular of schools, to contemporary demands, have come a number of different responses, from the theoretical to the concrete, both reformist and revolutionary.Prospects has given considerable space to discussion of the inadequacy of formal schooling in many parts of the world; deschooling, ‘conscientization’, alternative models have been discussed in theory and practice in the pages of the journal. The following article by Dwight Allen describes one type of response to disenchantment with formal school schooling, spontaneous and increasingly widespread, by the clients—pupils and parents—of the school system in one highly developed country. It could be argued that the very existence of ‘alternative’ schools indicates an economic system advanced and healthy enough to absorb the products of a ‘non-traditional’ school, and that therefore the experiences sketched below are irrelevant to developing countries. It seems to us, on the contrary, that the issues raised are fundamental, relating to the very concept of educational systems. The style of the article is not controversial, but the implication of its arguments is very much so: the system and the experiences described by the author, although they are set in a specific social and educational system, are none the less interesting as indicators, reference points, for highly centralized systems and even more so for all those systems which are in the process of moulding themselves in the likeness of one or the other model. We hope our readers will express their opinions and thus carry the discussion farther afield, into the developing world.     

Some effects of early social stimulation on the emotional reactivity of ducklings

Newly hatched Khaki Campbell ducklings were housed with a conspecific for 24 h beginning at either 1 or 5 days of age. A third group of ducklings received no social stimulation. When tested on Day 7, ducklings afforded early social stimulation exhibited less distress calling and crouching in a novel open field than ducklings exposed to late or no social stimulation. A second experiment asked whether the above result was due to early social stimulation per se or to the separation which occurred at its termination. Newly hatched ducklings were housed with a conspecific beginning on Day 1. One-half of the birds were separated from their companions on Day 2; the rest were separated on Day 6. On Day 7, the ducklings that were separated early exhibited less crouching and distress calling in a novel open field than the birds that were separated late. This finding implies that the withdrawal of social stimulation, rather than social stimulation perse, was responsible for the reduced emotional behavior observed in Experiment I. It is concluded that early withdrawal of social stimulation generated a strong aversive reaction and that it was the strength and timing of this reaction that mediated the emotionality moderating effects found here. Under these circumstances, the primary function of early social stimulation was to establish a condition whereby the aversive reaction generated by separation would occur early.     

Early Attachment Relationships as Predictors of Preschool Children's Emotion Regulation with a Distressed Sibling

The present study examined (1) the emotion regulation of preschool children by observing their emotional responses to a distressed younger sibling during a separation episode; (2) whether children's regulatory responses were related to sibling interaction observed during the separation episode, and (3) whether individual differences in these children's regulatory responses and the quality of sibling interaction could be predicted from early attachment relationships. Older siblings who ignored their younger siblings' distress were more likely to experience personal distress and use avoidant coping strategies. Emotion regulation strategies were related to the quality of sibling interaction such that older siblings who offered comfort to a distressed younger sibling were more likely to express positive affect in sibling interaction, whereas older siblings seeking adult assistance were less likely to engage in conflict and hostile behavior with a younger sibling. Preschool children who had an insecure-resistant infant-mother attachment at 1 year, were more likely to seek comfort from their younger siblings and engaged in more sibling conflict and hostility when they were 4 years old. The quality of infant-father attachment relationships was not significantly related to the child's emotion regulation at 4 years of age. Results are discussed with respect to the social origins of preschool children's emotional self-regulation and the consequences of emotional dysregulation in preschool settings.     

Infant abuse and neglect: lessons from the primate laboratory

We review the several areas in which research on nonhuman primates contributes to our understanding of child abuse and neglect in human children. One special advantage of primate studies is that the experimental method can be utilized to examine the short- and long-term effects of relatively well-defined and circumscribed alterations in early experience and the manner in which they can affect later behavioral and physiological development. Four studies in M. nemestrina (pigtail) monkeys are described in which relatively short social separation experiences in infancy were associated with evidence of persistent changes in certain aspects of social behavioral functioning and immunological functioning, up to six years later, when the previously separated animals were in late adolescence or early adulthood. Such findings suggest that nonhuman primates may be used as animal model systems with considerable relevance to issues surrounding human child abuse and neglect.     

对马克思两个“决不会”的几点思考

马克思关于两个“决不会”的原理,对认识社会形态发展变化中的实际问题是有科学的指导意义的,必须看到当代资本主义的发展还有相当的潜力和生命力,社会主义的实践是在曲折中前进,不同的社会制度将会长期共存,要以更务实的态度对待资本主义制度,把发达国家的“自然历史过程”作为我们的借鉴,以谋求适合我国社会主义制度的发展模式与发展战略,坚定地把发展生产力作为社会主义的根本任务。     

论非婚生子女权益保护制度之完善

在分析相关案例的基础上,提议我国应该丰富非婚生子女的相关立法,同时应该通过规定认领制度．使非婚生子女在法律上和现实中能够真正地实现和婚生子女相同的法律地位。此外,我国在非婚生子女的户口申报问题上,应该进一步简化程序,满足非婚生子女户口申报的需要,维护其社会权利。     

Psychological factors capable of preventing the inhibition of antibody responses in separated infant monkeys

The capacity of infant squirrel monkeys to mount an antibody response to viral challenge was evaluated after removal from their mothers in several social and physical environments. Control and separated infants were injected with a benign virus, the bacteriophage X174, and levels of neutralizing antibody were assessed for 3 weeks. Infants separated alone in an unfamiliar environment showed a significant reduction in antibody levels as compared to control infants. Allowing infants to remain in the home environment, either alone or with peers, prevented this inhibition of antibody responses from occurring. Similarly, providing familiar peers in the novel environment facilitated the normal expression of antibody responses. These results indicate that the trauma of maternal separation is significantly reduced when infants are familiar with the separation environment or familiar social companions are available. The reduced antibody response was associated with the highest level of adrenal activation induced by the unfamiliar separation condition, but antibody titers and plasma cortisol levels could not be specifically correlated in individual infants.     

Teacher Responses to Anxiety in Children Questionnaire (TRAC): psychometric properties and relationship with teaching staff characteristics

This study describes the development and evaluation of a new measure, the Teacher Responses to Anxiety in Children (TRAC) questionnaire in 74 primary school teachers. TRAC presents 9 hypothetical scenarios in which a child displays generalized anxiety/worry, social anxiety or separation anxiety symptoms. Teachers rate each scenario on six subscales that reflect different ways of responding to child anxiety. Overall, TRAC showed good internal reliability, with factor analytic results suggesting that it assesses three factors: Autonomy-Promoting, Anxiety-Promoting and Reward responses. Male teachers were significantly more likely than female teachers to use Anxiety-Promoting responses. More experienced teachers reported significantly more reinforcement of anxious avoidance than less experienced teachers, and teaching assistants reported significantly fewer overprotective responses. Teaching staff reported significantly more Autonomy-Promoting responses in social anxiety or generalised anxiety/worry scenarios compared to separation anxiety scenarios. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for teacher training in the management of child anxiety.     

我国民间金融的法律规制

当今世界,无论是发达国家还是发展中国家,民间金融都做为其金融体系的重要组成部分而存在。就我国而言,民间金融的存在与我国的金融环境、经济发展、社会文化等密切相关,是经济发展的必然结果。民间金融的存在有效弥补了我国正规金融的不足,为我国的经济发展做出了巨大的贡献,但同时其也存在着不足的地方。因此,本文主张通过法律对民间金融的合法地位的确立、市场准入和退出机制的构建、存款保险人制度、行业监管等做出相关规定,从而有效规范民间金融的活动,在承认和促进民间金融发展同时遏制其负面作用。     

简论德国"双元制"职业教育的特点及启示

德国“双元制”模式是享誉世界的一种职教模式,这种“双元制”职教模式对德国劳动者的高素质、产品的高质量,以及德国国民经济在国际上的持久竞争力都起着重要的作用。从社会文化背景、企校联合的办学方针以及师资特色等方面评述了以“双元制”为代表的德国高等职业教育的特点,并结合我国的职教现状,提出了发展我国高职教育的一些建议。     

关于企业社会责任的几点思考

企业社会责任是指企业经营者在经营过程中应考虑的企业决策和社会行为对社会公共利益所具有的责任。企业承担社会责任不同于“企业办社会”。研究归纳没有重视企业应承担社会责任问题的四点原因,指出企业加强社会责任建设的方式,借此推动我国企业在经济全球化的背景下以全新的姿态参与到世界经济竞争中。     

浅析明代的平民女子教育

明代平民女子是社会的重要组成部分,她们的受教育状况对整个社会的发展具有重大意义。礼教教育束缚了她们的思想;迫于生计,技能教育有所发展;文化教育却非常滞后,使得我国女性长期处于愚昧落后的状态,在一定程度上阻碍了社会的发展。     

企业社会责任的新思考

企业要承担社会责任虽然已经得到社会较为普遍的承认,但是存在的一个误区是,有人认为,企业承担社会责任只是为树立企业形象而长期赢利的手段,这是一种单纯工具理性的价值取向。从形而上的角度来说,还应该赋予社会责任以"价值理性"的终极意义,这种理性上的价值转向,有重要的伦理内涵。同时,要实现这种理性的转向,需要引进互惠交换机制。     

Meeting in the circle: examining identity,attitudes, and pedagogy in the context of an early childhood teacher education program in the United States

As a team of teacher educators at a university in the United States, we engage in participatory action research to reflect on how reflective tools which we design engage teacher candidates (TCs) in their reflecting on teaching. In this paper, we describe how we invite TCs to write in-class reflections, respond to self-assessment probes, and practice problem-solving processes. We critically analyze our approaches and identify further intentional approaches to promote university students’ understandings of (1) links between the self and working with children and families and (2) connections between attitudes and pedagogy towards social justice and inclusion. We conclude that we must continue to explore how the teaching practices we use affect students’ understandings of social justice in education. Doing so demands our focus on examining attitudes through self-reflection among and between faculty and university students so that identity, relationships, attitudes, inclusion, and social justice are prioritized as pillars of curriculum in early childhood education at all levels of schooling.     

Promoting early career teacher resilience: a framework for understanding and acting

In this paper, we undertake a brief review of the ‘conventional’ research into the problems of early career teachers to create a juxtaposed position from which to launch an alternative approach based on resilience theory. We outline four reasons why a new contextualised, social theory of resilience has the potential to open up the field of research into the professional lives of teachers and to produce new insights into the social, cultural and political dynamics at work within and beyond schools. We then move from these theoretical considerations to explain how we used them in a recent Australian research project that examined the experiences of 60 graduate teachers during their first year of teaching. This work led to the development of a Framework of Conditions Supporting Early Career Teacher Resilience which we outline, promote and advocate as the basis for action to better sustain our graduate teachers in their first few years of teaching. Finally, we reflect on the value of our work so far and outline our practical plans to ‘mobilise’ this knowledge in ways that will make it available to a variety of audiences concerned with the welfare of this group of teachers.     

Inclusion in a South African high school? Reporting and reflecting on what learners say

A concern with formal and epistemological access to schools can neglect the importance of access to the informal school and the friendships and sense of belonging that this implies. Despite the challenges of ‘voice’ research, listening to what young people have to say about their experiences of, and attitudes towards social inclusion and exclusion at school may help to identify and address exclusionary pressures. This article reports on a study conducted at an inclusive high school in South Africa where learners have only known a diverse peer group. Despite this, questionnaire and focus group interview responses show that learners have ambivalent attitudes about Others. They position themselves and their school as ‘normal’ and show a mixture of empathy, prejudice and patronisation as they consider how they might respond to peers or a fictional character who is different from them. These Grade 10 learners have strong feelings about who should be admitted to their school, and they identify some exclusionary practices that operate in their social world. Their attitudes cannot be considered apart from a schooling system which normalises educational separation and exclusion and a pedagogy of compassion is suggested as a way to enable young people to address their prejudices towards Others.