News Habits Among Adolescents: The Influence of Family Communication on Adolescents’ News Media Use—Evidence From a Three-Wave Panel Study

Keeping up with what’s going on in the world of politics and current affairs through various news media is commonly seen as important for civic engagement and informed citizenship. Today, however, citizens face more opportunities than ever to select media content according to their personal preferences and interests—leading to what previous research has identified as a polarization between news-seekers and news-avoiders. Given heightened concerns regarding growing shares of news-avoiders in particular, this study analyzes the development, stability, and family influences on Swedish adolescents’ news habits over time. The findings, based on panel survey data among adolescents and their parents, show that (a) news habits are fairly stable at the individual level, (b) parents’ own news consumption is the most consistent predictor of adolescents’ development of news habits, and (c) these family effects are distinct from adolescents’ personal motivations for seeking out news.     

Forwarding a ‘science-ethics nexus’ to critique and reorient science education pedagogy toward greater social and ecological justice

In this paper, I engage with arguments put forth by Blue Mahy in his article “A speculative-posthumanist examination of the ‘science-ethics nexus’ in Australian secondary schools.” Mahy argues that by using relational posthumanist concepts as a diffractive lens, his critiques of Australian school science standards find the underlying hegemonies of masculine, Euro-Western ideologies that infuse the stance on ethics in science education. He uses a ‘plug in process’ of posthumanist concepts to generate a ‘speculative fiction’. This is a method used to reclaim ethics and science by creating narratives produced by the diffracted projections of posthumanist concepts. In my own research on science teacher education, I explore Mahy's use of diffraction for both critiquing science curriculum and providing projections for future ethical commitments in school science education. I utilize data from my science methods course which is situated in Central California’s agricultural region at a largely Hispanic-Serving Institution.

     

The development of subjective group dynamics: children's judgments of normative and deviant in-group and out-group individuals

A developmental model of subjective group dynamics suggests that social identity is sustained first by intergroup biases and later by intragroup biases. In this study 476 English children 5 to 11 years old evaluated the English and German soccer teams, and judged in-group or out-group members whose attitudes toward the teams was normative versus antinormative. Children of all ages expressed intergroup bias. Differential evaluation against in-group deviants and in favor of out-group deviants strengthened with age. Understanding of targets' relative acceptability (differential inclusion) among in-group and out-group members mediated the effects of age and intergroup bias on intragroup bias. Identification with the in-group moderated the effects only among older children.     

Examining Teachers’ Attitudes and Experiences with Coaching to Inform Research-Based Practice: An Iterative Developmental Design Study

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine teachers’ attitudes and experiences with coaching. This study was conducted in advance of a planned randomized controlled trial of a coaching intervention to better align the model with teachers’ needs and goals. Thirty-four K–5 general (n = 26), special education (n = 6), and educational support staff (n = 2) working in two high-poverty schools participated in focus groups. Interrater reliability between independent coders was high (К = 0.92; range: 0.76–1.0). Thematic analyses identified facilitators and barriers to teacher participation in the planned intervention and were used to improve upon the existing coaching model. Themes focused on advantages and disadvantages to coaching and characteristics of effective coaches and coaching models. Implications of findings for research and practice are discussed.     

“Seeing Their Eyes in the Rearview Mirror”: Identifying and Responding to Students' Challenging Experiences

There is a noticeable gap in the educational research literature specifically focused on trauma and documenting effective educator practices. This case study captures the voice and perspectives of Mr. Sellers, an effective Black, male educator who, through making sense of the impact of his students' ecological realities, provides insight about trauma, traumatic experiences, and the ways in which he supports them. I conceptualize and name the experiences of these students as traumatic because this is the language that Mr. Sellers himself used to make sense of his students' situations. It is important to note that I focus on these occurrences not to highlight the negatives or deficits of this community; my point in naming these ecological situations is to point out how structural challenges can influence communities and, ultimately, the people (including students) in those contexts. Despite what established literature suggests about the unpreparedness of educators to respond to student trauma, this study documents effective practices of a successful educator in an urban school setting. In particular, the findings in this study offer three takeaways for educators to more adequately identify and respond to students grappling with trauma: (1) context-specific recognition, (2) trauma-conscious approaches, and (3) holistic responsiveness. The findings of this study also suggest that there is a need for broadening educators' capacity, adequately preparing them, and shifting the ways in which schools and policies understand an educator's role.