Cumulative Risk,the Mother–Child Relationship,and Social-Emotional Competence in Latino Head Start Children

Research Findings: Supportive mother–child interactions promote the development of social-emotional competence. Poverty and other associated psychosocial risk factors have a negative impact on mother–child interaction. In spite of Latino children being disproportionately represented among children living in poverty, research on mother–child interactions among economically disadvantaged Latino families remains scarce and results are mixed. The current study used an ecological approach to examine the relationship between maternal cumulative risk, child developmental delay, observed and self-reported quality of the mother–child relationship, time spent in Head Start, and teachers’ and parents’ ratings of social-emotional competence among 106 Latino Head Start children and their mothers. Cumulative risk showed a negative association with observed maternal supportiveness and self-reported quality of the mother–child relationship. Cumulative risk had negative and positive indirect effects, respectively, on child social competence and problem behavior through perceived quality of the mother–child relationship. This association only occurred when parent ratings of child behavior were used. Time spent in Head Start moderated the association between observed maternal supportiveness and social competence. Practice or Policy: Implications for providers and researchers attempting to improve social-emotional competence in disadvantaged Latino children by enhancing positive and supportive parenting practice are discussed.     

Adult education and earnings: A 45-year longitudinal study of 834 Swedish men

Consistent with previous research, the findings indicate that acquired level of youth education, including tertiary education, functions as a socioeconomic stratifier through its effects on occupational status and earnings at the age of 30, 35, 43 and 52. The direct effect of youth education on occupational status is found to decrease from age 30 to 52, whereas the effect of adult education on occupational status augments from age 35 to 52. Adult education appears to mediate and reinforce the effects of youth education on occupational status. The inclusion of adult education does not necessarily alter the predictability of earnings. The probability of acquiring adult education is significantly greater the higher the initial level of youth education.     

Teaching of Energy Issues: A Debate Proposal for a Global Reorientation

The growing awareness of serious difficulties in the learning of energy issues has produced a great deal of research, most of which is focused on specific conceptual aspects. In our opinion, the difficulties pointed out in the literature are interrelated and connected to other aspects (conceptual as well as procedural and axiological), which are not sufficiently taken into account in previous research. This paper aims to carry out a global analysis in order to avoid the more limited approaches that deal only with individual aspects. From this global analysis we have outlined 24 propositions that are put forward for debate to lay the foundations for a profound reorientation of the teaching of energy topics in upper high school courses, in order to facilitate a better scientific understanding of these topics, avoid many students’ misconceptions and enhance awareness of the current situation of planetary emergency. This paper has been conceived as a contribution to the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, established by the UN General Assembly for the period 2005–2014.     

Self-Regulatory Mechanisms Governing Gender Development

This study tested predictions about development of gender-related thought and action from social cognitive theory. Children at 4 levels of gender constancy were assessed for their gender knowledge, personal gender standards, and gender-linked behavior under different situational conditions. Irrespective of gender constancy level, all children engaged in more same-sex than cross-sex typed behavior. Younger children reacted in a gender stereotypic manner to peers' gender-linked behavior but did not regulate their own behavior on the basis of personal gender standards. Older children exhibited substantial self-regulatory guidance based on personal standards. They expressed anticipatory self-approval for same-sex typed behavior and self-criticism for cross-sex typed behavior. Their anticipatory self-sanctions, in turn, predicted their actual gender-linked behavior. Neither gender knowledge nor gender constancy predicted gender-linked behavior. These results lend support to social cognitive theory that evaluation and regulation of gender-linked conduct shifts developmentally from anticipatory social sanctions to anticipatory self-sanctions rooted in personal standards.     

One-trial simultaneous and backward excitatory fear conditioning in rats: Lick suppression, freezing, and rearing to CS compounds and their elements

Three experiments with rat subjects sought to enhance one-trial excitatory simultaneous and backward fear conditioning by using a two-element compound conditioned stimulus (CS) instead of only a single element. During conditioning, experimental groups received a 4-sec CS either coextensively with a 1-mA grid-shock unconditioned stimulus (US) or immediately after US termination. In subsequent tests, CSs evoked more lick suppression and freezing in these groups than in various controls. Compound CSs evoked more lick suppression and freezing than did CS elements, but did so equally for experimental and control groups. Therefore, the use of compounds did not enhance conditioning. Unexpectedly, an explicitly unpaired control in which CS followed US termination by 3 min tended to show more CS-evoked suppression and freezing than did a control in which CS preceded US onset by 3 min. This result raises the possibility that associations between the CS and the training context might engender responding to backward-paired CSs.     

Asians as stereotypes and students: Misperceptions that persist

Although Asian Americans today are lauded as a model minority and Asian students are praised as whiz kids, racial prejudice toward Asians is as true today as it was in the past. American stereotypes of Asians appear characterized by persistent perceptual homogeneity and attitude-behavior inconsistencies. This review aims to: (a) display and analyze the basic stereotype toward Asians, (b) hypothesize an explanation for the basic Asian stereotype, (c) examine the Asian student stereotype by analyzing three factors commonly used to account for the achievement of Asian students, and (d) provide suggestions for research. Arguments for Asians' inherited advantages in IQ and cognitive abilities appear to be questionable. However, the factor of family encouragement and support as well as the work ethic and drive for education factor are found to be advantageous and disadvantageous to achievement, depending on how they are applied. The article discusses homogeneity-heterogeneity of perceptions, attitude-behavior consistency, achievement motivation, parent-child social interaction, mental health, and counseling needs relative to Asian students.     

Universities and the market economy: The differential impact on knowledge production in sociology and economics

Based on the conceptualframework of Pierre Bourdieu, this studycompares the impact of pressure to develop tieswith non-academic organisations on two fieldsof research, namely: sociology and economics.The study highlights the dynamics particular toeach discipline and shows that a soundunderstanding of transformations affectinguniversity research cannot exclude analysis ofthe specificity of each one. Two cohorts ofprofessors were studied in two Quebecuniversities: the first cohort was made up ofprofessors who received tenure between 1974 and1983, and the second between 1989 and 1998. Theresults suggest that pressures in favor ofpartnership with non-academic organisationshave not had the same impact in sociology andeconomics. While research practices haveundergone transformations in each discipline,the nature of these transformations differs inan important way. The results also contradicttwo popular models in knowledge productionstudies, which are the Entrepreneurial Science,and Mode 1/Mode 2 models. Although these modelsclaim that academic research orientation hasbecome geared towards problem-solving, ourresults indicate, however, that the oppositetrend has been taking place in sociology andeconomics.     

University-based technology initiatives: Quantitative and qualitative evidence

This article discusses salient trends in university-based technology initiatives in the United States and Europe, and it summarizes the papers contained in this special issue.     

Knowledge management and intellectual capital: an empirical examination of current practice in Australia

This paper reports the findings from a survey conducted in Australia to explore current practices relating to knowledge management (KM) and intellectual capital (IC). A systematic approach in the form of the intellectual capital web guided the research. Findings revealed that KM was perceived to be more about developing knowledge culture than about managing organisational processes and structure. IC was perceived to be more about human capital than about customer capital and organisational capital. It can therefore be concluded that human capital holds the greatest importance for KM and IC. However, when facilitators for knowledge creation and knowledge sharing were rated, organisation structure was perceived to be more important than organisational culture and information technology. For KM practices, participants indicated that more attention was paid to training and developing employees and less to measurement and reward and incentive issues. The importance of aligning the management of IC and KM was perceived to be more important than the difficulty of doing so.     

Management perceptions of government incentives to technological innovation in england, Trance, West Germany and Japan

This paper reports on four studies (in France, Germany (FRG), Japan, and United Kingdom) exploring reactions of industrial managers to government incentives (GIs), laws, policies, regulations, and other interventions intended to stimulate technological innovation. Propositions supported by the results are: (1) there are significant differences among industrial managers in different countries in their attitudes toward government actions relevant to the RD/I process; (2) Government actions to stimulate innovation are not perceived as salient to industrial RD/I (R&D/Innovation) decision making; and (3) Government actions in general are perceived to delay introduction of innovations into the market.German and Japanese firms seemed most aware of, and favorably disposed toward, GIs. Low technology firms in the UK were more supportive of GIs than high technology firms. The opposite was the case in Japan and France, while little overall difference existed among firms in Germany. One must exercise care, however, in drawing inferences from such international comparisons; countries differ in the nature, scope, and administration of programs, as well as the effect of cultural characteristics. Managers in all countries were unanimous that general government policies (economic and otherwise) and general market and competitive conditions have a more significant impact on firm RD/I decision making than the specific incentive programs. Incentive programs were, with some exceptions, considered orders of magnitude too small to be of significance. The burden of administering procedurally complex and inflexible incentive programs and dealing with cumbersome government bureaucracy were considered significant detriments. General infrastructural elements such as the educational system, social recognition and support, and government standards-setting were considered more important than direct incentives.