University press publishing and the ecology of disciplinary fluidity: General observations

Academic book and journal publishing constitutes the majority focus of university presses. Besides commercial scholarly publishers, academic scholars and researchers view the opportunities provided by university presses as important venues for the dissemination of their research. This discussion focuses on the disciplinary imperative to publish scholarship that is ever more fluid and specialized as academic disciplines continue to become further nuanced in their response to the increasing knowledge produced by humanities and social science inquiry. The focus is on university presses and not commercial scholarly presses, although constitute a significant locus of scholarly publishing. What are the general characteristics of academic specialization and university press publishing? Further, how is disciplinary fluidity, especially evolving specialization, reflected in university press book publishing nomenclature and how scholarship is tied to the intellectual preoccupations of academic specialization? Multi- and inter-disciplinarities further articulate disciplinary publishing, accelerating disciplinary fluidity. Examples from disciplinary and emerging configurations of disciplinary nomenclature utilized by university presses offers insight into specialization and publishing. Academic history publishing is used to illustrate newly emerging fluid disciplinary configurations.     

Together I Can! Joint Attention Boosts 3- to 4-Year-Olds’ Performance in a Verbal False-Belief Test

Effects of joint attention were addressed on 3- to 4-year-olds’ performance in a verbal false-Belief Test (FBT), featuring the experimenter as co-watcher rather than narrator. In two experiments, children (N = 183) watched a filmed-FBT jointly with a test leader, disjointed from a test leader, or alone. Children attending jointly with a test leader were more likely to pass the FBT compared with normative data and to spontaneously recall information indicating false-belief understanding, suggesting that joint attention strengthens the plausibility of the FBT and renders plot-critical information more salient. In a third experiment (N = 59), results were replicated using a typical, image-based FBT. Overall findings highlight the profound impact of experimenter as social context in verbal FBTs, and link recall of specific story features to false-belief understanding.     

Impact of Contact With Grandparents on Children's and Adolescents’ Views on the Elderly

Stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination against the elderly (ageism) may manifest themselves in children at an early age. However, the factors influencing this phenomenon are not well known. Using both explicit and open-ended questions, this study analyzed the influence of personal and familial parameters on the views of 1,151 seven- to sixteen-year-old Belgian children and adolescents on the elderly. Four factors were found to affect these views: gender (girls had slightly more positive views than boys), age (ageism was lowest in 10- to 12-year-old, reminiscent of other forms of stereotypes and cognitive developmental theories), grandparents’ health, and most importantly, quality of contact with grandparents (very good and good contacts correlated with more favorable feelings toward the elderly, especially in children with frequent contacts).     

Group Membership Influences More Social Identification Than Social Learning or Overimitation in Children

Group membership is a strong driver of everyday life in humans, influencing similarity judgments, trust choices, and learning processes. However, its ontogenetic development remains to be understood. This study investigated how group membership, age, sex, and identification with a team influenced 39- to 60-month-old children (N = 94) in a series of similarity, trust, and learning tasks. Group membership had the most influence on similarity and trust tasks, strongly biasing choices toward in-groups. In contrast, prior experience and identification with the team were the most important factors in the learning tasks. Finally, overimitation occurred most when the children's team, but not the opposite, displayed meaningless actions. Future work must investigate how these cognitive abilities combine during development to facilitate cultural processes.     

The Development of Empathic Concern in Siblings: A Reciprocal Influence Model

This study utilized actor–partner interdependence modeling to examine the bidirectional effects of younger (M_age = 18 months) and older siblings (M_age = 48 months) on later empathy development in a large (n = 452 families), diverse (42% immigrant) Canadian sample. Controlling for parenting, demographic characteristics, sibling relationship quality, and within-child stability in empathic concern, both younger and older siblings’ observed empathic concern uniquely predicted relative increases in the other's empathy over a period of 18 months. The strength of the partner effects did not differ by birth order. Sex composition moderated the younger sibling partner effect, whereas age gap moderated the older sibling partner effect. This study highlights the important role that siblings play in enhancing the development of care and concern for others.     

The Role of Desegregation and Teachers of Color in Discipline Disproportionality

The Urban Review - Scholars note the multitude of ways that the continual shifts in the racial composition of schools affect students, but fewer studies consider the implications of such shifts for...     

Pathways to Parental Engagement: Contributions of Parents,Teachers, and Schools in Cultural Context

Research Findings: This study examined correlates of parents’ reported school engagement in an ethnically diverse, rural sample (N = 346) of parents and teachers in kindergarten through Grade 2. Of particular interest were role expectations and family–school relationships in American Indian families, who historically have been marginalized by schools. In terms of role expectations, parents and teachers agreed that they should support each other’s roles, parents should have more responsibility than schools for teaching social skills, and families and schools should have shared responsibility for children’s academic success. Teachers had higher expectations than parents for parent engagement, which in turn was greater when parent–teacher communication was more frequent and the school climate was more welcoming. American Indian parents more strongly endorsed a separation of family and school roles and felt less welcomed at school; ethnicity moderated correlates of reported parent engagement. Practice or Policy: These findings have practical promise given that parent–teacher communication, school climate, and role expectations are more easily altered than are structural barriers that also may hinder parents’ involvement in supporting their children’s early education.     

Situated decoding of gender in a Swedish preschool practice

This article is based on data generated in an ethnographic study of gender in a Swedish preschool. Drawing on Judith Butler’s understanding of performativity and (un)doing of gender, a new theoretical concept, situated decoding of gender, is further developed by showing how the material and spatial dimension of the educational practice and the teachers’ actions contribute to establishing and maintaining this process in an early childhood educational setting. Instead of normalising the gender binary, a reverse process occurs that turns what is perceived as feminine or masculine into a gender decoded state in which gender is made less relevant, or even irrelevant. It is argued that this continuous reiterative process emerges and is maintained by three main factors: (a) the preschool’s physical environment, (b) the regular and repetitive structure of the educational practice and (c) the consistent actions of the teachers in the everyday practice.