Facilitating engagement in new career goals: the moderating effects of personal resources and career actions

Goal engagement in young adults is variable. We recruited university students to test whether general personal characteristics (educational ability, core self-evaluations, and well-being; study 1, N = 195) and career adaptive variables (career confidence, exploration, and planning; study 2, N = 152) facilitated career goal engagement. Goal engagement was associated positively with goal disengagement in study 1. Moderating effects showed that the positive relationship between engagement and disengagement was stronger when core self-evaluations and well-being (satisfaction) were high, and when career confidence, exploration, and planning were high. Results are discussed in the context of transitions and promoting adaptable career goals.     

Child‐Care Subsidies and School Readiness in Kindergarten

The federal child‐care subsidy program represents one of the government's largest investments in early care and education. Using data from the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Birth Cohort, this study examines associations, among subsidy‐eligible families, between child‐care subsidy receipt when children are 4 years old and a range of school readiness outcomes in kindergarten (sample n ≈ 1,400). Findings suggest that subsidy receipt in preschool is not directly linked to subsequent reading or social‐emotional skills. However, subsidy receipt predicted lower math scores among children attending community‐based centers. Supplementary analyses revealed that subsidies predicted greater use of center care, but this association did not appear to affect school readiness.     

Discernment of invariants in dynamic geometry environments

In this paper, we discuss discernment of invariants in dynamic geometry environments (DGE) based on a combined perspective that puts together the lens of variation and the maintaining dragging strategy developed previously by the authors. We interpret and describe a model of discerning invariants in DGE through types of variation awareness and simultaneity, and sensorimotor perception leading to awareness of dragging control. In this model, level-1 invariants and level-2 invariants are distinguished. We discuss the connection between these two levels of invariants through the concept of path that can play an important role during explorations in DGE, leading from discernment of level-1 invariants to discernment of level-2 invariants. The emergence of a path and the usefulness of the model will be illustrated by analysing two students’ DGE exploration episodes. We end the paper by discussing a possible pathway between the phenomenal world of DGE and the axiomatic world of Euclidean geometry by introducing a dragging exploration principle.     

Educating and Training the Workforce to Work with People with Dementia: Two Projects from the United Kingdom

Educating and training the dementia workforce is a global challenge, given the expected increasing number of people living with dementia across the world as the population ages. Two projects from the UK (one regionally and one locality based) investigated courses available to the workforce and mapped the content of identified courses against a locally developed dementia care pathway. The locality project included a survey of what percentage of staff time was spent with people living with dementia, and what percentage of staff caseloads were devoted to people living with dementia. There was a great variation in the extent of education and training available, with some stages of the dementia care pathway poorly addressed. An educational strategy for the dementia workforce in the UK might include four categories of education and training: basic dementia awareness, intermediate level, advanced level, and dementia awareness for managers. Staff requiring education and training might be divided into three groups: those employed to work specifically with people living with dementia and their families; those working with people who have other conditions but some of whom will have a coincidental dementia; those working with other conditions but in settings where a high proportion of their patients have a comorbid dementia. To improve workforce skills in dementia care will require actions across the whole of education and training for professionals and untrained workers who provide services to this group.     

What should an index of school segregation measure?

The article aims to make a methodological contribution to the education segregation literature, providing a critique of previous measures of segregation used in the literature, as well as suggesting an alternative approach to measuring segregation. Specifically, the paper examines Gorard, Fitz and Taylor’s finding that social segregation between schools, as measured by free school meals (FSM) entitlement, fell significantly in the years following the 1988 Education Reform Act. Using Annual Schools Census data from 1989 to 2004, the paper challenges the magnitude of their findings, suggesting that the method used by Gorard et al. seriously overstates the size of the fall in segregation. We make the case for a segregation curve approach to measuring segregation, where comparisons of the level of segregation are possible regardless of the percentage FSM eligibility. Using this approach, we develop a new method for describing both the level and the location of school segregation.     

Multicultural early childhood education: practices and challenges in Malaysia

Multicultural early childhood education is necessary in a culturally diverse country like Malaysia. Preschool teachers play an important role in implementing multicultural education in the classroom. This paper reports the findings of a self-report questionnaire involving 854 preschool teachers in Malaysia. The preschool teachers disclosed their current multicultural education practices as well as the challenges they encountered when implementing multicultural education. While the majority of teachers claimed that they implemented multicultural education, a closer examination revealed that most of them used the tourist or contribution approach which focuses on only the outward manifestations of a culture when dealing with multicultural education. The transformation or anti-bias approach was used by only a small number of teachers. The teachers identified some challenges in multicultural education implementation, such as lack of instructional resources and the lack of stakeholder support. Thus, it is important to ensure teachers develop more critical understandings of multicultural education through teacher education training and programs. Other efforts to help teachers overcome challenges in implementing multicultural education include producing and developing more instructional materials and learning aids, which are suitable for young children and appropriate for the local context. Preschool teachers also need stakeholders to give more support and to acknowledge the importance of implementing multicultural early childhood education.     

ATTITUDES TOWARD AGING AMONG PACIFIC ISLANDER HEALTH STUDENTS IN FIJI

The relation between attitudes to aging and cultural values is a complex one. This study contrasts attitudes to aging among Pacific Islander students with attitudes in a comparable Australian sample. Australian society is represented as ageist, whereas Pacific Islander cultures are reported to be age-inclusive. Attitudes were assessed using the Reactions to Ageing Questionnaire, and data also were collected on levels of intimate contact with older people, said to be related to attitude. A comparison of Australian with Pacific Islander data showed no difference in attitude or degree of intimate contact. Within the Pacific Islander sample indigenous Fijians had significantly more positive attitudes than did Indo-Fijians and significantly more intimate contact. Indo-Fijians, but not indigenous Fijians, also were significantly more negative in attitude than Australian students. Educators aiming to incorporate gerontological knowledge and to challenge ageism in the curriculum should not assume student attitudes are congruent with traditional cultural beliefs. They need to be knowledgeable about and sensitive to differences among various cultural groups within the student population, especially where those students will have the health care of the old in their hands in the future.     

Social Work and Criminal Justice: Are We Meeting in the Field?

Social workers are needed but infrequently involved with criminal justice systems. One way to increase the number of social workers in the criminal justice system is by exposing students to work in these settings. This study examined the number, types, and utilization of criminal justice field placements in MSW programs by surveying field education directors. On average, 7.73% of field placements were in criminal justice settings. When asked about barriers to criminal justice placements, the most frequently identified challenge was a lack of MSW supervisors. Implications for future research and education are discussed.