‘Whatever Else May Be Going On:’ Sharing Books in Bechdel’s Fun Home

ABSTRACT

In Fun Home, Alison Bechdel recounts a version of her family’s history through moments of meaningful textual exchange. This paper takes up one such moment, when Alison’s father Bruce offers his daughter a queer text, which she uses both to understand her own sexuality and to broach the the queer connection she has just learned they have. I read this exchange as a case study for considering what happens when we share our meaningful books with others. Here I map the way literary works function in this text both developmentally, following Grumet’s reading of Winnicott, and erotically, following Bechdel’s own narration. I read the act of sharing books as an act of love that helps build the world worth noticing, core relationships, and individual identities, reading too how literature functions as ‘currency’ in the difficult father-daughter relationship at hand in this graphic memoir.     

Student assessment of teaching in higher education

Plans to introduce campus-wide assessments of college or university teaching which are largely dependent on student ratings are seen as a threat to academic freedom in those institutions with little or no experience of this form of evaluation. While regular student evaluations of teaching are very common in North America, their introduction is only now being considered in colleges and universities in a number of other countries. Research on the reliability and validity of student ratings indicate that they are capable of providing valuable information about the quality of teaching. Depending on the survey used, this type of evaluation may be used to provide evidence of teaching ability to staffing committees or to suggest ways of improving teaching. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations for higher education institutions which are considering the regular assessment of all teachers by their students.     

Reminder-induced attenuation of the effect of relative stimulus validity

The roles of deficient acquisition and deficient expression of learned information in the effect of relative stimulus validity were examined using rats in a conditioned lick suppression paradigm. Recovery from the effect without further pairings of the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned stimulus (US) would favor an interpretation of the relative validity effect based on a latent CS-US association as distinct from a failure to acquire the CS-US association. As a potential recovery manipulation, “reminder” treatments, consisting of the US alone (Experiment 1) or the CS alone (Experiment 2), were administered following relative validity training. In both cases, subjects for which the CS target was of low relative predictive validity exhibited enhanced responding relative to appropriate controls. Additionally, Experiment 2 showed that the amelioration of the relative validity deficit was stimulus specific. Thus, the results of these experiments support previous suggestions that the performance deficit resulting from low relative stimulus validity is due, at least in part, to a failure to express acquired information (Cole, Barnet, & Miller, 1995a).     

Success at Scale: Outcomes of Community-Based Neurodevelopment Intervention (CASITA) for Children Ages 6–20 months With Risk of Delay in Lima,Peru

This study is a randomized controlled trial of a 12-week community-based group parenting intervention (“CASITA”) in Lima, Peru. CASITA improved neurodevelopment in a pilot study of 60 Peruvian children and subsequently scaled to 3,000 households throughout the district. The objective of this study was to assess intervention effectiveness when implemented at scale. A total of 347 children ages 6–20 months (52.7% male, 100% identified as “mestizo”) at risk for developmental difficulties were randomized to immediate or delayed CASITA. At 3 months after enrollment, the immediate arm showed significantly higher overall development, based on the Extended Ages and Stages Questionnaire and Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment scores (Cohen’s ds = .36 and .31, respectively). Programs demonstrably effective at scale could help address children’s development risks worldwide.     

Pre-service and in-service teachers’ perceptions on the integration of children’s literature in mathematics teaching and learning in Ireland

The beneficial role that children’s literature plays in facilitating the meaningful integration and advancement of literacy and numeracy in the primary mathematics classroom has been well validated by research findings internationally. In Ireland, supporting the development of literacy and numeracy is a key educational priority. Consequently, a myriad of policy initiatives such as the Literacy and Numeracy for Learning and Life strategy have been introduced. All aim to address concerns about young people’s lack of basic literacy and numeracy skills and to consider new teaching and learning modalities to enhance same. Despite this, no official emphasis is given to incorporating literature in the Irish primary school mathematics curriculum. Therefore, it is pertinent and timely that this study seeks to ascertain pre-service and in-service teachers’ views on the use of literature to support mathematics teaching and learning and to investigate perceived barriers to and enablers for the integration of children’s literature in the mathematics classroom in Ireland. The analysis of the findings will be framed using Ajzen’s (Ajzen, Icek. 1991. “The Theory of Planned Behavior.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 50 (2): 179–211) Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) model. This research is part of a large international research collaboration (see www.mathsthroughstories.org), in which the beliefs of teachers with respect to children’s literature are investigated.     

Trauma resilience among youth in substitute care demonstrating sexual behavior problems

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine the relationship between several proposed protective factors and trauma symptoms among highly vulnerable youth in the child welfare system. METHODS: Participants were 142 youth identified with a sexual behavior problem and their caregivers. Two waves of data were collected for each participant an average of 18 months apart. Foster parents reported on perceived level of support from the child welfare agency, youth involvement in club activities, and perception of youths' interpersonal and emotional competence. Youth provided self-reports of their sexual and physical abuse experiences, trauma symptoms at both time 1 and time 2, and ratings of parenting practices. RESULTS: Youth with higher rates of sexual abuse showed more negative affect and higher levels of sexual and non-sexual rumination at time 2, controlling for time 1 scores. Boys and youth who experienced better parenting practices displayed lower negative affect. Youth with higher levels of emotional and interpersonal competence showed lower levels of non-sexual rumination. Moderation analyses revealed that youth with more significant sexual abuse histories whose foster parents did not feel supported by their child welfare caseworkers had higher levels of sexually ruminative thoughts. Finally, the results revealed that only youth without sexual abuse histories experienced the benefits of club involvement in terms of lower sexual rumination scores. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrated that youth with significant vulnerabilities can still exhibit a degree of protection from trauma symptomatology in the presence of a wide range of personal and social variables. These findings support the efforts of stakeholders to promote strengths at the level of the individual, family, and broader social network and community.     

Aligning goals, assessments, and activities: an approach to teaching PCR and gel electrophoresis

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and gel electrophoresis have become common techniques used in undergraduate molecular and cell biology labs. Although students enjoy learning these techniques, they often cannot fully comprehend and analyze the outcomes of their experiments because of a disconnect between concepts taught in lecture and experiments done in lab. Here we report the development and implementation of novel exercises that integrate the biological concepts of DNA structure and replication with the techniques of PCR and gel electrophoresis. Learning goals were defined based on concepts taught throughout the cell biology lab course and learning objectives specific to the PCR and gel electrophoresis lab. Exercises developed to promote critical thinking and target the underlying concepts of PCR, primer design, gel analysis, and troubleshooting were incorporated into an existing lab unit based on the detection of genetically modified organisms. Evaluative assessments for each exercise were aligned with the learning goals and used to measure student learning achievements. Our analysis found that the exercises were effective in enhancing student understanding of these concepts as shown by student performance across all learning goals. The new materials were particularly helpful in acquiring relevant knowledge, fostering critical-thinking skills, and uncovering prevalent misconceptions.     

Logistic Regression and Its Use in Detecting Differential Item Functioning in Polytomous Items

A computer simulation study was conducted to determine the feasibility of using logistic regression procedures to detect differential item functioning (DIF) in polytomous items. One item in a simulated test of 25 items contained DIF; parameters' for that item were varied to create three conditions of nonuniform DIF and one of uniform DIF. Item scores were generated using a generalized partial credit model, and the data were recoded into multiple dichotomies in order to use logistic regression procedures. Results indicate that logistic regression is powerful in detecting most forms of DIF; however, it required large amounts of data manipulation, and interpretation of the results was sometimes difficult. Some logistic regression procedures may be useful in the post hoc analysis of DlF for polytomous items.     

Authentically happy school psychologists: Applications of positive psychology for enhancing professional satisfaction and fulfillment

There has recently been a growing movement within psychology toward placing a greater emphasis on building strengths and competencies rather than merely treating deficits and disorders. This movement, known as positive psychology, focuses on the scientific study of optimal human functioning and the variables that promote positive human emotions, traits, and institutions. The purpose of this article is to discuss selected topics of research in positive psychology and how they might contribute to the development of “authentically happy” school psychologists. Implications for how school psychologists may use findings from research to enhance their level of professional satisfaction and fulfillment are provided. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.