Coercive Invitations: how young women in school make sense of mothering and waged labour

This paper examines the ways that young women take up powerfully institutionalised invitations about mothering and waged labour and relate them to notions about equal parenting, family structure, masculinity, femininity, the sexual division of labour and non‐parental childcare. It shows how the young women in this study articulate a range of often shifting discourses and strategies which help them to make sense of the options available to them. The findings suggest much movement and interweaving of discourses and contexts and even ‘signs of change’ but all within definite, circumscribed parameters.     

Teachers’ reflections of professional change during a literacy-reform initiative

Policymakers recently have targeted teacher quality, and school systems have increased their attention to instructional reform through professional development. The purpose of this study was to examine teachers’ views about the change process and professional development that supports change. Semi-structured focus-group data were gathered from 41 primary-grades teachers (students ages 5–9) across five schools in a high-poverty urban district that participated in a 2-year literacy-reform initiative. Results indicated that teachers viewed the change process from two stances: as learners and as change agents. Three conditions supported their professional growth: professional development embedded in school and classroom contexts, professional development focused on limited and clearly defined learning goals, and on-demand access to time and resources. Changes that occurred did so in three phases: movement from curriculum-centered to student-centered practices, increased collaboration, and requests for policy changes via teacher autonomy and advocacy for students.     

The home instruction program for preschool youngsters: An alternative for early intervention

The Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) is a home-based program in which paraprofessionals from the community teach parents how to use structured educational materials to enrich the education of their four- and five-year-old children. HIPPY was developed in 1969 by Dr. Avima Lombard of the National Council of Jewish Women Research Institute at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It has since become a national program in Israel for disadvantaged families and their preschool children.Arlene Brett is Associate Professor in the School of Education, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL     

Conflict Resolution Among Preschool Children: The Appeal of Negotiation in Hypothetical Disputes

Young children's preferences for conflict management strategies were assessed with hypothetical puppet interviews. A total of 48 children enrolled in a university nursery school were each presented 12 vignettes depicting common peer conflicts. Vignettes varied as a function of conflict issue (roles and possessions) and peer friendship status (friends and nonfriends). Three conflict resolution strategies were contrasted: negotiation, power assertion, and disengagement. The results indicated an overwhelming preference for negotiation. In contrast, power assertion was the least desirable means of resolving disputes. No differences emerged as a function of conflict issue or friendship status. Neither were there differences according to the age or sex of the subject. The findings indicate that young children evince a similar preference for resolving conflicts through negotiation and cooperation as has been reported in studies of older children and adolescents.     

Don’t Love No Fight: Healing and Identity Among Urban Youth

A neighborhood in Philadelphia, PA, hard hit by violence, approached the local chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility on behalf of its youth. The chapter responded by developing a psychosocial after-school intervention for early adolescent males, which participants named Peaceful Posse. Youth showed up consistently for the groups, after school and on their own, sometimes for years. Yet the program recognized that there was a great deal not fully understood about the lives of its participants. The present study used a careful analysis of individual interviews conducted with a sample of boys to extend the program’s understanding. Including the perspectives of these participants offered a deeper appreciation of the challenges youth face when exposed to chronic violence and of their resourcefulness at finding relationships to help themselves through these challenges. Their perspectives helped the program to broaden its understanding of healing. The key role of identity as an embodiment of the hopes of the young men helped the program to better appreciate this particularly important locus of healing for urban youth exposed to violence.Michael C. Reichert is the Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Boys’ Lives, Haverford, USA. Brett Stoudt is a Senior Research Associate in Center for the Study of Boys’ Lives, Haverford, USA. Peter Kuriloff is a Professor in Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.     

A Historical Examination of Self-Regulation: Helping Children Now and in the Future

Using content and archival analysis as a mixed method research design, this study addresses the broad issue of self-regulation since this subject area first appeared in the developmental psychology journals, addressing the question of whether each historical period had its own particular perspective on self-regulation, or was there, in fact, a progressive development? This research also explored the historical basis of current perspectives in order to provide background and continuity for present theories and the discussion of implications for families, professionals, and communities in supporting the development of self-regulation in infants and children.     

A Test of the Bistrategic Control Hypothesis of Adolescent Popularity

Resource Control Theory (Hawley, 1999) posits a group of bistrategic popular youth who attain status through coercive strategies while mitigating fallout via prosociality. This study identifies and distinguishes this bistrategic popular group from other popularity types, tracing the adjustment correlates of each. Adolescent participants (288 girls, 280 boys; M_age = 12.50 years) completed peer nominations in the Fall and Spring of the seventh and eighth grades. Longitudinal latent profile analyses classified adolescents into groups based on physical and relational aggression, prosocial behavior, and popularity. Distinct bistrategic, aggressive, and prosocial popularity types emerged. Bistrategic popular adolescents had the highest popularity and above average aggression and prosocial behavior; they were viewed by peers as disruptive and angry but were otherwise well-adjusted.     

Linking the shapes of alphabet letters to their sounds: the case of Hebrew

Learning the sounds of letters is an important part of learning a writing system. Most previous studies of this process have examined English, focusing on variations in the phonetic iconicity of letter names as a reason why some letter sounds (such as that of b, where the sound is at the beginning of the letter’s name) are easier to learn than others (such as that of w, where the sound is not in the name). The present study examined Hebrew, where variations in the phonetic iconicity of letter names are minimal. In a study of 391 Israeli children with a mean age of 5 years, 10 months, we used multilevel models to examine the factors that are associated with knowledge of letter sounds. One set of factors involved letter names: Children sometimes attributed to a letter a consonant–vowel sound consisting of the first phonemes of the letter’s name. A second set of factors involved contrast: Children had difficulty when there was relatively little contrast in shape between one letter and others. Frequency was also important, encompassing both child-specific effects, such as a benefit for the first letter of a child’s forename, and effects that held true across children, such as a benefit for the first letters of the alphabet. These factors reflect general properties of human learning.