Educational Reform in Russia and the USA: where are the troops?

To determine the level of support that differing concepts of educational reform had among the actual practitioners of public education in the former Soviet Union and the USA, a sample of teachers was surveyed to measure the value they placed on divergent educational goal statements as well as their respective philosophical orientations. This study found that US teachers were most committed to educational goals related to basic skills development and critical thinking and least supportive of goals related to creativity and enculturation; Russian teachers on the other hand were most supportive of interpersonal understanding and human relations, moral and ethical well‐being, and critical thinking, and least supportive of the goal related to citizenship and civic responsibility. With regard to educational philosophical orientation, US teachers were divided between maintaining order and stability, developing individual interests and abilities, and improving society. Russian teachers were more united in their belief that the purpose of education is to develop individual interests and abilities, with a significant minority selecting the ‘transforming society’ orientation.     

Effects of group rearing on the control exerted by an imprinting stimulus

Prior research suggests that group rearing may attenuate a young bird’s tendency to approach and follow an imprinting stimulus. The present work examined the effect of group rearing on a different measure of attachment, suppression by the imprinting stimulus of distress calling induced by abrupt reductions in group size. In Experiment 1, ducklings were reared in groups of 12 or 3 over Days 1–6 posthatch, and each group received a total of 3.5 h of exposure to an imprinting stimulus. Subsequent tests revealed that, when the groups of ducklings were separated into smaller subgroups: (1) the fewer the ducklings in a subgroup, the more distress calls emitted; (2) a given number of birds separated from a larger group emitted more distress calls than an equal number from a smaller group; and (3) regardless of the subgroup size, fewer distress calls occurred when the imprinting stimulus was present than when it was absent. A second experiment revealed that when a group of 12 birds was first confronted with an imprinting stimulus on Day 6 posthatch, they reacted with an increase in distress calling and corner huddling (an aversive reaction). After several hours of exposure to the stimulus, however, its presence exerted a powerful suppressive effect on distress calling. It is concluded that the social bonds between the members of a brood do not preclude the formation of a social attachment to an imprinting stimulus subsequently encountered.     

Childhood Ideology in the United States: A Comparative Cultural View

Childhood ideology functions in each nation as a complex of ideas about what children are like and how best to teach and socialise them. One important domain of childhood ideology concerns ideas and practices related to children's development and behaviour management. Drawing from an analysis of popular childrearing magazines and early childhood education materials in the United States, this cultural study describes contemporary American mainstream beliefs concerning children's early emotional and behavioural development. In particular, the paper explores themes of emotional expression, autonomy, individuality, power, and consumerism. Some comparisons with Japanese views on child development and emotional/behavioural socialisation are also made. The paper suggests that popular ideas and techniques of emotional and behavioural management in the United States in both families and early childcare environments reflect a dominant ideology of children that has potentially negative consequences for children's welfare. Furthermore, childhood ideologies, while retaining culturally specific values and ideas neither remain static nor exist in isolation from one another. The paper questions the global diffusion of a Western-style professionalised discourse of child psychology that may not be applicable to all nations and their children.     

对佛教体验的再思考:皈依与神迹--佛教体验的"家族相似性"特征

佛教中的体验与“家庭相似性”关联何在,为之辩护的论题包括两部分：（1）与其他方式相比,把皈依概念和神迹概念纳入体验概念可以使我们对佛教体验形成一种更为恰当的观点,而这一观点能够表明佛教的宣称与科学的经验主义的宣称之间的区别（前提1-10）;（2）关于界定体验之所是的“家族相似性”理念,本文结论是,皈依与神迹是对佛教中的体验所作出的非实在论的“家族相似性”定义中的两个要素（前提11-13）.     

Effects of atypical patterns of fetal growth on newborn (NBAS) behavior

Newborn infants who showed anthropometric signs of atypical patterns of fetal growth were compared with infants of appropriate growth on the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS) and on recently developed supplementary items. The sample consisted of lower-socioeconomic-status families in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and included teenage and older mothers. Infants with atypical patterns of fetal growth showed lower scores than did infants of appropriate growth on the NBAS orientation, motor, and reflex clusters and on 15 of the 18 supplementary scores. Gestational age was covaried and showed independent effects on 6 items. Differential effects on measures of state and autonomic function were also found when the effects of the ponderal index were held constant. The results suggested that neonatal behavior is related to multiple indices of fetal growth patterns that may indicate early versus late nutritional insult. Supplementary NBAS items do not improve the discriminability of the NBAS but may help explain the basis for observed group differences.     

Historical Analysis of Participation in 161 km Ultramarathons in North America

Participation trends in 100 m (161 km) ultramarathon running competitions in North America were examined from race results from 1977 through 2008. A total of 32, 352 finishes accounted for by 9815 unique individuals were identified. The annual number of races and number of finishes increased exponentially over the study period. This growth in number of finishes occurred through a combination of (1) an increase in participation among runners ≥40 years of age from less than 40% of the finishes prior to the mid-1980s to 65–70% of the finishes since 1996, (2) a growth (p < 0.0001) in participation among women from virtually none in the late 1970s to nearly 20% since 2004, and (3) an increase in the average annual number of races completed by each individual to 1.3. While there has been considerable growth in participation, the 161 km ultramarathon continues to attract a relatively small number of participants compared with running races of shorter distances.