Relations Among the Home Language and Literacy Environment and Children’s Language Abilities: A Study of Head Start Dual Language Learners and Their Mothers

Research Findings: This study explored the relations between Spanish–English dual language learner (DLL) children’s home language and literacy experiences and their expressive vocabulary and oral comprehension abilities in Spanish and in English. Data from Spanish–English mothers of 93 preschool-age Head Start children who resided in central Pennsylvania were analyzed. Children completed the Picture Vocabulary and Oral Comprehension subtests of the Batería III Woodcock–Muñoz and the Woodcock–Johnson III Tests of Achievement. Results revealed that the language spoken by mothers and children and the frequency of mother–child reading at home influenced children’s Spanish language abilities. In addition, the frequency with which children told a story was positively related to children’s performance on English oral language measures. Practice or Policy: The findings suggest that language and literacy experiences at home have a differential impact on DLLs’ language abilities in their 2 languages. Specific components of the home environment that benefit and support DLL children’s language abilities are discussed.     

Effects of ‘Environmental Chemistry’ Elective Course Via Technology-Embedded Scientific Inquiry Model on Some Variables

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of ‘environmental chemistry’ elective course via Technology-Embedded Scientific Inquiry (TESI) model on senior science student teachers’ (SSSTs) conceptions of environmental chemistry concepts/issues, attitudes toward chemistry, and technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) levels. Within one group pre-test–post-test design, the study was conducted with 117 SSSTs (68 females and 49 males—aged 21–23 years) enrolled in an ‘environmental chemistry’ elective course in the spring semester of 2011–2012 academic-years. Instruments for data collection comprised of Environmental Chemistry Conceptual Understanding Questionnaire, TPACK survey, and Chemistry Attitudes and Experiences Questionnaire. Significant increases in the SSSTs’ conceptions of environmental chemistry concepts/issues, attitudes toward chemistry, and TPACK levels are attributed to the SSSTs learning how to use the innovative technologies in the contexts of the ‘environmental chemistry’ elective course and teaching practicum. The study implies that the TESI model may serve a useful purpose in experimental science courses that use the innovative technologies. However, to generalize feasibility of the TESI model, it should be evaluated with SSSTs in diverse learning contexts.     

Financial Feeling: An Investigation of Emotion and Communication in the Workplace

There is growing interest in the role of emotion when considering communication in the workplace. This work has most often considered workers in front-line service positions in investigations of emotional labor, and human service workers in investigations of empathy and emotional work. In this study, we consider processes of both emotional labor and emotional work in the financial planning profession. Financial planners occupy a role requiring ongoing relationships with clients, conversations about the often emotional topic of money, and a need to manage emotion in a variety of interaction contexts. Thus, from extant theory and literature regarding emotion and communication, we proposed research questions regarding the roles of emotional labor and emotional work in the financial planning profession. These questions were investigated in a web-based survey study of almost 300 professional financial planners and supporting interviews with 14 financial planners. Results indicate support for existing theory on emotional work, extensions to current research regarding emotional labor, and important implications for the role of emotion and communication in a range of professional service roles.     

How should cultural diversity be measured? An application using the French publishing industry

Despite the lack of a clear definition of the concept, “cultural diversity” has remained a core issue for more than a decade (WTO, UNESCO, etc.). The aim of this paper is to begin to fill this gap. We argue that cultural diversity is a multi-dimensional concept and that accurate metrics must rely on three criteria: variety, balance and disparity. We also stress that supplied and consumed diversity have to be distinguished. We apply this set of multiple measures of diversity to publishing data for France over the period 1990–2003. Our main result is that the situation of the publishing industry in terms of cultural diversity is highly dependent on the dimension considered. Hence, diversity increases when variety is the sole consideration, whereas taking balance or disparity into account leads to the opposite conclusion. This issue raises a series of questions about the use of diversity measures in a policy debate concerned with furthering cultural diversity.

Demand for culture in Spain and the 2012 VAT rise

This paper analyzes the effects that the 2012 VAT rise in Spain had on household’ demand for cultural goods and services. Household’ demands are modeled as a two-stage QUAIDS. After estimating price and expenditure elasticities, and the pass-through parameter associated with the reform, our results show that the individual welfare loss and the increment in the tax bill increase, but less than proportionately, with income. Consequently, the reform can be considered as regressive. Relating the effects of the VAT reform to households’ incomes also implies a low quantitative effect, because of the low proportion of total household expenditure that cultural expenditure represents. From a social perspective, the size of the induced welfare loss would positively depend on society’s inequality aversion. Regardless of the latter, it cannot be concluded whether the reform would have increased or reduced inequality in the distribution of cultural spending. Our results prove qualitatively robust to alternative values of the pass-through parameter.     

Does the long tail really favor small publishers?

A growing body of literature is devoted to testing the reality of the “long-tail” phenomenon. This literature is mostly, if not exclusively, focused on the impact of Internet on the distribution of sales by product. However, the long tail also raises the issue of a possible change in the usual market structure of cultural industries: an oligopoly with a competitive fringe. To our knowledge, no paper addresses the following question: If the long-tail effect does exist, is it of more benefit to small or dominant publishers? The aim of this paper was to address this issue in the context of the French publishing industry. Our main findings are as follows: (1) the market concentration of the French book industry is lower online than offline and (2) the difference in concentration between the two channels of distribution tended to widen over the period 2004–2010. Strategies adopted by leading publishers on the Web do not allow them to maintain the market share obtained with bricks-and-mortar retailers. Furthermore, we show that the market share lost by dominant firms is captured by small publishers online and by medium-sized publishers in conventional stores.     

Globalisation in Foreign Language Teaching: Establishing Transatlantic Links in Higher Education

This article makes an explicit comparison between the reconfiguration of tertiary language education in Europe, the USA and Canada. It argues that, despite certain minor differences between continents, the same trends are operative across the Atlantic. It then examines each of them, illustrating how similar forces are at work in shaping higher education language teaching, how analogous policy frameworks are being employed to channel them and how parallel challenges and responses can be detected transatlantically. The conclusion is that unifying efforts and connecting initiatives has highly beneficial effects for advancing the application of higher education language policy worldwide.     

The family caregiver after the institutionalization of the dependent elderly relative

The objective of this study was to assess the relationship between the institutionalization of a dependent elderly relative and the family caregiver’s mental health, quality of life and caregiving satisfaction. We present data from 140 family caregivers caring for elderly family members, of whom 77 continued to live with family members and 63 had been institutionalized. We evaluated the factors influencing the decision to institutionalize the dependent relative, the effect of institutionalization on the caregiver’s psychological well-being and quality of life and the impact of strategies to find the meaning and cope with the relative’s placement on the caregiver’s emotional health and quality of life. Care does not end after institutionalization, but the stressors the caregiver faces change. Our results suggest that finding meaning increases satisfaction and reduces feelings of overload. They show that after institutionalization, stressors affecting caregivers are partly relieved, and that finding meaning increases the caregiver’s satisfaction, while decreasing the degree of overload. Our data, further, indicates that a good relationship and cooperation between the staff of the institution and the family are important to improve the caregivers’ emotional health and quality of life, and consequently, the quality of life of the dependent elderly relative.     

Self-protection profiles of worth and academic goals in university students

European Journal of Psychology of Education - This work analyzes the possible existence of self-protection profiles based on a combination of self-handicapping (behavioral and claimed) strategies...