A Lesson on Sex Roles

This paper analyses a lesson on sex roles which took place in a seventh‐grade classroom (12–13 year olds) as part of a humanities course in an Australian coeducational secondary school. It shows how routine instructional practices can combine with conventional knowledge and theorising to confirm notions of inequality rather than challenge them. The use of sex role theory, with its embedded biological assumptions, and the initiation‐reply‐evaluation format which ensures that the teacher is in control of the lesson topic and procedure, combine to produce a lesson in which what the pupils hear is a confirmation of the fact that women and men are not equal. The teacher's intention to teach a lesson about equality is thus undermined by his own theorising and his teaching technology. The analysis is undertaken to show the ways in which unwary teachers can sustain inequitable gender relations even when this is contrary to their intentions.     

Emotion Displays in Two-Year-Olds during Mishaps

Although it has been shown that toddlers express distress when personal or physical events violate their expectations, there has been little detailed examination of their emotional reactions to such events. In this study, 45 2-year-olds were observed during 2 mishaps: a doll breaking and juice spilling. Their emotional reactions and their attempts to fix the mishap were coded. 2 components to their reactions to mishaps were found: one of tension and frustration, and another of concerned reparation. Mishaps elicited more negative emotions in toddlers than free play, and most toddlers attempted to correct the mishap. Children's styles of emotional response to mishaps may be related to maternal mental health. Symptoms of depression and anxiety in mothers were related to a suppression of tension and frustration in their offspring. Maternal acting out symptoms were not related to toddlers' reactions to mishaps. The findings are discussed in terms of the role of emotion in the formation of individual differences in sociomoral functioning and factors contributing to early differences.     

Persistence versus withdrawal from the college classroom: A test of four theoretically derived propositions

The purpose of this study was to test the generalizability of results obtained in laboratory research in the area of persistence behavior of students who drop college courses. Four hypotheses that included predictions concerning which students were most likely to drop courses, which courses were most likely to be dropped, and at what point in the semester students were most likely to drop courses were formulated from the results of laboratory research. None of the hypotheses were adequately supported by the data, suggesting that the results of laboratory research in this area are not readily transferable to college course-dropping behavior, at least without taking into account more relevant situational and personal variables.     

Enhancing Father Involvement in Low‐Income Families: A Couples Group Approach to Preventive Intervention

To address the problem of fathers’ absence from children's lives and the difficulty of paternal engagement, especially among lower income families, government agencies have given increasing attention to funding father involvement interventions. Few of these interventions have yielded promising results. Father involvement research that focuses on the couple/coparenting relationship offers a pathway to support fathers’ involvement while strengthening family relationships. Relevant research is reviewed and an exemplar is provided in the Supporting Father Involvement intervention and its positive effects on parental and parent–child relationships and children's outcomes. The article concludes with policy implications of this choice of target populations and the need to develop new strategies to involve fathers in the lives of their children.     

Two-Year-Olds Readily Learn Multiple Labels for the Same Basic-Level Category

2 basic frameworks for lexical principles have been proposed (Golinkoff, Mervis, & Hirsh-Pasek; Markman). In many types of situations, these frameworks make the same predictions regarding 2-year-olds' interpretation of novel terms. However, the predictions diverge in some cases. 3 experiments were conducted to address 1 such situation: the case in which the child hears a novel term but already knows a label for each of the objects present. Results of all 3 studies converged on the same outcome: The new term was most likely to be treated as a second basic-level name for the category to which the object belonged. Analyses of individual patterns of responding revealed that, of the 58 subjects, 50 made more basic-level responses than part responses, 1 made equal numbers of basic-level and part responses, and 7 made more part responses than basic-level responses. Implications of these findings for models of early lexical development are discussed.     

Japanese and United States Preschool Children's Responses to Conflict and Distress

Japanese and U.S. preschool children's responses to hypothetical interpersonal dilemmas were examined as a function of culture, gender, and maternal child-rearing values. U.S. children showed more anger, more aggressive behavior and language, and underregulation of emotion than Japanese children, across different contexts of assessment. Children from the 2 cultures appeared more similar on prosocial and avoidant patterns, though in some contexts U.S. children also showed more prosocial themes. Girls from both cultures expressed more prosocial themes and sometimes more anger than boys. Maternal encouragement of children's emotional expressivity was correlated with anger and aggression in children. It was more characteristic of U.S. than Japanese mothers, while emphasis on psychological discipline (reasoning; guilt and anxiety induction) was more characteristic of Japanese than U.S. mothers. The relevance of a conceptual framework that focuses on differences in Eastern and Western cultures in self-construals regarding independence and interdependence is considered.     

A Review of INTEGRITY Software: An Online Application to Analyze Multiple-Choice Tests and Detect Test-Taking Deception

INTEGRITY, an item analysis and statistical collusion detection (answer copying) online application, was reviewed. Features of the software and examples of program output are described in detail. INTEGRITY was found to be easily utilized with an abundance of well-organized documentation and built-in features designed to guide the user through the various analyses and ensuing reports. Information regarding cost is provided.