Work-based antipoverty programs for parents can enhance the school performance and social behavior of children

We assess the impact of the New Hope Project, an antipoverty program tested in a random assignment experimental design, on family functioning and developmental outcomes for preschool- and school-aged children (N = 913). New Hope offered wage supplements sufficient to raise family income above the poverty threshold and subsidies for child care and health insurance to adults who worked full-time. New Hope had strong positive effects on boys' academic achievement, classroom behavior skills, positive social behavior, and problem behaviors, as reported by teachers, and on boys' own expectations for advanced education and occupational aspirations. There were not corresponding program effects for girls. The child outcomes may have resulted from a combination of the following: Children in New Hope families spent more time in formal child care programs and other structured activities away from home than did children in control families. New Hope parents were employed more, had more material resources, reported more social support, and expressed less stress and more optimism about achieving their goals than did parents in the control sample. The results suggest that an anti-poverty program that provides support for combining work and family responsibilities can have beneficial effects on the development of school-age children.     

An assessment of the benefits of the diffusion of an innovation

A benefit-cost analysis of an innovative pharmaceutical in a relatively small market in the United Kingdom was carried out. The market was that for anti-tuberculosis drugs. The impact of the innovation, as it proceeded through its commercial life cycle, on competing products and on alternative hospitalisation therapy was evaluated. Despite the high cash price of the product relative to those it replaced this price was dwarfed by the benefits provided.     

Rationalizing teacher roles in developing and assessing physical literacy in children

PROSPECTS - Physical literacy serves as the foundation for several skills or attributes needed for lifelong physical activity participation. Based on its connection to physical activity, physical...     

Negotiating school-university partnerships: Participants' voices in co-reform

Although many educators recognize the importance of voice, fostering voice in those who have traditionally been voiceless has been difficult. This article, like the program that it describes, tackles that challenge by having participants speak for themselves. Specifically, the participants speak about their involvement in the first year of an alternative teacher education project. In describing their involvement, the participants focus on their roles and relationships as well as the type of partnership and collaboration that emerged from this project.     

Injecting failure: Data center infrastructures and the imaginaries of resilience

Abstract

Data center infrastructures provide a lens for understanding the rise of resilience thinking, for grasping the pragmatism and promise of resilience as approach. Unable to anticipate every threat and lockout every contingency, developers of resilient infrastructure “design in” failure, automate monitoring and maintenance, and build capacity to flexibly adapt to new threats. In enacting resilience in the present, they anticipate possible futures, prototyping forms of future life. In this sense, infrastructures should also be understood as operational imaginaries – as systems that powerfully suggest a set of future possibilities by enacting them concretely in the present.     

A Factor Analysis of the Role of the State Supervisor of Guidance Services

A review of the literature reveals that little research has been conducted on the role of the State Supervisor of Guidance Services. More specifically, the literature review did not yield any factor analysis studies on this role. A questionnaire sent to 280 state directors and supervisors of guidance services in the 50 states was the instrument used to gather the data that was subsequently analyzed on an IBM 360, Model 50 computer. The factor analysis yielded three major categories: Promotion, Service, and Noninvolvement. Since this is the only factor study conducted to date on the role of the State Supervisor of Guidances, it should serve as a foundation for similar future studies.     

Economic Deprivation and Early Childhood Development

We consider 3 questions regarding the effects of economic deprivation on child development. First, how are developmental outcomes in childhood affected by poverty and such poverty correlates as single parenthood, ethnicity, and maternal education? Second, what are the developmental consequences of the duration and timing of family economic deprivation? And, third, what is the comparative influence of economic deprivation at the family and neighborhood level? We investigate these issues with longitudinal data from the Infant Health and Development Program. We find that family income and poverty status are powerful correlates of the cognitive development and behavior of children, even after accounting for other differences—in particular family structure and maternal schooling—between low- and high-income families. While the duration of poverty matters, its timing in early childhood does not. Age-5 IQs are found to be higher in neighborhoods with greater concentrations of affluent neighbors, while the prevalence of low-income neighbors appears to increase the incidence of externalizing behavior problems.     

Translating words into equations: a cognitive load theory approach

The conditions under which explicit instruction in checking, combined with worked examples, may be beneficial in learning how to translate sentences into algebraic equations was examined from the perspective of cognitive load theory. In two experiments it was shown that Grade 8 and 9 students were initially disadvantaged by the inclusion of a checking method. However, after a more substantial period of acquisition, students with a low level of mathematical knowledge performed significantly better after receiving checking instructions than those who did not receive checking instructions. In contrast, higher knowledge students were continually disadvantaged by the inclusion of a checking method. The positive effect of checking for lower knowledge students and the negative effect for higher knowledge students in this domain is a further example of the expertise reversal effect.