Counselling the ‘worried well’ in HIV disease

HIV infection may have a psychological impact not only on those who live with the disease, but also on people who may worry that they have been infected. Counselling people who are worried about infection, but who are HIV negative is an important, yet challenging, dimension of HIV care. It forces counsellors to address how they deal with resistant patients and those who, in some cases, present serious psychological disturbances. This paper discusses the presentation and management of the worried well in HIV disease.     

Learning to Crawl

The effects of infants' age, body dimensions, and experience on the development of crawling was examined by observing 28 infants longitudinally, from children's first attempts at crawling until they began walking. Although most infants displayed multiple crawling postures en route to walking, development did not adhere to a strict progression of obligatory, discrete stages. In particular, 15 infants crawled on their bellies prior to crawling on hands and knees, but the other 13 infants skipped the belly-crawling period and proceeded directly to crawling on hands and knees. Duration of experience with earlier forms of crawling predicted the speed and efficiency of later, quite different forms of crawling. Most important, infants who had formerly belly crawled were more proficient crawling on hands and knees than infants who had skipped the belly-crawling period. Transfer could not be explained by differences in infants' age or body dimensions alone. Rather, experience using earlier crawling patterns may have exerted beneficial effects on hands-and-knees crawling by shoring up underlying constituents common to all forms of crawling postures.     

The Effects of Enrolling in Oversubscribed Prekindergarten Programs Through Third Grade

This study leverages naturally occurring lotteries for oversubscribed Boston Public Schools prekindergarten program sites between 2007 and 2011, for 3,182 children (M = 4.5 years old) to estimate the impacts of winning a first choice lottery and enrolling in Boston prekindergarten versus losing a first choice lottery and not enrolling on children’s enrollment and persistence in district schools, grade retention, special education placement, and third-grade test scores. There are large effects on enrollment and persistence, but no effects on other examined outcomes for this subsample. Importantly, children who competed for oversubscribed seats were not representative of all appliers and almost all control-group children attended center-based preschool. Findings contribute to the larger evidence base and raise important considerations for future prekindergarten lottery-based studies.     

Teacher perspectives on factors facilitating implementation of whole school approaches for resolving conflict

While social–emotional learning programmes in schools often have positive outcomes, many such initiatives are not well implemented and maintained. This paper reports on teacher reflections on the process of planning and implementing a whole school social–emotional learning (SEL) programme with a conflict resolution focus, called Enhancing Relationships in School Communities (ERIS). Ten primary schools participated in an 18‐month professional development programme offered by the researchers to assist schools to develop a whole school approach to handling interpersonal issues using a cooperative problem‐solving approach. Implementation (core) teams of three to five members, including principal or assistant principal and relevant teachers, attended workshops and managed the change process. In individual interviews, 29 core team members described the most significant changes that had taken place, what factors facilitated those changes and what assisted in overcoming barriers. A synthesised model of facilitators of implementation was developed on the basis of these interviews. The major components of the model included ensuring a whole school vision and process; pre‐programme engagement confirming commitment and alignment of researcher and teachers' visions; facilitative programme structure and processes such as linking the current programme to existing programmes and processes in the school; leadership and support for staff in the change process, for example, through the implementation team; the nature of the programme content; and monitoring and feedback processes to sustain motivation and inform on needs and outcomes.     

Comparing Associations Between Puberty,Ethnic–Racial Identity,Self-Concept,and Depressive Symptoms Among African American and Caribbean Black Boys

Research on pubertal development among Black boys is limited. Addressing this gap, we examined associations between three pubertal domains (e.g., voice change, hair growth, and perceived relative timing), depressive symptoms, self-esteem, and self-efficacy, among a nationally representative sample of 395 African American and 164 Caribbean Black boys (M_age = 15 years). Moderation by ethnic–racial identity (e.g., racial centrality, racial regard) was also explored. Results indicated that for both ethnic subgroups early voice change increased self-esteem; whereas early voice change increased depressive symptoms among boys who felt society views Blacks more negatively. Buffering effects of ethnic–racial identity also varied significantly between the two groups. Findings suggest that the meaning Black boys ascribe to their ethnic–racial group may explain puberty-linked outcomes.     

The how's and why's of biological change: How learners neglect physical mechanisms in their search for meaning

This study describes the trends in students' explanations of biological change in organisms. A total of 96 student volunteers (8 students from each of 2nd, 5th, 8th, and 12th grades from 3 localities) were interviewed individually and each student was presented a series of graphics depicting natural phenomena. Students' explanations to questions of how something occurred were assigned to one of three categories (responses addressing how something occurred, why something occurred, and 'I don't know'). While the number of responses in each category was roughly equivalent in prominence across grade levels, the majority of students were unable to offer a causal explanation of how a phenomena occurred. An unexpected phenomenon was the students' predilection to redirect the interview question so they could answer them. If asked a how question, as they were in every interview instance, 32% the students answered with a 'why' response. The way biology is taught, the structure of biology or/and how we learn it could shed some light into this phenomenon and has implications for science educators.     

Beliefs of experienced and student teachers about the nature and purpose of social studies education in New Zealand elementary schools

This paper reports on an investigation carried out in New Zealand into experienced elementary and student teachers’ beliefs about the nature and purpose of social studies education. Since its inclusion in New Zealand's curriculum, social studies has been organized around the notion of citizenship education with curricula and programmes of work influenced by four overarching “traditions” – social studies as: citizenship transmission; social science; reflective inquiry; and personal, social and ethical empowerment. A 20-item scale based on these traditions was administered to 228 student teachers and 64 experienced teachers. A factor analysis indicated that participants' perceptions of the dimensions of social studies education were, with one exception, reasonably close to the four traditions. Despite the contested nature of social studies, the student and experienced teachers held similar positions on the relative importance of the traditions and dimensions. It is argued that this agreement arises, wholly or in part, from their common “apprenticeship of experience” in classrooms, the broader socio-historical context in which their beliefs were developed, the widespread influence of a prevalent educational discourse, and a shared lack of experience in formal knowledge associated with specific social science disciplines. It was concluded that the uncomfortable generational encounters often reported in the literature between novice and experienced teachers are unlikely to occur in relation to the teaching of elementary social studies in New Zealand.     

Associations between peer bullying and classroom concentration: evidence for mediation by perceived personal safety and relationship with teacher

Being bullied is associated with a psycho-social maladjustment during childhood. One hitherto largely overlooked correlate is disrupted classroom concentration. Using data collected from 364 9–11-year-old children attending seven junior schools in the UK, we tested a model in which children’s perceived safety in two contexts (classroom and playground) and their perceived relationship with their teacher were hypothesised to mediate the association between being bullied and classroom concentration. Two analytical approaches to testing multiple mediation – product of coefficients and bootstrapping – supported the model. None of the mediation effects was moderated by sex but they were by year; in all cases the mediation effect was stronger in the older children than in the younger children (but still significant among the latter). These data suggest mechanisms through which bullying might have its effects on classroom concentration. The practical and theoretical implications are discussed.     

A Moderated Mediation Model: Racial Discrimination,Coping Strategies,and Racial Identity Among Black Adolescents

This study examined a moderated mediation model among 314 Black adolescents aged 13–18. The model included general coping strategies (e.g., active, distracting, avoidant, and support‐seeking strategies) as mediators and racial identity dimensions (racial centrality, private regard, public regard, minority, assimilationist, and humanist ideologies) as moderators of the relation between perceived racial discrimination and depressive symptoms. Moderated mediation examined if the relation between perceived racial discrimination and depressive symptoms varied by the mediators and moderators. Results revealed that avoidant coping strategies mediated the relation between perceptions of racial discrimination and depressive symptoms. The results indicated that avoidant coping strategies mediated the relation between perceived racial discrimination and depressive symptoms among youth with high levels of the minority/oppressive ideology.     

Assessment for Learning in the writing classroom: an incomplete realisation

An Observation Guide, designed to help New Zealand teachers identify areas of teaching strength and aspects for development, was developed as part of a wider project. In the second phase of this project, 18 middle school teachers used the Guide to gather and record evidence as they participated in seven rounds of reciprocal peer observation and feedback during writing lessons with Grades 6–8 students. We report here on data from round 6 observations about the assessment for learning (AfL) strategies reported as evident in teachers’ practices, how these strategies were implemented and potential gaps in practice. AfL has at its heart a core of interdependent strategies that collectively contribute to the development of autonomous, self-regulating learners and quality learning. While the middle school teachers shared goals for learning and communicated what counted as successful achievement to students, they appeared to struggle when articulating goals in terms of literacy learning and conveying the substantive aspects and quality expected in students’ writing. In addition, despite AfL's promotion of learner autonomy, few teachers openly afforded students focused opportunities to take a meaningful role in their learning through the appraisal of their own and peers’ writing and the joint construction of feedback. As such, teachers’ AfL practice in the writing classroom failed to realise its full potential. It is argued that the promise of AfL can only be reached when strategies are enacted in ways that reflect its unitary nature, promote quality outcomes and give students a central role in their learning.