Parent Praise to 1‐ to 3‐Year‐Olds Predicts Children's Motivational Frameworks 5 Years Later

In laboratory studies, praising children's effort encourages them to adopt incremental motivational frameworks—they believe ability is malleable, attribute success to hard work, enjoy challenges, and generate strategies for improvement. In contrast, praising children's inherent abilities encourages them to adopt fixed‐ability frameworks. Does the praise parents spontaneously give children at home show the same effects? Although parents' early praise of inherent characteristics was not associated with children's later fixed‐ability frameworks, parents' praise of children's effort at 14–38 months (N = 53) did predict incremental frameworks at 7–8 years, suggesting that causal mechanisms identified in experimental work may be operating in home environments.     

Mobilities of gaseous ions in CH3NO2H2 and CH3CNH2 mixtures

Extending previous investigations by Loeb of mobilities in gaseous mixtures using his procedure except that the auxiliary field in these measurements was made equal to the advancing field thus giving absolute values of the mobilities, measurements of mobilities were made in mixtures of CH₃NO₂H2 and CH₃CNH₂. The mobilities in H₂ were 7.12 for the positive ions and 10.46 for the negative ions in cm./sec. per volt/cm. Those in CH₃NO₂ were 0.221 cm./sec. per volt/cm. for both ions and in CH₃CN they were 0.234 cm./sec. per volt/cm. for both ions. Both ion mobilities deviated from Blanc's law in CH₃NO₂ indicating the formation of complexes with the CH₃NO₂ ions somewhat greater in size than the normal ions in H₂. The molecules attached to negative ions somewhat less readily than to the positive ions but both final ions were of the same size. In CH₃CN mixtures both positive and negative ions deviated from Blanc's law, the positive ion showing more ready attachment of CH₃CN. The negative ion had consistently a higher mobility than the positive ion, a circumstance indicating a smaller ion and suggesting that the attaching molecule might not be CH₃CN but some impurity. Both ion addition products in CH₃CN are larger than the normal ion in H₂ but smaller than those in CH₃NO₂ as was to be expected.     

Contextually Based Professional Development

In this article, the authors detail a study of a three-year professional development project designed to increase in-service teachers’ classroom technology integration. Participants engaged in learning activities that modeled technology integration from a contextually based perspective that included technology, and pedagogical and content knowledge. Although participants reported having very limited technology skills before professional development began, after two years they reported a significant increase in using technology skills. In addition, participants reported increased comfort and confidence in using technology to the level where they changed their teaching practice to integrate technology. Indeed, between years two and three, participants reported a significant increase in technology use for learning by their students.     

Telecommunications in rural America: An appraisal and a prediction

Abstract

Rural America has historically been plagued with a disproportionate shortage of health, education, and other public services. However, the application of rapidly changing telecommunications technologies can alleviate many of the problems associated with these isolated and “technologically undernourished” areas. Technologies such as low‐power television, direct broadcast satellites, and satellite‐fed cable services offer the opportunity for building a rural telecommunications network and thus improving services and the quality of life. However, in order for this goal to be realized, the economic constraints presented by insufficient consumer demand and unprofitable markets must be overcome. Direct government subsidization or increased support of projects may be necessary to encourage the private sector to increase investment in telecommunications facilities in rural communities.     

Brown Bodies,White Coats: Postcolonialism,Maori women and science

In Aotearoa New Zealand journeys of discovery and colonization were also scientific journeys that brought “Maori woman” under the intellectual control of the emerging “scientific” academy. This paper argues that the historical construction of “Maori woman” through the discourses of Enlightenment science continues to affect the constitution of the subjectivities of Maori women scientists today. The paper draws on a doctoral thesis that used literary historical techniques to investigate the imperial archives and feminist narrative interviews with 16 Maori women scientists to collect the research data. I explore the conditions by which the subject “Maori women scientist” emerges and how the Maori women experience these conditions in relation to how they see themselves. I conclude by arguing that the identity of “Maori woman scientist” appears to be “impossible fiction” due to the fragmented nature of the sign “Maori,” “woman,” and “scientist”, which can be “traced” to the historical construction of the signs.     

Rethinking the marginalizing discourses around teenage pregnancy

ABSTRACT

This article examines the literature on schooling for teenage mothers in order to expose the normalizing discourses that position young mothers as at risk for failure. Through an exploration of the historical and socio-cultural positioning of teenage mothers over the past few decades, the author illustrates the schooled responses to adolescent mothers and the responses of adolescent mothers to school structures and marginalizations. The article concludes with suggestions for further research that would address the achievements and the strengths of young mothers and may provide space for thinking about other groups of students who have traditionally been labeled at risk.     

Using participatory action research to address absenteeism

Many urban high schools serving low-income families have below-average attendance rates, which can indicate that fewer students are prepared to matriculate into college and career opportunities. Through the use of participatory action research (PAR), we – a group of four educators at Wilson High School – have changed school policies and procedures in order to address our school's most problematic behavior: students cutting class. Through the processes and outcomes that our group, the Class Cutting Task Force, has experienced, we have called upon action learning (AL) in our focus on practical and experienced problems, and we have learned an important lesson: without clear and consistent school-wide expectations, our students cannot meet their potentials. Additionally, we have become empowered to drive a school-wide improvement initiative from the ground up by using the four-stage PAR process. It is our experience with the PAR process as a method of engagement in AL for school practitioners that we aim to share in this account of practice.