Can Infant Temperament Be Used to Predict Which Toddlers Are Likely to Have Increased Emotional and Behavioral Problems?

The 'terrible twos' are often associated with increased temper tantrums, noncompliance and aggression. Although some expression of these behaviors is normal, whether early individual factors can predict which children are most at risk of frequent or prolonged emotional and behavioral problems is of increasing interest. The current study of 6,067 toddlers found that their 9 month scores on a new brief measure of temperament—the Infant Behavior Questionnaire – Revised - Very Short Form (IBQ-R-VSF)—were associated with both difficult behaviors and prosocial behaviors at age 2, measured using a preschool version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Controlling for a range of demographic, maternal characteristics and contextual factors, we found that infants higher on the trait Negative Emotionality and/ or lower on Orienting Capacity and Fear were more likely to develop hyperactivity, emotion, peer and conduct problems and less likely to demonstrate pro-social behaviors at two years of age. Temperament aged 9 months explained an additional 1 - 6 % of the variance in toddler behavior. These findings suggest that infant temperament is associated with the behavior strengths and difficulties of 2-year-olds and provide the first longitudinal validation of the new 5-factor structure of the new IBQ-R-VSF.     

Out of Eastern Africa: An Examination of Sport Labour Migration in the Post-Independence Era

Abstract

Globalization spearheaded professionalization and commercialization of sports, which has contributed and elevated sport labour migration out of Africa. People move far from their home base to improve their standards of living, form new identities, and to enhance national pride, which enabled many African men and women involved in elite sports to become an integral part of global sport competitions. This paper investigates factors that influenced the migration of athletes/players out of Eastern Africa and to understand their transnational experiences in a global context. The World System Theory, transnationalism and neoclassical theoretical perspectives guided this research in broad and specific contexts. Data sources included research journal articles, public government documents, theoretical and philosophical papers, newspapers, and internet documentaries that provide stories about sport migrants individually and as a collective group. Themes emerging from this study focus on the following: (a) patterns of migration, (b) factors that spearhead movement of sport migrants out of Eastern Africa and (c) transnational experiences with exemplifications.     

Improving teacher quality: lessons from America's No Child Left Behind

How developed countries train, recruit and retain their schoolteachers is an area of considerable interest in education today. In this paper we consider how the US is addressing the issue of teacher quality by holding schools and school districts accountable for ensuring that all teachers of core subjects are ‘highly qualified’ by the end of the 2005–2006 school year. Part of the hugely important No Child Left Behind Act, this ‘highly qualified’ teacher requirement links billions of dollars of Federal funding to ensuring that schools and school districts develop strategies to meet these targets. We consider how successful this policy has been in two case study states: Wisconsin and California. What emerges is a mandate for change which emphasizes teachers' content knowledge over pedagogic skills, which reveals discrepancies in the certification, training and administration of the profession across different states, and which sharply reminds us of the difficulties faced by even the apparently simple policy of requiring high quality teachers by law.     

Treating children with early-onset conduct problems and callous–unemotional traits: an empirical evaluation of KooLKIDS

Children with early-onset conduct problems (EOCP) and callous–unemotional (CU) traits are highly resistant to treatment and cost society significantly more than their healthy counterparts. Employing a multiple baseline design, 13 males (9.0–10.2 years of age) with a history of school suspensions were sequentially introduced to KooLKIDS, a school-based interactive multimedia intervention for young children with EOCP and CU. Teacher and child self-report data revealed significant reductions for the group in proactive and reactive aggression, and antisocial traits. Significant changes in the desired direction were also found on measures of emotion regulation. When the data were analyzed for each individual child, however, the magnitude of any effects for behaviour change varied greatly. KooLKIDS offers potential for treating children with EOCP and CU and hence preventing progression towards more serious antisocial behaviour.     

Shopping for schools or shopping for peers: public schools and catchment area segregation

Market theory positions the consumer as a rational choice actor, making informed schooling choices on the basis of ‘hard’ evidence of relative school effectiveness. Yet there are concerns that parents simply choose schools based on socio-demographic characteristics, thus leading to greater social segregation and undercutting the potential of choice to drive quality improvements. In this paper, we explore segregation by examining catchment areas for a range of public high schools in a specific middle-class urban area. We focus on socio-demographic characteristics, including levels of income, country of birth and religion affiliation, in order to explore residential segregation according to public high school catchment areas. Our data suggest distinct residential segregation between catchment areas for each public school within our data-set, particularly for the schools deemed to be popular and rejected, that may pose risks for broader equity concerns. We argue that, in contrast to market theory, even more affluent and active choosers are not equipped with information on the programmatic quality of their different school options, but instead may be relying on socio-demographic characteristics of schools – through surrogate information about the urban spaces that the schools occupy – in order to choose peer groups, if not programmes, for their children.     

‘Other’ boys: negotiating non‐hegemonic masculinities in the primary school

Focusing on the experiences of boys who choose not to cultivate their masculinities through hegemonic discourses and practices, this paper seeks to empirically explore and theorize the extent to which it is possible to live out the category ‘boy’ in non‐hegemonic ways in the primary school setting. Drawing upon a year‐long ethnography of children's constructions of their gender and sexual identities in two primary schools, it examines how a minority of 10‐ and 11‐year‐old white working and middle‐class boys create and seek out spaces from which they can resist, subvert and actively challenge prevailing hegemonic (heterosexual) masculinities within a peer group pupil culture which thrives on the daily policing and shaming of Other1 Following the writings of bel hooks (e.g., 1990 hooks b. (1990) Yearning: race, gender and cultural politics (Boston, MA, South End Press)  [Google Scholar]) I am loosely using the term Other to conceptualise those identities located at the margins— those non‐hegemonic identities that are in some ways resistant and order‐transforming (rather than conventional and order‐maintaining) and thus cross and/or blur sex/gender boundaries. View all notes masculinities. The paper attempts to theorize more fully the inter‐relationship of hegemonic and non‐hegemonic masculinities and argues that the ways in which boys inhabit and construct non‐hegemonic masculinities both subverts and reinforces hegemonic gender/sexual relations.     

Towards universal accessibility: The UK policy landscape and supporting technology

Key points

• The UK policy landscape supports access for the users whilst allowing publishers to maintain business models.
• Advancements such as EPUB 3, aligning publishing with web technologies, and the Inclusive Publishing hub help publishers reach accessibility compliance.
• Print impairment is not an on/off switch, and each reader has his or her own unique set of requirements – a fact that is supported by EPUB 3.
• The time is ripe for publishers to make firm commitments to accessibility initiatives.

     

Puberty Predicts Approach But Not Avoidance on the Iowa Gambling Task in a Multinational Sample

According to the dual systems model of adolescent risk taking, sensation seeking and impulse control follow different developmental trajectories across adolescence and are governed by two different brain systems. The authors tested whether different underlying processes also drive age differences in reward approach and cost avoidance. Using a modified Iowa Gambling Task in a multinational, cross‐sectional sample of 3,234 adolescents (ages 9–17; M = 12.87, SD = 2.36), pubertal maturation, but not age, predicted reward approach, mediated through higher sensation seeking. In contrast, age, but not pubertal maturation, predicted increased cost avoidance, mediated through greater impulse control. These findings add to evidence that adolescent behavior is best understood as the product of two interacting, but independently developing, brain systems.     

Quality indicators for effective early intervention in literacy and numeracy

Recent research suggests that multi‐strand and interlinked interventions meet the requirements of early primary school intervention programmes more fully than single programmes. A set of quality indicators, which education authorities and schools can utilize to review and evaluate processes and outcomes of such interventions, is derived from the outcome of an evaluation of the implementation of an early intervention programme (EIP) in literacy and numeracy, involving 274 pupils, in three North Ayrshire primary schools. The implications for primary prevention of difficulties in literacy and numeracy are discussed.     

Making visible the literacy practices of elders through the day in the life methodology: considerations for literacy education across the lifespan

This pilot study uses ‘day in the life' methodology to observe the everyday literacy practices of a self‐identified thriving elder. Through the case of one nonagenarian female residing in an assisted living community in the United States, we identified the multimodal, posthuman nature of this elder's literacies, exploring how they were connected to a sense of well‐being and the types of literacies that remain relevant across the lifespan. We further consider what the insights gained from such a study might teach about literacy education more generally. We advocate for education that keeps open people's literacy options across the lifespan through acknowledging and cultivating the myriad interrelated constituents of literacies, including the physical, social and political.