Perceptions of innovativeness and communication about innovations: A study of three types of service organizations

It was hypothesized that the three types of service organizations identified by Mills and Margulies (1980) would exhibit differences with respect to perceived “innovation communication” (communication about innovations that may precede and/or accompany diffusion‐adoption processes) as well as differences in perceived individual innovativeness and perceived organizational innovativeness. Three questionnaire instruments were completed by 131 employees from nine organizations: one bank, six advertising firms and three schools. These organizations represented the Mills‐Margulies types of maintenance‐interactive, task‐interactive and personal‐interactive, respectively. While most directional hypotheses received partial or no support, differences emerged across organization types for both perceived innovation communication activity and perceived organizational innovativeness.     

Philosophically Rooted Educational Authenticity as a Normative Ideal for Education: Is the International Baccalaureate’s Primary Years Programme an example of an authentic curriculum?

Whereas the importance of authenticity in relation to educational contexts has been highlighted, educational authenticity (EA) has mainly referred to a real-life/world convergence or the notion of teacher authenticity, implying that authenticity can be taught and learnt. This view, however, has largely overlooked philosophical considerations so that the semantic and ontological vagueness surrounding authenticity has generated an uneven dialectic between the term’s potential significance and its actual relevance for the educational field. This article aims to move closer towards an understanding of philosophically grounded EA as a normative ideal for education. It discusses three contemporary philosophical models of authenticity and how they relate to the multicultural dimension of the International Baccalaureate’s Primary Years Programme. I will argue that by extrapolating common features of these theories, EA bears significant potential for contemporary education as it combines the importance of civic engagement, preparation for political involvement, and co-construction of knowledge and offers a fresh rationale for student involvement in curriculum planning.     

A Longitudinal Study of Consistency and Change in Self-Esteem from Early Adolescence to Early Adulthood

In a longitudinal study of 47 girls and 44 boys, developmental change in self-esteem (SE) was examined from early adolescence through late adolescence to early adulthood. Males tended to increase and females tended to decrease in SE over time. There was appreciable rank-order consistency in SE over time. Within each gender, the considerable individual differences in developmental trajectories were coherently related to personality characteristics independently assessed in early adolescence. Boys and girls with high SE possessed quite different personality characteristics in early adolescence; by early adulthood, although important differences remained, the personality characteristics associated with high SE were similar for the 2 sexes. Discussion focuses on the implications of our findings for the "consistency versus change" debate, the influence of gender-role socialization on SE development, and the importance of examining normative, gender-specific, and individual developmental change in SE.     

Implicit Gender Stereotypes and Essentialist Beliefs Predict Preservice Teachers’ Tracking Recommendations

This study investigated the extent to which differences in implicit and explicit math–language gender stereotypes, and essentialist beliefs among preservice teachers affect tracking recommendations for math/science- versus language-oriented secondary schools. Consistent with expectations, the results suggest that student's gender influences preservice teachers’ school career recommendations: Boys are more likely to be recommended for a math/science-oriented secondary school, whereas girls are more likely recommended for a language-oriented school. Both implicit math–language gender stereotypes and beliefs in genetic determinism (reflecting essentialist beliefs) predicted the stereotypicality of school career recommendations, whereas explicit measures did not. The results suggest that more closely investigating factors contributing to stereotypical behavior in teachers might help to minimize biased actions and decisions in the educational context.     

Do Students' Religion and School Absences Moderate the Effect of Ethnic Stereotypes on School-Placement Recommendations?

The results of two experiments demonstrate that preservice teachers made biased school-placement recommendations depending on student's ethnicity, which on average penalized students from an ethnic minority. Moreover, additional information that was supposed to disconfirm ethnic stereotypes (religious affiliation in Experiment 1, number of missed school days in Experiment 2) led to more high-track recommendations for low-achieving minority students and to fewer high-track recommendations for high-achieving minority students. Conversely, stereotype-disconfirming information exerted little or no influence on the recommendations for high-achieving native students but worsened recommendations for low-achieving students. The results were interpreted as being based either on subtyping (predominantly for minority Turkish students) or subgrouping (predominantly for majority German students) of ethnic stereotypes.