Social skills and problem behaviors as mediators of the relationship between behavioral self-regulation and academic achievement

Early behavioral self-regulation is an important predictor of the skills children need to be successful in school. However, little is known about the mechanism(s) through which self-regulation affects academic achievement. The current study investigates the possibility that two aspects of children's social functioning, social skills and problem behaviors, mediate the relationship between preschool self-regulation and literacy and math achievement. Additionally, we investigated whether the meditational processes differed for boys and girls. We expected that better self-regulation would help children to interact well with others (social skills) and minimize impulsive or aggressive (problem) behaviors. Positive interactions with others and few problem behaviors were expected to relate to gains in achievement as learning takes place within a social context. Preschool-aged children (n = 118) were tested with direct measures of self-regulation, literacy, and math. Teachers reported on children's social skills and problem behaviors. Using a structural equation modeling approach (SEM) for mediation analysis, social skills and problem behaviors were found to mediate the relationship between self-regulation and growth in literacy across the preschool year, but not math. Findings suggest that the mediational process was similar for boys and girls. These findings indicate that a child's social skills and problem behaviors are part of the mechanism through which behavioral self-regulation affects growth in literacy. Self-regulation may be important not just because of the way that it relates directly to academic achievement but also because of the ways in which it promotes or inhibits children's interactions with others.     

Sustainability and the learning virtues

Learning is important to sustainability—but how? On the dominant sustainable development picture, various kinds of learning are seen as instrumental to one’s behaving responsibly towards future generations, within a framework of present actions and ecological consequences. This whole picture of future‐oriented responsibility is radically flawed, fundamentally misrepresenting our creative engagement in change. It grossly exaggerates our powers to predict and control and licenses an endemic bad faith in the construction of sustainability goals supposedly derived from obligations to the future. This process is not only the opposite of genuine learning, but is very likely to ensure practical failure. In contrast, a model of ecological responsibility that might work will have learning not as a subsidiary and instrumental feature, but right at its core. The only way in which one really comes up against the constraint of the future is by acknowledging the demands of active learning—critical self‐awareness, exploratory‐creative commitment, and a robust tolerance for uncertainty—as virtues. The paper develops this account of the learning virtues in detail, and shows how embodying their practice across all our institutions and activities constitutes the only kind of responsibility to the future which we can genuinely exercise.     

A Whole-school Approach to Bullying

This paper focuses on issues to do with inclusion of children currently causing considerable political concern: those who are excluded from education in mainstream school or class because they are considered too disruptive or because they are thought to have ‘social, emotional or behavioural difficulties’. The critical literature on special educational needs in its recent focus on disability has tended to avoid discussion of this group, yet they form a large and increasing proportion of the population of segregated special education. Though this paper focuses on Scotland, its content has relevance to a wider audience.     

Educating American Protestant Religious Educators

The voluntarism in Protestant theologies and practices has significantly shaped the education of lay and professional Protestant religious educators in networks of voluntary and academic training programs that through the years have emphasized the interdependence of pedagogical, religious/theological, and social science theories and practices. Cultural changes in the past fifty years, however, have disrupted shared assumptions about the purposes and practices of religious education, calling for the exercise of a new ecclesial educational imagination.     

Guidelines for Citizen Action

Abstract

This paper summarizes the perceptions and behaviors regarding environmental issues of five discrete and separate groups/populations. Assessments were made to determine the difference in perceptions held by these groups between issues of greatest importance to mankind, issues of greatest personal interest, and a control issue (noise pollution) with respect to perceived levels of: importance to mankind, information held, individual locus of control, group locus of control, and self-reported environmental actions (behaviors). Findings suggest that academically oriented/environmentally allied groups perceive overpopulation as the most important issue to mankind. Further, groups with environmentally allied characteristics perceive the most important environmental issues facing mankind with a greater degree of within-group homogeneity than the groups consisting of individuals that have few environmentally allied similarities. When comparisons on the data for the variables across issues of greatest interest and a control issue were examined, it is apparent that interest in an issue was related to higher perceived levels of information, perceived importance, a more internal individual locus of control, a more internal group locus of control, and higher levels of reported citizenship action.     

Changing the environment to promote health-enhancing physical activity

Supportive environments have been used to change and influence health behaviours like smoking. While psychological and ecological theories and models demonstrate the possible influences of the environment on health-enhancing physical activity (HEPA), little is known about the effectiveness of the environmental interventions. This paper presents the results of a systematic review of studies that used environmental interventions to increase health-enhancing physical activity. Two groups of studies were found, studies that changed the physical environment by creating new HEPA facilities, policies and supporting mechanisms, and studies that used the elements of the environment as an active or sedentary ‘point of choice’, via educational materials to promote stair use. Environmental change studies showed a small increase on HEPA behaviour, but the relative impact of environment changes was not evaluated. A number of before and after studies have observed a weak effect of a simple environmental change to stimulate stair climbing while travelling or shopping. Current national policy has embraced the environment as an option for promoting health-enhancing physical activity, especially active travel, in spite of the lack of effectiveness data. It is recommended that existing or planned public health environment and HEPA initiatives should use appropriate evaluation methods to assess their efficacy and effectiveness. Further developmental research into the nature of the relationship of the environment to particular HEPA behaviours is strongly recommended before developing new environmental interventions.     

Culturally Embedded Measurement of Latino Caregivers’ Engagement in Head Start: A Tale of Two Forms of Engagement

Practice and Policy: The preschool years represent a critical time to foster family engagement in education for children growing up in poverty. Yet the ways in which Latino families with lower levels of income engage with their children’s education at home and at school might look different from how middle-income parents from the dominant U.S. culture do, depending on cultural values and beliefs about best ways to support children’s learning as well as on socioeconomic realities that present barriers for traditional forms of engagement. This study sought to examine further the psychometric functioning of a promising new measure of family engagement, developed with and for Latino Head Start families. Research Findings: Results of this study supported continued use of this measure, with clear caveats and directions for future research. Findings suggested that the ways Latino Head Start parents engage with children’s learning and development at home (e.g., supporting children’s social awareness and behavior, connection to cultural heritage, academic skills) might be a more culturally nuanced and salient form of engagement, while school-based engagement (e.g., volunteering at school, communicating with teachers) might be a more universal form. Findings contribute to understandings of Latino family engagement as well as to methodological considerations for culture-specific measurement development efforts, with relevance for early education researchers and professionals.