Panel 3: Into the Glass Darkly: Future Directions in the 21st Century

ABSTRACT

Panelists look at publishing and scholarly communications from varied perspectives and discuss possible futures for interaction between publishers, libraries, and the research university.     

An examination of the conflict resolution strategies and goals of children with depressive symptoms

The purpose of this study was to examine (a) the reports of conflict strategies and goals in response to hypothetical conflict situations, (b) generation of solutions to hypothetical conflicts, and (c) conflict in observed dyadic exchanges in children with high and low depressive symptoms. Children from Grades 4, 5, and 6 were divided into high (n = 57) and low (n = 57) depressive symptoms groups. Results indicated that the two groups differed on the types of conflict strategies but not conflict goals chosen in hypothetical social problem‐solving tasks. Also, children reporting depressive symptoms typically chose less effective strategies to solving social problems. In observed dyadic exchanges, the high depressive symptoms group employed more negative strategies than the low depressive symptoms group, but no significant differences were noted for the prosocial conflict resolution strategies exhibited. Findings and implications for children with depressive symptoms are highlighted.     

Peer Support in Negotiating Multiple Relationships within Supervision Among Counselor Education Doctoral Students

Counselor education doctoral students (CEDSs), like other doctoral students, need assistance and support to ensure their self-care. One area markedly affecting self-care is one’s relationships with others. The purpose of this article is to examine the multiple relationships involved within CEDSs supervision, the potential areas to utilize peer support, and to propose peer support as an intervention for CEDSs. The authors discuss implications for using peer support to negotiate issues such as multiple relationships while being a CEDS and propose a call for research into the use of peer support as an effective approach to managing multiple relationships.     

Observation,Perception and Education

Summaries

English

Observations and other forms of perception are fundamental to the practice of science. These involve attention to a stimulus, and discrimination and categorization of the sensory input. The available evidence indicates that perception improves with practice; that it is helped if distinctive and discriminatory features are identified and are highlighted; and that this can be done with contrasting examples. Knowledge of categories into which stimuli may be sorted, and of relevant language, may provide a framework for perception.

The interpretation of a perceptual stimulus is influenced by previously‐learned knowledge, intellectual skills and cognitive strategies, and by the person's mental set.     

An investigation of sex discrimination in the awarding of financial aid to college students

This study investigated whether or not sex discrimination existed in awarding financial aid to college students in 40 midwestern colleges and universities. It examined whether there were significant differences in financial aid awards to incoming freshmen when financial aid directors reviewed simulated aid profiles, which were identical except for the sex and a picture of the applicant. It also examined whether awards varied by type of educational institution. The results yielded no significant differences for either sex or type of institution comparisons, although there was extensive variability in the amounts awarded. If the directors react to real-life profiles as they did to the simulated ones, the federal guidelines would appear sufficient in this instance to prevent sex discrimination.     

Disruptions and bridges in rural Australia: higher education aspiration to expectation of participation

ABSTRACT

Widening higher education participation can deliver benefits to individuals, societies and economies but rural populations experience factors which inhibit their aspiration for and participation in higher education. When designing outreach programs, universities need to consider this landscape of factors, many of which are socio-cultural. This article reports evaluation results from a project that trialled three university outreach programs designed to align with rural contexts with the aim of identifying aspects which were effective in addressing factors of rurality, revealing obscured future options and showing higher education pathways as attainable. Universities can work effectively with rural communities to inform people’s higher education aspirations through ‘disruptions’, interventions that inform educational aspiration, and ‘bridges’ which support higher education participation through facilitating access to information, physical, financial, academic and social resources. A model including both ‘disruptions’ and ‘bridges’, jointly resourced and drawing on social capital resources of communities and higher education institutions is presented.     

But can she cook? Women’s education and housework productivity

Previous inquiries into the relationship between education and housework productivity reveal that expectations differ along disciplinary (i.e., economics vs. non-economics) lines and empirical results from the economics literature are mixed. Expectations of a positive sign between education and housework productivity in the economics literature may be a function of misinterpretations of [J. Polit. Economy 81 (1973) 306] original theory pertaining to all non-market production, which is far more general than just housework. Mixed empirical results may be a function of incomplete or overly assumption-reliant econometric models derived previously. We streamline the procedures for estimating the parameters of a one-person, one-period housework production function such that the system of equations may be specified with a single, literature-based assumption. Our estimation of the production function parameter that measures the effect of education on housework productivity suggests that authors in the non-economics literature may have a point; the relationship between education and housework productivity may be negative due to “morale” effects.     

Focus in creative learning: drawing on art for language development

This article asks what happens to the learning of young children when they work regularly with a professional visual artist in their school. Through Creative Partnerships, a national programme initiated in 2002 to bring creative professionals into schools across England, some school children have had the opportunity for sustained project work with artists. Examined here is the context in which children (ages 4, 5, 6 and 7) worked one day a week during the academic year of 2003–2004 with Roy Smith, resident artist in Hythe Community School. Key to the children's drawing, painting and talking was close focused attention on details of three‐dimensional objects, portraits, still‐life works and their own creations. Smith's conversations with the children routinely included three and four‐syllable technical terms, biographical details of artists' lives and comparative critiques. Within several months, the art of the children reflected understanding of concepts such as foregrounding, and they showed confidence in working with problems Smith set up for them (“What do you think would happen if …?”). Particularly important here is the combination of manual and linguistic work that demands attention to detail, receptive understanding of complex terms and processes, and familiarity with the analytical and sequential thinking needed to identify and solve problems.     

Needed a Professional Identity: Aces or Jokers?

The ASCA statement on the role of the school counselor is a reification. As a generalist the counselor dissipates his professional identity. Institutional restraints on the job and upon the campus lead to incompetence in counseling practice and a pervasive belief that counseling is ineffective. A suggested alleviation of this problem specifically involves the abandonment of the teaching experience requirement, increasing counselor education staff commitment to counseling, and the introduction of a paid internship for counselor candidates. Two specialists are recommended to replace the present guidance model: A Counselor-Consultant and a Career Information Specialist.