Recognition of facial emotions among maltreated children with high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is to examine processing of facial emotions in a sample of maltreated children showing high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Maltreatment during childhood has been associated independently with both atypical processing of emotion and the development of PTSD. However, research has provided little evidence indicating how high rates of PTSD might relate to maltreated children's processing of emotions. METHOD: Participants' reaction time and labeling of emotions were measured using a morphed facial emotion identification task. Participants included a diverse sample of maltreated children with and without PTSD and controls ranging in age from 8 to 15 years. Maltreated children had been removed from their homes and placed in state custody following experiences of maltreatment. Diagnoses of PTSD and other disorders were determined through combination of parent, child, and teacher reports. RESULTS: Maltreated children displayed faster reaction times than controls when labeling emotional facial expressions, and this result was most pronounced for fearful faces. Relative to children who were not maltreated, maltreated children both with and without PTSD showed enhanced response times when identifying fearful faces. There was no group difference in labeling of emotions when identifying different facial emotions. CONCLUSIONS: Maltreated children show heightened ability to identify fearful faces, evidenced by faster reaction times relative to controls. This association between maltreatment and atypical processing of emotion is independent of PTSD diagnosis.     

The Things Girls Shouldn't See: Relocating the penis in sex education in Hong Kong

This article reports on how young women in Hong Kong relate to the penis. A total of nine focus group interviews were conducted at the University of Hong Kong to enable participants to reflect on and talk about their 'experience of the penis'. It is found that despite society's various attempts to restrict their access to the penis, it is very much present and available to the young women in Hong Kong. While most of the participants reported the normative response of disgust, which was expected as part of the 'proper femininity', positive experiences of the penis characterised by agency, mastery and fulfilment were also reported. Some of the things they do, such as watching an exhibitionist or actively consuming sexually explicit materials and pornography, subvert the discursive practice of positioning women as passive sexual objects. It is believed that with more open access to knowledge and experience, women will stand a better chance of achieving a more agentive relationship, not only with the penis as a potential transitional object in intimate relationships, but also with their own sexuality.     

Homo Economicus at School: Neoliberal Education and Teacher as Economic Being

This article extends the ongoing critique of neoliberalism's encroachment upon public education by highlighting how neoliberal ideas such individualism, accountability, governmentality, and the marketization of public life are recasting teachers today primarily as competitive economic beings. I contend that teachers are increasingly compelled to act as modern homo economici, working in an education system that conforms to the rules of the neoliberal market. As such, teachers are incentivized to act as self-entrepreneurs, rational individuals who are beholden to a governmentality that requires them to be accountable to the strictures of the neoliberal market. The neoliberal transformation of public schools has led to teaching becoming a strictly controlled and hyperindividualized entrepreneurial activity that compels teachers to focus on their own productivity, while rendering them eminently governable beings.     

‘Freedom can only exist in an ordered state’: harmony and civic education in Singapore

This paper uses the concept of stories of peoplehood to examine how the Singapore government has constructed a story of harmony and to consider how this story has influenced two important school subjects focused on civic education: Social Studies and Character and Citizenship Education. Stories of peoplehood, including constitutive, economic and political power stories, play a central role in the political project of people-making which involves defining the nature of membership in a political community and promoting a collective political identity. This study provides an alternative way of conceptualizing the goals and curriculum content of civic education and it also offers an example of how a nation state with a strong Confucian tradition has chosen to address the educational goal of living together through the promotion of values such as social cohesion and community relationships within a story of harmony. The study also shows how Singapore political leaders construct a narrow and limited discourse of harmony within the curricula and use it to legitimize policies that privilege particular groups, limit political freedoms, marginalize groups with less power or status, and circumscribe the kinds of actions a citizen can legitimately take.     

Online Schooling in the United States: A Response to Saultz and Fusarelli

In this paper, we discuss some concerns and recommendations of Saultz and Fusarelli (2017), offering nuanced and detailed views of online schooling from a different perspective. This includes addressing challenges regarding online learning such as fluctuating enrollments, financial concerns, quality assurance, and accountability. In addition, we propose recommendations related to funding, better quality data, and oversight and monitoring. We conclude with a short discussion of the need for differentiated research for specific online learning contexts.     

中药的新面貌

东京——流行病学专家长期以来一直疑心，中国东南部癌症发病率低是由于那里的人们喜欢食用薏苡(车前子，一种类似玉米的禾本科植物植物)，此地区的人们喜欢将薏仁作为饭食的成分，薏苡也是许多中药的关键成分之一。但没有人比药理学家李大鹏更确信薏苡的作用。李大鹏自1975年就开始从这种植物的种子中提取抗癌药物，20年后，     

The treatment of uncertainty in the sciences

For some 300 years the modelling of uncertainty in the sciences has been totally dominated by probabilistic methods. Now, following major criticism of the theoretical foundations of probability theory, other approaches to dealing with uncertainty are being explored.     

“So, where do they fit in?” Teachers’ perspectives of multi-cultural education and diversity in Singapore

This qualitative study attends to six Singaporean teachers’ experiences of diversity and understanding of multicultural education to illuminate the influence of national policies and narratives on teachers’ perceptions and practice. These cases illustrate that, beyond reflection on identity and diversity, there is a need for teachers to examine how political, cultural, and economic principles have shaped their understanding of diversity and multicultural education. The authors discuss findings in light of socio-political constraints faced by Singapore teachers and forward implications for teacher education.     

From learning to labour to learning for marginality: school segregation and marginalization in Swedish suburbs

In this article, using data from ethnographic research, we try to present some glimpses of the way education is described as an experience and possibility ‘from below’, by pupils who grow up and study in schools in the most segregated and territorially stigmatized suburbs on the outskirts of our major cities. What we feel they describe is an experience of schooling for surviving the social and economic consequences of curtailed citizenship in a post‐industrial society rather than one of schooling that offers possibilities of integration and full citizenship or social transformation. Our findings have significant policy implications in this respect. Sweden has historically pursued projects aimed at educational inclusion but has recently taken a significant turn toward neo‐liberalism and educational consumerism, since which time various disadvantaged groups have become increasingly concentrated compared with others in under‐achieving schools in an economically threatened public sector. The article discusses some aspects and possible consequences of this development.