Ugandan adolescents’ sources,interpretation and evaluation of sexual content in entertainment media programming

Although mounting evidence in Western nations indicates that entertainment media influence young people’s sexual socialisation, virtually no research has addressed the topic in sub-Saharan Africa. The present study employed 14 focus groups of Ugandan high school students to identify media through which they were exposed to sexual content, how they interpreted and evaluated that content, and how they compared its influence with that of parents, schools and religious institutions. Participants most often mentioned TV, followed by print media and Internet as sources of sexual material. Media were said to present discrepant messages regarding the timing of sexual debut, with international programming urging early sexual debut and local programming described as urging young people to delay sex. Young people spoke of turning to ssengas and kojjas for sexual advice, and a number of boys suggested pornography could also be educational. Both local and international programming was interpreted as conveying views of men as sex driven and women as submissive in sex and relationships. Participants expressed the belief that sexual media content had a negative impact on young people. Most nevertheless assessed these messages as more influential than other sources of sexual socialisation.     

Development and testing of a prenatal breastfeeding education intervention for Hispanic women

Many immigrant Hispanic women in the United States choose to bottle-feed rather than breastfeed. This article describes an intervention that was developed and tested in a two-step process. Two studies were undertaken. First, a qualitative inquiry explored the breastfeeding beliefs, attitudes, meanings, and practices of Hispanic women. Results informed the design of a culturally appropriate prenatal breastfeeding education intervention. Secondly, the researchers undertook a quantitative study of the intervention's success in increasing breastfeeding duration among Hispanic women. Methodology and findings of this study have implications for future interventions that promote breastfeeding.     

Touching creativity; a review and early pilot test of haptic tooling to support design practice,within a distance learning curriculum

ABSTRACT

Machine haptics has been shown to assist and enhance human–computer interactions. Research from previous studies in the field of haptics has focused on developing a user’s sense of realism of touch when using a haptic device. This paper examines the use of haptics for education, specifically for creative online education. The paper is presented in two parts. First, a review of literature was conducted and used to aid the rationale and underpin the design of a pilot test. Second, a pilot test was designed using a single-point kinaesthetic haptic device with a haptic rendered interface, to support the assembly of a virtual design prototype. The pilot test proved to be extremely valuable in creating and developing a rich virtual environment for non-sighted and sighted participants to use. The results from the initial pilot test showed that although users were positive about their experience of using the haptic device, there were improvements to be made to the interface to enhance the user experience in the next phase of testing.     

Diversity in New Zealand early childhood education: challenges and opportunities

The early childhood education (ECE) sector in New Zealand has long been recognised for the diversity of service types and range of organisations involved in delivering ECE. However, less attention has been paid to diversity within individual ECE services. This article draws on a national survey carried out as part of a larger project, The Diversity of Diversity in Early Childhood Education, focusing on teachers’ perceptions of challenges and successes encountered when working with children from diverse family backgrounds. Educators’ attitudes towards diversity clearly influence whether they perceive working with diverse children and families positively or as a challenge. We argue that possessing positive dispositions and attitudes that enable educators to truly welcome, acknowledge and embrace diversity, together with access to professional knowledge and support services, are critical. The implications of this for policy and practice are then considered.     

The CS− effect in simple conditioning and stimulus selection during development

Changes in affect toward a particular stimulus can take place very rapidly through Pavlovian conditioning, if presentation of the conditioned stimulus (CS+) paired with the unconditioned stimulus (US) is accompanied by presentation of a “CS?,” another value of the same dimension as the CS+ but not paired with a US. This effect has considerable generality. It has been observed in terms of both olfactory and visual CSs, in terms of appetitive as well as aversive conditioning, and for adult as well as infant rats. The CS? effect has seemed especially important for infants, which may be related to the general tendency for infants to exhibit less stimulus selection than older animals. Finally, the CS? effect has enabled the development of a simple test of short-term retention that can quite effectively assess memory for either incidental or target events. These tests so far have indicated a clear ontogenetic decrease in rate of forgetting over short intervals, corresponding to the well-known development-related decrease in forgetting over long intervals (infantile amnesia). The tests also have shown that short-term forgetting of intentional and target events is surprisingly similar, with some indication of more rapid forgetting for the incidental events. Alternative interpretations of the CS? effect and some preliminary tests of these interpretations are discussed.