Warranted uncertainty and students' knowledge and use of drugs

The ability to recognize when it is warranted to be uncertain was developed effectively in 167 elementary school students through daily 15-min lessons over a 5-week period. This initial training did not deal with drug use in any way. A 3-year follow-up evaluation measured retention of these warranted-uncertainty skills, and assessed the effects of these skills on students' use of hard and soft drugs. In comparison with the matched control subjects, there was evidence of some retention after 3 years: the trained subjects were slightly better able to recognize when it is warranted to be uncertain about the effects of drugs. There was also strong evidence that many of the controls had acquired, somehow, the ability to generate warranted uncertainty, and that warranted uncertainty functioned as a stable construct (irrespective of how it was acquired) and was related to drug use. It appeared to produce a skepticism or an analytic attitude that allowed the student to ignore peer and parental dogma about drugs.     

Reasonable Errors in Basic Reasoning

Abstract Young children often make mistakes with chains of arguments. In order to understand these, we have to ask whether each step in the chain is appropriately represented. A technique for investigating this has been reported in the literature and Margaret Donaldson has put forward a suggestion as to why the children may make mistakes. The present experiment provided a test of this by removing a particular variable from the experiment, but errors were still plentiful. A possible strategy for reasoning was identified and the experimental design included one variable intended to block the operation of that strategy and another variable intended to hamper it if it occurred. Only the latter variable had a reliable effect. It is suggested that the children were coming to the wrong conclusion in rather a sensible way. A logical error does not necessarily mean that the child's method of reasoning is defective. It may mean that the child is exericising reasoning upon slightly different contents from those typically mentally represented by an adult.     

Mothers,fathers and daughters: Intergenerational transmission of education in Greece

This study explores the role of intergenerational mobility in the educational attainments of Greek women. We use data from the most recent Greek Household Budget Survey and the last three Greek censuses (1981, 1991 and 2001). For analytical and estimation purposes we utilize mobility indicators, regression analysis, decomposition techniques and conventional discrete choice models. Overall, our results point to the presence of substantial educational mobility across generations over the last 30 years. However, daughters’ educational attainment still depends, albeit to a lesser extent, on parental education and especially on mothers’ education. To address the remaining inequalities, policy needs to target families with poor parental educational and income backgrounds.     

The genre of poetry: secondary school students' conventional expectations and interpretive operations

This study examined secondary school students' knowledge of the conventions and aesthetic operations that theorists hypothesize are associated with the poetic genre. Students read texts presented visually both in the shape of poems as well as prose. The identification of a text as a poem triggered significantly more references to the conventional expectations as well as greater appreciation of aesthetic elements that add a layer of meaning. Students also spent longer thinking about the poem‐shaped texts and rated the poems as more enjoyable, challenging, emotionally engaging, and as eliciting more imagery. If poetry triggers the tendency to engage in active and meaningful thinking by guiding us to see language in new ways, it may be one more reason to include it in the secondary school English curriculum.