Gender inequalities in transnational academic mobility and the ideal type of academic entrepreneur

Based on a study on academic career paths of PhD graduates in Switzerland, this paper is concerned with the individual and institutional factors that affect transnational academic mobility in the postdoctoral period. It will be argued that the institutionalisation of geographic mobility in academic career paths through research funding institutions and universities have gendering and stratifying effects. Complex formations related to gender, partnership, children, and dual-career constellations, as well as to social class and academic integration, are resulting in inequalities in the accumulation of international cultural and social capital.     

Early Crying,Sleeping, and Feeding Problems and Trajectories of Attention Problems From Childhood to Adulthood

This study investigated if crying, sleeping or feeding problems that co-occur (multiple regulatory problems [RPs]) or are persistent predict attention problems and diagnoses of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in childhood and adulthood. Participants were 342 individuals who were assessed at 5, 20, and 56 months for crying, sleeping, and feeding (RPs) and at 6, 8, and 28 years for ADHD diagnoses, attention problems, and attention span. Infants/toddlers with multiple/persistent RPs had an increased risk of receiving an ADHD diagnosis both in childhood and adulthood compared to those who never had RPs. Multiple/persistent RPs were further associated with a high-decreasing attention problems trajectory from childhood to adulthood. Interventions to alleviate early RPs may prevent the development of attention problems.     

‘Testing,testing, testing… can you hear me?’

This article draws on material that formed part of a project entitled ‘Sustaining Pupils’ Progress at Year 3'¹. One area that emerged as significant early in the project was the practice and the place of assessment. The project found a high increase in testing and other forms of assessment during Year 3 designed in part to facilitate progress. This article poses the question of whether we can learn from hearing what pupils have to say about their experience of assessment and concludes that, given the language with which to discuss and understand the processes they experience, children's views can indeed be of value as schools focus on ways to sustain learning     

What did schools experience from participating in a randomised controlled study (PLAY) that prioritised risk and challenge in active play for children while at school?

‘Risky’ play is an important component of play, which positively affects the cognitive, social and emotional development of children. However, a growing culture of ‘risk aversion’ may be limiting the degree of risk that children are allowed to encounter. We undertook qualitative interviews with eight schools to examine the acceptability of an intervention designed to increase risk and challenge in the school playground (e.g. more rough-and-tumble play and tree climbing). Schools were overwhelmingly positive about the approach and all enjoyed participating. Each school believed many benefits occurred from increasing risk and challenge within play, including better behaviour, improved cooperation between children and increases in physical activity. There were some challenges for schools, but these were generally research related, and all were viewed as acceptable. Indeed, schools found the process enlightening, and upon completion of the two-year intervention often viewed play in quite a different light.     

Teachers' stories: physical education teachers' constructions and experiences of masculinity within secondary school physical education

Physical education (PE) and sport have traditionally been identified by scholars as a key mechanism for the production and reproduction of a culturally esteemed ideal of masculinity, premised upon being stoic, strong, competitive, sexist and homophobic. Yet, more recent research reflects a change in valued masculinity as a response to declining cultural homohysteria. As such, this preliminary study looks to establish how PE teachers understand and construct masculinities within the educational environment. Through in-depth interviews, we find participants recognised many elements of softer masculinities, described in inclusive masculinities literature, as being performed by contemporary teenagers. This includes being emotionally open, embracing a more effeminate taste in dress and being increasingly physically tactile. However, we also found that the PE teachers have a cohort variance in their masculine values, with those socialised in sport through the 1980s showing the most orthodox and oppressive views.     

Despicable Others: Animated Othering as Equipment for Living in the Era of Trump

This essay comparatively examines U.S.-Russian and U.S.-Mexican interculturality in the Despicable Me movie franchise. We argue that cultural transformations of the main protagonists – Russian Gru and Mexican El Macho – are politically significant cases of U.S.-Russian and U.S.-Mexican interculturality, reflected and constructed by popular culture in general, and by animated cartoons in particular. Conceptualizing and analyzing animation as “equipment for living,” we demonstrate how these cases serve as epistemological and pedagogical tools of confirming U.S.-dominant ideology, and discursively and visually constructing (Russian and Mexican) Others the way that they are currently understood and treated in (the non-fictional) U.S. society.     

How Adults’ Actions,Outcomes, and Testimony Affect Preschoolers’ Persistence

Across four experiments, we looked at how 4- and 5-year-olds' (n = 520) task persistence was affected by observations of adult actions (high or low effort), outcomes (success or failure), and testimony (setting expectations—“This will be hard,” pep talks—“You can do this,” value statements—“Trying hard is important,” and baseline). Across experiments, outcomes had the biggest impact: preschoolers consistently tried harder after seeing the adult succeed than fail. Additionally, adult effort affected children’s persistence, but only when the adult succeeded. Finally, children’s persistence was highest when the adult both succeeded and practiced what she preached: exerting effort while testifying to its value.     

Reexamining spatial ability within a Piagetian framework

The goal of this study was to identify and examine results of Piagetian spatial research studies. For inclusion in this review, the studies had to (a) entail individual clinical interviews, (b) involve the manipulation of objects and explanation of answers by subjects, (c) offer written protocols and scoring criteria, and (d) provide documentation of male and female results. Involving over 7,600 individualized clinical interviews, the primary problem focused on whether gender differences existed in Piagetian spatial assessments and, if so, discussion of the significance and implications of the differences. Twenty-three studies assessing for 22 topologic, Euclidean, and projective spatial structures were reviewed and total male and female results compiled. A chi-square test for two independent samples showed that the majority of performance assessments did not demonstrate a significant difference between males and females. Males significantly outperformed females on 8 of the 22 spatial structure tasks. However, as with other gender studies, similarities between male and female performances far outweighed any differences. The clinical interview results provide evidence to support the overall poor spatial ability of both males and females. Educational practices designated to improve spatial abilities should not be a female-only endeavor. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

When socialists marketize: the case of China’s wind power market sector

This paper analyzes China’s attempt at maintaining and stabilizing the market framing of wind power development as ‘sustainable.’ Drawing on mixed data and new directions in the social studies of marketization, the analysis focuses on the Chinese government’s responses to the ‘quality crisis’ in the wind turbine industry. Employing five types of framing – goods, marketizing agencies, market encounters, price-setting, and market design and maintenance – the paper sheds light on flexible government interventions to steer the socio-technical assemblage around wind power towards a ‘turn to quality.’ In essence, this is a study of market construction in the context of Chinese wind power experiments. The paper contributes to new directions in market studies by (1) demonstrating the importance of attending to the contested algorithmic transformation of wind resources to wind power; (2) taking market studies to a transitional and developmental context, which renders marketization prone to constant overflowing; and (3) elucidating a particular Chinese model of experimental market construction ‘through embracing overflowing.’ The paper proposes new trajectories for future market studies with a focus on non-Western contexts, to reveal the wide variety of how marketization unfolds.