Listening to young people with autism: learning from researcher experiences

This study explores the opportunities and dilemmas that have been encountered by researchers seeking the views of young people with autism. Twelve researchers were interviewed about their experiences in this field. Through exploration of the complex methodological and ethical issues that they encountered, this study aims to better understand how researchers can improve the way they listen to, and engage with, the views of children and young people with autism. This article discusses four themes that emerged from the interviews: power dynamics; building rapport; communication; and meaningful processes and outputs.     

Independent learning crossing cultures: learning cultures and shifting meanings

This paper contrasts the notion of ‘independent learning’ as perceived by two informant groups at a UK institution of higher education: (1) teachers, educators and providers of education and (2) their students or ‘consumers’ of education. Both informant groups are staff and students studying in a culture different to that of their first education. They are identified in their receiving institution as ‘international’, or have identified themselves as such. The experience of transition into a UK University was explored with both informant groups, through interviews and focus groups, over a cycle of two years. ‘Independent learning’ as rhetoric and practice emerged for both groups as an issue in their transition from familiar to unfamiliar learning culture. Three key insights emerged. Firstly, a mismatch is identified between teacher perceptions and student interpretation of ‘independent learning’ expectations and practice. Secondly, it emerges that student experience of the learning culture is in a state of continuous flux, evolving between first arrival and end of programme through cycles of bafflement and empowerment. Finally, both students and teachers identify a number of strategies for dealing with this experience of ‘transitional’ independence. The paper concludes by recommending a notion of ‘phased scaffolding’ that might inform educational practice and by reflecting on the implications for the educator in revisiting received educational discourse from the perspective of participants negotiating a second learning culture.     

Review and criticism

Selected legal decisions of 1981

Media and the Russian Publicy, Ellen Propper Mickiewicz (New York: Praeger, 1981).

Media Power Politics, David L. Paletz and Robert M. Entman (New York: The Free Press, 1981).

Politics As Communication, Robert G. Meadow (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1980).     

The mass media and young people

The study reported below analyzes differences in mass media attention behavior in Des Moines school children in 1950 and 1958. It is interesting to compare its findings with those of Edwin Parker, starting on page 39 of this issue of the Journal.     

Dialogic voices in talk about drinking and pregnancy

Alcohol use during pregnancy poses a significant risk of fetal alcohol syndrome. This study presents the interpretive findings of the formative research phase of a funded grant to develop a community‐based public health media campaign on the topic of drinking during pregnancy. In the initial wave of data collection, 50 rural women were recruited from four Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) clinics in southeastern Iowa to participate in semi‐structured interviews. In the second wave, 10 additional WIC clients were interviewed for member‐checking purposes. Findings revealed two competing discourses that organized these women's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors surrounding drinking and pregnancy: the discourse of individualism and the discourse of responsible motherhood. These two discourses offer opposing normative guidelines for talk among their close female relatives and friends. The implications of these findings for designing a community‐based media campaign are discussed.     

Special section on understanding and improving quality in family child care: Introduction and commentary

This introduction to the special section on understanding and improving quality in family, child care gives an overview of the eight papers included in the special section with implications for, future research and policy directions.     

Attribution‐based strategies for initiating and terminating friendships

Research in attribution theory has almost exclusively focused on the perception process to the neglect of studying how communicators incorporate attribution‐based information in their message behavior. This study derived a typology of attribution‐based strategies from Kelley's attribution cube and Jones' ingratiation tactics to assess respondent strategies for initiating and for terminating same‐sex friendships. Respondents were 191 persons drawn from fifth grade, high school, college, and post‐college groups. Results of the study included: 1) distinctiveness information was disproportionately employed in the strategy repertoires to the neglect of consistency‐based and consensus‐based information; 2) respondents had greater variety in types of strategies for their initiation repertoires as opposed to their termination repertoires; 3) repertoire variety for both initiation and termination increased from childhood through adolescence.