Vocational Anticipatory Socialization of Adolescents: Messages,Sources, and Frameworks That Influence Interest in STEM Careers

By high school, many students have dropped out of the pipeline that will lead to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) occupations. We examine the role of vocational anticipatory socialization (VAS)—the types of messages adolescents receive, message sources, and adolescents' frameworks—on youth's educational and vocational interests. Adolescents (37 focus groups, N = 229) reported that they received two types of VAS messages: personal fulfillment (advising students to prioritize their well-being) and career detail (advising students about specific aspects of an occupation). Adolescents used three career frameworks (enjoyment, ability, and goal) that filtered and often magnified VAS messages and experiences. We extend VAS research by identifying two primary purposes of the career advice embedded in VAS messages and three career frameworks. Practical implication are that parents can affect adolescents' beliefs about their abilities and potential enjoyment of STEM careers by supplementing personal fulfillment messages with career detail messages. Individuals in STEM occupations are in the best position to encourage adolescents by offering career detail, discussing how their career can be rewarding and how math and science classes can influence their career attainment.     

The Socialization of Emotion: Learning Emotion Management at the Fire Station

In a variety of fields, particularly human service occupations, the management of emotion is a precondition of employee and client well being. Based on qualitative data from participant observation and interviews, this study examines how firefighters are socialized to manage feelings and emotional displays. It concludes that firefighters recognized a need to manage their own emotions and those of their clients in order to deliver adequate service. Veteran firefighters facilitated the use of emotion labor techniques among newcomers by considering the emotion management knowledge and capabilities of job candidates during employee selection processes, providing habituated emotional events, and reinforcing customer service expectations. Newcomers actively participated in their own socialization to local emotion expectations through observational information seeking, retrospective surveillance, and performance of a normative newcomer role demeanor. The article concludes by offering practical and theoretical implications.     

Developing and executing strategy: Using the balanced scorecard for alignment and accountability

The balanced scorecard is a strategic performance management system that charts the course and evaluates the strategic goals of an organization. Practitioners in the field of performance improvement are results focused, with efforts purposefully channeled toward achievement of successful outcomes for their clients. Using a systematic and systemic approach, performance improvement practitioners are uniquely qualified to guide their practice using a balanced scorecard as a tool toward achieving measurable and results‐focused objectives.     

Activity-related typologies and longitudinal change in physical activity and sedentary time in children and adolescents: The UP&DOWN Study

BackgroundChildren and adolescents can be distinguished by different typologies (clusters) of physical activity and sedentary behavior. How physical activity and sedentary behaviors change over time within different typologies is not known. This study examined longitudinal changes in physical activity and sedentary time among children and adolescents with different baseline typologies of activity-related behavior.MethodsIn this longitudinal study (3 annual time points) of children (n = 600, age = 9.2 ± 0.4 years (mean ± SD), 50.3% girls) and adolescents (n = 1037, age = 13.6 ± 1.7 years, 48.4% girls), participants were recruited in Spain in 2011–2012. Latent class analyses identified typologies based on self-reported screen, educational, social and relaxing sedentary behaviors, active travel, muscle strengthening activity, and sport at baseline. Within each typology, linear mixed growth models explored longitudinal changes in accelerometer-derived moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and sedentary time, as well as time by class interactions.ResultsThree typologies were identified among children (“social screenies”, 12.8%; “exercisers”, 61.5%; and “non-sporty active commuters”, 25.7%) and among adolescents (“active screenies”, 43.5%; “active academics”, 35.0%; and “non-sporty active commuters”, 21.5%) at baseline. Sedentary time increased within each typology among children and adolescents, with no significant differences between typologies. No changes in physical activity were found in any typology among children. In adolescents, physical activity declined within all typologies, with “non-sporty active commuters” declining significantly more than “active screenies” over 3 years.ConclusionThese results support the need for intervention to promote physical activity and prevent increases in sedentary time during childhood and adolescence. Adolescents characterized as “non-sporty active commuters” may require specific interventions to maintain their physical activity over time.     

Enhancing early literacy skills for preschool children: bringing a professional development model to scale

A quasi-experimental, statewide intervention targeting preschool teachers' enhancement of children's language and early literacy was evaluated. Across 2 years and 20 Head Start sites, 750 teachers participated (500 target, 250 control), with 370 classrooms randomly selected to conduct pre- and posttest assessments (10 randomly selected children per class). The inability to randomize children to classrooms was addressed by examining children's performance for teachers who were control teachers in Year 1 and target teachers in Year 2. We also compared teachers with 2 years of training with teachers with 1 year of training and with control teachers. Greater gains were found for children in target classrooms than for those in control classrooms for all skills, but particularly for language skills, in Year 2, and this varied by program site. The presence of a research-based early literacy curriculum, higher levels of teacher education, and full-day versus half-day programs were significant moderators of intervention effectiveness. The challenges of implementing a statewide initiative across programs that varied in their readiness to implement a cognitively rich experience for preschool children are discussed.     

Child abuse in religiously-affiliated institutions: long-term impact on men's mental health

OBJECTIVE: To describe the long-term impact of physical and sexual abuse of boys by someone in a trusting, non-familial relationship. This clinical study reports on the psychological functioning of men (N = 76) with substantiated claims against a residential religiously-affiliated institution for multiple and severe incidents of sexual, physical, and/or emotional abuse during childhood. The abuse was perpetrated by several adults in positions of authority and trust at the institution. METHODS: Each participant received a clinical interview and was administered psychological tests and a structured interview for DSM-IV diagnoses. The same clinician completed all of the assessments. RESULTS: DSM-IV criteria were met for current PTSD (42%), alcohol (21%), and mood-related disorders (25%). Over one-third of the sample suffered chronic sexual problems, and over one half had a history of criminal behavior. CONCLUSIONS: The clinical findings provide direction for assessing victims of historical abuse, and underscore the importance of awareness, prevention, and treatment needs for those who have been abused in institutional settings. Conclusions are limited due to participants' involvement in civil action, unknown pre-existing conditions, and the lack of a suitable comparison group.     

Tracing the Transition from Study to a Contemporary Creative Working Life: The Trajectories of Professional Musicians

The classical music academy is a site dominated by traditional meanings of creative practice and an image of the professional creative career as solo performer that is fully available to only a very few students after graduating. The purpose of the study reported in this paper is to explore career-young professional pianists’ talk about the transition from study within a music academy to working life. The focus is on the ways in which they characterize the nature and significance of this transition from very traditional practice and study, and how they (re)negotiate their identities as professional musicians and pianists in contemporary working life. Four classical pianists were interviewed in-depth about their musicianship, including their transition from study to working life. The qualitative analyses presented here suggest that, as they talked about their transitions and developing musicianship, the speakers constructed, re-constructed and oriented to notions of professional trajectories. Such trajectories are emergent, relational and contextually constituted (Sawyer 2003; MacDonald and Miell 2002; Moran and John-Steiner 2004). Rather than being fixed or dependent on communal expectations, they reflect creative freedom and independence, encompassing multiple influences. Crucially, the transition from study to working life is implicated in the process of assuming agency in respect of one’s own musicianship and career—a process that involves identity work, the (re)negotiation of pathways, narrations and trajectories.     

英国初任教师支持体系探析

英国为初任教师提供支持的研究由来已久,目前已经建立了一套完善的初任教师支持体系,为教师的顺利入职和专业成长提供了高效的保障.主要表现为:系统的新教师入职培训计划,个性化的支持方案,多样化的支持机构,以及强有力的质量保证体系.探究英国初任教师支持体系建设的历程与发展,对于促进我国初任教师成长与专业化有着重要的借鉴意义.     

Exploring Grade 11 students' conceptual pathways of the particulate nature of matter in the context of multirepresentational instruction

This study investigated the conceptual pathways of 19 Grade 11 introductory chemistry students (age 16–17) as they participated in a multirepresentational instruction on the particulate nature of matter (PNM). This study was grounded in contemporary conceptual change theory, in particular, research on students' conceptual pathways that focuses on the interaction between students' existing conceptions and instruction, which might give rise to observing multiple paths. This mixed method study combined a quantitative research design with qualitative data collection and analysis methods. Data were collected through open‐ended questionnaires, interviews, and document analysis to portray the patterns of students' conceptual pathways of the PNM from pre to postinstruction to 3 months after the instruction. An interpretive analysis of the qualitative data revealed six different conceptual pathways varying between radical progress and no additional progress (stable) after the multirepresentational instruction and between stable (no change) and full decay over a 3‐month period following the instruction. The identified patterns of conceptual pathways provide information about the manner in which conceptual change occurred, as well as suggest potential implications for instructional practices. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47: 1004–1035, 2010