Developmental Relations Among Behavioral Inhibition,Anxiety, and Attention Biases to Threat and Positive Information

This study examined relations between behavioral inhibition (BI) assessed in toddlerhood (n = 268) and attention biases (AB) to threat and positive faces and maternal‐reported anxiety assessed when children were 5‐ and 7‐year‐old. Results revealed that BI predicted anxiety at age 7 in children with AB toward threat, away from positive, or with no bias, at age 7; BI did not predict anxiety for children displaying AB away from threat or toward positive. Five‐year AB did not moderate the link between BI and 7‐year anxiety. No direct association between AB and BI or anxiety was detected; moreover, children did not show stable AB across development. These findings extend our understanding of the developmental links among BI, AB, and anxiety.     

Nonshared environmental influences on individual differences in early behavioral development: a monozygotic twin differences study

The monozygotic (MZ) twin differences method was used to investigate nonshared environmental (NSE) influences independent of genetics. Four-year-old MZ twin pairs (N = 2,353) were assessed by their parents on 2 parenting measures (harsh parental discipline and negative parental feelings) and 4 behavioral measures (anxiety, prosocial behavior, hyperactivity, and conduct problems). Within-pair differences in parenting correlated significantly with MZ differences in behavior, with an average effect size of 3%. For the extreme 10% of the parenting-discordant and behavior-discordant distributions, the average NSE effect size was substantially greater (11%), suggesting a stronger NSE relationship for more discordant twins. NSE relationships were also stronger in higher risk environments, that is, families with lower socioeconomic status, greater family chaos, or greater maternal depression.     

Adolescent prosocial behavior: the role of self-processes and contextual cues

Peer- and teacher-reported prosocial behavior of 339 6th-grade (11-12 years) and 8th-grade (13-14 years) students was examined in relation to prosocial goals, self-processes (reasons for behavior, empathy, perspective taking, depressive affect, perceived competence), and contextual cues (expectations of peers and teachers). Goal pursuit significantly predicted prosocial behavior, and goal pursuit provided a pathway by which reasons for behavior were related to behavior. Reasons reflected external, other-focused, self-focused, and internal justifications for behavior; each reason was related to a unique set of self-processes and contextual cues. Associations between prosocial outcomes and sex and race (Caucasian and African American) were mediated in part by self-processes and contextual cues. The implications of studying prosocial behavior from a motivational perspective are discussed.     

Coteaching and Disturbances: Building a Better System for Learning to Teach Science

Science education research has examined the benefits of coteaching for learning to teach in elementary and secondary school contexts where coteachers bring variable levels of experience to the work of coteaching. Coteaching as a pedagogical strategy is being implemented at the university level but with limited research. Drawing from the field of activity theory and our emic experience as coteachers, we examine the enactment of coteaching in university science education courses. One of the tools central to our examination of coteaching included the analysis of disturbances in the work and object of preparing science teachers. This analysis highlighted the role, during discursive interactions, of problem posing and problem solving for addressing observed disturbances. The presence of an extra instructor provided increased opportunities in the system for recognizing and valuing disturbances as indicators of underlying contradictions or tensions in elements of the activity system of the learning and teaching of science teachers. Our analysis suggests that coteaching offers expanded opportunities for the evolution of the activity system of preparing science teachers.     

Gender differences in positive social–emotional functioning

We investigated gender differences of children and adolescents on positive social and emotional competencies using a new strength‐based measure of positive social–emotional attributes and resilience—the Social–Emotional Assets and Resilience Scales (SEARS) cross‐informant system. Caregivers, teachers, and students in grades kindergarten through 12 from schools across several U.S. states completed SEARS rating scales and self‐report forms. Females were consistently rated as having significantly higher total scores on all versions of the SEARS assessment system (p < .01), indicating consistent perceptions of females' higher levels of social–emotional competencies by all raters. These differences were not impacted by the grade students were in or the gender of the parent or teacher rater. Implications of these findings and future directions are discussed. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Institutional separation in schools of education: Understanding the functions of space in general and special education teacher preparation

The purpose of this spatial study is to understand the function space play in a combined credential program in the US in helping or hindering the program’s inclusive mission. The study examines how physical and social manifestations of general and special education are (re)organized in the new program. The data provides evidence for the pervasive separation between general and special education within the new program. This study points to the importance of examining space in relation to teacher education reform as a way to highlight where policy, institutional, programmatic, physical, and pedagogic changes are needed to support inclusive teacher preparation.     

Dark matter: the ‘gravitational pull’ of maternalist discourses on politicians’ decision making for early childhood policy in Australia

The article reports on a study investigating influences on Australian politicians’ decision making for early childhood education and care (ECEC) policy. The astronomical concept of dark matter is utilised as a metaphor for considering normalising, and therefore frequently difficult to detect and disrupt, influences implicated in politicians’ decision making for ECEC policy. The concept of dark matter connects with and extends Foucauldian conceptualisations of knowledge, power and discourse. The paper argues that maternalist discourses continue to shape the policy landscape for ECEC, though these are largely unacknowledged.     

Investigating Undergraduate Science Students’ Conceptions and Misconceptions of Ocean Acidification

Scientific research exploring ocean acidification has grown significantly in past decades. However, little science education research has investigated the extent to which undergraduate science students understand this topic. Of all undergraduate students, one might predict science students to be best able to understand ocean acidification. What conceptions and misconceptions of ocean acidification do these students hold? How does their awareness and knowledge compare across disciplines? Undergraduate biology, chemistry/biochemistry, and environmental studies students, and science faculty for comparison, were assessed on their awareness and understanding. Results revealed low awareness and understanding of ocean acidification among students compared with faculty. Compared with biology or chemistry/biochemistry students, more environmental studies students demonstrated awareness of ocean acidification and identified the key role of carbon dioxide. Novel misconceptions were also identified. These findings raise the question of whether undergraduate science students are prepared to navigate socioenvironmental issues such as ocean acidification.     

Early Behavioral Inhibition and Emotion Regulation: Pathways Toward Social Competence in Middle Childhood

This study examined emotion regulation (ER) as a mediator in the relation between early behavioral inhibition (BI) and later social competence (N = 257), and whether this mediation varied depending on BI levels. Maternal report and observational measures were used to assess BI (ages 2 and 3). Children's ER strategies (age 5) and social competence with an unfamiliar peer (age 7) were measured using observational measures. Results showed that BI predicted less engaged ER strategies during a disappointment task, and engaged ER predicted higher social competence. Engaged ER mediated the effect of BI on social competence, but only for highly inhibited children. Findings elucidate developmental trajectories of risk and resilience, and suggest targeting regulatory strategies in early prevention efforts with highly inhibited children.     

A pedagogy of belonging: troubling encounters with ethnic and religious difference

Understanding the construction of belonging, and how unbelonging might be troubled, is critical work. For schools in many parts of the world one of the many challenges of globalisation is the task of teaching with, and for, ethnic and cultural diversity. This paper examines the exclusionary practices of teaching that construct ethnic and religious minority students in states of unbelonging. These practices are due, in part, to teachers’ failure to really know their students. Alongside this argument, discourses of belonging in rural schools that speak to possibilities for everyday place-sharing for ethnic and religious minority students are examined. Simple and common moments of mutual recognition and understanding speak to the possibilities for belonging that are opened up in everyday relations of knowing. The implications of these ideas for teachers and teacher education in what is framed as a ‘pedagogy of belonging’ are considered.