Cortisol in Neonatal Mother's Milk Predicts Later Infant Social and Cognitive Functioning in Rhesus Monkeys

Milk provides not only the building blocks for somatic development but also the hormonal signals that contribute to the biopsychological organization of the infant. Among mammals, glucocorticoids (GCs) in mother's milk have been associated with infant temperament. This study extended prior work to investigate rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta) mother–infant dyads (N = 34) from birth through 8 months postpartum. Regression analysis revealed that cortisol concentrations in milk during the neonatal period predicted impulsivity on a cognitive task, but not global social behaviors, months later. During this time period, sex‐differentiated social behavior emerged. For female infants, milk cortisol concentrations predicted total frequency of play. Collectively, these findings support and extend the “lactational programming” hypothesis on the impact of maternal‐origin hormones ingested via milk.     

Does the Empirical Literature Inform Prevention of Dropout among Students with Emotional Disturbance? A Systematic Review and Call to Action

For the past 30 years, the dropout rate for students with emotional disturbance has hovered around 50%, a rate substantially higher than the dropout rate for students with other disabilities and the general population. This systematic review evaluated the literature published between 1990 and 2013 on the effectiveness of dropout prevention and intervention for students with emotional disturbance. Only one experimental or quasi-experimental study tested a dropout prevention program with students with emotional disturbance meeting the methodological criteria for this review. The results reveal a dearth of research-based strategies or programs to support high school completion among students with emotional disturbance, underscoring the need for rigorous intervention research to improve outcomes for these students. We discuss implications for research and practice in light of this research gap.     

Instructional practices of teachers enrolled in educational technology and general education programs

This study investigated classroom practices of 38 teachers enrolled in university masters' degree programs in educational technology and in other areas of education. The classroom practices related to five key concepts associated with educational technology: (a) learner-centered instruction, (b) instructional design, (c) media and technology, (d) assessment, and (e) instructional alignment. Teachers rated their frequency of use of desirable practices in these five areas on a 30-item Likert type survey. In addition, one class of students per teacher rated its own teacher's frequency of use of the practices on 20 items parallel to items on the teacher survey. The mean overall rating across all teachers for the classroom practice items was very close to Often, or 4.0, on the 5-point scale. There were few reported differences between the teachers enrolled in educational technology programs and those enrolled in other education programs. Student ratings indicated less frequent teacher use of the desirable practices on 16 of the 20 common items, with significantly lower student ratings on 8 of these items. However, there was strong teacher-student agreement on several other comparisons.The study reported in this article was conducted as a doctoral dissertation at Arizona State University.     

Museums and Indigenous People in Australia: A Review of Previous Possessions,New Obligations: Policies for Museums in Australia and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples

Previous Possessions, New Obligations was launched by Museums Australia Inc. in 1993, the International Year for the World's Indigenous People, as a policy framework to guide the development of relationships between museums in Australia and Indigenous Australians. The policy was based on consultation with Indigenous people to develop protocols, policies and procedures for more sensitive collection management and for including Indigenous people in research and public programs; and to address issues of governance. It expressed the values that would underpin new relationships between museums in Australia and Indigenous Australians. An evaluation of the policy was conducted in 2000 in a collaboration between the Australian Museum Audience Research Centre, Sydney, and Museums Australia Inc., Canberra. The evaluation found that the policy had substantially met its goals, particularly in establishing the primary rights of Indigenous people to control their cultural material in museum collections. However, a range of substantially new issues emerged which require new policy responses and initiatives.     

The influence of grandparents’ social class on children’s aspirations

Social class mobility from grandparent to grandchild is a relatively neglected topic. Grandparents today are often healthier and more active, and have longer relationships with their grandchildren than in previous generations. We used data from the UK’s Millennium Cohort Study (n = 8570) to investigate the influence of maternal and paternal grandparents’ social class on the aspirations of children at age seven. Using path analysis and controlling for family income, mother’s and father’s education, lone motherhood, and child’s ethnicity and gender, we found very small direct effects from the paternal grandmother’s social class to the grandchild’s classed aspirations, and small, indirect effects, via parents’ class, of grandparents’ class on child’s classed aspirations. Multi-group analyses found few differences by ethnicity and gender. There was no evidence that, at this age, mixed-class parentage raises the aspirations of working-class children (the ‘sunken middle-class’ hypothesis).     

Salience of Emotional Intelligence as a Core Characteristic of Being a Counselor

The authors investigated the association between emotional intelligence and counseling self‐efficacy. Participants were 140 counseling students and practicing counselors who completed the Emotional Judgment Inventory and the Counseling Self‐Estimate Inventory. Emotional intelligence differentiated counselors from noncounselors (Mdn d = .6650) but provided mixed results in differentiating counseling students and counselors. Moreover, the emotional intelligence factors Identifying Own Emotions, Expressing Emotions Adaptively, and Using Emotions in Problem Solving successfully predicted counseling self‐efficacy of both counseling students and practicing counselors (R = .537). Emotional intelligence may be another marker for individuals exploring professional counseling as a career and for improving students' counseling self‐efficacy.