Cartoon Violence: Is It as Detrimental to Preschoolers as We Think?

It is a commonly accepted belief that the violence depicted in television programs, particularly cartoons, has a negative impact on young children's behavior. However, young children may be less inclined to emulate violent actions seen on television than currently thought. Research indicates that preschoolers have limited comprehension of television content but relatively sophisticated moral reasoning. This research review critically examines the effects of cartoon violence on children's moral understanding and behavior for the purposes of enabling early childhood educators and parents to make informed decisions about what constitutes potentially harmful television viewing.     

From Skepticism to Scholarship: Learning and Living Self-Study Research in a Doctoral Seminar

Teacher education doctoral seminars can provide a space for students to collaborate, reflect and support each other as they transition from teacher to teacher educator. These spaces also provide a forum for the learning of new research methodologies. This collaborative self-study chronicles how one group of doctoral students learned self-study research and fostered a scholarly identity in a doctoral seminar focused on learning about teacher education practices through self-study research. The participants shared autobiographies, journals, and critical summaries of assigned readings, and they questioned each other’s understanding and development in the context of their shared experiences. Through this process, they overcame concerns regarding self-study as they developed their understanding of the components of self-study research and accepted their new role as self-study researchers. This study provides insights into the benefits of using doctoral seminars as a space to develop a scholarly identity and for using that space as a source of investigation. Implications for similar communities are also discussed.     

Disrupting the Past to Disrupt the Future: An Antenarrative of Technical Communication

This article presents an antenarrative of the field of technical and professional communication. Part methodology and part practice, an antenarrative allows the work of the field to be reseen, forges new paths forward, and emboldens the field’s objectives to unabashedly embrace social justice and inclusivity as part of its core narrative. The authors present a heuristic that can usefully extend the pursuit of inclusivity in technical and professional communication.     

Social Studies,Social Competence and Citizenship in Early Childhood Education: Developmental Principles Guide Appropriate Practice

The purpose of this article is to examine the nature of appropriate social studies education in the Kindergarten and Pre-Kindergarten years. The importance of social competence development as a basic foundation of the social studies in the early years of schooling is examined, with particular attention to the commonalities shared between goals and strategies for social competence and for civic ideals and practices. Knowledge of developmental direction in child development is described and illustrated as a tool for considering the importance of using close-to-home lessons built on children’s own experiences, prior to lessons about more distal concepts. Historical foundations of developmentally appropriate social studies are revisited, and their relevance is discussed, with regard to social studies education in the kindergartens and pre-kindergartens of today.     

Gender Differences and Condom-Associated Embarrassment in the Acquisition of Purchased Versus Free Condoms among College Students

Condoms are not used consistently among sexually active college students, indicating a need to understand condom acquisition patterns. This study describes purchased and free acquisition of condoms, factors influencing purchased condom acquisition, and condom-associated embarrassment among college students. A random sample of students at a public university was invited to complete an online survey. More participants obtained free condoms (77.1%) than purchased condoms (59.3%). Individuals who had only ever obtained free condoms were significantly more embarrassed around condom acquisition than individuals who had ever purchased a condom, and women were more embarrassed than men. Implications for health educators and higher education professionals are discussed.     

Increasing the Depth of Field: Critical Race Theory and Photovoice as Counter Storytelling Praxis

Thru the Lenz was a youth participatory action project in which a group of urban high school students explored their lives and communities through art, photography, and narrative. Drawing on data from Thru the Lenz, I deploy CRT to reimagine the research space as a place for counter storytelling. Majoritarian stories are stories that invoke and perpetuate white privilege, are based on racist ideology, are pervasive and are told by whites as well as people of color (Solórzano and Yosso in Qual Inq 8:23–44, 2002a). Counter stories are a method and a tool that enable a deeper understanding of the stories the youth co-constructed though their photos and narratives and also challenge the majoritarian stories told about them, their school, and community (Solórzano and Yosso in Qual Inq 8:23–44, 2002a). Specifically, I present the research praxis organized in the form of an emerging counter story based on two key themes: good community and successful school. When constructed using a CRT framework, the students’ stories about their educational experiences provide a strong critique of neoliberal education reform. I conclude with a discussion of the tensions and challenges of engaging in counter story as critical, emancipatory praxis that elucidates the linkages of personal experiences and macro policies (Stovall in Race Ethn Educ 9:243–259, 2006).     

Researching the Transition to High School for Adolescents with a Disability: Qualitative Action-Project Method as an Exemplar Approach

ABSTRACT

The transition from elementary to middle or high school is an important experience common to most adolescents in North America. However, very little research has been conducted to understand the experiences of students with a disability status and the stakeholders involved in the transition. Clearly, there is a need to generate information that views the transition as a process between students and stakeholders that takes place over time. This investigation illustrates the utility of the action-project method for studying the transition to middle or high school. Three cases involving Canadian adolescents with different disabilities (learning, sensory/motor and emotional/behavioural) and their parents, as key stakeholders, are presented.     

Infants Rely More on Gaze Cues From Own‐Race Than Other‐Race Adults for Learning Under Uncertainty

Differential experience leads infants to have perceptual processing advantages for own‐ over other‐race faces, but whether this experience has downstream consequences is unknown. Three experiments examined whether 7‐month‐olds (range = 5.9–8.5 months; N = 96) use gaze from own‐ versus other‐race adults to anticipate events. When gaze predicted an event's occurrence with 100% reliability, 7‐month‐olds followed both adults equally; with 25% (chance) reliability, neither was followed. However, with 50% (uncertain) reliability, infants followed own‐ over other‐race gaze. Differential face race experience may thus affect how infants use social cues from own‐ versus other‐race adults for learning. Such findings suggest that infants integrate online statistical reliability information with prior knowledge of own versus other race to guide social interaction and learning.     

Using clickers in nonmajors- and majors-level biology courses: student opinion, learning, and long-term retention of course material

Student response systems (clickers) are viewed positively by students and instructors in numerous studies. Evidence that clickers enhance student learning is more variable. After becoming comfortable with the technology during fall 2005-spring 2006, we compared student opinion and student achievement in two different courses taught with clickers in fall 2006. One course was an introductory biology class for nonmajors, and the other course was a 200 level genetics class for biology majors. Students in both courses had positive opinions of the clickers, although we observed some interesting differences between the two groups of students. Student performance was significantly higher on exam questions covering material taught with clickers, although the differences were more dramatic for the nonmajors biology course than the genetics course. We also compared retention of information 4 mo after the course ended, and we saw increased retention of material taught with clickers for the nonmajors course, but not for the genetics course. We discuss the implications of our results in light of differences in how the two courses were taught and differences between science majors and nonmajors.     

学生发展理论在学生事务管理中的应用——美国学生发展理论简介

美国大学对学生发展理论的研究有着近百年的历史。美国学生发展理论包括个体与环境、社会心理、认知和价值观和整合型理论四个基本类型。这些理论分别从社会学、心理学、生态学等角度来解释学生成长和发展规律,理论研究的重点逐步从着眼于学生发展的某一特定方面转移到学生的总体发展上。近二三十年来,由于学生群体的不断变化,美国对女性学生、同性恋学生以及其他弱势群体学生的研究逐步增加。学生发展理论深刻影响了美国的学生管理实践,为学生宿舍管理、学务咨询、心理咨询等重要的学生事务管理领域提供了理论指导。