Perversity of enjoyment? Preschool music activities go neoliberal

There is a lack of empirical studies that examine the influence of neoliberal ideas in preschool music and teaching. Neoliberal ideas have primarily been studied in a broader educational perspective and related to preschool policy reforms. The aim of this paper is to study preschool teachers’ rhetoric concerning music contents and music activities related to neoliberal ideas. Data consist of group conversations with preschool teachers and of video observations of daily music activities, at one preschool in Sweden. Discursive psychology has been used as a micro-sociological methodological approach. The findings show that music in this preschool is characterized by popular music, and varied consequences for knowledge content and early childhood learning are highlighted and analyzed. Also, it is argued that neoliberal ideas, in varied ways, determine the establishment of music content. For many reasons, rhetoric concerning the choice of musical content is of great importance to the field of preschool education. For example, it is essential to music education research and to preschool teachers’ everyday work, as it can improve teaching and learning qualities and become a knowledge contribution in society at large.     

Adult Attachment; Lesbian,Gay, and Bisexual Identity; and Sexual Attitudes of Nonheterosexual Individuals

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) college students from 12 university campuses (N = 177) participated in this study that examined the relationships between adult attachment, LGB identity, and sexual attitudes. Findings indicated that adult attachment was significantly related to LGB identity and sexual attitudes and that an LGB identity variable moderated the relationship between attachment avoidance and sexual permissiveness attitudes. Findings, counseling implications, and future research directions are discussed in terms of attachment and LGB identity theory.     

A view from the inside: Collaborating with students to flip the classroom in real time

This article details decisions made to flip a small, public administration graduate-level course in real time. Interweaving student feedback with instructor notes and reflections gives a unique, personal look into a scenario-based course that changed weekly. We detail this dynamism, highlighting successes and failures in flipping the classroom. Students were positively able to apply administrative theories in real time but struggled to maintain relevance and connection to the readings. The narrative details how we all collaborated on an innovative pedagogical practice to apply public sector theories in real time.     

Gendered distribution of ‘knowledge required for empowerment’ in Swedish vocational education curricula?

Sweden is internationally commended for a high degree of gender equality, but many divisions in Swedish society, including the labour market, disadvantage women. This paper addresses gendered divisions of preparation for civic participation in the vocational upper secondary national curricula, which may participate in reproduction of the pattern. In a comparative analysis of the curriculum guidelines for different vocational upper secondary programmes, we focus on the inclusion of important knowledge for empowerment and how knowledge is contextualised in terms of valued labour positions. We deploy Bernstein’s concepts of horizontal and vertical discourse and Connell’s concepts of production, consumption and gendered accumulation. A general finding is that vertical discourse is contextualised towards discourses of consumption in girl-dominated programmes and towards discourses of production in boy-dominated programmes. Boy-dominated programmes include more knowledge that can be clearly classified in recognised disciplines or fields, whereas girl-dominated programmes include courses of undefined knowledge, such as creativity and entrepreneurship. We conclude that the vocational curricula reinforce rather than challenge existing gender structures in the labour market and wider society. In a historical perspective, it can be concluded that Swedish vocational education policy has a continuum of ‘gender-blindness', and thus confirming with wider norms.     

Testing a mediational model of the effect of family communication patterns on student perceptions of the impact of the college transition through social communication apprehension

An undergraduate college student’s ability to transition successfully to college has been identified as one of the most pressing concerns for institutions of higher education. To understand the challenges associated with transitioning to college and suggest interventions from a communication perspective, we test a mediational model based on family communication patterns theory (FCP) and the communication apprehension perspective (CA). The model examines the influence of FCP and CA on students’ perceptions of the impact of the college transition on their lives. A survey of 2252 students about to transition to college indicated that conversation orientation was associated with lower CA. Both conversation orientation and conformity orientation were associated with more positive perceptions of the impact of the transition to college. An indirect effect was found from conversation orientation to the perceived impact through CA. Practical implications for college retention specialists and educators, families, and students including a pre-transition visualization intervention are discussed.     

Naming speed in dyslexia and dyscalculia

In four carefully selected samples of 8- to 10-year old children with dyslexia (but age adequate arithmetic skills), dyscalculia (but age adequate reading skills), dyslexia/dyscalculia and controls a domain-general deficit in rapid automatized naming (RAN) was found for both dyslexia groups. Dyscalculic children exhibited a domain-specific deficit in rapid naming of quantities. This finding is in line with recent assumptions that dyscalculia is associated with a neurobiological deficit in the processing of numerosities. In the dyslexia/dyscalculia group, RAN deficits were additive, that is, the dyslexia/dyscalculia group exhibited the sum of the deficits found in the dyslexia only and dyscalculia only groups. This finding suggests that the cognitive bases of dyslexia and dyscalculia are independent from each other. Within the naming speed paradigm no differential impact of special demands on the executive functions inhibition and shifting was found for any of the four groups.     

The Political in Cultural Journalism

This article explores how nine Swedish cultural editors and managers in mainstream media institutions define cultural journalism and its political dimensions during times of increased digitization and media convergence. Swedish cultural journalism is aesthetic and political critique applied to subject areas (music, literature, etc.) and contemporary societal and ethical issues. Drawing on Zelizer we ask whether there is a common interpretive community of cultural journalists in different media regarding: (1) how they define their scope, (2) how they understand “the political” in cultural journalism and its implications for democracy, and (3) how they view media convergence and digitalization. We find that although editors/managers from different media share a basic understanding of cultural journalism as an alternative perspective to news, “the political” in cultural journalism is approached differently in the press and the public service broadcast media. Furthermore, due in part to structural conditions, they also see the effects of digitization differently, forming sub-communities on two counts. This study thus contributes new knowledge to a field previously focused almost exclusively on newspapers.     

The representation of emotion knowledge across development

The present study examined how children spontaneously represent facial cues associated with emotion. 106 three- to six-year-old children (48 male, 58 female; 9.4% Asian, 84.0% White, 6.6% more than one race) and 40 adults (10 male, 30 female; 10% Hispanic, 30% Asian, 2.5% Black, 57.5% White) were recruited from a Midwestern city (2019–2020), and sorted emotion cues in a spatial arrangement method that assesses emotion knowledge without reliance on emotion vocabulary. Using supervised and unsupervised analyses, the study found evidence for continuities and gradual changes in children's emotion knowledge compared to adults. Emotion knowledge develops through an incremental learning process in which children change their representations using combinations of factors—particularly valence—that are weighted differently across development.     

Preschoolers Reduce Inequality While Favoring Individuals With More

Inequalities are everywhere, yet little is known about how children respond to people affected by inequalities. This article explores two responses—minimizing inequalities and favoring those who are advantaged by them. In Studies 1a (N = 37) and 1b (N = 38), 4‐ and 5‐year‐olds allocated a resource to a disadvantaged recipient, but judged advantaged recipients more positively. In Studies 4 (N = 38) and 5 (N = 74), a delay occurred between seeing the inequality and allocating resources, or stating a preference, during which time participants forgot who was initially more advantaged. Children then favored advantaged recipients on the preference and resource allocation measures, suggesting an implicit “affective tagging” mechanism drives the tendency to favor the advantaged. In contrast, reducing inequalities through resource allocation appears to require explicit reasoning.