A Gendered Look at Educational Reform

This article looks at women teachers' involvement in educational reform from a gendered perspective. Using qualitative data collected in interviews with secondary level educators, the authors show how women teachers' beliefs and actions towards reform efforts were influenced by their gender identity. Socialization of women as nurturers and caretakers created in many women particular notions regarding the appropriate role they should play as teachers. When an educational reform effort 'fitted' with these conceptions, women teachers became advocates for and participated in the reforms. The support and commitment by women teachers in turn facilitated the success of the reforms. However, it was also found that the overrepresentation of women in a reform effort had the potential of creating negative political ramifications. When the character or profile of the reform took on a gendered identity, it ran the risk of facing resistance by men teachers in the school, ultimately thwarting implementation.     

Ethics within the serials family

This paper raises and answers some basic questions related to ethical issues in business and personal transactions among serials publishers, vendors, and librarians. It describes a real case study of Kamkin, a serials vendor experiencing financial difficulties, as a springboard to review how to make ethical decisions. The author hopes it will provoke the reader to reflect upon the ethical components of individual actions and how to approach business relationships ethically. The principles noted here are equally applicable to those dealing with monographic or electronic-resources business transactions.     

Alternatives to the Traditional Sixth Form: a Preliminary Report

Recent years have seen the emergence of new types of provision for the 16‐19 age group in both the schools and further education sectors. This paper briefly outlines the various institutions now in operation and the rationale behind each type. A four‐year research project aims to survey and then evaluate the alternative arrangements for this age group. The project's first phase, which concentrated on the collection of background information and the definition of evaluation criteria, is described. Some preliminary findings are presented, together with the major issues arising from meetings and questionnaires.     

A school-based intervention program as a context for promoting socioemotional development in children

The present study investigated the role of a school-based intervention program, called the Integrated School Day, in the socioemotional development of Finnish children during their first years of school. The 3-year program involved the restructuring of the school day by adding in extracurricular activities, which were organized on school premises, included a multitude of activities according to children’s wishes, and were available to every child. The longitudinal findings, based on the hierarchical linear modeling, showed that the 9- to 10-year-old children who had participated in the program (N = 276) had lower levels of internalizing problem behaviors, both social anxiety and depressive symptoms, than the non-intervention comparison group (N = 239). The difference was statistically significant in both genders. The results also showed that the higher number of years of participation (but not the number of different activities or the regularity of participation) was related to lower internalizing problem behaviors, particularly to lower social anxiety, at the end of the program.     

Dietary supplements

For the athlete training hard, nutritional supplements are often seen as promoting adaptations to training, allowing more consistent and intensive training by promoting recovery between training sessions, reducing interruptions to training because of illness or injury, and enhancing competitive performance. Surveys show that the prevalence of supplement use is widespread among sportsmen and women, but the use of few of these products is supported by a sound research base and some may even be harmful to the athlete. Special sports foods, including energy bars and sports drinks, have a real role to play, and some protein supplements and meal replacements may also be useful in some circumstances. Where there is a demonstrated deficiency of an essential nutrient, an increased intake from food or from supplementation may help, but many athletes ignore the need for caution in supplement use and take supplements in doses that are not necessary or may even be harmful. Some supplements do offer the prospect of improved performance; these include creatine, caffeine, bicarbonate and, perhaps, a very few others. There is no evidence that prohormones such as androstenedione are effective in enhancing muscle mass or strength, and these prohormones may result in negative health consequences, as well as positive drug tests. Contamination of supplements that may cause an athlete to fail a doping test is widespread.     

Comparing social desirability responding on world wide web and paper-administered surveys

Social desirability responding (SRD) on surveys administered on the World Wide Web (WWW) and on paper was examined using 178 graduate and undergraduate students randomly assigned to a 2 (World Wide Web and Paper) ×2 (Anonymous and Nonanonymous) true experimental design. The findings reveal no differences in SDR between the WWW and the paper-administered survey conditions, and no differences in SDR between the anonymous and nonanonymous conditions. These findings and potential explanations are examined for consideration by anyone interested in using the WWW to obtain accurate information from survey participants.     

Development and Demonstration of Multidimensional IRT-Based Internal Measures of Differential Functioning of ltems and Tests

This article defines and demonstrates a framework for studying differential item functioning (DIF) and differential test functioning (DTF) for tests that are intended to be multidimensional The procedure introduced here is an extension of unidimensional differential functioning of items and tests (DFIT) recently developed by Raju, van der Linden, & Fleer (1995). To demonstrate the usefulness of these new indexes in a multidimensional IRT setting, two-dimensional data were simulated with known item parameters and known DIF and DTE The DIF and DTF indexes were recovered reasonably well under various distributional differences of Os after multidimensional linking was applied to put the two sets of item parameters on a common scale. Further studies are suggested in the area of DIF/DTF for intentionally multidimensional tests.     

Functions of adolescent drinking in Finland and the Soviet Union

The present study was conducted in Finland and the USSR (Estonia) with two birth cohorts (14 and 17 years old) and their parents. The subjects, 504 in Finland and 329 in Estonia, were drawn from urban and rural areas. 85% of the Estonian and 55% of the Finnish parents returned the questionnaire. The results supported the hypothesis that adolescent drinking is an age-related behaviour aimed at active coping efforts to adopt adult-like behaviour. In both countries abstinence decreased with age, and the use of alcohol was seen as behaviour which became acceptable at an older age than the age when the actual initiation occurred. However, the use of alcohol remained occasional through the ages of 17 to 18. Adolescents’ drinking correlated strongly with their conceptions of the accepted motives for drinking which, in turn, correlated with observations of the parents’ use of alcohol. In Estonia, boys with high self-esteem were most active in adopting customary adult drinking. In Finland, drinking was typical of boys who were active in the use of leisure time, whereas abstinence, was typical of passive users of leisure time. The Finnish adolescents did not make a distinction between moderate and heavy drinking as clearly as the Estonian ones. Traditional sex differences in the use of alcohol still existed in Estonia, but Finnish girls’ drinking did not differ from Finnish or Estonian boys’ drinking. The influences of parental modelling were strongest for Finnish girls. There were few indicators of reactive coping efforts for strains from the environment, but a conflicted home atmosphere was a risk factor of the early onset of alcohol drinking.     

International Trends in Health Science Librarianship Part 19: The Balkan States (Bulgaria and Croatia)

This is the 19th in a series of articles exploring international trends in health science librarianship in the 21st century. The focus of the present issue is the Balkan Region (Bulgaria and Croatia). The next regular feature column will investigate two other Balkan states ‐ Serbia and Slovenia. JM