Being ‘nice’ or being ‘normal’: girls resisting discourses of ‘coolness’

In this paper we consider discourses of friendship and belonging mobilised by girls who are not part of the dominant ‘cool’ group in one English primary school. We explore how, by investing in alternative and, at times, resistant, discourses of ‘being nice’ and ‘being normal’ these ‘non-cool’ girls were able to avoid some of the struggles for dominance and related bullying and exclusion found by us and other researchers to be a feature of ‘cool girls’ groupings. We argue that there are multiple dynamics in girls' lives in which being ‘cool’ is only sometimes a dominant concern. There are some children for whom explicitly positioning themselves outside of the ‘cool’ group is both resistant and protective, providing a counter-discourse to the dominance of ‘coolness’. In this paper, which is based on observational and interview data in one school in the south of England, we focus on two main groupings of intermediate and lower status girls, as well as on one ‘wannabe’ ‘cool girl’. While belonging to a lower status group can bring disadvantages for the girls we studied, there were also benefits.     

Development of emotional and behavioral regulation in children born extremely preterm and very preterm: biological and social influences

This study describes the development of emotional and behavioral regulation in a regional cohort of children born extremely preterm (<28 weeks gestational age, n = 39), very preterm (<34 weeks gestational age, n = 56), and full term (n = 103). At 2 and 4 years, children born at younger gestational ages demonstrated poorer self-regulation across multiple contexts spanning observed interactions, formal cognitive testing, and parental report of child behavior at home. Among children born preterm, the 2 strongest predictors of impairments in self-regulation were the presence of moderate-to-severe cerebral white matter abnormalities on neonatal magnetic resonance and a less sensitive parenting style when children were aged 2 years. Findings support the importance of early neurological development and parenting for developing regulation in children born very preterm.     

Disentangling the Role of Domain-Specific Knowledge in Student Modeling

Research in Science Education - This study explores the role of domain-specific knowledge in students’ modeling practice and how this knowledge interacts with two domain-general modeling...     

Embodiment,social praxis and environmental education: Some thoughts

The body has been neglected and devalued in Western philosophy. This neglect and devaluation of the body is rooted in dualistic reasoning that has its origin in Greek philosophical thought, and reinforced by philosophers of science during the scientific revolution of 17^th century Europe. Dualistic reasoning is in part the cause of current global environmental crises. Moreover, it underpins different approaches to environmental education. In this article I explore the nexus of embodiment and social praxis generally and more specifically in relation to the construct of race. Difference (including race difference) has been given scant attention in environmental education literature in South Africa and I attempt in this article to give it some attention so as to move it into the spaces of our dialogues and conversations.     

Expert and Novice Performance: Implications for Clinical Training

Studies of advanced expertise development in a number of areas are reviewed in order to provide general suggestions about the elements of clinical training that might enhance counseling and educational psychology expertise. The emphasis of the discussion is on the connections between classroom instruction and practicum or internship experiences. Recommendations include changes in the sequencing, context, knowledge content, practice conditions, and motivational support provided to students.     

Sharing teacher knowledge at scale: teacher inquiry,learning design and the representation of teachers’ practice

Sharing teachers’ professional knowledge remains challenging. Teachers’ development often remains ad hoc or local, and attempts to scale this up have proved problematic. To address this, research in areas such as ‘learning design’ has explored the use of formal representations of practice. This proposes that educational practice can be improved by documenting, sharing and building on what teachers already do. Whilst this has led to some successes, it has not resulted in the widespread transformation of practice. This paper reviews the literature about sharing teacher knowledge. The challenges of scaling up development are then considered in relation to two theories that help explain the challenges: Communities of Practice and Sociomateriality. This analysis is illustrated through case studies in Norway and the UK. These show that teachers already create and share artefacts that represent their pedagogic knowledge. However, they found formal representations, such as learning designs, difficult to work with. The paper concludes that scaling up teacher development using abstract formalisms is unlikely to succeed. Instead, teachers value stories and the materials they already create in their day-to-day practice. It is this intermediate level of representation, between direct experience and formal abstraction, that offers the most promise for sharing practice.     

Stability in Mother-Child Interactions from Infancy through Adolescence

OBJECTIVE: The current study examines homotypic stability in mother-child interactions, applying similar rating scales of mother-child interactions at 1 and 4.5 years, and heterotypic stability from 1 to 13 years and 4.5 to 13 years, using conceptually similar but not identical rating scales at age 13. DESIGN: We coded videotaped mother-child interactions in 202 families when children were 1, 4.5, and 13 years of age during age-appropriate and developmentally salient structured tasks for relationship quality. RESULTS: Multiple regression analyses controlled for the effects of child birth order and gender as well as maternal age and education. Maternal and dyadic, but not child, mother-child interaction qualities at 1 year significantly predicted similar or equivalent constructs at 4.5 and 13 years. Heterotypic stability from 1 to 13 years was partially or fully mediated by the same constructs at 4.5 years. CONCLUSIONS: Maternal behaviors showed a pattern of homotypic and heterotypic stability, whereas dyadic behaviors were somewhat less stable. Child behaviors showed evidence of both homotypic and heterotypic instability.     

Succeeding in the city: Challenges and best practices on urban commuter campuses

Students who make the daily commute to urban campuses face academic and nonacademic issues not typically experienced by their suburban or rural counterparts. A veteran of multiple types of campus environments offers insight into the lives of these students and suggests strategies for helping college urbanites thrive.