Sport and Friendship

My aim in this paper is to make the case for encouraging friendship in sport. First, I argue that sport is especially conducive to friendship. Second, I argue that since friendship is life‐enhancing then to participate in sport and not to have made friends is to have failed to take a life‐enhancing opportunity. Third, I argue that there are sporting benefits to be had from sporting friendships. Finally, I say something about the role of friendship in sport achieving its broad political aim of helping ‘to build a better and more peaceful world’.     

Departmentalized,Self-Contained,or Somewhere in Between: Understanding Elementary Grade-Level Organizational Decision-Making

Recent trends indicate a move away from self-contained classrooms and toward content-focused departmentalization in elementary schools. This study takes a snapshot of the existing organizational structures used in elementary schools in one district and explores administrators’ beliefs and practices regarding this phenomenon. Our findings suggest administrators base their decisions to organize grade levels on various factors, including their own experiences, contextual dynamics, and personal perceptions of outcomes for students and teachers.     

Primary prevention of reading failure: Effect of universal peer tutoring in the early grades

Reading is typically considered a survival skill in our technology- and literacy-bound culture. Individuals who struggle with learning to read are at significantly elevated risk for a number of negative outcomes, including school failure, under- and unemployment, and special education placement. Thus, those who do not learn to read fluently will likely be a greater drain on society's resources. The authors examined the effects of a universal (school district-wide) implementation of a well-validated peer-tutoring reading intervention as a system-wide prevention measure in kindergarten through Grade 3 in a small metropolitan area in Canada. Results suggest that nearly all children demonstrated improved reading fluency over time. Yet those at highest-risk for poor outcomes, including those living in poverty and those who face learning challenges due to English as a second-language status or special education enrollment, did not make parallel gains to same-age peers in more affluent schools. Implications for educational policy are discussed.     

Girls' secondary education in Uganda: assessing policy within the women's empowerment framework

This paper makes the case that policies, such as the National Strategy for Girls' Education in Uganda (NSGE), intended to achieve gender equity in education for girls in developing countries, have limited relevance to, and impact on girls' actual educational experiences. Recent considerations of girls' education acknowledge that gender equity within education is more than access to schooling; it entails the cultivation of capabilities necessary for girls to participate fully, actively and equally in all aspects of their societies. Drawing on a longitudinal, ethnographic policy research case study with 15 Ugandan schoolgirls in rural Masaka District, Uganda, from August 2004 to September 2006, I explore the girls' educational experiences in relationship to the NSGE. I employ the Women's Empowerment Framework (WEF) to evaluate the NSGE with respect to the extent to which its interventions are ‘empowering’ for girls.     

Developmental change in the ERP responses to familiar faces in toddlers with autism spectrum disorders versus typical development

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show differences in face processing abilities from early in development. To examine whether these differences reflect an atypical versus delayed developmental trajectory, neural responses to familiar and unfamiliar faces in twenty-four 18- to 47-month-old children with ASD were compared with responses of thirty-two 12- to 30-month-old typically developing children. Results of 2 experiments revealed that neural responses to faces in children with ASD resembled those observed in younger typically developing children, suggesting delayed development. Electrophysiological responses to faces were also related to parent report of adaptive social behaviors for both children with ASD and typical development. Slower development of the face processing system in ASD may be related to reduced self-directed "expected" experience with faces in early development.     

CSRP's Impact on low-income preschoolers' preacademic skills: self-regulation as a mediating mechanism

Based on theoretically driven models, the Chicago School Readiness Project (CSRP) targeted low-income children's school readiness through the mediating mechanism of self-regulation. The CSRP is a multicomponent, cluster-randomized efficacy trial implemented in 35 Head Start-funded classrooms (N = 602 children). The analyses confirm that the CSRP improved low-income children's self-regulation skills (as indexed by attention/impulse control and executive function) from fall to spring of the Head Start year. Analyses also suggest significant benefits of CSRP for children's preacademic skills, as measured by vocabulary, letter-naming, and math skills. Partial support was found for improvement in children's self-regulation as a hypothesized mediator for children's gains in academic readiness. Implications for programs and policies that support young children's behavioral health and academic success are discussed.     

Benefits of practicing 4 = 2 + 2: nontraditional problem formats facilitate children's understanding of mathematical equivalence

This study examined whether practice with arithmetic problems presented in a nontraditional problem format improves understanding of mathematical equivalence. Children (M age = 8;0; N = 90) were randomly assigned to practice addition in one of three conditions: (a) traditional, in which problems were presented in the traditional "operations on left side" format (e.g., 9 + 8 = 17); (b) nontraditional, in which problems were presented in a nontraditional format (e.g., 17 = 9 + 8); or (c) no extra practice. Children developed a better understanding of mathematical equivalence after receiving nontraditional practice than after receiving traditional practice or no extra practice. Results suggest that minor differences in early input can yield substantial differences in children's understanding of fundamental concepts.     

Ethnicity and gender gaps in early childhood

Gender differences in academic performance and achievement have been of policy concern for decades—both interest in lower performance by girls in the areas of mathematics and science and, more recently, in boys' underperformance in most other academic areas. Much previous research has focused on gender gaps, while overlooking other factors that may play a role, such as ethnicity. This study looks at the gender differences in cognitive assessments at age five across ethnic groups in a sample of English children from the Millennium Cohort Study. While girls generally perform better than boys, general trends mask some differences across ethnic groups. Results show gender gaps at the mean are largest for black and Pakistani and Bangladeshi children and smallest for white children, they are also larger for the teacher‐rated assessments than for the survey‐administered tests.