The Impact of Child Care on Gender Role Development and Gender Stereotypes

Research has shown that gender role development is socially constructed and learned from birth. In this study, the impact of child care and the interactions that take place there are examined, with a focus on gender behavior and stereotypes. Observation data and analysis are presented. Themes representing gender stereotypes and the breaking of gender barriers are examined, and the role that caregivers can play in the fostering of gender-fair behaviors is discussed.     

Exploring adolescent development through the use of popular non-fiction novels

The purpose of this review is to examine the utility of using journalistic accounts of adolescence to convey the complexities of adolescent development. Three non-fiction texts are considered: Wonderland by Michael Bamberger, A Tribe Apart by Patricia Hersch, and A Hope in the Unseen by Ron Suskind. The safe environment provided by these books gives prospective teachers an intellectual space to consider their future teaching and to hear the voices of their prospective students. Moreover, exploring these non-fiction texts helps prospective teachers understand today's adolescents and allows them to reflect on adolescent identity and development using a real-world setting.     

Temperamental Shyness and Anger/Frustration in Childhood: Normative Development,Individual Differences,and the Impacts of Maternal Intrusiveness and Frontal Electroencephalogram Asymmetry

This study used latent growth curve modeling to identify normative development and individual differences in the developmental patterns of shyness and anger/frustration across childhood. This study also examined the impacts of maternal intrusiveness and frontal electroencephalogram (EEG) asymmetry at age 4 on the developmental patterns of shyness and anger/frustration. 180 children (92 boys, 88 girls; M_age = 4.07 years at baseline; 75.6% White, 18.3% Black, 6.1% multiracial/other) participated in the study. Normative development included significant linear decreases in shyness and anger/frustration. Individual variation existed in the developmental patterns. Children with left frontal EEG asymmetry showed a faster decreasing pattern of shyness. Children who experienced higher maternal intrusiveness and had left frontal EEG asymmetry showed a slower decreasing pattern of anger/frustration.     

Faculty Staffing Patterns: Breadth and Flexibility in Professional Physical Therapy Programs

Innovative Higher Education - Overall trends of academic staffing in the US have indicated declines in tenure, increased use of contingent faculty, and stratification of teaching and research...     

SIGNIFICANCE AND DIALOGUE IN LEARNING AND TEACHING

A bstract .  In this essay Andrew Metcalfe and Ann Game argue that although the term "dialogue" is commonly used in educational theory, its full significance is diluted if it is seen as a matter of exchange or negotiation of prior positions and identities. As a meeting point, they argue, dialogue suspends the senses of time, space, and ontology on which identities are based. It is therefore not simply metaphorical to say that dialogue changes lives and opens minds. Using empirical material from interviews with Australian students and teachers, Metcalfe and Game draw out the relational qualities of genuine dialogue and the significance they have for how we understand everyday classroom life.     

Identifying and evaluating teachers’ knowledge in relation to child abuse and neglect: A qualitative study with Australian early childhood teachers

Child abuse and neglect are serious social problems that make extraordinary demands on teachers’ knowledge and professionalism. Yet the field of education has been slow to develop a discipline-specific knowledge base about child abuse and neglect for teachers and teacher education programmes and there is a paucity empirical research into teachers’ knowledge in relation to child abuse and neglect. This paper describes a qualitative study of eight purposively selected early childhood teachers. To identify and evaluate their child abuse and neglect knowledge, Grossman's [(1990). The making of a teacher: Teacher knowledge and teacher education. New York: Teachers College Press; (1995). Teachers’ knowledge. In L. W. Anderson (Ed.), International encyclopedia of teaching and teacher education (2nd ed., pp. 20–24). Tarrytown, NY: Pergamon] typology of teachers’ knowledge is used as an analytic framework on which to map the teachers’ interview data. Findings reveal that, in the absence of preservice and inservice education specifically about child abuse and neglect, early childhood teachers held and deployed knowledge in resourceful ways. They used, as a basis, their existing early childhood knowledge and adapted this knowledge by augmenting it with a range of personal and professional knowledge resources to fit their particular challenges and situations. This approach, however competent and innovative, also reveals shortfalls in knowledge. Implications of this research are drawn for child abuse and neglect curriculum development in initial and continuing teacher education including the case for specialist knowledge needed to establish teachers’ professional reputation for dealing capably with cases of child abuse and neglect.     

Moving on: The challenges for foreign language learning on transition from primary to secondary school

Europe's commitment to language learning has resulted in higher percentages of pupils studying foreign languages during primary education. In England, recent policy decisions to expand foreign language learning at primary level by 2010 create major implications for transition to secondary. This paper presents findings on transition issues from case studies of a DfES-funded project evaluating 19 local authority Pathfinders piloting the introduction of foreign language learning at primary level. Research on transition in other countries sets these findings in context. Finally, it investigates the challenges England faces for transition in the light of this expansion and discusses future implications.     

Verbal and spatial encoding of text

Two experiments were conducted which examined conjoint retention of spatial and verbal information in memory. The first experiment examined processing of text with simultaneous active dual coding. With spatial and verbal information from experiment one, the second experiment examined the effects of introducing dual coding prior to text processing and keyed recall to what was encoded prior to reading. Recall of both concrete features and events referring to these features was keyed to constructive encoding processes. Even minimal cueing produced better recall than no cues. Spatial primers produced not only better recall of features, but subjects who encoded spatial primers demonstrated increased ability to recall those primers. Results were interpretet in terms of dual coding theory for encoding and retrieval.     

Verbal Intelligence: a key to basic skills?

Intra‐individual variability of cognitive measures, such as verbal and spatial ability tests, has frequently been reported to typify learning disabled children. To test the generality of such findings, longitudinal data from a large representative and non‐clinical sample of Swedish children (n = 812) were analysed. At age 10, the children were tested with a Swedish intelligence scale. At age 13, basic academic skills were measured by standardised achievement tests. Typical cognitive profile types, based on the verbal and spatial intelligence subtests, were identified through cluster analyses (CLUSTAN) of the girl and boy samples separately. The satisfactory solution arrived at was a five‐cluster representation for the girls (n = 497) and an eight‐cluster representation for the boys (n = 497). For both sexes, verbally as well as spatially oriented profiles emerged. However, the verbal orientation was more pronounced for girls, whereas the boys displayed greater variability and stronger spatial orientation. General intelligence at age 10 was a strong predictor for basic skills at age 13 (r > 0.70). Verbally strong children tended to achieve better than predicted by their overall level of intelligence, whereas spatially oriented children showed a less favourable development in basic academic skills. The results are discussed in relation to neuropsychologically‐based models of reading disability and theories of language and development.