Using DNA From Mothers and Children to Study Parental Investment in Children’s Educational Attainment

This study tested implications of new genetic discoveries for understanding the association between parental investment and children’s educational attainment. A novel design matched genetic data from 860 British mothers and their children with home-visit measures of parenting: the E-Risk Study. Three findings emerged. First, both mothers’ and children’s education-associated genetics, summarized in a genome-wide polygenic score, were associated with parenting—a gene–environment correlation. Second, accounting for genetic influences slightly reduced associations between parenting and children’s attainment—indicating some genetic confounding. Third, mothers’ genetics were associated with children’s attainment over and above children's own genetics, via cognitively stimulating parenting—an environmentally mediated effect. Findings imply that, when interpreting parents’ effects on children, environmentalists must consider genetic transmission, but geneticists must also consider environmental transmission.     

Requirements for being “Japanese” : Stories of returnees

After living outside Japan for one to ten years, the college students I interviewed reflected on how they have been transformed. Some transformations are short-lived physical changes in hair and clothing; some are visible behavioral changes in how they walk or move their arms or faces. The more serious changes are in interpersonal styles and expressions, changes that make them seem “un-Japanese.” The returnees are ambivalent about the latter changes; they recognize the problems but they are reluctant to suppress or give up entirely the newly acquired aspects of themselves.     

Starting School Early in Britain: A Model for Universal Preschool Education

This article offers an overview and analysis of recent early childhood education reforms in Great Britain. It examines the national mandates to grant Universal Preschool Education to all three and four year olds as well as recent strides to provide for infants and toddlers in model centers throughout the country. Attention is given to British practices and policies, research findings and international implications.     

The influence of performance level,age and gender on pacing strategy during a 100-km ultramarathon

The aim of this study is to analyse the influence of performance level, age and gender on pacing during a 100-km ultramarathon. Results of a 100-km race incorporating the World Masters Championships were used to identify differences in relative speeds in each 10-km segment between participants finishing in the first, second, third and fourth quartiles of overall positions (Groups 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively). Similar analyses were performed between the top and bottom 50% of finishers in each age category, as well as within male and female categories. Pacing varied between athletes achieving different absolute performance levels. Group 1 ran at significantly lower relative speeds than all other groups in the first three 10-km segments (all P < 0.01), and significantly higher relative speeds than Group 4 in the 6th and 10th (both P < 0.01), and Group 2 in the 8th (P = 0.04). Group 4 displayed significantly higher relative speeds than Group 2 and 3 in the first three segments (all P < 0.01). Overall strategies remained consistent across age categories, although a similar phenomenon was observed within each category whereby ‘top’ competitors displayed lower relative speeds than ‘bottom’ competitors in the early stages, but higher relative speeds in the later stages. Females showed lower relative starting speeds and higher finishing speeds than males. ‘Top’ and ‘bottom’ finishing males displayed differing strategies, but this was not the case within females. Although pacing remained consistent across age categories, it differed with level of performance within each, possibly suggesting strategies are anchored on direct competitors. Strategy differs between genders and differs depending on performance level achieved in males but not females.     

Increasing Steps in Recall of Events: Factors Facilitating Immediate and Long-Term Memory in 13.5- and 16.5-Month-Old Children

Children late in the second year of life show patterns of event recall similar to those of older children: (a) well-ordered immediate and delayed recall, and (b) facilitation of recall by familiarity and by enabling relations. We used elicited imitation to test whether the patterns extend to children early in the second year. In Experiment 1, 13.5- and 16.5-month-olds accurately recalled familiar and novel 2-act sequences immediately and after a 1-week delay. For 16.5-month-olds, recall was facilitated by familiarity and by enabling relations; for 13.5-month-olds, only enabling relations facilitated recall. In Experiment 2, verbal cues were used to test immediate and 1-week delayed recall of 3-act sequences. For both ages, recall was facilitated by familiarity and by enabling relations. Experiment 3 verified that the verbal information served to cue recall of previously experienced events, not to "suggest" sequences that could be performed. Together the results demonstrate that children as young as 13 months can recall specific events after a delay. They also suggest development in sensitivity to factors that facilitate recall.