Hostility, hostile detachment, and conflict engagement in marriages: effects on child and family functioning

This study examined the relations between patterns of marital communication, child adjustment, and family functioning. Couples with a 4- or 5-year-old child were divided into three groups (N = 126) based on observed patterns of emotional communication: Hostile couples showed a cumulative increase in negative speaker behaviors over the course of a high-conflict marital discussion; hostile-withdrawn couples showed a cumulative increase in both negative speaker and negative listener behaviors over the course of the interaction; and engaged couples showed a cumulative increase in both positive speaker and listener behaviors over the course of the interaction. The families of these three types of couples were then compared on child outcomes (i.e., peer relations, behavior problems), parenting quality, co-parenting quality, and family-level functioning. Differences in marital violence and marital satisfaction between marital couples were also examined in relation to family risk. Families in which couples were hostile-detached showed the most negative outcomes. Hostile-detached couples were more likely than hostile or conflict-engaging couples to use more power-assertive methods of discipline; to be ineffective in co-parenting their child; to have family units that were less cohesive, less playful, and more conflictual; and to have children that exhibited behavior problems. Results also indicated that marital typology still accounted for significant variance in child outcome after controlling for marital violence and marital satisfaction. Differences in the absolute degree of negative behaviors also did not account for results. Findings are discussed in terms of the detrimental impact of marital conflict on child and family functioning.     

Does early reading failure decrease children's reading motivation?

The authors used a pretest-posttest control group design with random assignment to evaluate whether early reading failure decreases children's motivation to practice reading. First, they investigated whether 60 first-grade children would report substantially different levels of interest in reading as a function of their relative success or failure in learning to read. Second, they evaluated whether increasing the word reading ability of 15 at-risk children would lead to gains in their motivation to read. Multivariate analyses of variance suggest marked differences in both motivation and reading practice between skilled and unskilled readers. However, bolstering at-risk children's word reading ability did not yield evidence of a causal relationship between early reading failure and decreased motivation to engage in reading activities. Instead, hierarchical regression analyses indicate a covarying relationship among early reading failure, poor motivation, and avoidance of reading.     

Unpacking personal identities for teaching mathematics within the context of prospective teacher education

This article explores the personal identities of two prospective elementary teachers as they progressed from mathematics methods coursework into their capstone student teaching semester. Results indicate that both prospective teachers perceived contrasting obligations of effective mathematics teaching in the teacher education and student teaching contexts, yet came to reconcile these differences in different ways. Whereas one prospective teacher was able to oppose the obligations set forth in the student teaching context, the other complied with obligations in both the teacher education and student teaching contexts. Implications for teacher education include differentiated experiences and placements, methods design, and explicit foci on students’ mathematical thinking.     

Inhibitory control by one stimulus after an increase in the frequency of reinforcement associated with another stimulus

Pigeons were trained on a multiple variable-interval 5-min variable-interval 5-min schedule and then shifted to either a multiple variable-interval 1-min variable-interval 5-min or a multiple variable-interval 30-sec variable-interval 5-min schedule. A generalization test was subsequently administered along the dimension containing the stimulus associated with the variable-interval 5-min component. The generalization gradients for subjects that received multiple variable-interval 1-min variable-interval 5-min training were not consistent in shape. However, an incremental gradient was obtained from each subject that received multiple variable-interval 30-sec variable-interval 5-min training. Thus, a sufficiently large reduction in merely the relative frequency of reinforcement during a stimulus resulted in that stimulus’ acquiring inhibitory control over responding.     

Is Schooling a Risk? Gender,Power Relations,and School Culture in Uganda

This article relates a study of AIDS education in Uganda which used an ethnography of school culture to explore the contradictions in curriculum intervention. The school was found to be a site of an extensive set of gendered practices which constituted a risk in themselves in terms of sexual health. Four forms of control are examined in this article: hegemonic masculinity, gendered discipline patterns, sexual harassment and 'compulsory' heterosexuality. Male domination and power imbalances in the school encouraged attitudes and practices with regard to sexual relationships which negated the official messages of the AIDS curriculum.     

Reclaiming Teacher Agency in a Student-Centred Digital World

This article examines the current dilemma faced by many teachers: the drive for a modern day pedagogy advocating student-centred, technology-enabled learning is at odds with teacher comfort zones still nestled in a teacher-talk, print-based classroom. Put another way, the 'techno-reluctance' of many teachers represents a negative reaction to the perception that new technologies represent a threat to their traditional roles and general sense of practical agency in the learning process or classroom. The paper interprets some of the key factors impacting on techno-reluctance as a means of moving beyond such a simplistic view of the connection between digital technologies and changing teacher roles. On this basis, it goes on to discuss the concept of 'technoliteracy' as a means of reclaiming teacher agency in a studentcentred, computer-mediated environment and also reframing teacher attitudes to electronic texts and related literacy practices.     

Children's Responses to Character Education

This is an investigation of Character Education in American public schools in the Chicago area. The research involved interviewing almost 700 children from a wide variety of schools and ages. The children were asked about their views on citizenship, Americanness and identity. They were also asked explicitly what they thought of Character Education. The results indicate that, despite a similar programme of education, teaching attitudes and teaching materials, the most marked difference between the children's responses correlated strongly with the type of school, magnet or non-magnet, they were attending. This indicates that the social and political background, which determines their school, does have an impact on the way that an educational programme is received and understood, at least in the terms of how children articulate their ideas, if not in terms of how these programmes affect their behaviour.     

The effects of differing type and magnitude of reward on the contrafreeloading phenomenon in rats

This investigation was made to determine the effects of the magnitude of reward on contrafreeloading, using food or water as reward. Two quantities were selected for each level of reward quality—a 20-mg-pellet food reward, a 45-mg-pellet food reward, a .01-cc water reward, and a .1-cc water reward. Seven days of training were followed by three test sessions. There was a significantly higher percent of contrafreeloding demonstrated with food as reward than with water and higher number of barpresses with small reward than with large. It was argued that a more appropriate measure should include reference to performance during training. In this approach, contrafreeloading with food and water were virtually the same.     

The Severity of State Truancy Policies and Chronic Absenteeism

ABSTRACT

Since the Common School era, states have maintained truancy laws to ensure that students attend school. However, we know little about the severity of these laws and their relationship to student outcomes, particularly absenteeism. In this study, we survey state education statutes to document the severity of truancy policies. We estimate the relationship between these truancy policies and rates of chronic absenteeism via multilevel models using data on all U.S. public schools from the Office of Civil Rights. We find that most students live in states where they may be referred to legal authorities for levels of absenteeism below federal standards. We find little evidence that states with truancy policies have lower chronic absenteeism after adjusting for demographic and other characteristics. However, while non-White high-school students are overrepresented among chronic absences overall, they have rates of chronic absenteeism comparable to their White peers in states with less severe truancy policies.     

The relative effects of pre- and postattention directing devices on learning from a “walk-through” museum exhibit

Twenty-eight seventh and eighth grade students were randomly assigned to two treatments and a control as they entered the Florida State Museum. All subjects were given set induction materials saying in effect: (1) Treatment-Study the wall panel which is part of the cave exhibit and describes the many biologic relationships and organisms in the cave at the cave entrance. Continue into the cave and study the habitat. When you exit the cave you will be given a test to see how much you learned; (2) Treatment II-Enter the cave and study that habitat. When you exit at the other end, study the wall panel which is part of the cave exit and describes the many biologic relationships and organisms in the cave. After studying this panel you will be given a test to see how much you learned; (3) Control-You will take a walk through exhibits depicting a variety of Florida Habitats and later see a film on the Habitats of Florida that are represented in the museum. Then you will be given a test to determine how much you know about one type of habitat. Both treatments and the control spent equivalent time at their tasks and were confronted with either the cave exhibit as described or the equivalent control experiences. A 25 item criterion test was designed to measure the acquisition of conceptual and factual knowledge and specific attentional factors relative to both the cave and the instructional panel. A Kr-20 indicated that this instrument had a reliability coefficient of 0.80. It was anticipated that the panel, used as an attention directing and controlling device prior to entering the cave (Treatment I) or upon exiting the cave (Treatment II), would function as a forward-shaping or backward review prompting adjunct, hence both should be significantly more effective than the control. This was confirmed (df 2,28; F 8.09) p < 0.01. It was also expected that the forward shaping panel would be more effective than the backward review panel in the tradition of inserted questions in prose research. Although the differences were in this direction, they were not significant (p≤ 0.10).