MARKETING EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMES TO COMMERCIAL BROADCASTERS

A major investment in educational television programmes by the federal government led the United States Department of Education to seek ways to extend the audience size for these programmes beyond public television by placing them on commercial broadcast stations in America. This article describes the programmes, the marketing organization and strategies used to promote programming to the commercial marketplace, and the successes achieved in persuading commercial broadcasters to accept educational children's programming, particularly programmes aimed at minority audiences.     

Gesture as a window on children's beginning understanding of false belief

Given that gestures may provide access to transitions in cognitive development, preschoolers' performance on standard tasks was compared with their performance on a new gesture false belief task. Experiment 1 confirmed that children (N=45, M age=54 months) responded consistently on two gesture tasks and that there is dramatic improvement on both the gesture false belief task and a standard task from ages 3 to 5. In 2 subsequent experiments focusing on children in transition with respect to understanding false beliefs (Ns=34 and 70, M age=48 months), there was a significant advantage of gesture over standard and novel verbal-response tasks. Iconic gesture may facilitate reasoning about opaque mental states in children who are rapidly developing concepts of mind.     

A systematic follow‐up approach for mainstreaming students with behavior and emotional disorders

The Behavior Intervention Centres are part of the Houston Independent School District's (HISD) Special Education Department. Their purpose is to provide educational services to elementary and secondary students, aged 3 through 21, who exhibit either severely aggressive or severely withdrawn behaviours. This article describes a formalized follow‐up service considered by the authors to be a critical component of the BIC program.     

A women's scientific society in the west. The late eighteenth-century assimilation of science

The Natuurkundig Genootschap der Dames (Women's Society for Natural Knowledge), formally established by and for women, met regularly from 1785 to 1881 and sporadically until 1887. It challenges our stereotypes both of women and the physical sciences during the eighteenth century and of the intellectual interests open to women in the early European republics. This essay aims not simply to identify the society and its members but to describe their pursuits and consider what their story adds to the history of Western science. What does this society's existence tell us about the relationship between women and early science in general and about science and society in the Dutch setting in particular? Science and gender look rather different when observed through the activities of the immensely prosperous women of Middelburg, citizens of one of the most highly literate Western countries. The elite lives of the first-generation members of the women's society also offer us a glimpse into the early domestication of science, a process vital to its acceptance and assimilation.     

Strategies for incorporating cultural competence into childbirth education curriculum

Cultural competence affects all interactions with prospective parents and families. Childbirth educators need to assess their own cultural competence, beginning with an understanding of their own background and how it affects interactions with families. The purpose of this article is to enhance the incorporation of cultural competency, cultural awareness, and cultural sensitivity into the childbirth education curricula. Methods for enhancing cultural competence in a multicultural global society are discussed. Strategies are also presented to address the challenges of assessing parents and families of diverse cultures and their beliefs, traditions, and special needs in the plan of care.