Building Better Communities for Children: Community Implementation and Evaluation of the Australian Early Development Index

Since 2004 the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI) has been completed in 54 Australian communities over seven states and territories on more than 30,000 children. A concurrent systematic evaluation of community implementation and use of the AEDI was undertaken that included both a process and impact component. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the evaluation findings between 2004 and 2006. Results have shown there are a number of barriers and facilitators for communities in implementing the AEDI, disseminating results, and planning for community actions. The evaluation findings indicate AEDI implementation helps raise awareness of the importance of early childhood development, assists communities to work more collaboratively and to strategically plan actions to work towards improving outcomes for children.     

Learning from land and water: exploring mazinaabikiniganan as indigenous epistemology

Abstract

Indigenous peoples have long called for education that supports self-determination, counters colonial practices, and values our cultural identity and pride as Indigenous peoples. In recent years, Land education has emerged as a form of decolonial praxis that necessarily privileges Indigenous ontologies and epistemologies and engages in critiques of settler-colonialism. Informed by this theoretical framework and using Indigenous storywork methodology, this study focused on the perspectives of six Anishinaabe Elders on mazinaabikiniganan (commonly known as pictographs) at Agawa Rock, now part of Lake Superior Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada. Revealing ways of knowing and being that are intimately connected to Land and place, the pedagogical potential of mazinaabikiniganan as a form of Land education is discussed.     

Integrating Research into Television Production: Square One TV and the case of “Pauline”

Within the field of formative research, there is debate as to whether researchers should collaborate with producers or serve as independent evaluators. The Children's Television Workshop (CTW) produces educational programs through a collaborative process of development that has come to be known as the “CTW Model”. Under the CTW Model, producers, content specialists, and researchers work together throughout the life of a project, from its initial conceptualization through its final production. This paper illustrates the value of the CTW Model via an in‐depth case study of the development and production of a single repeated format within Square One TV, an educational television series about mathematics. In particular, we focus on the multifaceted role played by formative research at all stages of production.     

The effect of blended instruction on accelerated learning

While online instructional technologies are becoming more popular in higher education, educators’ opinions about online learning tend to be generally negative. Furthermore, many studies have failed to systematically examine the features that distinguish one instructional mode from another, which weakens possible explanations for why online instructional technology can be beneficial. The current study isolates three benefits of the authors’ particular online instructional technology: (1) providing flexibility in how students learn, (2) offering immediate and targeted feedback and (3) increasing student participation and engagement with instructional material. Maximum benefits were observed when students used the online instructional technology to prepare for their face-to-face class – that is, students with this blended instruction learned twice as much content in the same amount of time in comparison to students with face-to-face instruction alone, without creating an atypically high workload.     

Group Social Context and Children's Aggressive Behavior

Very little is known about the influence of the social-psychological context on children's aggressive behavior. The purpose of this research was to examine the interrelations of group contextual factors and the occurrence of aggressive behavior in 22 experimental play groups of 7- and 9-year-old African-American boys. Group context was examined before, during, and after an aggressive act as well as during nonaggressive periods. The results showed that there are dimensions of group context (i.e., negative affect, high aversive behavior, high activity level, low group cohesion, competitiveness) that were related to the occurrence of aggressive behavior between 2 children in the group. Group context influenced how children reacted to aggression between its members (e.g., siding with the victim), which in turn influenced the quality of the postaggression group atmosphere. This study suggests that individual-within-context information be incorporated into theories of aggression among children.     

Parental guidance of young children’s mathematics and scientific inquiry in games,cooking, and nature activities

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the influence of guidance instruction and type of activity on parental guidance of young children’s mathematics and scientific inquiry during cooking, games, and nature activities at home. Thirty families participated with their preschool-aged child; half were randomly assigned to an inquiry guidance instruction group and encouraged to support children’s reasoning with open-ended prompts and questions. Families participated in activities for one month, some of which they audio-recorded. Families engaged in processes of comparing, predicting, evaluating and concluding more often after inquiry guidance instruction, and incorporated inquiry processes into all activity types. Mathematics was most frequently observed in games and cooking. The results suggest that parents can use inquiry guidance to support preschoolers’ mathematics and scientific inquiry in a variety of activities performed at home. As children engage in inquiry-based learning during co-constructed activities with parents, they develop conceptual understanding of mathematics and scientific inquiry in a positive social context.     

Testosterone during pregnancy and gender role behavior of preschool children: a longitudinal,population study

Levels of testosterone (T) and sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) were measured in blood samples from pregnant women and related to gender role behavior in 342 male and 337 female offspring at the age of 3.5 years. Gender role behavior was assessed using the Pre-School Activities Inventory, a standardized measure on which a parent indicates the child's involvement with sex-typical toys, games, and activities. Levels of T, but not SHBG, related linearly to gender role behavior in preschool girls. Neither hormone related to gender role behavior in boys. Other factors, including the presence of older brothers or sisters in the home, parental adherence to traditional sex roles, the presence of a male partner in the home, and maternal education, did not relate to gender role behavior in this sample and did not account for the relation observed between T and behavior. Although other, unmeasured factors may explain the relation, the results suggest that normal variability in T levels prenatally may contribute to the development of individual differences in the gender role behavior of preschool girls.     

Ethnic Diversity and Inclusive School Environments

Inclusive school contexts can promote psychological and social adjustment and enhance learning among students. Changing demographics and 21st-century workplace needs suggest that ethnic diversity is one important dimension of inclusion to consider. This article presents 4 suggestions for how schools can facilitate inclusivity for ethnic diversity that are recommended to be employed in conjunction with one another: (a) school and classroom ethnic composition (i.e., increased ethnic diversity), (b) positive ethnic identity for ethnic minority students, (c) multicultural/diversity training and cooperative learning, and (d) the promotion of social competence and prosocial behaviors. Developmental considerations are discussed and a case is made that improving individual students’ functioning can ultimately promote inclusivity for all students. Assisting students to be ready and able to form friendships with peers from ethnically diverse backgrounds provides them with valuable experience and skills that they can carry forward to new educational, community, and workplace settings.     

Forced to choose: some determinants of racial identification in multiracial adolescents

This paper categorizes multiracial youth (N=1,496) ages 14 to 19 and compares them with each other and with monoracial youth on identity development measures. The multiracial categories used here are derived from youths' reports of their own and their parents' race(s). Comparisons are made within groups of multiracial respondents who make different choices among single-race categories. Results show differences between subgroups in strength and importance of ethnic identity, self-esteem, and perceptions of ethnic discrimination. Multinomial logistic regression shows further that physiognomy, ethnic identity, and race of coresident parent(s) are significantly associated with reported race. Also related to racial identification among part-Hispanic youth are the racial distribution and socioeconomic status of their neighborhoods and the racial distributions of their schools.     

Adrenocortical Responses to the Strange Situation in Infants with Disorganized/Disoriented Attachment Relationships

Salivary cortisol levels were assessed in 19-month-old infants following the Ainsworth Strange Situation procedure. 38 infants participating in Project Steep at the University of Minnesota served as subjects. Project Steep is a longitudinal intervention program designed to promote healthy parent-child relationships and to prevent emotional problems among children born to mothers who are at high risk for parenting problems. Following the Strange Situation, saliva samples were collected and assayed for cortisol, a steroid hormone frequently examined in studies of stress. Behavior during the Strange Situation was coded by trained coders, and attachment classifications were determined for each infant. Cortisol concentrations did not differ between the 6 Avoidant/Resistant (A/C) and 17 Securely Attached (B) toddlers. Toddlers ( n = 11) who were classified as having Disorganized/Disoriented (Type D) attachments exhibited higher cortisol concentrations than toddlers in the traditional (ABC) classifications. Results of this study were consistent with a model of stress reactivity that conceptualizes the organization of coping behaviors as a factor that mediates physiological stress responses.