A dialectical approach to the study of war in children's books

She has published several articles and has written two children's books, a preadolescent novel (forthcoming) and a picture book,Salt, Sea and Air (Macmillan, 1993).     

Children's Relationships with Peers: Differential Associations with Aspects of the Teacher-Child Relationship

Associations between children's social competence with peers and differential aspects of their teacher-child relationships were examined in a longitudinal sample of 48 4-year-old children enrolled in child care as infants. Toddler security with teacher was negatively associated with hostile aggression and positively with complex peer play and gregarious behaviors. Prosocial behaviors and withdrawing behaviors were associated with preschool security with teacher. Dependence on teachers as a preschooler was associated with social withdrawal and hostile aggression. Positive toddler teacher socialization was associated with higher perceived peer acceptance. Preschool teacher negative socialization was negatively associated with complex peer play, teacher ratings of hesitancy, friendly enactment, and accidental attribution and positively related to teacher ratings of difficulty.     

German children's comprehension of word order and case marking in causative sentences

Two comprehension experiments were conducted to investigate whether German children are able to use the grammatical cues of word order and word endings (case markers) to identify agents and patients in a causative sentence and whether they weigh these two cues differently across development. Two-year-olds correctly understood only sentences with both cues supporting each other—the prototypical form. Five-year-olds were able to use word order by itself but not case markers. Only 7-year-olds behaved like adults by relying on case markers over word order when the two cues conflicted. These findings suggest that prototypical instances of linguistic constructions with redundant grammatical marking play a special role in early acquisition, and only later do children isolate and weigh individual grammatical cues appropriately.     

From Keighley to Keele: Personal reflections on a circuitous journey through education,family, feminism and policy sociology

This paper uses the methods of personal reflection and auto/biography to consider the ways in which global social and political transformations have influenced a key generation of feminist sociologists entering the academy and attempting to introduce feminist knowledge and pedagogy into academic curricula. Three critical events on or around 22 November are used to highlight key political moments, the associated development of changing themes in forms of analysis of social transformations, and the part played by feminism and sociology within higher education. They are the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1963, the Israeli-Arab war in 1973 and the resignation of Margaret Thatcher in 1990. The argument is that there has been a clear relation between changing social and political contexts and methodological understandings, which have drawn on developing feminist perspectives and reflexive sociological analysis, especially as embraced within the sociology of education. In particular, the shift from a political and professional perspective on social change and family life towards one that engages with personal issues is noteworthy. It is one of the hallmarks of both feminist notions associated with reflexivity and developing sociological methodologies and policy sociology. Thus, the personal and the political are now central methodological forms of feminist and sociological analysis within education and, especially, the sociology of education, influencing pedagogy within higher education, especially associated with developments in professional postgraduate education. I weave my personal reflections on my professional developments through an analysis of the key moments related to specific policy regimes and changing forms of understandings within the fields of policy sociology and sociology of education. I conclude with current concerns about the balances between the personal and professional within educational research and policy sociology.     

Role of concept definition, teaching examples, and practice on concept learning from prose

Two experiments were performed to evaluate the effects of definition adjunct questions on concept learning. Each experiment included 132 undergraduates at a large midwestern university. In both experiments, subjects studied a passage containing matched or unmatched application questions only, matched or unmatched application questions preceded by a definition question, definition questions only, or no questions at all. The critical attributes of the to-be-learned concepts were more salient in the sets of examples and nonexamples presented in the matched application questions than in the unmatched application questions. Subjects took a criterion test which consisted of novel matched and unmatched application questions. In both experiments, only unmatched application adjunct questions preceded by a definition question produced significantly higher performance on the criterion questions than definition questions only. The discussion focused on the importance of definition questions for effective use of different types of application questions.     

Instructional Design Practice: Career Environments,Job Roles,and a Climate of Change

Instructional Design and Technology (IDT) professionals practice their skills in a broad range of career environments and job roles. The resulting collection of competency lists and wide range of practice environments, coupled with the frequent changes that have always characterized the field, produce complexity that is difficult to communicate to IDT students. However, students need to understand these complex aspects of the field so that they can make informed decisions about their career goals and educational direction. This review of the current literature looks at the current issues impacting practice and preparation. It concludes that the path professional academic preparation programs choose will depend on their orientation to instructional design and performance improvement, and whether they see themselves as preparing students for specific career environments or are pursuing a generalist program.     

From Early Relationships to Preacademic Knowledge: A Sociocognitive Developmental Cascade to School Readiness

This study aimed to test a four-wave sequential mediation model linking mother–child attachment to children's school readiness through child executive functioning (EF) and prosociality in toddlerhood and the preschool years. Mother–child attachment security was assessed when children (N = 255) were aged 15 months and 2 years, child EF at age 2, prosocial behavior at age 4, and finally cognitive school readiness in kindergarten (age 6). The results revealed three indirect pathways linking attachment to school readiness: one through EF only, one through prosocial behavior only, and a last pathway involving both EF and prosocial behavior serially. These findings suggest that secure attachment may equip children with both cognitive and social skills that are instrumental to their preparedness for school.