Racial and Gender Identity Among Black Adolescent Males: An Intersectionality Perspective

A considerable amount of social identity research has focused on race and racial identity, while gender identity, particularly among Black adolescents, remains underexamined. The current study used survey data from 183 Black adolescent males (13–16 years old) to investigate the development and relation between racial and gender identity centrality and private regard, and how these identities impact adjustment over time. It was found that dimensions of racial and gender identity were strongly correlated. Levels of racial centrality increased over time while gender centrality, and racial and gender private regard declined. In addition, racial and gender identity uniquely contributed to higher levels of psychological well‐being and academic adjustment. These findings are discussed within the context of existing identity theories and intersectionality theory.     

A contested profession: employability,performativity and professionalism in Irish further education

Further education typically represents the vocational, technical and practice-based forms of education, but this is now being repositioned in a neo-liberal era that is driving a performance-based and market-orientated vision of education in the Republic of Ireland and elsewhere. The implacable drive of neo-liberal economics in everyday practice is evident in the current economic and training discourses of further education, which aim to upgrade the employability of low-skilled and marginalised sectors of the population. The article provides an overview of shifts in educational policy and practices that align Irish further education with what has occurred in the UK and elsewhere through processes of professionalisation and performativity. Analysis of the potential impact on notions of professional identity in the sector helps to articulate the principles, pedagogies and philosophies that will be vital when contesting the performance cultures of New Managerialism that seem likely to ensue. We explore the implications in terms of the policy discourses, organisational structure and professional practices of further education. We contend that changes in these areas have profound impacts on the learning and knowledge base of further education, constraining its social justice and transformative capacity for the learners at the heart of further education.     

SPECIFIC COGNITIVE PREDICTORS OF EARLY MATH PROBLEM SOLVING

Development of early math skill depends on a prerequisite level of cognitive development. Identification of specific cognitive skills that are important for math development may not only inform instructional approaches but also inform assessment approaches to identifying children with specific learning problems in math. This study investigated the specific cognitive correlates of math problem solving across early grade levels (1–4) while controlling for basic calculation skills. As expected, basic calculation skill was a significant predictor of math problem solving across the entire sample. However, the addition of cognitive measures almost doubled the variance explained (R² = .61). Additionally, only select cognitive variables contributed to the prediction of math problem solving, and these variables change in importance as children develop higher‐level math skills. Results are discussed within a developmental model, which emphasizes the increasing importance of abstract code representations required in higher levels of math performance.     

Do We Fear Ageing? A Multidimensional Approach to Ageing Anxiety

Ageing anxiety is the expression of peoples' fear of ageing (Lynch, 2000 Lynch, S. M. (2000). Measurement and prediction of aging anxiety. Research on Aging, 22(5), 533.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Despite greater longevity in the population, there is a lack of research into this aspect of life (Lasher &; Faulkender, 1993 Lasher, K. P., &; Faulkender, P. J. (1993). Measurement of aging anxiety: Development of the Anxiety about Aging Scale. The International Journal of Aging &; Human Development, 37(4), 247–259.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). This research explored fears of ageing across four dimensions: Fear of Old People, Physical Appearance, Psychological Concerns, and Fear of Losses. Three hundred and forty eight participants aged 18–88 participated in an online survey. Findings were: (a) men and women have different fears of ageing; (b) greater quality contact is related to less ageing anxiety; (c) poor health is related to greater ageing anxiety, (d) ageism, defined by Nelson (2005 Nelson, T. D. (2005). Ageism: Prejudice against our feared future self. Journal of Social Issues, 61(2), 207–221.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) as prejudice toward ageing is positively correlated with ageing anxiety. The implications of these findings are that better quality contact and more positive attitudes toward ageing are associated with less ageing anxiety. As such, possible key target areas in developing appropriate interventions are provided, with hope to prepare adults of all ages for the inevitable—life is a terminal illness, so enjoy while you can.     

Outside of School Matters: What We Need to Know in Urban Environments

This article focuses on factors outside of school that we have identified from the established research literature as essential for educators to consider in supporting students in urban environments. We start by conceptualizing what it means for a school to be “urban.” Following this discussion, we describe four outside-of-school factors that emerge from the literature: (1) Understanding Student and Family Homelessness; (2) Understanding Geography and Social Contexts; (3) Understanding Policy and School Funding; and (4) Understanding Parental and Family Involvement. These factors are important to helping educators, especially pre- and in-service teachers, in their understanding of and, consequently, the practices they use to meet the needs of students in these social contexts. We conclude with recommendations for educational practice.     

How students reason about matter flows and accumulations in complex biological phenomena: An emerging learning progression for mass balance

In recent years, there has been a strong push to transform STEM education at K-12 and collegiate levels to help students learn to think like scientists. One aspect of this transformation involves redesigning instruction and curricula around fundamental scientific ideas that serve as conceptual scaffolds students can use to build cohesive knowledge structures. In this study, we investigated how students use mass balance reasoning as a conceptual scaffold to gain a deeper understanding of how matter moves through biological systems. Our aim was to lay the groundwork for a mass balance learning progression in physiology. We drew on a general models framework from biology and a covariational reasoning framework from math education to interpret students' mass balance ideas. We used a constant comparative method to identify students' reasoning patterns from 73 interviews conducted with undergraduate biology students. We helped validate the reasoning patterns identified with >8000 written responses collected from students at multiple institutions. From our analyses, we identified two related progress variables that describe key elements of students' performances: the first describes how students identify and use matter flows in biology phenomena; the second characterizes how students use net rate-of-change to predict how matter accumulates in, or disperses from, a compartment. We also present a case study of how we used our emerging mass balance learning progression to inform instructional practices to support students' mass balance reasoning. Our progress variables describe one way students engage in three dimensional learning by showing how student performances associated with the practice of mathematical thinking reveal their understanding of the core concept of matter flows as governed by the crosscutting concept of matter conservation. Though our work is situated in physiology, it extends previous work in climate change education and is applicable to other scientific fields, such as physics, engineering, and geochemistry.     

Small Circles: Mobile Telephony and the Cultivation of the Private Sphere

This article examines how we use mobile telephony to maintain our physically and socially closest social circle. The analysis is based on traffic data gathered from Norway using approximately 24 million calls and texts made by private individuals. Previous research has shown that our temporal and spatial movement is highly predictable and that the majority of calls and text messages are sent to only four to six different persons. This article extends this research by examining both tie strength and the distance between the interlocutors in urban and rural settings. The findings show that even as information and communication technologies (ICTs) potentially put the world at our fingertips, the mobile phone is an instrument of a more limited geographical and social sphere. Approximately two-thirds of our calls/texts go to strong ties that are within a 25-km radius.     

Enabling integrated knowledge acquisition and management in health care teams

Basing treatment, policy and planning decisions on the best available research knowledge remains a central principle in modern health care around the world, yet many health professionals find acquiring and managing published research knowledge challenging. In this paper, we report on a Soft Systems Methodology-based collaborative action research initiative with a specialist mental health service from the United Kingdom's National Health Service. Our objective was to design and implement improvements to their knowledge acquisition and management activities in order to facilitate sustained and effective evidence-based practices. We report on both the factors found to impede effective research knowledge acquisition and management and the development of more integrated knowledge management processes designed to improve the situation.