Play: A Paradox for Teacher and Scientist

The objective of this article is to describe the historical development of sport and exercise psychology, with a particular emphasis on the construction and evolution of the “box” through history. The box represents the dominant paradigm that serves as the model for research and application as it evolves through successive historical eras (Kuhn, 1962). Seven historical eras related to the development of sport and exercise psychology are discussed. Of particular interest for this review were individuals whose curiosity and motivation established the roots for the study of sport and exercise psychology, as well as the controversies and tensions in both kinesiology and psychology that shaped the fi eld. Suggestions for the future include a problem-based approach to scholarship and a cultural praxis version of sport and exercise psychology to enhance relevancy and social impact.     

Psychosocial antecedents of variation in girls' pubertal timing: maternal depression, stepfather presence, and marital and family stress

Drawing on Belsky, Steinberg, and Draper's evolutionary theory of the development of reproductive strategies, we tested a model of individual differences in girls' pubertal timing. This model posits that a history of psychopathology in mothers results in earlier pubertal maturation in daughters, and that this effect is mediated by discordant family relationships and father absence/ stepfather presence. The model was supported in a short-term longitudinal study of 87 adolescent girls. In the primary test of the model, it was found that a history of mood disorders in mothers predicted earlier pubertal timing in daughters, and this relation was fully mediated by dyadic stress and biological father absence. In families in which the mother's romantic partner was not the biological father, dyadic stress accounted for almost half of the variation in daughters' pubertal timing. Stepfather presence, rather than biological father absence, best accounted for earlier pubertal maturation in girls living apart from their biological fathers. We propose that stepfather presence and stressful family relationships constitute separate paths to early pubertal maturation in girls.     

Professor Kagan responds

Letters

Professor Kagan responds     

Gender complexities in Jamaican secondary education: class culture and the ‘elephant’ in the room

ABSTRACT

This article utilizes a combination of the masculinity and intersectionality frameworks to argue that the underachievement of boys occurs in the intricacies of patriarchy, region (rural area), and class culture. The article utilizes data drawn from a qualitative study at two rural institutions in the parish of Manchester, Jamaica, to critically analyze the gendered nexus between boys’ underachievement and educational policies. The low grades merited by boys raise questions of patriarchy in the educational system in which they and their female teachers operate. While the failure of boys is not generalizable to the entire population, underachievement is also located in the mismatch between curriculum and the culture of these boys.     

Teacher Educator Identity in a Culture of Iterative Teacher Education Program Design: A Collaborative Self-Study

Faculty in the School of Education have collaborated to re-envision teacher education at our university. A complex, dynamic, time-consuming and sometimes painstaking process, redesigning a teacher education program from a traditional approach (i.e. where courses focus primarily on theoretical principles of practice through textbooks and university-based classroom discussions) to a model of teacher education that embraces teaching, learning and leading with schools and in communities is challenging, yet exciting work. Little is known about teacher educators’ experiences as they either design or deliver collaborative field-based models of teacher education. In this article, we examine our experiences in the second implementation year of our redesigned teacher education program, Teaching, Learning, and Leading with Schools and Communities (TLLSC) and how these unique experiences inform our teacher educator identities. Through a collaborative self-study, we sought to make meaning of our transformation from a faculty delivering a traditional model to educators collectively implementing a field-based model, by analyzing the diverse perspectives of faculty at different entry points in the TLLSC development and implementation process. We found that our participation in an intensive field-based teacher preparation model challenged our notions of teacher educator identity. In a culture of iterative program design, this study documents the personal and professional shifts in identity required to accomplish this collaborative and dynamic change in approach to teacher education.     

Learning Through Benchmarking: Developing a Relational, Prospective Approach to Benchmarking ICT in Learning and Teaching

This study discusses benchmarking the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in teaching and learning between two universities with different missions: one an Australian campus-based metropolitan university and the other a British distance-education provider. It argues that the differences notwithstanding, it is possible to develop a useful and rigorous benchmarking relationship between such institutions that draws on previous benchmarking research and improves the approach by benchmarking key processes, not just outcomes. By defining a process used to embed ICT in subjects and using this as a focus of the benchmarking, a relational and prospective approach to quality assurance for ICT can be clarified, one which promotes coherence amongst the benchmarks that can be used for the purposes of improvement.     

Interactions in the development of spelling,reading and phonological skills

Early interactive processes of development in reading, spelling and implicit and explicit phonological awareness were assessed in a group of children at four time-points as they progressed through their first three years in school. Exploratory causal path analyses were used to investigate the contribution of each ability to the subsequent growth of skill in reading, spelling and phonological awareness. The resultant structural models demonstrate a role of spelling in the early stages of reading acquisition, as well as differential contributions of implicit and explicit phonological awareness to both reading and spelling. They also suggest a developmental cascade from implicit to explicit phonemic awareness in the normal acquisition of phonological knowledge and associated skills. In the early formulative stages of reading implicit phonemic awareness and reading act reciprocally to build skill in each other. But, as ability in word recognition improves, implicit phonemic awareness plays a diminished role in reading. This pattern of initial reciprocal influence and later dissociation is repeated in the relationship between implicit phoneme awareness and spelling. Explicit phonemic awareness is an important factor in the first stages of spelling development but only emerges later as a significant contributor to reading. The early influence of explicit phoneme awareness on spelling, in conjunction with the major contribution of spelling to beginning reading, indicates that experience in spelling promotes the use of a phonological strategy in reading. Within a developmental context, explicit phoneme awareness initially appears to grow out of an implicit appreciation of the overall sound properties of words. Thereafter, ability to identify and segment phonemes develops independently of implicit phonemic awareness and plays an increasingly important role in the further growth of reading and spelling.