The relationship between teachers’ emotional intelligence and classroom discipline management

One of the fundamental problems of educational systems in many countries is related to classroom discipline. This reflects one of the worst problems faced by teachers. Classroom discipline management strategies play an effective role in creating positive teacher‐student relationships. One of the factors that influence behavior management in a classroom is emotional intelligence. Therefore, this study analyzing how teachers emotional intelligence influences the management of discipline in a classroom and the relationship between gender, academic formation, and service time of teachers with their emotional intelligence. Its sample comprises 559 basic and secondary school teachers. An Emotional Competence Questionnaire, a Scale of Teacher Efficacy in Classroom Management, and a personal and professional data inquiry have been used as instruments. Results show that teachers who have more capacity to deal with emotion demonstrate a greater management of discipline in the classroom. Most of the relationships in the model are statistically significant.     

Toronto multiagency child abuse research project: The abused and the abuser

Information from 422 cases of child mistreatment in Toronto was gathered from the files of a child welfare agency and a children's hospital. These data were compared to patterns reported in previous studies and clinical writings on child mistreatment to investigate similarities and differences in families whose children have been abused in Canada, England, and the United States. Findings from the present study were similar to others in many respects. The differences were primarily in the area of lower incidences of such problems as perinatal difficulties in the children and intellectual limitations and social isolation in the parents; however, there was a higher incidence of single-parent families. The results suggest that clinicians should bear in mind that child mistreatment cannot be ruled out on the grounds that no serious problems have been noted for the child or the family.     

The social stratification of the German VET system

Germany is widely known for its vocational education and training (VET) system and its dual apprenticeship system in particular. What is often overlooked, however, is the vertical stratification within the German VET system. This is the focus of this study. Our analysis shows that the VET system, like the German school system, is highly stratified, resulting in large differences in labour market opportunities. We elaborate on three dimensions of vertical stratification: VET system vs. higher education, fully qualifying vs. prevocational VET programmes and segmentation of the fully qualifying VET programmes by educational attainment and career prospects. All three stratification dimensions are closely linked to school attainment and thereby to social origin.     

Students’ conscious unknowns about artefacts and natural objects

This study attempts to characterise what 7th- and 12th-grade students believe they do not know about artefacts and natural objects, as well as the dependence of what is unknown on a knowledge of these objects. The students were asked to make explicit through questioning what they did not know about a sample of objects. The unknowns generated were categorised according to a scheme based on lexical semantics theory. Two of the categories focused specifically on imprecise unknowns expressed through What is X? questions, and on unknowns concerning functions. The results showed, firstly, that a lower grade level and lower knowledge of a certain class of objects was associated with more imprecise unknowns. Secondly, unknowns about the functions of artefacts were significantly more frequent than unknowns about the functions of natural objects at any of the grade levels. Overall, the results were consistent with the hypothesis of a correspondence between knowledge and unknowns.     

Externalizing Problems in Two-Year-Olds: Implications for Patterns of Social Behavior and Peers' Responses to Aggression

A sample of 48 two-year-old children selected on the basis of parents' responses to two administrations of the Child Behavior Checklist for two to three-year-olds was observed in peer interactions. Twenty-four of these children displayed symptoms of aggressive/destructive (externalizing) problems that were in the borderline clinical range (labelled “high risk”) and 24 children displayed few such symptoms (“low risk”). The children were observed in matched dyads (one high risk and one low risk child) across four tasks designed to vary in the degree of social participation they would elicit from the children. Across all tasks, children in the high risk group displayed significantly and consistently more aggressive behavior than the children in the low risk group. However, these high risk children did not differ from other children in terms of several indices of social and nonsocial play. In addition, when children were classified as high aggressive versus average versus low aggressive on the basis of laboratory behavior, children who displayed high amounts of aggression during the play sessions did not differ from less aggressive children on these indices of social play. Finally, the responses of non-aggressive dyad partners to aggressive acts indicated that children are responsive, in relatively subtle ways, to aggression. These results are discussed in terms of the implications of early problematic behavior for later indices of maladjustment that include social competence and peer rejection.     

Peer Assessment of a Group Project in a Primary Mathematics Education Course

This paper discusses the problem of discriminating between individual contributions in the assessment of group projects. It is argued that peer assessment is a necessary element of any proposed structure but that the use of any ‘weighting‐factor’ system is contrary to the philosophy underpinning collaborative groupwork. A structure that separates the process and product elements of the assessment is described and a set of generic criteria for the process peer assessment identified. This structure was implemented with a group of students at Hong Kong University and evaluated using questionnaires and in‐depth interviews. The paper discusses the results of this evaluation and in particular identifies the need for ‘benchmarking’ when using the criteria and also the problematic nature of the ‘insider‐outsider’ syndrome as an important cultural factor.     

Does Chewing Coca Leaves Influence Physiology at High Altitude?

Andean Indians have used coca leaves (Erythroxylon coca and related species) for centuries to enhance physical performance. The benefits and disadvantages of using coca leaf have been a subject of many political debates. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of chewing coca leaves on biochemical and physiological parameters. Cutaneous microdialysis catheters were used to estimate systemic biochemical changes. We subjected 10 healthy adult males (local residents) in Cajamarca (Peru, altitude 2700 m) to a standardised exercise routine on a stationary cycle ergometer. The blood pressure, oxygen saturation (digital), pulse, VO2 max and ECG (Holter monitor) were recorded before the exercise. Cutaneous microdialysis catheters were introduced in the forearm. The subjects were given to chew 8 g of coca leaves with a small amount of lime. They were then placed on the cycle ergometer for 20 min. Blood pressure, oxygen saturation, pulse, ECG and VO2 max were recorded. Pyruvate, glucose, lactate, glycerol and glutamate levels were estimated. Oxygen saturation, blood pressure, and pulse rate did not show any significant changes between the two groups. Glucose levels showed hyperglycaemic response. Glycerol, Lactate and Pyruvate increased. Glutamate remained unchanged. Similar changes were not seen in the controls. These results suggest that coca leaves have blocked the glycolytic pathway of glucose oxidation resulting in accumulation of glucose and pyruvate. The energy requirement for exercise is being met with beta-oxidation of fatty acids. The glycerol released was also getting accumulated since its pathway for oxidation was blocked. These experimental findings suggest that chewing coca leaves is beneficial during exercise and that the effects are felt over a prolonged period of sustained physical activity.     

Teachers' social class,professional dispositions and pedagogic practice

Through theoretically driven case studies, the research reported here considers the ways in which students in different social class settings are inducted into school knowledge. The paper brings to the centre the social class positioning of teachers in considering their role in schooling processes. The central question of the paper is whether we can establish a relationship between teachers' own social class backgrounds, their professional dispositions and their pedagogic practice. The interest emerges from a long-standing assumption that teachers are middle class, and reproduce the practices associated with that social location. The paper is exploratory and is not able to provide a definitive answer to the question of the relationship between class, professional disposition and pedagogic practice. Although it suggests a relationship between teachers' social class position and schooling practices, the main contribution of the paper is to offer a metric for exploring the issue further. That is, through a specifically selected sample, the paper provides a means for considering the implications of teachers social class background, professional dispositions and pedagogic practice for the processes of the reproduction of social inequality, and its interruption.