教育成就代际传递的机制:资本和沟通的视角

父母传递给子女的不仅是生理特征,各种社会特征如教育成就、社会地位等也存在代际传递的现象。从资本视角看,这种传递不仅是父母通过人力资本、文化资本实现的文化再生产过程,它已经成为一个将经济资本和社会资本转化为升学、教育机会的过程;从沟通视角看,各种资本对教育成就的影响都离不开亲子沟通和家校沟通等具体过程。资本和沟通的视角为帮助弱势群体降低教育成就的代际传递性,促进教育公平带来重要启示。     

Practitioners' views about effective mental health and well-being support for post-16 students attending special school

Supporting children and young people's mental health and well-being is central to UK Government policy, with statistics suggesting post-16 students and those with learning difficulties are vulnerable. This case study explored how practitioners at a special school for students with severe and profound and multiple learning difficulties promote post-16 students' mental health and well-being. Data were drawn from four semi-structured interviews and a follow-up focus group. The thematic analysis identified a whole-team approach to supporting mental health and promoting student well-being, through staff knowledge and interpersonal skills, particularly related to communication and ability to build trusting relationships, providing experiences and preparing students for adulthood. Consideration was also given to facilitators and barriers to promoting such provision for students. The emotional needs audit from the Human Givens Institute (2006) could provide a framework for practitioners in special schools to promote mental health and well-being, enabling practical and tangible strategies for intervention and support.     

Communication,Communication, Communication! Growth through Laboratory Instructing

This study examined gains undergraduate students made in their communication and collaboration skills when they served as peer teachers, i.e., laboratory instructors (LIs), for a General Psychology laboratory. Self-ratings of communication and collaboration skills were completed before and after teaching the laboratory. When compared to before the teaching experience, the students rated their skills significantly higher in written expression, oral expression, and participation skills. They also rated themselves significantly higher in written comprehension and expression skills than did a comparison group of non-LIs. Results from interviews also revealed beliefs that their communication and collaboration skills had substantially increased.     

Students’ use of personal technologies in the university classroom: analysing the perceptions of the digital generation

Faculty frequently express concerns about students’ personal use of information and communication technologies in today’s university classrooms. As a requirement of a graduate research methodology course in a university in Ontario, Canada, the authors conducted qualitative research to gain an in-depth understanding of students’ perceptions of this issue. Their findings reveal students’ complex considerations about the acceptability of technology use. Their analysis of the broader contexts of students’ use reveals that despite a technological revolution, university teaching practices have remained largely the same, resulting in ‘cultural lag’ within the classroom. While faculty are technically ‘in charge’, students wield power through course evaluations, surveillance technologies and Internet postings. Neoliberalism and the corporatisation of the university have engendered an ‘entrepreneurial student’ customer who sees education as a means to a career. Understanding students’ perceptions and their technological, social and political contexts offers insights into the tensions within today’s classrooms.     

Scaling Culture Change through Institutional Logics: A Look at the American Association of Universities (AAU) STEM Initiative

ABSTRACT

Little research examines scaled culture change attempted across a network of institutions moving toward more enterprise-level changes. This study attempts to fill that gap by studying the American Association of Universities (AAU) Undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) Initiative and its attempt to scale culture change related to improving STEM teaching across the entire AAU network. The findings show that culture change was being facilitated through AAU’s development of institutional logics that created a new and compelling value system for campuses. However, the logics and conversations had not translated into widespread changes in institutional practices, policies, and structures. The study also identifies hidden values that can play a role in stalling scaled culture change.     

Before Head Start: Income and Ethnicity, Family Characteristics, Child Care Experiences, and Child Development

The present study describes the early life histories of a large sample of three-year-old children from different ethnic backgrounds living in three levels of family income—poverty, near-poverty, and above-poverty. The study examined the developmental characteristics of children in the three groups and related them to family characteristics and experiences in child care. To no one's surprise, significant differences associated with income were found for most of the family measures. Poverty and near-poverty families were more likely to have mothers with lower education, less sensitivity, more depression, and lower HOME scores. Correlatively, for the child development measures, there was an upward progression associated with income. Poverty children consistently showed the greatest deviation from established norms for cognitive and social behavior. A striking finding, however, was the considerable variability found on all the measures—a pattern not sufficiently stressed in related research. This finding has major implications for curriculum planning in Head Start programs. The analysis also showed that child care experience cannot be disregarded as a significant aspect of the history of a prospective enrollee in Head Start or other intervention programs geared to low-income children. Fewer of these children are likely to have a child care history, as families that used at least 10 hours of child care per week were less likely to be either poor or near-poor and thus eligible for enrollment. While this may reflect selection factors associated with child care usage, it also indicates that availability of child care is essential for borderline families that try to stay out of poverty. Number of hours of care per week and age of enrollment did not predict developmental level when the full income sample was considered. However, when only poor and near-poor children in care for at least 20 hours a week were used in the analysis, higher quality of care was associated with more favorable developmental outcomes in the children.     

Does amount of time spent in child care predict socioemotional adjustment during the transition to kindergarten?

To examine relations between time in nonmaternal care through the first 4.5 years of life and children's socioemotional adjustment, data on social competence and problem behavior were examined when children participating in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care were 4.5 years of age and when in kindergarten. The more time children spent in any of a variety of nonmaternal care arrangements across the first 4.5 years of life, the more externalizing problems and conflict with adults they manifested at 54 months of age and in kindergarten, as reported by mothers, caregivers, and teachers. These effects remained, for the most part, even when quality, type, and instability of child care were controlled, and when maternal sensitivity and other family background factors were taken into account. The magnitude of quantity of care effects were modest and smaller than those of maternal sensitivity and indicators of family socioeconomic status, though typically greater than those of other features of child care, maternal depression, and infant temperament. There was no apparent threshold for quantity effects. More time in care not only predicted problem behavior measured on a continuous scale in a dose-response pattern but also predicted at-risk (though not clinical) levels of problem behavior, as well as assertiveness, disobedience, and aggression.     

It's All About Me: The User-Centered Approach as a Solution to the Challenges Posed by Information Literacy Instruction

The Future Voices in Public Services column is a forum for students in graduate library and information science programs to discuss key issues they see in academic library public services, to envision what they feel librarians in public service have to offer to academia, to tell us of their visions for the profession, or to tell us of research that is going on in library schools. We hope to provide fresh perspectives from those entering our field, in both the United States and other countries. Interested faculty of graduate library and information science programs, who would like their students’ ideas represented in these pages, are invited to contact Nancy H. Dewald at nxd7@psu.edu

Samantha Sinanan is an MLIS candidate in the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Here she proposes that librarians should seek to understand the Net Generation searcher's perspective in order to teach information literacy most effectively.

Accredited by the American Library Association with the Canadian Library Association, SLAIS is an internationally recognized graduate school at The University of British Columbia, in beautiful Vancouver. At SLAIS we are in the business of preparing professionals to exercise leadership in planning, implementing, and promoting the preservation, organization, and effective use of society's recorded information and ideas. We offer the master's degree in Library and Information Studies (MLIS) and the master's degree in Archival Studies (MAS). In addition, we sponsor a multidisciplinary Master of Arts in Children's Literature (MACL) with five other departments. Opportunities are also available for post-master's study, including a Ph.D. program in library, archival & information studies. For more information, visit www.slais.ubc.ca     

How It's Done: Examining Distance Education Library Instruction and Assessment

ABSTRACT

While articles on individual studies, surveys, and programs abound, there is a lack of baseline data regarding what and how libraries provide instruction for their distant populations. Do libraries generally provide information literacy or library instruction to students at a distance? How is instruction usually provided? Is instruction generally assessed? If so, how is instruction assessed? These questions were asked of librarians in an online survey of 143 institutions offering distance programs, randomly sampled from the College Blue Book. With a 55% response rate, data about instruction offerings and assessment were correlated with information about library staff size, budget, and student enrollment. The expectation was that larger libraries with more money and students would provide more and better services, but interestingly these factors had far less influence than anticipated. It seems that the individual efforts of librarians were the major determinants for services offered by libraries at institutions with distant students.