Challenge 98: sustaining the work of a regional technology integration initiative

In this article, we offer a research‐based theoretical framework for sustainability, describing the proven qualities of a project and the innovations that support its sustained existence over time. We then describe how a US Department of Education Technology Innovation Challenge grantee, working to promote technology integration in a socio‐economically disadvantaged region of the state of Texas, succeeded in creating a sustainable set of activities around its work to support educators’ uses of technology. We examine the factors that served to nurture and facilitate sustainability of the practices associated with technology integration to promote student achievement. We take the fact that it is not the project but rather the change in practice that is important.     

Looking back to the future: Māori and Pakeha mother-child birth stories.

Māori adults have earlier first memories than adults in any culture studied to date. To test the role of early memory socialization in this advantage, Māori (n= 15) and New Zealand European (or Pakeha, n= 17) mothers told birth stories and stories of shared past events to their children (3-4 or 7-8 years). Compared to Pakeha mothers, Māori mothers elaborated more in the birth stories, relative to their elaborations in stories about shared past events, and included more references to relational time and internal states in their birth stories. These data provide the first empirical evidence that Māori children experience a richer narrative environment than Pakeha children for significant events in their past.     

No Child Misunderstood: Enhancing Early Childhood Teachers’ Multicultural Responsiveness to the Social Competence of Diverse Children

As a result of rapid demographic changes in our society, more children from diverse racial/cultural backgrounds join our early childhood classrooms. The majority of early childhood teachers, on the other hand, are middle-class and of European-decent. This paper provides early childhood teachers with both theoretical and practical understandings about multicultural responsiveness, in order to understand and promote social competence of young children from diverse backgrounds. To accomplish this end, readers will be guided to consider actual classroom based examples and questions throughout the paper. First, the concept of social competence will be revisited from sociocultural perspectives. Next, we discuss advocacy for social competence of diverse children through the main themes of multicultural awareness, knowledge, and skills. Finally, we recommend several strategies to support teachers’ professional growth and development for multicultural responsiveness.