Bien Educado: Measuring the social behaviors of Mexican American children

Young children's expected social behaviors develop within particular cultural contexts and contribute to their academic experience in large part through their relationships with their teachers. Commonly used measures focus on children's problem behaviors, developed from psychopathology traditions, and rarely situate normative and positive behaviors in context. Building from the literature on parenting goals and socialization expectations in Latino families and a preliminary ethnographic study (Proyecto Educando Niños), we constructed a survey in English and Spanish that measures the expected social behaviors of Mexican-heritage children, ages 3–6 years, using parent and teacher reports. Use of the BEAR Assessment System facilitated the refinement of this instrument to assess the socialization of young, Mexican American children. We report on the psychometric properties of the Mexican American Socialization (MAS) Scale, utilizing item-response theory. Analyses indicate the MAS Scale is reliable and an ecologically valid indicator of multiple constructs of the expected social behaviors of young Mexican American children. In particular, the 41-item Bien Educado subscale showed good reliability and is consistent with socialization constructs described in the literature. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Reluctant mediator: Hong Kong,the two Koreas and the Tokyo Olympics

This essay examines the complex, and ultimately unsuccessful, negotiations between North and South Korea, undertaken with the encouragement of the International Olympic Committee during 1962–63 to form a united Korean team to participate in the Tokyo Olympics of 1964. In particular, it focuses on the role of Hong Kong, chosen as a ‘neutral’ site for the two Korean delegations to meet. It shows how the IOC's optimism for a ‘sporting’ solution was to founder on continued mutual suspicion and recriminations between the two Koreas and how the Hong Kong government's reluctance to get involved, the US political intervention, and North Korean participation in the GANEFO Games were all to complicate the process.     

Postschool Engagement Predictors for Youth with Intellectual Disability: Results from South Carolina

ABSTRACT

Postschool outcomes of youth with intellectual disability (ID) continue to trouble practitioners and scholars. The purpose of this study was to analyze postschool engagement outcome data for 360 survey respondents with ID in South Carolina in the areas of employment and postsecondary education/training. Specifically, we examined the relationship of special education exit reason, as well as, student, school, and district variables to youth’s postschool engagement. We used logistic regression to estimate probability of engagement one year after exiting high school. Results indicated that special education exit reason, gender, school retention rates, district attendance rates, percentage of students with disabilities within a district, percentage of students within a district receiving free and reduced lunch, district retention rates, and district suspension/expulsion rates were significantly related to three postschool engagement outcomes. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

Haraway's ‘bag lady story-telling’: relocating childhood and learning within a ‘post-human landscape’

In this article, we explore some alternate ways of approaching childhood and learning by taking three short forays into what Donna Haraway calls a ‘post-human landscape’. This exploration takes us beyond the horizons of orthodox educational approaches, in which the individual child is typically seen to be developing and learning within his/her (exclusively human) sociocultural context. The post-human landscape relocates childhood within a world that is much bigger than us (humans) and about more than our (human) concerns. It allows us to reconsider the ways in which children are both constituted by and learn within this more-than-human world. Adopting Haraway's feminist narrative strategy, we offer three very different ‘bag lady’ stories that consider the ethics and politics of child/non-human animal cross-species encounters. Each of these stories gestures towards the ways in which we can learn to live with ‘companion species’ rather than only ever learn about them.     

Movement and Resistance: (Tattooed) Bodies and Performance

This essay is a genealogy of the performances of extensively tattooed individuals in tattoo contests held at tattoo conventions. It focuses on how the body in performance cites historical discourses and how that citation is necessary for both resistant and recuperative effects. I argue that the force of the normalizing discourse of class to contain and dictate the meaning of the (tattooed) body is challenged through actual and immanent movement. I conclude by emphasizing the resistant potential that is always immanent in the body by showing how the explicitly tattooed body's actions overflow and subsequently dismantle the logic of class normalization even as they resist and recuperate it.     

Strengthening the Early Childhood Workforce: How Wage Incentives May Boost Training and Job Stability

Research Findings: Aiming to raise the quality of early childhood teachers and caregivers and to reduce turnover, government and professional associations are pursuing 2 intervention strategies. The 1st mandates higher credential levels, as seen with Head Start and state preschool reforms. Here we examine the efficacy of the 2nd strategy: offering wage incentives to encourage in-service training and to reduce job turnover. We followed 2,783 preschool center directors, teachers, and classroom aides who participated in California's Child-care Retention Incentive (CRI) program during a 3-year period. County-designed programs offered differing combinations of wage supplements and professional development to participants who pursued college-level training. We found a priori low levels of staff turnover among those who selected into the CRI program. This conditioned the modest program effects that we observed and revealed the segmented character of the early childhood labor force, which appears to shape selection patterns. Demographic attributes of staff and the auspice in which staff worked were significantly related to the number of college units acquired and to job stability. Specific features of local CRI programs were less influential. Staff completed more college courses when participating in programs that provided stronger career advising and professional activities in addition to their college coursework. Practice or Policy: Implications for incentive programs nationwide are discussed.