Do maternal concerns at delivery predict parenting stress during infancy?

OBJECTIVE: In a previous study, we found that new mothers could and would express concerns about their parenting, including concerns about maltreatment and poor care. In this study, we examine the utility of early maternal concerns for predicting parenting stress in the first year. Parenting stress is important because it has been shown to be related to maltreatment and poor parent-child relationships. METHOD: A sample of 246 mothers were interviewed shortly after delivery in a publicly funded hospital about their parenting concerns, and 93% were reinterviewed in their homes about their parenting when the infants were 6 to 12 months old. Standardized measures with demonstrated psychometric properties were employed, including a measure of parenting stress due to the demands of the parenting role, characteristics of the child that make him or her difficult to care for, and stress due to difficult interactions. RESULTS: Multiple regression results indicate that both mothers concerns at delivery and sociodemographic variables are significant predictors of all three types of parenting stress in infancy. Maternal concerns were more powerful than sociodemographics in predicting stress related to the demands of parenting, while sociodemographics were more powerful for the prediction of stress related to difficult child characteristics and difficult mother-infant interaction. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that knowledge of new mothers' parenting concerns might be useful for predicting parenting problems, as well as for engaging mothers' in and enhancing the effectiveness of parenting services.     

Theoretical Eclecticism in the College Classroom

In this article we argue that student learning is enhanced by theoretical eclecticism, which we define as intentionally drawing on different theories of learning when making instructional decisions to provide students with the instructional support they need to be successful. We briefly review the literature on four views of learning and on learner-centered approaches to instruction and then integrate this literature with Barr and Taggs (1995) distinction between the instruction paradigm and the learning paradigm. Finally, we present examples from a teacher education course to illustrate how theoretical eclecticism can be used to support student learning.Anastasia S. Morrone is the Executive Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning and an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology in the School of Education at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. She received her B.S. degree in Technical Communication from the University of Minnesota and her Ph.D. degree in Educational Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests center around instructional practices that promote college student motivation and learning. Terri A. Tarr is the Director of the Instructional Design and Development unit of the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Director of Associate Faculty Development at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. She is also an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Psychology. She earned the Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Purdue University as well as an M.A. in School Psychology and a B.A. in Psychology from Ball State University. Her special interests are individual differences in learning and effective practices in faculty development     

Child maltreatment and perceived family environment as risk factors for adult rape: is child sexual abuse the most salient experience?

OBJECTIVE: Child maltreatment and family functioning were examined as predictors of adult rape in a sample of 925 college women. METHOD: Information was obtained from retrospective self-report questionnaires. Child sexual abuse (CSA) was assessed with the Life Experiences Questionnaire, child emotional abuse (CEA) and physical abuse (CPA) were assessed with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, family functioning was assessed with the Family Environment Scale, and adult rape was assessed with the Sexual Experiences Survey. RESULTS: Approximately 17% of women reported a history of any form of child abuse: 8.9% reported CSA, 4.2% reported CPA, and 8.6% reported CEA. Fifteen percent of participants reported a history of rape since age 17. CSA and CEA, but not CPA, were related to adult rape. Experiencing multiple forms of child abuse increased the risk of adult rape. Logistic regression analyses indicated that CSA predicted adult rape (OR=1.9). Further, low levels of family cohesion predicted adult rape only in the absence of CEA (OR=1.2), and low levels of emotional expressiveness in the family predicted adult rape only in the presence of CEA (OR=1.4). CONCLUSIONS: Findings highlight the need to consider multiple forms of child abuse as well as family functioning in relation to the risk of adult sexual victimization. Findings suggest CSA is a risk factor for adult victimization independent of family functioning, and family dysfunction exerts an impact on rape only in relation to CEA.     

Academic mobility,transnational identity capital,and stratification under conditions of academic capitalism

Academic mobility has existed since ancient times. Recently, however, academic mobility—the crossing of international borders by academics who then work ‘overseas’—has increased. Academics and the careers of academics have been affected by governments and institutions that have an interest in coordinating and accelerating knowledge production. This article reflects on the relations between academic mobility and knowledge and identity capital and their mutual entanglement as academics move, internationally. It argues that the contemporary movement of academics takes place within old hierarchies among nation states, but such old hierarchies intersect with new academic stratifications which will be described and analysed. These analytical themes in the article are supplemented by excerpts from interviews of mobile academics in the UK, USA, New Zealand, Korea and Hong Kong as selected examples of different locales of academic capitalism.     

How epistemic reflexivity enables teacher educators’ teaching for diversity: Exploring a pedagogical framework for critical thinking

Recent research points to the importance of teacher educators teaching for diversity in initial teacher education programmes. Teaching for diversity is an approach to teacher education in which an understanding of specialist literature and a focus on critical thinking supports a social justice agenda as opposed to merely using different tips and tricks to prepare future teachers for teaching diverse learners in the classroom. In this study, we explored how Australian and New Zealand teacher educators negotiated a social justice agenda in teacher education programmes, using a new transdisciplinary framework of epistemic reflexivity. The Epistemic Reflexivity for Teacher Education (ER-TED) framework draws on epistemic cognition (Clark Chinn’s Aims, Ideals, Reliable epistemic processes – AIR – framework) and Margaret Archer’s reflexivity to explore knowledge claims in teacher educators’ pedagogical decision-making. The findings identified how teacher educators in our study discerned and deliberated with respect to epistemic aims for justification, which involve transformative critical thinking and critical thinking for self. They reported good knowledge (ideals) as being scholarly in nature, and reliable epistemic processes based on higher-order thinking (analysis and evaluating competing ideas) or engaging with multiple perspectives. The teacher educators in our study are clear examples of how strong overall evaluative epistemic stances enable teaching for social justice. We argue that the ER-TED framework can help us as a profession to address teaching for diversity in teacher education programmes based on the belief that the pursuit of social justice requires an evaluativist epistemic stance.     

Response: Dempster and Corkill's “Interference and Inhibition in Cognition and Behavior: Unifying Themes for Educational Psychology”

Dempster and Corkill present a persuasive case for the utility of the concepts of interference and inhibition in their review, Interference and Inhibition in Cognition and Behavior: Unifying Themes for Educational Psychology. We were especially attracted to their drawing attention to the role of inhibition in learning and to the argument that closer links of educational psychology to neuroscience are needed. At a general level of analysis, we agreed that the concepts of interference and inhibition can provide a unifying framework for describing phenomena in several areas of inquiry, but these concepts seemed to us to be less useful for understanding structured, meaningful learning in instructional domains. Overall, we viewed Dempster and Corkill's review as a creative effort that usefully redirects our attention to neglected basic learning processes.     

Faculty and instructional designers on building successful collaborative relationships

Employing phenomenological techniques this qualitative study investigates perceptions of collaborative relationships between instructional designers and faculty at an R1 university. While past research has considered the growing involvement of instructional designers in course development, and knowledge and skills expected from an instructional designer, little attention has been paid to what constitutes an effective collaboration and how it can be developed from the perspectives of both instructional designers and faculty. Based on semi-structured interviews of faculty and instructional designers, the following four thematic categories were uncovered: (1) reasons for collaborative efforts; (2) structure of collaborative relationships; (3) supports of and barriers to collaboration; and (4) essential competencies and strategies for instructional designers and faculty in a collaborative partnership. Our findings support the existing research on the importance of collaboration between instructional designers and faculty, and spotlights instructional designers in the higher education setting. They also outline key elements of an effective relationship, including understanding the role of an instructional designer, trust and rapport building (and its components), administrative support and faculty buy-in. Suggestions are made for to how overcome potential barriers to ensure an effective and collaborative partnership. Implications and future directions for research and training programs are discussed.

     

Changing Research Contexts in Teacher Education in Australia: Charting new directions

This paper examines research into initial teacher education in light of current Australian policy initiatives concerned with both the quality of research conducted in higher education and the quality of teacher education programs. The purpose of the paper is to explore some ways in which the research is, and can be, positioned in the current policy context. The paper begins with a brief overview of some of the main characteristics of the research concerned with initial (pre‐service) teacher education in Australia over the last decade. In terms of scope, scale and methodology, the research can be characterised in the following way: typically small‐scale; many one‐off studies; localised in nature; and a growing application of qualitative research methods. An obvious strength of this type of research is that it is closely tied to practice and to the day‐to‐day workings of initial teacher education programs. An equally obvious weakness is that the research does not necessarily have so called ‘impact’ in relation to policy debates and/or other measures of success in the wider research community. The paper charts some possible new directions for teacher education research in ways that build on the strengths and address the weaknesses. The directions can be characterised as follows: a ‘big funding’ approach; an ‘institutional aggregation’ approach; and a ‘platforms and protocols’ approach.     

The Dark Side of Instruction: Teacher Anger as Classroom Norm Violations

Based on norm violation theory, we examined students' reactions to teachers' normative and nonnormative expressions of anger. College students ( N = 301 ) judged the appropriateness and intensity of teachers' anger in the classroom for four modes of expression: Distributive Aggression, Passive Aggression, Integrative Assertion, and Nonassertive Denial. Students rated both types of aggressive expressions as highly intense and inappropriate (or nonnormative), but assertive displays as appropriate and less intense. Additionally, aggressive expressions were negatively related to students' affect, whereas assertive expressions were positively related to affect. Findings extend norm violation theory by identifying how teacher anger should be expressed and when during the semester anger is more likely to be perceived as inappropriate. Moreover, this study illustrates how normative violations of anger are associated with negative evaluations of the teacher and course.     

Capitalizing on Participation: Latina/o Adolescents and the Classroom Economy

Interactions with capital??how it is identified, accumulated and exchanged??occur within fields of action, and every field has its own set of rules, or habitus, shaping the ways in which these interactions unfold. Classrooms, the fields in which students interact in schools, shape and privilege certain ways of thinking and acting, thereby building (or neglecting) opportunities for students. Yet little research has focused on student perceptions of classroom interaction, and particularly whether or how classroom participation might be a form of capital for them. Deploying data collected through classroom observations and interviews with Latina/o students at a large urban high school, this study focuses on examining the ways in which distinct groups of Latina/o students (in a set of schools within a school) understand and experience classroom participation. Findings reveal that while a shared understanding of classroom habitus may be more common than previously thought, we cannot just tell students to participate, or merely depend upon a general belief in the value of participating. Instead, we must simultaneously and explicitly bolster student participation and the cultivation of student networks so that a shared habitus turns the promises of participation into meaningful and equitable praxis.