Innovation,Creativity, and Meaning: Leading in the Information Age

Today's fast paced global environment requires information professionals to be leaders keeping pace with user needs. Two academic research libraries share their work seeking to ensure and leverage the creativity in their organizations focusing on the most meaningful innovative opportunities. The premise is that usefulness and appropriateness is achieved through strategic alignment, thereby opening the door of opportunity for innovative products and services. The ability to seize the opportunity each group seeks to meet is due to the recognition by the organization of that alignment. And so, organizational perception, awareness, and value all affect the successful implementation of creativity. The products and services presented in this article, Harvard's Baker Library Historical Collections Online and Purdue University's career wiki, stem from organizational alignment, and the work of the leadership teams to influence perception, create awareness, and demonstrate value.     

Professional Functioning: Exploring Developmental Narratives of Counselor Trainees

The authors analyzed the reflective journals of 49 counselor trainees in internship using a conventional content analysis approach. Developmental insights from the 4 overarching themes and 7 subthemes are provided to assist counselor education and supervision programs in supporting the professional functioning of counselor trainees.     

“Why Can't We Just Have Sex?”: An Analysis of Anonymous Questions About Sex Asked by Ninth Graders

During the high school years, most young people in the United States receive school-based sexuality education, but there is little research on what they want to know about sex and sexuality but may be afraid to ask. This study is a content analysis of anonymous questions about sex (N = 645) asked by ninth-grade students from the greater Los Angeles area. A sample of predominantly lower-income and Latino/a students submitted anonymous questions before participating in sexuality education. Results show that young people are eager to understand how to use birth control and prevent pregnancy, have misinformation about sex and sexuality, and are misinformed on many topics. Results are discussed in light of what educators and others can do to help young people develop a safe, healthy sex life.     

Ethnic identity and the daily psychological well-being of adolescents from Mexican and Chinese backgrounds

Protective effects of ethnic identity on daily psychological well-being were examined in a sample of 415 ninth graders from Mexican and Chinese backgrounds. Utilizing daily diary assessments and multilevel modeling, adolescents with a greater regard for their ethnic group exhibited greater levels of daily happiness and less daily anxiety averaged over the 2-week study period. Ethnic regard moderated the daily association between normative stressful demands and happiness, and between stressful demands and happiness experienced 1 day after stressors occurred. Moderating effects were significant even after controlling for self-esteem. Although no buffering effects of ethnic centrality were found, the results point to the positive influence of ethnic regard in the daily lives of adolescents from ethnic minority backgrounds.     

我寻回了梦想的翅膀

我数月前结婚了,但我的丈夫——格鲁吉亚小镇的一位英姿魁梧的空军飞行员——并不知道我们怎么就相遇了。而且。他也不知道我是怎么接近他的。在他单膝下跪。拿着订婚戒指的那一刻。我还担心。告知生命中的挚爱,我们走在一起并不是命运。而是源自于我在全国寻找一个飞行员的结果。是否为时已晚。     

Taking an internet field trip

Teachers in today’s mathematics classrooms are confronted with the challenge of meeting the needs of students with diverse needs and backgrounds. The NCTM standards and the literature on diverse learners suggest that all students may benefit from strategies that promote cultural and historical connections and the use of technologies, such as Internet Field Trips, and manipulatives that focus on the active engagement of students through exploration and communications. In a passionate plea for bridging the culture gap in our classrooms, Moore (1994) proposes that, Mathematics is definitely not culture-free … no mathematics teacher could even contemplate seriously taking only the values of his culture and a textbook which is a product of his culture and imposing both himself and the textbook upon individuals possessed by a culture that diverges from his in any significant area. (p. 13)     

Children's Emotionality Moderates the Association Between Maternal Responsiveness and Allostatic Load: Investigation Into Differential Susceptibility

While emotionality is often thought of as a risk factor, differential susceptibility theory argues that emotionality reflects susceptibility to both positive and negative environmental influences. The present study explored whether emotional children might be more susceptible to the effects of both high and low maternal responsiveness on allostatic load, a physiological indicator of chronic stress. Participants were 226 mother and child dyads. Mothers reported on children's emotionality at child age 9. Maternal responsiveness was measured at age 13 using self‐reports and behavioral observation. Allostatic load was measured at age 13 and 17 using neuroendocrine, cardiovascular, and metabolic biomarkers. Emotionality was associated with higher allostatic load if self‐reported responsiveness was low, but with lower allostatic load, when self‐reported responsiveness was high.     

Social Justice Education in a Diverse Classroom: Examining High School Discussions about Race,Power, and Privilege

High school students who participate in social justice education have a greater awareness of inequities that impact their school, community, and society, and learn tools for taking action to address these inequities. Also, a classroom that consist of students with a diverse set of identities creates an ideal circumstance in which a teacher can build upon student differences in order to facilitate meaningful discussions about social justice, especially issues of race. Therefore, in this article we use qualitative case study approaches to examine a high school course on social justice education, paying specific attention to the classroom pedagogy and dialogue on issues of race, power, and privilege. The course was purposefully diverse in enrollment, which brought students together who might not have had interactions with each other prior to the class. We employ Hackman's (2005) five components of social justice education (SJE) as a framework for the analysis of the pedagogy and discussions constructed in the classroom, as well as a common language for what constitutes as social justice education in our research inquiry. Students in the course developed a facility for defining and identifying various forms of oppression and injustice. However, we questioned to what extent these very same issues played out in the class dialogue. Due to the level of student diversity, the course was a unique space to learn about racism and intersecting issues of social justice. However, there was still some student resistance to acknowledging certain aspects of racism. In conclusion, we discuss how social justice education is not absolved from, but rife with complex racial politics.     

The effects of browse time on the Internet on students’ essay scores

This study examined how 30 minutes of search time on the Web affected students’ essay scores in response to a writing prompt. Expository essays were obtained from 49 fourth- and fifthgrade students enrolled in an elementary school in Virginia, in the United States. Students were placed by random assignment into three groups with the same writing prompt for all three groups. Data analyses using ANOVA indicate that there was statistical significance in two components of writing. The group that received instruction on using the Internet to conduct research in the prewriting phase outperformed the control group in two areas: the total essay score (p=.053) and usage/mechanics (p=.028). The study also produced effect sizes ranging from small to large when the Internet users were compared to the control group. Implications for the future of Internet use in the school system are discussed.