Child pornography: perpetuating the sexual victimization of children

Children have been sexually exploited throughout recorded history. The invention of the camera and subsequent related technological advances (slides, movies, instant picture cameras and videotape) have provided new avenues for the exploitation of children by facilitating the distribution of pictorial representations of these children on a world-wide basis. A major use of commercial child pornography is to convince a potential child victim that the sexual acts desired by the adult offender are fun, exciting, can satisfy the child's curiosity and are a societally acceptable means of expressing affection. Commercial child pornography publications contain numerous pictures of children viewing child pornography, in some cases replicating the pose(s) depicted in the viewed material. Although many jurisdictions have now prohibited child pornography, the need for a world-wide ban continues, as the remaining producers distribute their material throughout the world.     

NAEB research seminar for educational television and radio

To review the status of research in educational broadcasting, assess its adequacy in the light of contemporary requirements and propose a program of urgently needed research, 23 research specialists from organizations and institutions engaged in educational broadcasting participated in a five-day Seminar on Research in Educational Broadcasting. The Seminar was sponsored by the National Association of Educational Broadcasters with funds provided by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. Management responsibility was handled by The Ohio State University, which also generously contributed the services of many members of its staff. The Seminar was held December 9–13, 1957, on The Ohio State University campus in Columbus. For the past few years, Dr. Tyler has been director of the annual Institute for Education by Radio and Television.     

Making learning fun: Quest Atlantis, a game without guns

This article describes the Quest Atlantis (QA) project, a learning and teaching project that employs a multiuser, virtual environment to immerse children, ages 9–12, in educational tasks. QA combines strategies used in commercial gaming environments with lessons from educational research on learning and motivation. It allows users at participating elementary schools and after-school centers to travel through virtual spaces to perform educational activities, talk with other users and mentors, and build virtual personae. Our work has involved an agenda and process that may be called socially-responsive design, which involves building sociotechnical structures that engage with and potentially transform individuals and their contexts of participation. This work sits at the intersection of education, entertainment, and social commitment and suggests an expansive focus for instructional designers. The focus is on engaging classroom culture and relevant aspects of student life to inspire participation consistent with social commitments and educational goals interpreted locally. This research was supported in part by a CAREER Grant from the National Science Foundation, REC-9980081 and by the National Science Foundation Grant #0092831.     

Programa de fortalecimiento de capacidades: reflections on a case study of community-based teacher education set in rural northern Peru

This article explores distinctive features of a 5-year international education development project set in rural northern Peru (PROMEB, the Proyecto de Mejoramiento de la Educación Básica). Grounded within a partnership between teacher educators from Peru, Mexico and Canada, and rural Peruvian teachers, students and their communities, we offer reflections on a teacher education initiative which sought to support action-orientated inquiries as a mechanism for school/community development. Set against a background of poverty, hunger, isolation and an “educational crisis”, we outline our pedagogy and describe two projects. We then reflect on the influences of our engagements and on associated tensions and ambiguities in our methods. We hope that such discussions might offer insights for others involved in international school/community development projects of this type.     

Changes in Cortical Sensitivity to Infant Facial Cues From Pregnancy to Motherhood Predict Mother–Infant Bonding

The transition to motherhood triggers changes in human brain structure that may facilitate mother–infant bonding. Although much research on maternal cortical responses to infant faces has focused on the postpartum period, no previous study has examined whether longitudinal functional changes in the maternal cortex during pregnancy and postpartum are associated with mother–infant bonding. Using electroencephalography, prenatal to postnatal changes in cortical sensitivity (P1, P2, late positive potential, N170 event-related potentials) to infant and adult faces were examined in relation to reported mother–infant bonding in 40 mothers (M_age = 30.5 years). Prenatal to postnatal increases in P1 and P2 responses to infant faces predicted stronger bonding. Findings suggest that cortical changes in attention allocation rather than in face-specific encoding enhance bonding.     

Race,schools and opportunity hoarding: evidence from a post-war American metropolis

Opportunity hoarding is a sociological concept first introduced by Charles Tilly. This article explores its utility for historians by examining efforts to exclude different groups of people in a major American metropolis during the 1960s and seventies. This was a period of significant social change, as the racial composition of big city schools shifted dramatically and suburban school districts grew substantially. An examination two such suburban districts finds sustained and effective measures undertaken to exclude African-Americans from moving into one of them. In the neighbouring district, resistance to low-income housing was initially successful but white residents were unable to prevent relatively affluent blacks from settling there. This eventually contributed to further white flight and the transition to a predominantly African-American district. Mechanisms of exclusion are discussed, along with the utility of opportunity hoarding as a concept for historians interested in studying similar issues in other settings.     

Explaining Variability in Response Style Traits: A Covariate-Adjusted IRTree

Contamination of responses due to extreme and midpoint response style can confound the interpretation of scores, threatening the validity of inferences made from survey responses. This study incorporated person-level covariates in the multidimensional item response tree model to explain heterogeneity in response style. We include an empirical example and two simulation studies to support the use and interpretation of the model: parameter recovery using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) estimation and performance of the model under conditions with and without response styles present. Item intercepts mean bias and root mean square error were small at all sample sizes. Item discrimination mean bias and root mean square error were also small but tended to be smaller when covariates were unrelated to, or had a weak relationship with, the latent traits. Item and regression parameters are estimated with sufficient accuracy when sample sizes are greater than approximately 1,000 and MCMC estimation with the Gibbs sampler is used. The empirical example uses the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health’s sexual knowledge scale. Meaningful predictors associated with high levels of extreme response latent trait included being non-White, being male, and having high levels of parental support and relationships. Meaningful predictors associated with high levels of the midpoint response latent trait included having low levels of parental support and relationships. Item-level covariates indicate the response style pseudo-items were less easy to endorse for self-oriented items, whereas the trait of interest pseudo-items were easier to endorse for self-oriented items.     

A Kinesiology Conundrum: Physical Activity Requirements in Kinesiology Degree Programs

One of the most long-standing controversies in kinesiology has been that of physical activity requirements (PARs) in corresponding degree programs. Despite a recommendation from the American Kinesiology Association to include “the practice of physical activity” in undergraduate kinesiology degree programs, some programs have PARs, while others do not. The question still remains: should physical activity be required for all kinesiology students? In this article, we build a case for PARs in kinesiology degree programs. First, we highlight the most common theoretical and practical objections to such requirements. The theoretical objections are namely dualism, materialism, and utilitarian pragmatism; the practical objections are cost, the credit crunch, and public perception. Second, and most importantly, we describe why these theoretical and practical objections fail. As unapologetic partisans on this issue, our primary aim is to highlight why PARs belong in every kinesiology degree program, regardless of concentration or area of emphasis.     

What Is the Long‐Run Impact of Learning Mathematics During Preschool?

The current study estimated the causal links between preschool mathematics learning and late elementary school mathematics achievement using variation in treatment assignment to an early mathematics intervention as an instrument for preschool mathematics change. Estimates indicate (n = 410) that a standard deviation of intervention‐produced change at age 4 is associated with a 0.24‐SD gain in achievement in late elementary school. This impact is approximately half the size of the association produced by correlational models relating later achievement to preschool math change, and is approximately 35% smaller than the effect reported by highly controlled ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models (Claessens et al., 2009; Watts et al., 2014 ) using national data sets. Implications for developmental theory and practice are discussed.