The role of discordant acculturation attitudes in perceived threat: An analysis of host and immigrant attitudes in Germany

The present research examines discordant acculturation attitudes of host society members and immigrants as an antecedent to intergroup threat. Based on integrated threat theory and the concordance model of acculturation, we posited that discordance on culture maintenance and on desire for contact would predict intergroup threat beyond the influence of other antecedents of threat, such as in-group identification, knowledge, and negative contact. A study with 202 German host society members and 151 Turkish and Italian immigrants was conducted. In line with our assumptions, path analyses revealed that culture discordance and contact discordance contribute independently to the prediction of realistic threat, symbolic threat, and intergroup anxiety for host society members and immigrants. Moreover, differences in threat between cultures were mediated by the discordance in acculturation attitudes.     

A comparison of time-motion performance between age groups in judo matches

The aim of this study was to compare time-motion indicators during judo matches performed by athletes from different age groups. The following age groups were analysed: Pre-Juvenile (13-14 years, n = 522), Juvenile (15-16 years, n = 353); Junior (19 years, n = 349) and Senior (>20 years, n = 587). The time-motion indicators included: Total Combat Time, Standing Combat Time, Displacement Without Contact, Gripping Time, Groundwork Combat Time and Pause Time. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) one-way and the Tukey test, as well as the Kruskal-Wallis test and Mann-Whitney (for non-parametric data), were conducted, using P < 0.05 as significance level. The results showed that all analysed groups obtained a median of 7 (first quantile - 3, third quantile - 12) sequences of combat/pause cycles. In total time of combat, the result was: for Total Combat Time, Standing Combat Time and Gripping Time: Pre-Juvenile and Senior were significantly longer than Juvenile and Junior. Considering Displacement Without Contact, Junior was significantly longer than all other age groups. For Groundwork Combat Time, Senior was significantly longer than all other age groups and Pre-Juvenile was longer than Junior. These results can be used to improve the physiological performance in intermittent practices, as well as technical-tactical training during judo sessions.     

Attitudes toward the level of men's involvement in abortion decisions

College students completed a questionnaire that assessed their attitudes toward the level of male responsibility in abortion decisions. Overall, both men and women thought that men should have some degree of involvement in the abortion decision. However, as expected by the first hypothesis, men indicated a desire for more responsibility in the abortion decision than women thought the men should have. A second hypothesis predicted women would feel more strongly than men that abortion was strictly a woman's issue. Contrary to the hypothesis, women tended to disagree that abortion was strictly a women's issue. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Using Early Learning Standards to Provide High-Quality Education for All Children: The Early Learning Guidelines Toolkit

Today with the rise in the number of 3- to 6-year-old children enrolled in center-based early childhood programs, and a focus on program quality, it becomes imperative for educators to have a better understanding of the role research plays in establishing high-quality programs as these programs provide much of the foundation that supports early learning and development (Child Trends, 2014). Although psychology, and the role of child development research in particular, has always been integral to the field of early childhood education beginning with the seminal works of Piaget, Bronfenbrenner, Bruner, and others (Lickona,1971), the field had never fully embraced the use of research to inform practice, until the 1990s. This had been, in part, because the field of early childhood education originally viewed itself as a field of practitioners that provided for the everyday care and needs of young children, whereas it viewed child development researchers as scientists who paid little attention to the practical needs of classroom teaching (Takanishi, 1981 Takanishi, R. (1981). Early childhood education and research: The changing relationship. Theory into Practice, 20, 86–92.[Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]). Although, today, there is no longer this ideological divide between the two areas, with the child development research being used to inform educational practice and policy (Center for the Developing Child, 2007), nevertheless there still remains a gap in the ability of educators to effectively implement evidence-based practices. Given the increased focus on providing young children with access to high-quality education, and the need for teachers to implement evidence-based practices the present paper attempts to bridge the gap by providing a brief overview of the science of early childhood development, its importance for development of early learning standards, and an overview of the Early Learning Toolkit which was developed to provide early learning educators guidance and resources to support the implementation of early learning standards within their own states as well as well across the nation. The goal of this article is to bridge theory and practice in early childhood education.     

Similarities in the social competencies of learning disabled and low achieving elementary school children.

This study sought to examine distinctions in social competencies between children with learning disabilities (LD) and other children who also experience academic difficulties. Eighty-five children with LD (54 male, 31 female) in Grades 3 through 6 from a large urban school district were compared to a group of low achieving (LA) peers matched on achievement as well as sex, race, and grade. The samples were 42% black, 39% Hispanic, and 19% Anglo. Both groups completed two self-concept questionnaires, a loneliness scale, and a measure of their social relationships outside of school. In addition, their classmates completed a peer rating scale and their teachers completed two ratings of the child's social skills. The results indicated that children with LD and LA children were comparable on most measures, although children with LD reported themselves as being less lonely than LA children. In addition, regular-class children rated children with LD as more likable than LA children. The results highlight similarities in the social competencies of children with LD and LA children and suggest that special education classes may offer some social advantages to children with mild handicaps.     

Visibility and differentiation: systemic testing in a developing country context

Why has large-scale standardised testing attracted such a bad press? Why has pedagogic benefit to be derived from test results been downplayed? The paper investigates this question by first surveying the pros and cons of testing in the literature, and goes on to examine educators' responses to standardised, large-scale tests in a sample of low socio-economic status (SES) schools in the Western Cape, South Africa. The paper shows that teachers and school managers have an ambivalent attitude to tests, wary of the reputational costs they can incur, but also curious about the differentiated picture test results can give them as they learn to ‘read’ the underlying codes embedded in the results. The paper concludes that a focus on what tests make visible and a recognition of the pedagogic agency of teachers points to potential pedagogic benefits of systemic tests.     

Effects of self‐monitoring,token reinforcement and different back‐up reinforcers on the classroom behaviour of retardates

Following a baseline observation period, a class of intellectually handicapped boys were given opportunities to monitor and record their own behaviour as on‐task or off‐task. Following this self‐monitoring phase, the self‐administered check‐marks were used as tokens and exchanged for back‐up consequences, which were initially low‐value objects for consumption (possession). These were later increased in value, and finally changed to access consequences (the opportunity to play with but not possess). Self‐monitoring alone produced a significant increment in the externally assessed level of on‐task behaviour. Only when access back‐up consequences were introduced was there a further significant increment. Provision of high‐value consumption consequences was followed by a loss of accuracy in self‐monitoring, and reduction in on‐task behaviour to baseline levels. The study demonstrated the extension of a self‐control procedure to retardates, the importance of separately measuring the effect of self‐monitoring on the target behaviour, and the need for appropriate selection of back‐up consequences.     

Early Childhood Education as a Scientific Discipline: a state‐of‐the‐art perspective

The objective of early childhood education is to address the totality of issues and areas of activity relevant to young children. In spite of the considerable growth in knowledge concerning children and childhood, this objective has yet to be attained at the theoretical level. Proceeding from the vantage point of a retrospective of the conceptions of the two classical theorists, Rousseau and Frobel, the case is made for grounding early childhood education in the dimensions of subjectivity, intersubjectivity, society and history in order to be able to analyse its various tasks in their respective specificity and reciprocal dependence. The attempt is made to characterise the challenges facing such a theory and to outline the resulting systematic issues for a pedagogy of early childhood.