Multicultural Education Within the Era of Internalization and Globalization

In this article, the author presents the results of a multistate study examining how teachers, and specifically secondary English Language Arts (ELA) teachers, conceptualize and implement teaching for social justice in standards-based contexts. Additional analysis underscores how this practice both reflects and extends earlier equity-oriented reform movements.     

Stress and teachers of the learning disabled,behavior disordered,and educable mentally retarded

This study investigated which factors related to the professional roles of teachers of the learning disabled (LD), behavior disordered (BD), and educable mentally retarded (EMR) are most stressful, and which activities, both personal and professional, are beneficial in guarding against stress. The Special Teacher Response to Environmental Stressors (STRESS) was used to elicit responses from the 135 teachers who participated in the study. The participants rated as highly stressful legal concerns, lack of administrative and peer support, and lack of support services. In particular, teachers of the BD revealed that they were fearful of verbal and physical attacks from their students. The participants rated highly exercise and outdoor programs, confiding in significant others (i.e., wife or husband), and peer support as helpful in guarding against stress.     

Examining social identity and intrateam moral behaviours in competitive youth ice hockey using stimulated recall

Social identity – identity formed through membership in groups – may play an important role in regulating intrateam moral behaviour in youth sport (Bruner, M. W., Boardley, I., & Côté, J. (2014). Social identity and prosocial and antisocial behavior in youth sport. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 15(1), 56–64. doi:10.1016/j.psychsport.2013.09.003). The aim of this study was to qualitatively examine this potential role through stimulated recall interviews with competitive youth-ice-hockey players. Twenty-three players (M_age = 13.27 years, SD = 1.79) who reported engaging in high, median or low frequency of antisocial teammate behaviour (determined through pre-screening with the Prosocial and Antisocial Behaviour in Sport Scale [Kavussanu, M., & Boardley, I. D. (2009). The prosocial and antisocial behavior in sport scale. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 31(1), 97–117. doi:10.1123/jsep.31.1.97]) were recruited from eight youth-ice-hockey teams in Canada. Interviews involved participants recalling their thoughts during prosocial/antisocial interactions with teammates, prompted by previously recorded video sequences of such incidents. Thematic analysis of interview data revealed all athletes – regardless of reported frequency of intrateam antisocial behaviour – felt prosocial interactions with teammates enhanced social identity. In contrast, the perceived influence of antisocial teammate behaviour on social identity differed depending on athletes’ reported frequency of intrateam antisocial behaviour; those reporting low and median frequencies described how such behaviour undermines social identity, whereas athletes reporting high frequency did not perceive this effect. The study findings highlight the potential importance of intrateam moral behaviour and social identity for youth-sport team functioning.     

Postgraduate taught students and preparedness for Master’s level study: polishing the facets of the Master’s diamond

Transitions are increasingly recognised as difficult, and less has been written about transitions to postgraduate taught programmes than about transitions into undergraduate or doctoral study. A Scotland-wide project found that new taught Post-graduate (PG), and staff teaching them, can be unclear about what is expected at Master’s level, and proposed a framework of seven facets that indicate how students are expected to engage with Master’s study. The facets and accompanying resources were designed to be discussion tools, to promote staff and student discussion of what is expected in their programme and subject. In a follow-up project at one university, a questionnaire was designed and distributed to postgraduate students asking them to rate their current level of ability against the skills and capabilities identified as facets for Master’s level study. The project found students felt ill-prepared for particular aspects of Master’s level study, with sub-group differences between disciplines. Master’s courses are intensive and fast-moving, so this has implications for students’ preparedness for successfully navigating through their programmes. Some suggestions on how students can be better briefed on what to expect are made.     

A Cross-Cultural Study of the Self-Confidence of Counselors-in-Training

In this era of globalization, cross-cultural comparison studies could help counselor training programs enhance educational opportunities that are informative, supportive, and culturally responsive to students. Counselors-in-training in both the United States and South Korea were sampled in this study assessing self-esteem (individual and collective) and counselor activity self-efficacy (CA self-efficacy). Results indicated that American students endorsed higher levels of collective self-esteem and CA self-efficacy compared to Korean students. Age was positively correlated with CA self-efficacy in both the American and Korean samples. Additionally, the variable of supervision hours and internship experience was positively correlated with CA self-efficacy for American students, but showed no relationship with CA self-efficacy for Korea students. Implications for understanding the cultural differences of counseling-trainees’ self-confidence and the need for conducting cross-cultural comparison studies to provide insights about the training and development of trainees in cross-cultural settings are discussed.     

Creating a sense of family in urban schools using the "sport for peace" curriculum.

Urban students often have difficulty engaging in the learning process and affiliating with others. A three-phase research design was used to examine the effectiveness of a high school physical education curriculum reform initiative entitled "Sport for Peace" to enhance student engagement and willingness to interact positively with others. Ten physical educators in six urban schools taught a traditional soccer unit (Phase I) followed by instruction and mentoring in the Sport for Peace curriculum (Phase II). In the third phase of the research, teachers developed and taught a Sport for Peace unit to their students. Data were collected using observation and interview methods and analyzed with constant comparison. Results suggested that the Sport for Peace curricular structures fostered shared responsibility for learning, trust, respect, and a sense of family. Both high- and low-skilled girls and boys felt successful and responded positively, creating a class community more conducive to engagement and participation.     

Social correlates of sedentary behavior in young people:The UP&DOWN study

Purpose:The aim of the present study was to analyze the associations of youths' sedentary behavior(SB) with parents' and siblings' SB and physical activity(PA),as well as the associations of youths' coparticipation with parents,siblings,and friends in PA and SB with youths' SB.Methods:The sample consisted of 1543 youths(12.02±2.51 years;788 boys) enrolled in the baseline cohort of the UP&DOWN study.SB was assessed by accelerometry and questionnaire.Participants reported the time spent by their parents and siblings watching television,playing videogames,surfing the Internet,sitting/resting,and doing PA.Further,participants reported coparticipation with parents,siblings,and friends in these activities.Linear mixed models,including school and city as random effects,were performed.Results:Parents' television time was positively associated with youths' screen-based SB.Coparticipation with friends in playing videogames(in boys) and in surfing the Internet(in girls) showed a positive association with screen-based SB and a negative association with educational-based SB.Moreover,coparticipation with siblings and friends in PA was inversely associated with accelerometer-based SB in boys and girls.Conclusion:Our results emphasize the important role of social modeling in the development of sedentary lifestyles in youths.Interventions aimed at reducing health risk behaviors in youths could be more effective if they are oriented from a social perspective that involves their families and networks of their closest friends.     

Distributed search based on self-indexed compressed text

Query response times within a fraction of a second in Web search engines are feasible due to the use of indexing and caching techniques, which are devised for large text collections partitioned and replicated into a set of distributed-memory processors. This paper proposes an alternative query processing method for this setting, which is based on a combination of self-indexed compressed text and posting lists caching. We show that a text self-index (i.e., an index that compresses the text and is able to extract arbitrary parts of it) can be competitive with an inverted index if we consider the whole query process, which includes index decompression, ranking and snippet extraction time. The advantage is that within the space of the compressed document collection, one can carry out the posting lists generation, document ranking and snippet extraction. This significantly reduces the total number of processors involved in the solution of queries. Alternatively, for the same amount of hardware, the performance of the proposed strategy is better than that of the classical approach based on treating inverted indexes and corresponding documents as two separate entities in terms of processors and memory space.