General Foreign/International Communication

A Free and Balanced Flow: Report of the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on the International Flow of News (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1979—$12.50 with a paperback also available)

Alex S. Edelstein, John E. Bowes, and Sheldon M. Harsel's Information Societies: Comparing the Japanese and American Experiences (International Communication Center, School of Communications, University of Washington, Seattle, Wa 98195—$10.95, paper)

Fred L. Casmir, ed. Intercultural and International Communication (Washington: University Press of America, 1978—$21.50, paper)

Terry D. Peigh, et al. The Use of Radio in Social Development (Chicago: Communication Laboratory, Community and Family Study Center of the University of Chicago, 1979—price not given, paper)

Ernest D. Rose's World Film & Television Study Resources (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Godesberger Allee 149, D 5300 Bonn 2, Federal Republic of Germany—price not given)

Medios Audiovisuales (Desengano 12, Madrid-13, Spain—650 pesetas per year/11 issues, surface mail)

List of International Instruments Concerning Different Aspects of Communication (Paris: Unesco International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems, not dated—apparently free on request, paper)     

Professional standards,teacher identities and an ethics of singularity

This paper offers a critical analysis of the education policy move towards teacher professional standards. Drawing on Lacan’s three registers of the psyche (real, imaginary and symbolic), the paper argues that moves towards codification (and domestication) of teachers’ work and identities in standardized (and sanitized) forms, such as the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership professional standards recently adopted in Australia, can be read as a colonization of the Real and the imaginary by (a rather static, mortified form of) the symbolic. The paper argues that in response to such normalizing moves, we need to consider how we might conceptualize the reanimation of what it means to teach and be a teacher, something we attempt in terms of enabling each of the psyche’s registers to inter-animate each other, as a means of engendering teacher identities characterized by criticality, creativity and passion – that is, by an ethics of singularity rather than by standardization.     

Technology Acceptance in Social Work Education: Implications for the Field Practicum

The exponential growth and sophistication of new information and computer technology (ICT) have greatly influenced human interactions and provided new metaphors for understanding the world. The acceptance and integration of ICT into social work field education are examined here using the technological acceptance model. This article also explores potential challenges regarding the adoption of ICT into social work field practica. The article concludes with implications for adopting and integrating ICTs in social work field education.     

Emotion Regulation Strategies and Parenting Practices among Parents of Children With Clinic-Referred Conduct Problems

Objective. This study examined the cognitive-affective strategies used by parents of young children with conduct problems to regulate emotions. Key questions concerned the extent to which these emotion regulation strategies are associated with positive and negative parenting practices and predict quality of parenting through interplay with parental depression. Design. Participants were families of toddlers (n = 84) referred to a tertiary-level health service for the treatment of disruptive behavior problems. Parenting practices were indexed through observational coding of parent–child interactions and self-report data on multiple dimensions of positive and negative parenting. Parents self-reported their use of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression—the two emotion regulation strategies that are most robustly associated with psychosocial functioning in adults. Results. Associations between emotion regulation strategy and quality of parenting were moderated by parental depressive symptom severity, with distinct effects seen for positive and negative parenting practices. In terms of positive parenting, more frequent use of cognitive reappraisal was associated with increased use of labeled praise among parents with lower levels of depressive symptoms, whereas parents who had higher levels of depressive symptoms engaged in less such praise regardless of how frequently they used reappraisal. In terms of negative parenting, frequent use of cognitive reappraisal and expression suppression were associated with reduced levels of negative parenting, but only among parents with high levels of depression. Conclusions. These findings add to growing support for the integration of emotion regulation strategies into family process models of early-onset conduct problems and related clinical interventions.     

A Comparative Analysis of Graduate Employment Prospects in European Labour Markets: A Study of Graduate Recruitment in Four Countries

The aim of this paper is to provide a comparative analysis of higher education and the graduate labour markets in selected European countries (France, Germany, Spain and United Kingdom) in the context of the expectations of graduates and prospective employers, and respective recruitment and selection practices. Expectations of graduating students from a number of European collaborating universities are sought and analysed in order to find out about a match between the knowledge and skills of graduates and the needs of European employers. The study examines the process of graduate recruitment, employee and employer expectations, and the role of higher education institutions in meeting such expectations. Primary data was gathered from 252 employers and 485 final year (graduating) students through the use of questionnaires. The analysis of the data collected has revealed different approaches to but similar methods of graduate recruitment between the four countries. Despite the current differences in higher education systems and labour market trends, the expectations of employers and graduating students are more similar than different. It is concluded that EU graduates will have good employment prospects in an integrated labour market.     

How New Caledonian crows solve novel foraging problems and what it means for cumulative culture

New Caledonian crows make and use tools, and tool types vary over geographic landscapes. Social learning may explain the variation in tool design, but it is unknown to what degree social learning accounts for the maintenance of these designs. Indeed, little is known about the mechanisms these crows use to obtain information from others, despite the question’s importance in understanding whether tool behavior is transmitted via social, genetic, or environmental means. For social transmission to account for tool-type variation, copying must utilize a mechanism that is action specific (e.g., pushing left vs. right) as well as context specific (e.g., pushing a particular object vs. any object). To determine whether crows can copy a demonstrator’s actions as well as the contexts in which they occur, we conducted a diffusion experiment using a novel foraging task. We used a nontool task to eliminate any confounds introduced by individual differences in their prior tool experience. Two groups had demonstrators (trained in isolation on different options of a four-option task, including a two-action option) and one group did not. We found that crows socially learn about context: After observers see a demonstrator interact with the task, they are more likely to interact with the same parts of the task. In contrast, observers did not copy the demonstrator’s specific actions. Our results suggest it is unlikely that observing tool-making behavior transmits tool types. We suggest it is possible that tool types are transmitted when crows copy the physical form of the tools they encounter.     

Thanks,but no-thanks for the feedback

Feedback is an emotional business in which personal disposition influences what is attended to, encoded, consolidated and eventually retrieved. Here, we examine the extent to which students’ perceptions of feedback and their personal dispositions can be used to predict whether they appreciate, engage with and act on the feedback that they receive. The study is framed in psychological theories of mindset, defensive behaviours and new psychometric measures of the psychological integration of assessment feedback. Results suggest that, in this university population, growth mindset students were in the minority. Generally, students are fostering self-defensive behaviours that fail to nurture remediation following feedback. Recommendations explore the implications for students who engage in self-deception, and the ways in which psychologists and academics may intercede to help students progress academically by increasing their self-awareness.