Ego development and psychopathology: a study of hospitalized adolescents

This paper explores the relationship between ego development and psychiatrically relevant behaviors in a group of hospitalized adolescents. Building on Loevinger's model of ego development, we administered the Sentence Completion Test to 114 adolescent girls and boys. To study psychiatric symptoms, Achenbach and Edelbrock's Child Behavior Checklist was used. With these procedures, the Achenbach and Edelbrock factor scores were compared to ego stage using correlational and multiple regression analyses. Findings indicate significant negative correlations with the externalizing and internalizing factors as well as a variety of behavioral subscales. A significant relationship also exists between the total number of symptoms and ego development. Ego development is found to be an important predictor for the externalizing factor and 2 subscales after the background variables of age, sex, and SES are partialed out. Our discussion addresses the question of the relationship between stages and transitions in ego development in relation to psychopathology. In addition, "age-stage dysynchronies" are discussed as ways of understanding psychopathology from a developmental perspective.     

Writing in the content areas: a Norwegian case study

Since 2006, literacy skills have been mandated as an integral part of all subject areas at all levels (grades 1–13) in Norwegian schools. With the exception of reading, evaluation reports show that teaching in general seems to be little affected by this reform. During the last few years, however, there has been a noticeable growth in interest in writing in the content areas. The article presents quantitative and qualitative data from a network of secondary schools that have established cross-curricular school-based writing projects. Teachers in these schools meet regularly, sharing experiences about students’ writing and ways of organizing writing sessions. While they had to deal with differences in subject-specific text norms, they discovered similarities across subject areas they could work collectively on. A major effect for the participants was the development of a broader instruction repertoire and more goal-related use of scaffolding strategies in the classroom, most of which was in accordance with a process approach to writing. We discuss these data in the light of similar studies in Norway and abroad, and we highlight some reflections about implications for practice.     

A Project‐Based Approach to Executive Education

Executive education (EE) has been an important part of business school offerings for nearly as long as there have been business schools. Similarly, business schools were among the first in higher education to adopt online approaches as a means for course delivery. Despite this experience, few business schools have been able to successfully integrate EE with online delivery approaches. This study suggests that a project‐based approach can achieve EE/online delivery integration. The case is first made for a project‐based approach by telling the story of our institution's journey toward a project‐based EE model. Challenges, successes, and plans for the future are then discussed.     

Early reading instruction for children with reading difficulties: meeting the needs of diverse learners

Several multiple-probe-across-participants design studies were employed to evaluate the effectiveness of a supplemental tutoring intervention using Read Well (Sprick, Howard, & Fidanque, 1998-2000). In Year 1, we conducted two studies with 7 first-, second-, and third-grade children (1 girl and 6 boys), who were classified as having learning disabilities, having attention-deficit disorder, or being English language learners and were identified by their teachers as poor readers. The results of the two studies indicated that 3 of the 5 children who received Read Well instruction showed improvement in passage fluency. Student performance on other measures of reading and comprehension was varied. Differences in student characteristics and in the amount of Read Well instruction received (2 to 7 weeks) seemed to account for the differences in performance. In Year 2, we implemented the same tutoring intervention for a longer duration (up to 16 weeks) and included 5 children in second and third grades (2 girls and 3 boys) with reading difficulties. Two of these children had previously participated in the Year 1 studies. The results indicated growth in reading, spelling, and comprehension for most children. Overall, the findings from Year 1 and 2 studies indicate the benefits of increased instructional intensity and duration for children who struggle with emerging reading skills.     

Meeting the challenges of teaching in a different cultural environment – evidence from graduate management schools in Thailand

In this paper we describe the efforts of foreign university teachers in graduate schools in Thailand as they incorporate cultural knowledge into their classroom teaching styles and methodology. Through in-depth semi-structured interviews we have gathered qualitative data on the teachers’ concerns, mindsets and their proposed solutions. We build up our discussion in several stages. We set the scene by discussing the importance of cultural sensitivity in settings where teacher and learners have different cultural backgrounds. We then introduce the concept of cultural intelligence and use this to help us examine the literature on cultural sensitivity in teaching from a new perspective. We then describe the cultural context of teaching in Thailand and offer empirical data from our respondents’ experiences. From our research data we identified five main aspects of Thai culture where teachers felt the need to expand/adapt their existing teaching repertoires. These aspects are: fun/sanuk; hierarchy/kreng jai; authority with a kind heart/jai dee; collectivist group activities; and localized class content. We discuss our findings in relation to cultural adjustments that the teachers sought to make and, in conclusion, link this discussion to our earlier examination of cultural intelligence.     

Model-Based Knowing: How Do Students Ground Their Understanding About Climate Systems in Agent-Based Computer Models?

This paper gives a grounded cognition account of model-based learning of complex scientific knowledge related to socio-scientific issues, such as climate change. It draws on the results from a study of high school students learning about the carbon cycle through computational agent-based models and investigates two questions: First, how do students ground their understanding about the phenomenon when they learn and solve problems with computer models? Second, what are common sources of mistakes in students’ reasoning with computer models? Results show that students ground their understanding in computer models in five ways: direct observation, straight abstraction, generalisation, conceptualisation, and extension. Students also incorporate into their reasoning their knowledge and experiences that extend beyond phenomena represented in the models, such as attitudes about unsustainable carbon emission rates, human agency, external events, and the nature of computational models. The most common difficulties of the students relate to seeing the modelled scientific phenomenon and connecting results from the observations with other experiences and understandings about the phenomenon in the outside world. An important contribution of this study is the constructed coding scheme for establishing different ways of grounding, which helps to understand some challenges that students encounter when they learn about complex phenomena with agent-based computer models.

     

Effect of Maternal Social Support on Attachment: Experimental Evidence

The present study used an experimental format to evaluate the influence of maternal social support on the development of attachment. 46 WIC primigravidas were randomly assigned to an experimental or control condition. Volunteer coaches, trained to provide maternal support and information, met with experimentals prenatally and during the first postpartum year. Experimentals and controls did not differ on demographics, ego level, verbal ability, affect, or perceived social support. At 14 months, experimental infants scored higher on an Attachment Ratings cluster from Waters and Deane's new Q-sort procedure. This cluster was more sensitive than a Criterion Sort measure in detecting the effect of the manipulation and as or more sensitive to maternal affect, perceived support, and the HOME. These findings provide experimental evidence regarding the importance of social support on infant attachment and support for an alternative approach for reducing data from the attachment Q-sort.     

School-community partnership models: implications for leadership

School–community partnerships have shown promise as an educational reform effort. In these partnerships, schools expand their traditional educational mission to include health and social services for children and families and to involve the broader community. Such partnerships have been found to enhance student learning, strengthen schools and support struggling neighbourhoods. Little is known, however, about the implications for school and community leadership in different types of partnerships. A previous review of the literature indicated four basic types of partnership, each with a different scope and purpose and different implications for leadership. Informed by interagency, leadership and social capital theories, this article describes the leadership practices that support each model and the dilemmas these partnership leaders face. The overall goal of the article is to deepen understanding of leadership in these models in order to strengthen the conditions for school–community partnership success.     

A test of imagined contact as a means to improve cross-partisan feelings and reduce attribution of malevolence and acceptance of political violence

In this study, we test the depolarizing potential of intrapersonal communication through imagined intergroup political contact. A randomized experiment was embedded into a quota-stratified online survey distributed to 583 U.S. adults drawn from an online panel proportioned to match the U.S. population. Structural equation modeling was used to test the direct, indirect, and conditional effects of imagined contact. We found that imagined contact with a political outgroup directly reduced negative affect toward the political outgroup regardless of the primed valence of the imagined interaction. Furthermore, we found that imagined contact indirectly reduced attribution of malevolence to the political outgroup as well as the acceptance of political violence. Implications for intergroup theory and political polarization are discussed.