The role of competence and value beliefs in students' daily emotional experiences: A multilevel test of a transactional model

This study examined the mutual influence of relatively stable personal competence and value beliefs and lesson specific appraisals of competence and value on daily emotional experiences of students in the classroom context. Personal competence and value beliefs were measured by means of questionnaire whereas appraisals and daily emotions were assessed by means of diary forms completed over a two-week period. Multilevel analyses of data from 120 grade seven students revealed that both personal competence-value beliefs and appraisals played an important role in determining daily emotional experiences in the classroom. More importantly, the results showed that the effects of stable personal variables on daily emotional experiences were mediated by lesson specific appraisals. In general, the results support cognitive mediational models of emotion that capitalize on the importance of both personal and situational characteristics in emotion elicitation.     

Effects of Perinatal HIV Infection and Early Institutional Rearing on Physical and Cognitive Development of Children in Ukraine

To study the effects of perinatal HIV-1 infection and early institutional rearing on the physical and cognitive development of children, 64 Ukrainian uninfected and HIV-infected institutionalized and family-reared children were examined (mean age = 50.9 months). Both HIV infection and institutional care were related to delays in physical and cognitive development, with a larger effect of the rearing environment. Family care, even of compromised quality, was found to be more favorable for children's physical and cognitive development than institutional care. The impact of the quality of child care on physical and cognitive development is discussed in light of future interventions.     

A framework for teaching scientific inquiry in upper secondary school chemistry

A framework for teaching scientific inquiry in upper secondary chemistry education was constructed in a design research consisting of two research cycles. First, in a pilot study a hypothetical framework was enriched in collaboration with five chemistry teachers. Second, a main study in this community of teachers and researchers was conducted on the process of designing teaching scientific inquiry based on the enriched framework. Also, the enactment by five teachers and 80 students (age 17) of a designed inquiry module on “Diffusion: moving particles” was studied. This resulted in a theoretically and practically founded framework for teaching scientific inquiry, in which an iterative cycle of inquiry for students and a student inquiry community are essential. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47:788–806, 2010     

The effects of instruction on situation model construction: an eye fixation study on text comprehension in primary school children

This study examined whether the formation of a situation model can be encouraged by a situation‐focused instruction in primary school children. To achieve this, the standard reading‐for‐comprehension instruction was adapted so that it would emphasise the importance of imagination in narrative text comprehension. The results showed that the situational instruction enhanced the situation model construction abilities in good comprehenders in such a way that it improved not only their memory for the situation model but also the ease with which they filled in the gaps in time and space that appeared in the narratives. In poor comprehenders, the situational instruction led to a redistribution of attentional resources allocated to textbase‐ and situation‐level processing. It was suggested that this caused them to go beyond encoding the explicit text and instead construct a situation model from it, and that they did so without enriching the model with general‐knowledge inferences as much as good comprehenders.     

Cultural capital: strengths,weaknesses and two advancements

In this paper I discuss two weaknesses in Bourdieu’s work on cultural capital, both of which are related to his integration of the multidimensional nature of social space in different domains of life: social mobility, lifestyle differentiation, and political orientation. First, there is an anomaly between the work on social mobility and on lifestyles. Multiple dimensions of social origin (cultural and economic capital) are related to uni‐dimensional outcomes (e.g. schooling levels), whereas it would be more appropriate to study multidimensional schooling outcomes too. Secondly, although Bourdieu sees a close resemblance in the type of resources affecting lifestyle preferences and political orientations, I argue that these outcomes are affected by two different types of resources: cultural and communicative resources. Proposals for progress, including a review of the empirical results supporting these, are given.     

Acquiring reading and vocabulary in Dutch and English: the effect of concurrent instruction

To investigate the effect of concurrent instruction in Dutch and English on reading acquisition in both languages, 23 pupils were selected from a school with bilingual education, and 23 from a school with education in Dutch only. The pupils had a Dutch majority language background and were comparable with regard to social-economic status (SES). Reading and vocabulary were measured twice within an interval of 1 year in Grade 2 and 3. The bilingual group performed better on most English and some of the Dutch tests. Controlling for general variables and related skills, instruction in English contributed significantly to the prediction of L2 vocabulary and orthographic awareness at the second measurement. As expected, word reading fluency was easier to acquire in Dutch with its relatively transparent orthography in comparison to English with its deep orthography, but the skills intercorrelated highly. With regard to cross-linguistic transfer, orthographic knowledge and reading comprehension in Dutch were positively influenced by bilingual instruction, but there was no indication of generalization to orthographic awareness or knowledge of a language in which no instruction had been given (German). The results of the present study support the assumption that concurrent instruction in Dutch and English has positive effects on the acquisition of L2 English and L1 Dutch.     

What is on our children’s minds? An analysis of children’s writings as reflections of group‐specific socialisation practices

In the present study it has been examined how children’s creative writing tasks may contribute to teachers’ understanding of children’s values. Writings of 300 elementary school children about what they would do if they were the boss of The Netherlands were obtained and seemed to reflect different types of values. Most children were concerned with charity. Also, writings concerned materialist values and socio‐political topics, such as human rights, power and tolerance. Analyses of group‐specific differences showed girls to write more about charity and health when compared to boys. Children from low socio‐economic backgrounds wrote less about environmental issues compared to children from middle and high socio‐economic backgrounds. Children from ethnic minority backgrounds who wrote more about obtaining goods for themselves and less about environmental issues than Dutch‐origin children. In addition, age differences were found in line with an increase in social and moral development. These differences are discussed in light of differential socialisation practices.