Greater Engagement in Gender-Sexuality Alliances (GSAs) and GSA Characteristics Predict Youth Empowerment and Reduced Mental Health Concerns

Extracurricular groups can promote healthy development, yet the literature has given limited attention to indirect associations between extracurricular involvement and mental health or to sexual and gender minority youth. Among 580 youth (M_age = 15.59, range = 10–20 years) and adult advisors in 38 Gender-Sexuality Alliances (GSAs), multilevel structural equation models showed that greater engagement in GSAs over the school year predicted increased perceived peer validation, self-efficacy to promote social justice, and hope (baseline adjusted). Through increased hope, greater engagement indirectly predicted reduced depressive and anxiety symptoms at the year’s end (baseline adjusted). GSAs whose members had more mental health discussions and more meetings reported reduced mental health concerns. Findings suggest how groups addressing issues of equity and justice improve members’ health.     

Signalling,student identities,and college access: a proposed conceptual model of college choice and going

Tertiary Education and Management - Relying on a multitude of studies from the college choice literature, I propose an updated model of college going and choice that draws on four conceptual,...     

More than just a game: the role of simulation in the teaching of product design and entrepreneurship to mechanical engineering students

The purpose of this work is to contribute to the debate on the best pedagogical approach to developing undergraduate mechanical engineering skills to meet the requirements of contemporary complex working environments. The paper provides an example of using student–entrepreneur collaboration in the teaching of modules to Mechanical Engineering final-year students. Problem-based learning (PBL) is one of the most significant recent innovations in the area of education for the professions. This work proposes to make an original contribution by simulating a real-life entrepreneur interaction for the students. The current literature largely confines simulation-based learning to computer applications such as games. However, this paper argues that role playing by students interfacing with technology start-ups can also be regarded as ‘simulation’ in a wider sense. Consequently, the paper proposes the concept of simulation-action learning as an enhancement of PBL and to distinguish it from computer simulation.     

Enacting culturally relevant pedagogy: asset mapping in urban classrooms

In an attempt to confront monolithic perceptions of achievement and an educational narrative that defines communities of Color by their supposed deficits, the current study presents asset mapping as an example of culturally relevant pedagogy in action. Asset mapping is a pedagogical tool for students to visually represent personalized stories of their cultural assets and participate in a community-based gallery walk to showcase their maps. Interviews and focus groups with third- and sixth-grade teachers and students from an urban public school revealed learning about self, learning about others, and building community as emergent themes after completing the project. We present these themes and discuss asset mapping as a possible model for strength-based pedagogy that centers the lived experiences of students, their families, and their shared stories in classroom curriculum.     

Ankle muscle strength influence on muscle activation during dynamic and static ankle training modalities

Muscle weakness is considered a risk factor for ankle injury. Balance training and barefoot running have been used in an attempt to strengthen the muscles crossing the ankle. It is expected that training tasks that successfully strengthen the ankle would elicit increased muscular activity. However, it is unknown how an individual's ankle strength will influence the muscle activity used during a given task. Twenty-six participants performed dynamic (shod, barefoot running) and static tasks (squat on ground, squat on ®Bosu Ball) believed to strengthen the muscles surrounding the ankle. Electromyographic signals of the tibialis anterior, peroneus longus, gastrocnemius lateralis (GL) and gastrocnemius medialis (GM) were recorded and analysed using a non-linearly scaled wavelet analysis. Participants were divided into a strong group and a weak group according to their isometric plantar-flexion torque. The weak group required more relative GL and GM muscle activity during each training task compared to the strong group. No difference was observed between shod and barefoot running. There was a significant effect of training task on muscle activation level for the weak group. Differences in ankle strength had a significant impact on muscle activation.     

Performance improvements for search systems using an integrated cache of lists + intersections

Modern information retrieval systems use several levels of caching to speedup computation by exploiting frequent, recent or costly data used in the past. Previous studies show that the use of caching techniques is crucial in search engines, as it helps reducing query response times and processing workloads on search servers. In this work we propose and evaluate a static cache that acts simultaneously as list and intersection cache, offering a more efficient way of handling cache space. We also use a query resolution strategy that takes advantage of the existence of this cache to reorder the query execution sequence. In addition, we propose effective strategies to select the term pairs that should populate the cache. We also represent the data in cache in both raw and compressed forms and evaluate the differences between them using different configurations of cache sizes. The results show that the proposed Integrated Cache outperforms the standard posting lists cache in most of the cases, taking advantage not only of the intersection cache but also the query resolution strategy.     

Early childhood education and care in a context of social heterogeneity and inequality. Empirical notes on an interdisciplinary challenge

Against a background of increasing inequality and its impact at various levels on childhood and family life, of the growing societal significance and uptake of extra-familial childcare provision, and of social policy goals emphasising participation and education for all, the early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector in Germany is facing new and heightened challenges. This article presents and analyses current and empirically observable changes in society. It comes to the conclusion that ECEC needs to be more strongly viewed as an interdisciplinary challenge, and that ways forward need to include a comprehensive professionalisation and workforce development project: the aim must be to provide children and families with care and support services tailored both quantitatively and qualitatively to their needs, thereby offering not only support to facilitate the reconciliation of work and family obligations and an alternative place of education for children, but also programmes of specific support for disadvantaged and support-dependent children and families.     

Failed regulations and school composition: selective admission practices in Chilean primary schools

This is an exploratory study about pupil selection. Admission regulations are central to understanding issues of school mix, segregation and educational justice. In Chile, student selection has been intensively discussed but scarcely studied. Using a questionnaire for headteachers (N = 581), we explore how school admission processes are organised and implemented within a market-based educational system with a high-stakes testing regime where schools are pushed to use selection practices. Despite the existence of a national (although weak) legal prohibition at the time the survey was conducted, half of the headteachers state that they use some mechanism to select students (play sessions, student testing, or interviews with parents) even when they do not face demand pressures. Exploratory data suggest higher levels of selectivity in subsidised private schools. Regression analysis shows a strong association between ‘selectivity’ and homogeneous academic intake and social composition. Presumably, the widespread use of selection procedures responds to the structuring force of a double system of educational accountability; strong pressure on performance within a testing regime and where funding depends on enrolments makes selection a fundamental strategy for schools, but which is seriously affecting equality goals.