Achievement versus maintenance of control in six‐year‐old children’s interactions with peers: an observational study

Conflict management is a skill best learned early in life, and lays a foundation for the development of future relationships. The present study examined the strategies children use when negotiating roles in a dynamic play situation. Participants were 156 children (M age = 6.5 years) in 39 groups of four, who were videotaped in a play activity that required the assistance of two children so that a third could view a cartoon. Groups varied in gender composition (all‐girl, all‐boy, mixed). Children in each group were unfamiliar with one another at the beginning of the session. There was more variation in the strategies children used to elicit the cooperation of peers than in the strategies they used to gain access to the resource. Children who gained high amounts of viewing time but did not often help others (individualists) said and did more to maintain their role, had longer turns, and used both prosocial and coercive strategies more than children who had high viewing times but often helped others (collaborators). Girl groups had more collaborators than boy groups, whereas boy groups had more onlookers (low viewing, low helping). Boys used a greater number and range of strategies to maintain control of the resource than girls did. The highest level of resource use was predicted by a combination of ‘successful entry’ and ‘individualistic maintenance’ strategies. Implications for initiatives to promote negotiation skills and effective conflict management in children are discussed.     

Majority and minority faculty perceptions in academe

This paper examines majority (white) and minority faculty perceptions in academe. It focuses on two general areas of institutional activity: employment and workplace issues, and minority affairs. The data examined in this paper are from a study of faculty at the University of Colorado (CU) system. The faculty sample in this study consisted of 73 minority faculty and 122 majority faculty. The findings reported in this paper show that minority faculty are dissatisfied with certain contexts within the post-secondary education institution, and minority faculty feel excluded from others. Discussion in this paper examines the interaction of status (majority vs. minority) and gender with perceptions of the postsecondary education institution.     

Predicting Adolescents’ Bullying Participation from Developmental Trajectories of Social Status and Behavior

The aim of this study was to determine how trajectory clusters of social status (social preference and perceived popularity) and behavior (direct aggression and prosocial behavior) from age 9 to age 14 predicted adolescents’ bullying participant roles at age 16 and 17 (n = 266). Clusters were identified with multivariate growth mixture modeling (GMM). The findings showed that participants’ developmental trajectories of social status and social behavior across childhood and early adolescence predicted their bullying participant role involvement in adolescence. Practical implications and suggestions for further research are discussed.     

Vocation-Oriented Professional Education: Between Cultivating a Talent and Hearing the Call

ABSTRACT

In European higher education, talent-oriented or strength-based education is emerging as a new discourse surrounding the practice of educating for the professional workplace. This approach stresses the role of the personal in the professional, and consequently that personal development and personal flourishing are integral to the professional development of students. In this article, we consider how this orientation resonates with, and even can be a part of, Christian-inspired approaches to higher professional education. Therefore, we first consider this rather recent discourse on talent-oriented education as a part of longstanding pedagogical traditions of professional formation in general; these traditions have stressed the importance of interactions between the “inner” and the “outer” world. Subsequently, we consider the talent-oriented approaches in light of the vocational theories of John Dewey and Eduard Spranger to highlight the focus on the individual development implied in the talent approach. Finally, we examine the relation of the talent approach and vocational theories vis-à-vis Christian notions of professional formation and, specifically, the Christian concept of calling. In the conclusion, we consider the potential and implications of the underlying assumptions and conceptual fundaments of a talent-oriented education for the practice of Christian higher education for professionals.     

What is (good) practitioner research?

This special issue recognizes EAPRIL as being a platform for practitioner and practice-based research and by organizing the 10th annual conference for practitioner research on improving learning in education and professional practice. Papers in this conference and in this special issue are rooted in practice-based research or practitioner research. They reflect the popularity of practitioner research in vocational teacher education and in universities of applied sciences. Reason enough for the authors of the current paper to reflect on the question: “What is practitioner research?” And, more importantly what makes good practitioner research? Reviews show that people use broad interpretations of the concept, which requires that to clarify the epistemological basis of the relation between research and practice the reflections goes back to Aristotle philosophy. The latter, aiming at discovering what kind of knowledge is obtained, what purpose it serve, and how it differs. This yields a theoretical, and two practical kinds of knowledge. Although all three are relevant, the so called ‘practitioner knowledge’ (the prhonesis and the techne), need more attention in judging the ‘goodness’ of practitioner research. Five principles of validation are mentioned, e.g. the process of meaning making and negotiation, differing from the correspondence between knowledge and the outside world, e.g. validity. These principles provide a possible angle and sometimes researcher follow them implicitly and unconsciously. The articles in this special issue reflects the realisation of many of these principles within the individual studies. The current paper does not intent to give final answers, but rather to trigger a further conversation on the fundamental question of: What is good practitioner research?     

Developmental Pathways to Preference and Popularity in Middle Childhood

This study examined the associations between children's early life experiences with parents, ego resiliency and ego undercontrol, and peer group social status in a longitudinal, multimethod study from infancy to middle childhood. Participants were 129 children (52% boys) who were followed from 15 months of age to 9 years and their primary caregivers from the Nijmegen Longitudinal Study on Infant and Child Development. The measurements included observations of parent–child interaction, teacher ratings of ego resiliency and ego undercontrol, and peer‐reported social status. Quality of parental interactive behavior was associated with ego resiliency and ego undercontrol. Ego resiliency and ego undercontrol were uniquely related to preference and popularity. The findings provide insight into the developmental pathways leading to the two distinct types of social status.     

Video Feedback in Education and Training: Putting Learning in the Picture

This meta-analysis demonstrates that the video feedback method has a statistically significant effect on the interaction skills of professionals in a range of contact professions. The aggregate effect, calculated on the basis of 217 experimental comparisons from 33 experimental studies involving a total of 1,058 people, was 0.40 standard deviation (SE = 0.07). The effects of training were greater for programs working with a standard observation form of target skills that were central to the program. Results were more positive for outcome measures that measured positive skills rather than negative ones. In addition, molar outcome measures, which were obtained by means of an assessment scale, showed larger effects than micromeasures, which were scored using event sampling. Finally, recommendations are made for video feedback design and for future research.     

NARST: a lived history

In this Forum, we construct a history of the National Association for Research in Science Education (NARST) through the analysis of documents and through the personal perspectives of individuals. The history of NARST is inseparable from the biography of the individuals through whose lives it was produced and reproduced. The history of NARST is a living history that both shapes and was shaped by the biographies of its members.

Francisco Maestas et al. v. George H. Shone et al.: Mexican American Resistance to School Segregation in the Hispano Homeland, 1912–1914

The authors in this article argue that the Francisco Maestas et al vs. George H. Shone et al (1914) case is one of the earliest Mexican American challenges to school segregation in the United States. Unidentified for over a century, the lawsuit took place in southern Colorado, a region of the nation where Mexican Americans have deep historical roots. This case was unique because the racial background and linguistic needs of Mexican American children were contested. First, plaintiffs (Mexican Americans) argued their children were racially distinct as Mexicans and used the Colorado Constitution to challenge segregation because the state prohibited public schools from classifying and distinguishing children based on color and race. Defendants (school board members and the superintendent) countered that Mexican American children were Caucasian and claimed they were no different from other White children in the school district. Second, school district officials maintained that non-English speaking Mexican American children were placed in a separate school in order to serve their linguistic needs. The district court judge discovered that school officials had created a policy that sent all Mexican American children to the separate school. To the extent that many Mexican American children were English speaking, the district court judge ruled in favor of Francisco Maestas on the grounds that school officials could not prevent English-speaking Mexican American children from attending schools of their choice in general and schools that were closer to their homes in particular.     

Group Social Context and Children's Aggressive Behavior

Very little is known about the influence of the social-psychological context on children's aggressive behavior. The purpose of this research was to examine the interrelations of group contextual factors and the occurrence of aggressive behavior in 22 experimental play groups of 7- and 9-year-old African-American boys. Group context was examined before, during, and after an aggressive act as well as during nonaggressive periods. The results showed that there are dimensions of group context (i.e., negative affect, high aversive behavior, high activity level, low group cohesion, competitiveness) that were related to the occurrence of aggressive behavior between 2 children in the group. Group context influenced how children reacted to aggression between its members (e.g., siding with the victim), which in turn influenced the quality of the postaggression group atmosphere. This study suggests that individual-within-context information be incorporated into theories of aggression among children.