Mexican-Origin Youth's Cultural Orientations and Adjustment: Changes From Early to Late Adolescence

Drawing from developmental and cultural adaptation perspectives and using a longitudinal design, this study examined: (a) mean‐level changes in Mexican‐origin adolescents’ cultural orientations and adjustment from early to late adolescence and (b) bidirectional associations between cultural orientations and adjustment using a cross‐lag panel model. Participants included 246 Mexican‐origin, predominantly immigrant families that participated in home interviews and a series of nightly phone calls when target adolescents were 12 and 18 years of age. Girls exhibited more pronounced declines in traditional gender role attitudes than did boys, and all youth declined in familism values, time spent with family, and involvement in Mexican culture. Bidirectional relations between cultural orientations and adjustment emerged, and some associations were moderated by adolescent nativity and gender.     

An analysis of Social StoriesTM research using an evidence‐based practice model

The number of Social Stories^TM studies and reviews has increased in recent years, yet concerns regarding quality and effect sizes continue to be expressed. With the emphasis on evidence‐based practices (EBPs) for the education and treatment of people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), this issue becomes of paramount importance as professionals and parents attempt to select interventions for the people with ASD in their care. The current study makes a unique contribution in its use of an extensive EBP evaluation model to examine 33 single‐subject studies across 13 peer‐reviewed journals, a 12‐year period, and a wide range of grouping variables. Using the Mayton, Wheeler, Menendez and Zhang (2010) EBP evaluation protocol, studies were investigated in terms of eight quality indicators comprised 23 operationally defined standards. Studies included in this analysis met the following criteria: (1) they were intervention studies using single‐subject research designs; (2) they included only participants with disorders on the autism spectrum; and (3) the primary intervention was the use of a Social Story. Findings included on‐ or above‐standard acceptability in EBP indicators related to important aspects of dependent variables within studies and below‐standard acceptability in indicators related to both internal and external validity of studies.     

Politics and race in American historical popular music: contextualized access and minstrel music archives

On November 4, 2008, Barack Obama, an African-American man was elected as the 44th President of the United States. The election of a man of Obama??s racial and ethnic background is an event of monumental social and political significance. Many Americans, both black and white, stated openly that they would never have imagined that such an election result could take place in their lifetimes, or during the lives of their children or even grandchildren. Such is the awareness of the legacy of racial hatred and injustice toward African-Americans in the United States. Ever present, that legacy was apparent in a myriad of expressions of racism throughout Obama??s presidential campaign and still continues since his election. Knowledge of the social and political dynamics that emerged from the demise of African-American slavery is essential to understanding race relations in twenty-first century America. Many of the economic and social ills that have plagued the nation for generations can be traced back to the struggle for and resistance to racial equality and fair treatment. Now accessible in digitized sheet music collections of blackface minstrel music on the internet, a record of nineteenth and early twentieth century perspectives is uniquely captured through the popular music of past generations. Illuminating the political and social attitudes that led to commonly held beliefs and practices regarding African-Americans, this music has the power to help make sense of current racial dynamics and contributes to understanding the connection between meaning and context in how cultural knowledge is developed and represented.     

Discovering indicators of successful collaboration using tense: Automated extraction of patterns in discourse

This paper describes a technique for locating indicators of success within the data collected from complex learning environments, proposing an application of e‐research to access learner processes and measure and track group progress. The technique combines automated extraction of tense and modality via parts‐of‐speech tagging with a visualisation of the timing and speaker for each utterance developed to code and analyse learner discourse, exploiting the results of previous, non‐automated analyses for validation. The work is developed using a dataset of interactions within a multi‐user virtual environment and extended to a more complex dataset of synchronous chat texts during a collaborative design task. This methodology extends natural language processing into computer‐based collaboration contexts, discovering the linguistic micro‐events that construct the larger phases of successful design‐based learning.     

Bringing web‐enhanced courses to communities of learners in early childhood teacher education

Abstract

In our graduate programs in early childhood education, we model constructivist practice in the belief that teachers are better able to understand and implement constructivist principles having experienced them in their work. In this practice we attempt to be explicit about constructivist practice in our program and in elementary classrooms. As we examine and modify our constructivist pedagogy, one key question for teachers and ourselves emerges: What does a classroom based on constructivist pedagogy look like in early childhood (K‐2)? The goal of this research is a clearer understanding of constructivist pedagogy in the context of primary classrooms. The study was designed using qualitative methods in order to understand the experiences in classrooms guided by constructivist theory. The classroom participants are six teachers who graduated from a Master's degree program based on constructivist principles. Analysis of the six classrooms indicated 24 key elements of constructivist classrooms. A focused analysis of three constructivist teachers and their classroom supports these elements and indicates three broader characteristics: the important role of children, authentic and purposeful interactions among classroom participants, and engagement in academic activity. A vignette of a constructivist classroom is provided to present the essence of our findings while maintaining participants' views and voices.     

Developing the Media Zoo in Second Life

Second Life (SL), an immersive virtual environment, is increasingly being adopted in education for both formal and informal teaching and learning uses. This paper addresses the process of developing a demonstrator presence in SL, the potential of the system for formal teaching and some practical ideas on how to successfully integrate such emerging technologies into practice.