Framing climate change communication to prompt individual and collective action among adolescents from agricultural communities

Climate communication research suggests strategic message framing may help build public consensus on climate change causes, risks and solutions. However, few have investigated how framing applies to adolescents. Similarly, little research has focused on agricultural audiences, who are among the most vulnerable to and least accepting of climate change. Among 950 high school agriculture students in North Carolina, we found agriculture and environment framing of climate change, but not community and health frames, elicited feelings of worry, and these together with community frames elicited hope. Further, students feeling more worry were more supportive of individual and collective action. Those accepting climate change and females had more emotive responses and higher support for all action measures, and acceptance of human causes predicted more worry and support for collective action. We find these results encouraging as agriculture teachers likely employ agriculture and environment frames when following best teaching practices.     

Regulation, emotionality, and preschoolers' socially competent peer interactions

In this study, the relations of regulatory control to the qualities of children's everyday peer interactions were examined. Effortful control (EC) and observations of peer interactions were obtained from 135 preschoolers (77 boys and 58 girls, mean ages = 50.88 and 50.52, respectively). The results generally confirmed the prediction that children who are high in EC were relatively unlikely to experience high levels of negative emotional arousal in response to peer interactions, but this relation held only for moderate to high intense interactions. Socially competent responding was less likely to be observed when the interaction was intense or when negative emotions were elicited. Moreover, when the interactions were of high intensity, highly regulated children were likely to evidence socially competent responses. The relation of EC and intensity to social competence was partially mediated by negative emotional arousal. The results support the conclusion that individual differences in regulation interact with situational factors in influencing young children's socially competent responding.     

Measures of greatness: A Lotkaian approach to literary authors using OCLC WorldCat

This study examines the productivity, eminence, and impact of literary authors using Lotka's law, a bibliometric approach developed for studying the published output of scientists. Data on literary authors were drawn from two recent surveys that identified and ranked authors who had made the greatest contributions to world literature. Data on the number of records of works by and about selected authors were drawn from OCLC WorldCat in 2007 and 2014. Findings show that the distribution of literary authors followed a pattern consistent with Lotka's law and show that these studies enable one to empirically test subjective rankings of eminent authors. Future examination of distribution of author productivity might include studies based on language, location, and culture.     

The global citizenship agenda and the generation of cosmopolitan capital in British higher education

Cosmopolitanism has been cast by some in recent years as a form of cultural capital, disproportionately available to students on elite educational pathways. This article tests this supposition, by comparing the enactment of global citizenship education reforms at two high-status and two low-status universities in the United Kingdom. These enactments have indeed differed, as some students are being encouraged to cultivate a sophisticated cosmopolitan disposition for positions of leadership, while other students are not – even if they are being encouraged to learn more about the world, or to develop social tolerance. Comparing the practices and meanings attributed to the global citizenship agenda among universities in different positions in the higher education field, this article illuminates dynamics related to the creation, legitimation, and differentiation of cosmopolitan capital among different groups of students. The article also extends understanding of how the institutional hierarchy of higher education provision positions students for the global economy unequally.     

A unique approach to multi-state networking: BHSL (Basic Health Sciences Network)

Development of a reciprocal multi-state shared resources network is described. The Basic Health Sciences Library Network (BHSL) is one the largest interlibrary loan networks free of direct charges to participants and any direct federal or state funding. Established in June 1986, BHSL started with 132 member libraries from three northeastern states. Current membership is 460 libraries in 10 states. Interlibrary loan activity for 1992 resulted in a collective cost savings of $592,672. This model of resource sharing can be applied to any group of libraries that access a common locator tool.     

Empowerment amongst teachers holding leadership positions

This study used semi-structured in-depth interviews to explore empowerment patterns among teachers who hold leadership positions in school. Our qualitative analysis presents a hierarchical ladder with three types of empowerment amongst these teachers, ranging from limited empowerment through rewarding empowerment to change-enhancing empowerment. The level of empowerment seems to be related to the leadership position which the teachers hold and to their perception of the position. Our results contribute to the theoretical understanding of empowerment as a complex construct that affects the career characteristics of the teacher, ranging from limited impact of the leadership position to a powerful effect on the organizational culture. We also suggest that this model has practical implications on the way principals can evaluate their teachers’ empowerment patterns and accordingly assist their development toward change-enhancing empowerment.