The Great Recession and the risk for child maltreatment

This study draws on the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 2,032), a birth cohort study of families with children from 20 U.S. cities. Interviews occurred between August 2007, and February 2010, when the children were approximately 9 years old. Macro-economic indicators of the Great Recession such as the Consumer Sentiment Index and unemployment and home foreclosure rates were matched to the data to estimate the links between different measures of the Great Recession and high frequency maternal spanking. We find that the large decline in consumer confidence during the Great Recession, as measured by the Consumer Sentiment Index, was associated with worse parenting behavior. In particular, lower levels of consumer confidence were associated with increased levels of high frequency spanking, a parenting behavior that is associated with greater likelihood of being contacted by child protective services.     

Modelling the Invisible: The pedagogy of craft apprenticeship

While conventional wisdom has long held that skill is transmitted through modelling and practical example, the traditional "master"-apprentice relationship represents a mode of pedagogy that is no longer deemed viable in modern workplaces where continuous change is the norm. The paper reports on data obtained from observation of formal apprenticeships in cabinet making, an old traditional craft. Following Michael Polanyi and Basil Bernstein, the structure of craft knowledge is examined in order to understand why tacit pedagogic transmission constitutes the essence of apprenticeship and how the asymmetrical relation between master and apprentice provides the basis of tacit pedagogy.     

Child‐Care Subsidies and School Readiness in Kindergarten

The federal child‐care subsidy program represents one of the government's largest investments in early care and education. Using data from the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Birth Cohort, this study examines associations, among subsidy‐eligible families, between child‐care subsidy receipt when children are 4 years old and a range of school readiness outcomes in kindergarten (sample n ≈ 1,400). Findings suggest that subsidy receipt in preschool is not directly linked to subsequent reading or social‐emotional skills. However, subsidy receipt predicted lower math scores among children attending community‐based centers. Supplementary analyses revealed that subsidies predicted greater use of center care, but this association did not appear to affect school readiness.     

Who says aging is lonely? A phenomenology of Filipino older adults’ experiences of happiness when joining international group tours

Across the literature, travelling has been viewed as a recurring activity for older adults and is driven by a multitude of purposes and reasons. Previous studies have probed touristic activities of older adults however, little is known about their emotional experiences specifically their sense of happiness when joining international group tours, hence this phenomenological study. A qualitative approach was utilized to gather data from a group of 15 purposively selected participants aged 60 years and above. A two-part instrument consisting of a robotfoto and a semi-structured interview was used in this study. Through vertical and horizontal analyses of the field text, this study afforded the development of The Spiraling Model of Aging Filipino Tourists’ Happiness. This model describes aging tourists’ happiness while travelling as a product of Shared Moments, Shared Culture, Shared Memories, and Shared Transcendence. Summarily, findings of this study may provide significant insights to service providers such as hotels, airlines and travel agencies across the globe in developing innovative marketing strategies that cater to this promising age group. Empirically, this study may stimulate further exploration in the field of Cognitive Psychology aimed at adding large-scale data regarding the study of emotions specifically older adults’ happiness when joining international group tours.     

从技术进化史看技术竞争情报的历史渊源与理论发展

通过对技术竞争情报产生的历史渊源和理论发展回顾与分析,认为它的表现形式和重点内容经历了由专利或技巧情报、技术情报和战略技术情报再到技术竞争情报的演变过程,在实践与理论研究上嵌入到包括技术引进、消化吸收和自主创新等在内的整个技术发展过程中,并拓展和超越了传统情报学体系,而我国长期形成的在认识上科学和技术不分家的观念,严重阻碍技术竞争情报实践与理论研究的健康发展。     

Polices of promise and practices of limit: Singapore’s literacy education policy landscape and its impact on one school programme

This paper is about the interaction between policy and practice, and about how competing policies contributed to a paradoxical tension within that interaction in one school. Within a paradigm of educational renewal, the Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) has initiated a number of policies designed to give schools autonomy in designing and implementing programmes to achieve optimal educational outcomes for its students. Among these are READ! Singapore, Teach Less, Learn More and the School Excellence Model. In this context, we review an MOE initiated Extensive Reading (ER) programme in one school. Despite such innovative policies, Dewey Secondary School’s [The names of the school and individuals have been changed to protect their privacy.] pedagogical and literacy practices continue to be largely influenced by other dominant features of Singapore’s and the school’s own educational culture—an exam-oriented focus that prioritises outcome and skill-based pedagogy and the school’s historical practice of restricting literacies. Competing policies as interpreted by the school and diverse stakeholders result in a morphed ER programme—an adaptation of a reading programme that reflects the programme intent overtly but one that collides at other times, and as a result, is pulled in different directions. The story is, thus, one of ‘policies of promise and practices of limit’.     

Maternal intrusiveness, maternal warmth, and mother-toddler relationship outcomes: variations across low-income ethnic and acculturation groups

The present study investigated the extent to which maternal intrusiveness and warmth during play, observed in 579 European American, 412 African American, and 110 more and 131 less acculturated Mexican American low-income families when children were approximately 15 months old, predicted 3 dimensions of the mother-toddler relationship 10 months later. Intrusiveness predicted increases in later child negativity in all 4 groups. Among African Americans only, this association was moderated by maternal warmth. Intrusiveness predicted negative change in child engagement with mothers only in European American families. Finally, near-significant trends suggested that intrusiveness predicted later decreased dyadic mutuality in European American and more acculturated Mexican American families, but not in African American or less acculturated Mexican American families.     

Perceptions of Social Support Among Young Children

225 children (ages 4 to 8, 103 girls, 37.5% Mexican-American) participated, reporting who provides support, frequency of receiving different types of support, and satisfaction with support received. These reports were subjected to factor analyses and results did not fit a prior conceptualization. Exploratory factor analyses resulted in a three factor solution that was both more interpretable and the solutions were more similar for reports of frequency of receiving support and satisfaction. A total of six subscale scores were computed, three each for the frequency and the satisfaction items, which were subsequently labelled: informational/emotional, recreational, and practical support. Analyses of the empirically derived subscale scores suggested that young, pre- and early elementary school-aged children responded to questions about their social support in reasonably reliable and valid ways. Significant correlations with indices of perceived competence and acceptance resulted. Remarkably little is known about young children's perceptions of their social worlds, or specifically the nature of support they think is available or that they actually receive. These data suggest that gathering this information from the children themselves is feasible. Ultimately such information should be critical for the design and evaluation of early childhood curricula instructing children about social relations generally, and specifically, who they can turn to for support.     

Changing practice, changing minds, from arithmetical to algebraic thinking: an application of the concerns-based adoption model (CBAM)

This study examines the process of change among grade 4 teachers (students aged 9–10 years) who participated in a yearlong Teacher Quality Grant innovation program. The concerns-based adoption model (CBAM), which informed the design and implementation of the program, was used to examine the process of change. Two questions guided the investigation: (1) How did teachers’ concerns about and levels of use of the innovation evolve during the course of the project? (2) What changes in teachers’ perceptions and practices arose as a result of the innovation? Results showed that several of the teachers’ concerns evolved from self/task toward impact. With continued support, several participants achieved routine levels of use, which they sustained beyond the project.