‘We are getting there slowly’: lesbian teacher experiences in the post-Section 28 environment

Prior to the subtraction of Section 28 from the 1988 Local Government Act in 2003, a substantial amount of research was published that specifically examined the experiences of lesbian physical education (PE) teachers. This article contributes to the existing academic literature by exploring the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual teachers working in a post-Section 28 school environment. Drawing on life history interviews of two lesbian PE teachers, we offer insights into how the abolition of Section 28 has affected their lives. Comparable to previous studies, both women reported feeling fearful of the consequences of identifying as lesbian and employed various strategies in order to maintain a divide between their public and private lives so as to conceal their sexual identities from colleagues, pupils and parents. However, in contrast to much of the previous literature, we found that the teachers in this study also identified with narratives of resistance. Despite being fearful of coming out at work, they nevertheless remained committed to coming out when the context is appropriate, to challenging the heteronormative symbolic order configured around the heterosexual/homosexual binary and to more proactively promoting sexual diversity and tolerance in schools.     

The Relation between Chinese Preschoolers’ Social-Emotional Competence and Preacademic Skills

Research Findings: The current study examines the relations between Chinese preschoolers’ social-emotional competence and their preacademic skills, as well as the role of child gender and parental education in such relations. A total of 154 children from the northeastern region of China were involved in the study. Both parents and head teachers of the target children completed measures of children’s social-emotional competence and preacademic skills. Multiple aspects of social-emotional competence were investigated. The results showed that children’s withdrawn behaviors and attention problems were negatively related to their preacademic skills. Both parent- and teacher-reported positive social behaviors were positively related to children’s preacademic skills. In addition, child gender and parental education together moderated the effects of children’s anxious/depressed problems and parent-reported social behaviors on children’s preacademic skills. Practice or Policy: Teacher training and support are needed to help preschool teachers (a) better support children who are socially withdrawn or have difficulty regulating attention and (b) understand the construct and importance of social-emotional development in relation to children’s preacademic development . In addition, child characteristics such as age and gender and socioeconomic factors need to be taken into consideration in the study of young children’s social-emotional and cognitive competence.     

Working with users: some implications for educational research

In its emphasis in working with users of research throughout the processes of pedagogic research, the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) has reflected a current interest across disciplines in user engagement to enhance research. The scale of the TLRP and the range of research genres encompassed by it have meant that it has provided a useful site for considering in some detail what is meant by enhancing pedagogic research in this way. The authors draw on a TLRP‐funded seminar series which examined a variety of forms of user engagement, their purposes and their implications. The series attempted to understand the intertwined features of new education spaces where research and policy can meet; the negotiations with policy communities that occur there; and the implications for these negotiations and for research design in the production of pedagogic knowledge in partnership with practitioners. The lessons revealed included the following: user engagement strengthens the warrants of research with potential users in both practice and policy communities; it needs to be understood and sustained as an aspect of project management; and research mediation is a developing form of expertise. The authors conclude that TLRP has provided an unrivalled opportunity for the public to ‘speak back to science’ in pedagogic research, and enabled an emerging reciprocity where the public understand(s) how science works but equally science understands how its publics work.     

Hard to reach and hard to teach: supporting the self-regulation of learning in an alternative provision secondary school

Since 2010, new types of state-funded schools have opened in England with a focus on providing alternative education provision. Very little is known about these schools, partly due to their novelty, and how they are attempting to re-engage those students who for various, and often complex, reasons have become disconnected from education. We scrutinised the approach used at one such school to examine what instructional practices were used, how they were adapted to the needs of the students and what factors enabled and obstructed (re)engagement. Data were collected over a month-long fieldwork visit and included semi-structured interviews with staff and students, and semi-structured classroom observations. Instructional approaches were used that supported the learning of students who were not experienced in, or had difficulty with, regulating their learning. These included breaking down tasks, providing lots of on-task prompts, encouragement, using frequent feedback and scaffolding, and offering quick support to students. This approach allowed students to re-engage with their learning and make progress towards important qualifications required for entry to the labour market and post-compulsory education and training.     

A Review of Parent-Based Barriers to Parent–Adolescent Communication about Sex and Sexuality: Implications for Sex and Family Educators

Although adolescents' sexual health is generally better when parents and adolescents communicate about sex and sexuality, researchers have found parents can be reluctant to engage adolescents in conversations about those topics. To better understand why, we reviewed prior literature and identified four types of parent-based barriers to communication with adolescents about sex: limited sexual health knowledge, believing adolescents are not ready to discuss sex, discomfort discussing sex, and demographic factors. We then used the Theory of Planned Behavior to develop recommendations for how health educators can address these barriers, thereby increasing parent–adolescent sexual health communication.     

Parent–Child Book-Reading Styles,Emotional Quality,and Changes in Early Head Start Children’s Cognitive Scores

Research Findings: The objective of this study was to understand how instructional book-reading style and emotional quality of reading interact and relate to cognitive skills in a sample of at-risk infants and toddlers. Participants were 81 parents and their children participating in Early Head Start programs in the rural Midwest. Correlation and multiple regression analyses were used to test the hypothesis that parental book-reading instructional style and emotional quality interact and relate to changes in children’s cognitive scores for culturally and linguistically diverse families. Results included that there were variations in how book-reading qualities interacted and related to changes in child cognitive scores for families whose primary home languages were either English or Spanish. Practice or Policy: The results of this study are discussed in conjunction with findings from a previous study published in this journal that examined concurrent relationships in the same sample of Early Head Start families. Combined, findings of these studies underscore a need to further explore potentially complex patterns of relationships among parental literacy behaviors and child knowledge, concurrently and across time, for culturally and linguistically diverse families. Better understanding these patterns could inform the development and implementation of culturally sensitive intervention approaches designed to support high-quality parent–child book reading.     

The Future of the Academy: Who’s Looking for Whom?

Individuals seeking academic employment opportunities often do so by exploring hiring announcements that are advertised online through Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, American Society of Criminology, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. Because limited educational resources and budget constraints can impact hiring decisions that are made at institutions of higher learning over time, it is important for candidates to consider exactly what employers are looking for in prospective professionals and to see how they measure up to the demands brought on by academic job searches. Using quantitative content analyses of recent job postings on popular academic job search websites, this study explores recent trends in the hiring of criminology and criminal justice professionals, paying particular attention to exactly which positions are being sought after by colleges and universities and how the presence of online technology has changed hiring trends within our field.     

Oddity learning in the pigeon: Effect of negative instances,correction, and number of incorrect alternatives

Pigeons have difficulty learning a standard oddity task involving two colors and three stimulus positions. In Experiment 1, performance on standard noncorrection trials was compared with performance on (1) rerun correction trials in which errors resulted in trial repetition, (2) noncorrection trials with added “negative instance” trials involving presentation of three stimuli, all of which matched, and (3) a combination of correction and added negative instance trials. Results indicated that negative instances, but not correction trials, significantly facilitated oddity performance. In Experiment 2, Phase 1, number of stimulus positions lit (three or five) was factorially manipulated with number of positions on which the odd stimulus could appear (three or five). An increase in number of positions lit, but not number of positions that could be odd, facilitated performance. In Phase 2, birds transferred from trials with five positions lit to four positions lit performed significantly better than controls; but in Phase 3, the same birds did not perform significantly better than controls when transferred to trials with three positions lit. In both experiments, analysis of performance as a function of response position indicated better performance at the end of each display than in the middle. These results, together with the group performance differences in Experiment 2, suggest that oddity learning in pigeons involves a size, or number, discrimination.     

膝骨关节炎患者全血白细胞线粒体DNA复制数量和血浆炎性细胞因子的相关性研究（英文）

目的:本实验研究全血白细胞线粒体DNA复制数量(mtDNACN)和血浆炎性细胞因子在膝骨关节炎患者中的变化和其相关性。创新点:探讨了老年(50~80岁)膝骨关节炎患者白细胞mtDNACN和血浆炎性细胞因子水平及二者的关系。方法:分别收集膝骨关节炎组和对照组血液样本并对膝关节评分(Kellgren-Lawren grading)。使用实时定量聚合酶链反应(qRT-PCR)检测相对mtDNACN;使用多重免疫分析(multiplex immunoassay)测定血浆中10种炎性细胞因子水平;应用线性相关、Logistic回归和主成分分析(PCA)揭示骨关节炎白细胞mtDNACN和血浆炎性细胞因子的相关性。结论:血浆中白介素4(IL-4)、IL-6和全血白细胞mtDNACN可能是膝骨关节炎有效的生物标志物;IL-5则对mtDNACN减少具有潜在的影响。