How Day School Teachers Perceive Their Working Conditions: A National Study

Induction and mentoring are widely considered in the United States and in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries as a basic universal and critical intervention for a successful launch of new teachers. Based on an expanded set of survey data, this article focuses on how Jewish day schools offer professional support and learning opportunities from the head of school, the administration, colleagues, parents, and the school community and how useful teachers perceive these resources to be. This study reveals that less than half of all teachers in the schools surveyed report participating in formal induction programs and believe their schools take the learning needs of new teachers seriously. Schools would do well to attend to this aspect of teacher support and consider the systems and structures that do (or do not) exist to help orient, support, and develop new teachers.     

Examining the Black-White achievement gap among low-income children using the NICHD study of early child care and youth development

The Black–White achievement gap in children’s reading and mathematics school performance from 4½ years of age through fifth grade was examined in a sample of 314 lower income American youth followed from birth. Differences in family, child care, and schooling experiences largely explained Black–White differences in achievement, and instructional quality was a stronger predictor for Black than White children. In addition, the achievement gap was detected as young as 3 years of age. Taken together, the findings suggest that reducing the Black–White achievement gap may require early intervention to reduce race gaps in home and school experiences during the infant and toddler years as well as during the preschool and school years.     

Reciprocal relations between parenting and adjustment in a sample of juvenile offenders

The over-time reciprocal links between parenting and adolescent adjustment were examined in a sample of 1,354 serious adolescent offenders followed for 3 years (16 years of age at baseline, SD = 1.14). Parallel processing growth curve models provided independent estimates of the impact of parenting on adolescent functioning as well as the impact of adolescent functioning on parenting. Positive adolescent development was facilitated by high parental warmth and low parental hostility. Parental monitoring predicted less problematic behavior, but less positive functioning as well. Predictably, parents became warmer and less hostile in response to positive adolescent development, and less warm in response to problematic adolescent functioning. Parental monitoring declined when adolescents exhibited either positive or problematic functioning.     

Interacting for learning: Digital portfolios for a learning community in a university course

This study investigates student interactions in a blog-based learning community in a university course. In addition, this study explores the dynamics of group interactions in individual blog-based environments compared with collaborative wiki-based educational activities. A learning community of 56 graduate students wrote individual blogs and weekly group summaries using a wiki environment. The posts were analyzed by identifying a post content type and explicit feedback promotions, and by counting the number of the blogger's own comments and the number of others’ comments per post, received from peers studying in the same versus the other offline group. The results show that choosing the appropriate type of post content (i.e., sharing experiences rather than providing information, explicitly calling for feedback, and providing the blogger's own comments) augments peer interaction in a blog environment, thus explaining 51.4% of variance in peer comments. Group interactions through comments in individual blogs, without the possibility of changing one another's content, seem to be non-intrusive and prompt interactions with offline as well as with online peers. In contrast, actual editing of texts through multi-authored collaborative wikis remained affected by student offline former acquaintance. The results are discussed in terms of social interactions and pedagogical beliefs.     

Evaluation of a Computer-Supported Learning System

Educational content on the Internet is rapidly increasing. Academics and businesses are placing more course material online to supplement classroom and business training situations. In addition, significant increases in undergraduate enrollments in information system courses, and the rapid pace of new knowledge in the field, have led researchers to call for new innovative approaches to learning. Prior researchers have reported that this new Web‐based training technology (which has its foundation in computer‐based training) has not integrated sound pedagogical practices into the authoring process when developing new tutorials. This paper summarizes an experiment to evaluate the effect on posttest scores of a Web‐based authoring tool that prompts the developer to build multiple presentation styles into the learning module. Early results indicate that the tool is more effective than traditional HTML‐authoring tools and that the number of exercises affects posttest scores in a positive manner. No effect on posttest scores was observed for the number of examples in the learning module.     

Over-Time Changes in Adjustment and Competence among Adolescents from Authoritative, Authoritarian, Indulgent, and Neglectful Families

In a previous report, we demonstrated that adolescents' adjustment varies as a function of their parents' style (e.g., authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, neglectful). This 1-year follow-up was conducted in order to examine whether the observed differences are maintained over time. In 1987, an ethnically and socioeconomically heterogeneous sample of approximately 2,300 14–18-year-olds provided information used to classify the adolescents' families into 1 of 4 parenting style groups. That year, and again 1 year later, the students completed a battery of standardized instruments tapping psychosocial development, school achievement, internalized distress, and behavior problems. Differences in adjustment associated with variations in parenting are either maintained or increase over time. However, whereas the benefits of authoritative parenting are largely in the maintenance of previous levels of high adjustment, the deleterious consequences of neglectful parenting continue to accumulate.     

Parenting Styles, Adolescents' Attributions, and Educational Outcomes in Nine Heterogeneous High Schools

This article examined the contemporaneous and predictive relations between parenting styles, adolescents' attributions, and 4 educational outcomes. Data were collected from adolescents attending 6 high schools in California and 3 high schools in Wisconsin during the 1987–1988 and 1988–1989 school years. The results of path analyses partially confirmed the central hypotheses. Adolescents who perceived their parents as being nonauthoritative were more likely than their peers to attribute achievement outcomes to external causes or to low ability. Furthermore, the higher the proportion of dysfunctional attributions made for academic successes and failures, the lower the levels of classroom engagement and homework 1 year later. Although adolescents' attributional style provided a bridge between parenting style and 2 educational outcomes, it did not fully explain the impact of parenting on those outcomes. Additional analyses within gender and ethnic subgroups reinforced the overall pattern of findings observed within the entire sample.     

Cross-Cultural Associations of Four Parenting Behaviors With Child Flourishing: Examining Cultural Specificity and Commonality in Cultural Normativeness and Intergenerational Transmission Processes

Families from nine countries (N = 1,338) were interviewed annually seven times (M_age child = 7–15) to test specificity and commonality in parenting behaviors associated with child flourishing and moderation of associations by normativeness of parenting. Participants included 1,338 children (M = 8.59 years, SD = 0.68, range = 7–11 years; 50% girls), their mothers (N = 1,283, M = 37.04 years, SD = 6.51, range = 19–70 years), and their fathers (N = 1,170, M = 40.19 years, SD = 6.75, range = 22–76 years) at Wave 1 of 7 annual waves collected between 2008 and 2017. Families were recruited from 12 ethnocultural groups in nine countries including: Shanghai, China (n = 123); Medellín, Colombia (n = 108); Naples (n = 102) and Rome (n = 111), Italy; Zarqa, Jordan (n = 114); Kisumu, Kenya (n = 100); Manila, Philippines (n = 120); Trollhättan & Vänersborg, Sweden (n = 129); Chiang Mai, Thailand (n = 120); and Durham, NC, United States (n = 110 White, n = 102 Black, n = 99 Latinx). Intergenerational parenting (parenting passed from Generation 1 to Generation 2) demonstrated specificity. Children from cultures with above-average G2 parent warmth experienced the most benefit from the intergenerational transmission of warmth, whereas children from cultures with below-average G2 hostility, neglect, and rejection were best protected from deleterious intergenerational effects of parenting behaviors on flourishing. Single-generation parenting (Generation 2 parenting directly associated with Generation 3 flourishing) demonstrated commonality. Parent warmth promoted, and parent hostility, neglect, and rejection impeded the development of child flourishing largely regardless of parenting norms.     

Longitudinal Trajectories of Four Domains of Parenting in Relation to Adolescent Age and Puberty in Nine Countries

Children, mothers, and fathers in 12 ethnic and regional groups in nine countries (N = 1,338 families) were interviewed annually for 8 years (M_age child = 8–16 years) to model four domains of parenting as a function of child age, puberty, or both. Latent growth curve models revealed that for boys and girls, parents decrease their warmth, behavioral control, rules/limit-setting, and knowledge solicitation in conjunction with children’s age and pubertal status as children develop from ages 8 to 16 across a range of diverse contexts, with steeper declines after age 11 or 12 in three of the four parenting domains. National, ethnic, and regional differences and similarities in the trajectories as a function of age and puberty are discussed.