Caregiver’s Mind-Mindedness in Early Center-based Childcare

Recent studies suggest that mind-mindedness is an important element of caregiver–child interactions in family and childcare context. This study investigated caregivers’ mind-mindedness in a nationally representative Dutch sample and its relation with structural quality factors (i.e., group size, caregivers’ education and work experience, group type, and situation) and caregivers’ interactive skills. Participants were 99 caregivers recruited in 50 childcare centers. Mind-mindedness was assessed with observations during free-play and lunch situations in infant, preschool, and mixed-age groups (0–4-year-olds). Caregivers’ appropriate and nonattuned mind-related comments were coded as individual (over/toward one child) or group related (over or toward more than one child). Caregivers’ interactive skills were assessed using the Caregiver Interaction Profile (CIP) scales. Research Findings: Caregivers generally refer to children’s desires, thoughts, and emotions in about 10% of their verbal interactions, with a low incidence rate of nonattuned comments (< 1%). Mind-mindedness was found to be significantly associated with structural quality characteristics and caregivers’ interactive skills. Caregivers with greater interactive skills produced fewer individual and more group appropriate mind-minded comments in mixed-age groups. Practice or Policy: We discuss the relevance of mind-minded comments at individual and group level for the future study of mental-state talk in early childhood education and care.     

Mainstreaming Information Literacy Skills Into a Social Enterprise Environment

The need for the integration of information literacy (IL) into the world of social enterprise (organizations that apply market-based strategies to achieve a social purpose) is critical for like organizations providing workforce development services to disabled populations. The skill set associated with IL is vital to the success of this population to achieve economic self sufficiency. Disability Program Navigators trained in information sciences and placed into community-based One Stop Career Centers can serve as the gatekeepers for, and trainers on, the multiple resources available to support this goal. This article examines an exciting new program model that charts the course for expanding collaborative IL and social enterprise pilots nationwide.     

Early Evidence of Modular Templates Used to Draw Human Figures on Mural Paintings: The Etruscan Tomba degli Scudi in Tarquinia

ABSTRACT

During recent conservation work carried out on the Etruscan mural paintings in the Tomba degli Scudi, (Tarquinia, 4th C. BCE), the study of the execution techniques led to an amazing discovery: human figures were composed using templates of single body parts. In the Tomba degli Scudi, the perfect overlap of limbs, chests, and heads was confirmed after processing rectified photogrammetric images of the wall paintings with photo editing software. The study also highlighted that such templates were probably made of rigid material and each one had three different sizes, in order to represent the hierarchical organization of the painted characters. In the past, scholars have demonstrated that templates were used to realize a number of Etruscan wall paintings. However, they had reported that only whole figures were reproduced. The notion that such templates consisted of single anatomical parts purposely created to portray figures in different poses never occurs in their studies. In fact, the use of modular templates, also called patroni and antibola, is acknowledged only from the Middle Ages onwards both in western and eastern art. Earlier evidence had never been found. This article aims to predate the use of modular shapes by about ten centuries, thus changing our knowledge of technologies whose tradition spans from the Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Consequently, a new approach to the study of transfer techniques of preparatory drawings in Etruscan wall paintings is established. Furthermore, this article shows that, as in the Middle Ages, the size of such templates was scaled up or down to create hierarchies among the painted characters.     

Physical fitness predicts the academic achievement over one-school year follow-up period in adolescents

The purposes of this study were to examine how fitness at the baseline could predict both academic achievement and academic achievement changes one school year in advance. A total of 194 adolescents (mean age: 14.15 ± 0.97 years old, 112 boys) who attended secondary school participated in our study. Cardiorespiratory fitness was measured with the 20 m endurance shuttle-run test. We also assessed the lower-limbs muscular strength with the standing long jump test and flexibility with the sit-and-reach test. The academic achievement was assessed by school grades. We performed linear regression analyses. Additionally, we examined the relationship between fitness and changes in the academic performance following the same statistical methodology. Cardiorespiratory fitness was positively associated with mathematics one school year in advance (p = 0.025). Cardiorespiratory fitness was also positively associated with changes in Spanish language (p = 0.005), mathematics (p = 0.023), and the grade point average (p = 0.006). Muscular strength was also positively associated with changes in Spanish language (p = 0.040) and mathematics (p = 0.010), while flexibility was associated with changes in Spanish language (p = 0.039) and the grade point average (0.027). Our results suggest that cardiorespiratory fitness was positively associated with academic achievement in adolescents.     

Parental child abuse potential and subsequent coping competence in disadvantaged preschool children: moderating effects of sex and ethnicity

This study evaluated the effects of abuse potential in parents on subsequent coping competence domains in their children, using a model empirically supported in a high-risk community sample by Moreland and Dumas (2007). Data from an ethnically diverse sample of 579 parents enrolled in the PACE (Parenting Our Children to Excellence) program was used to evaluate whether parental child abuse potential assessed at pre-intervention negatively contributed to child affective, achievement, and social coping competence in preschoolers one year later, and whether these associations were moderated by sex or ethnicity. Cross-sectional results indicated that parental child abuse potential was negatively related to child affective and achievement coping competence, after accounting for variance associated with child behavior problems. However, child abuse potential was not predictive of subsequent coping competence in any domain after controlling for previous levels of child coping competence. No moderating effects were found for sex and ethnicity, but results showed main effects of sex and ethnicity in cross-sectional analyses. Clinical implications and future directions are discussed.     

Introduction to the Non-Cooperative Approach to Coalition Formation: The Case of the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD Standards' War

The concepts of the theory of endogenous coalition formation have not been utilized much to analyze issues in the field of applied economics. In this paper, we show how these concepts make a relevant and innovative contribution to these issues. We first illustrate the fundamentals of this theory and we present the concept of internal and external cartel stability. We provide an illustration of this concept through a basic example of an oligopoly in a cartelization situation. Then, we show the relevance of these concepts by analyzing the battle between the high-definition DVD-player standards: Sony's Blu-Ray and NEC/Toshiba's HD-DVD.     

READING MATHEMATICS REPRESENTATIONS: AN EYE-TRACKING STUDY

We use eye tracking as a method to examine how different mathematical representations of the same mathematical object are attended to by students. The results of this study show that there is a meaningful difference in the eye movements between formulas and graphs. This difference can be understood in terms of the cultural and social shaping of human perception, as well as in terms of differences between the symbolic and graphical registers.

     

Indigenous higher education in Mexico and Brazil: between redistribution and recognition

Abstract

Indigenous groups in Latin America face a double exclusion from higher education, with low levels of access to institutions and little acknowledgement of their distinctive cultural and epistemological traditions within the curriculum. This article assesses current policies in Mexico and Brazil towards indigenous populations in higher education, considering the various responses to the challenge, including affirmative action programmes in mainstream universities, intercultural courses and autonomous institutions. These policies and initiatives are analysed using the theoretical frames of redistribution and recognition, focusing on demands for formal equality and material wellbeing on the one hand, and a distinctive cultural and educational space on the other. While state-sponsored policies focus primarily on the redistributive element, initiatives based on recognition come largely from autonomous organisations, raising a series of dilemmas and tensions around educational justice for indigenous populations in the region.