Longitudinal twin study of early reading development in three countries: Preliminary results

We have initiated parallel longitudinal studies in Australia (Byrne, PI), the United States (Olson, PI), and Norway (Samuelsson, PI) of identical and fraternal twins who are being tested in preschool for prereading skills, and in kindergarten, first grade, and second grade for the development of early reading, spelling, and related cognitive skills. Comparisons of the similarities of identical and fraternal twins will reveal the relative influence of genetic, shared family environment, and nonshared environment on individual differences at and across different stages of development. Family and twin-specific environmental information is also being directly assessed through parent questionnaires and observations by testers. Most of the data collected so far have been from preschool twins (146 in Australia, 284 in the United States, and 70 in Norway). Preliminary analyses for the preschool cognitive measures showed reliable genetic influences on phonological awareness and several measures of memory and learning. In contrast, vocabulary, grammar, and morphology showed significant shared environment and negligible genetic effects. A print knowledge composite showed both genetic and shared environment influence.     

The SK-II #changedestiny campaign and the limits of commodity activism for women’s equality in neo/non-liberal China

This article examines one market-based intervention to combat gender discrimination in China, beauty brand SK-II’s #changedestiny campaign, and in particular an accompanying video, Marriage Market Takeover, which attempts to challenge the cultural stigma of “leftover women” (single women over 25). By mobilizing affect and highlighting the self-optimizing subject, SK-II, through the #changedestiny campaign, positions itself as a key instigator of women’s empowerment, and ultimately of not only familial, but also societal, change. In this regard, it follows the logic of what Banet-Weiser and Mukherjee (in Commodity activism: Cultural resistance in neoliberal times [NYU Press, 2012]) call commodity activism, or the merging of consumer behavior with efforts at social change within neoliberal brand culture. However, in a context we call “neo/non-liberal China,” modes of authoritarian and therapeutic governance intersect, and consumer subjects, not consumer citizens, are encouraged. We argue that through offering resistance to, and a resolution situated within familial relationships, the #changedestiny campaign does little to challenge the patriarchal “leftover women” discourse. We further argue that gender discrimination is raised in the #changedestiny campaign as a way to rationalize a neoliberal emphasis on consumption, self-care, and personal fulfillment, and that ultimately gender—as well as class—norms are reaffirmed despite the campaign’s efforts to promote meaningful social change.     

Revealing,reinterpreting, rewriting mujeres

This paper reanalyzed research previously conducted with Spanish-speaking childcare providers who participated in an educational literacy program. The women in the program were generally framed as the deficient other – illiterate, immigrant women. The authors used a critical framework and Chicana/Latina feminist methodologies, namely pláticas y encuentros (talks and encounters), to investigate, reanalyze, and reinterpret the data. Through the process, the authors not only revealed the inner flame of the participants in the study, but through the collision of their own worldviews, they also exposed more deeply the assumptions buried within their epistemologies, methodologies, and positionalities. The results speak to the importance of critical examinations of power and discourses in education that often reside unexamined, or perhaps examined but largely unpublished, in our research.     

Children's Attitudes Toward Older Adults and Aging: A Synthesis of Research

This paper serves as a summation of literature on children's attitudes toward older adults and aging. Research indicates that the vast amount of information available provides varying levels of understanding toward children's actual views of older adults. Differences between measurements, settings, and procedures stand as barriers in cross-comparison of studies and findings. There is a need for early aging education and as well as consistent research methods.     

Tales From Timberline: The 2011 Acquisitions Institute at Timberline Lodge

The 2011 Acquisitions Institute at Timberline Lodge delivered a packed schedule of timely and interesting presentations on compelling topics for acquisitions and collection development librarians, publishers, and library vendors. The cozy lodge provided a perfect environment for relaxed conversation on topics such as patron-driven acquisitions, e-books, and library collaborations, while late snow flurries and a cloud cap hid Mount Hood from attendees’ eyes.     

Technology and/as Governmentality: The Production of Young Rural Women as Low-Tech Laboring Subjects in China

This article presents an ethnography of a group of young women from rural China who attended a three-month computer-training course and then were placed in a data input company in China. Building upon scholarship on “Chinese governmentality,” I argue that although the training emphasized individual “quality” (suzhi) and the attainment of “useful” skills, once the women were employed their choices as autonomous individuals were severely limited through workplace disciplines that problematize notions of self government. I show how multiple modes of power were deployed to produce rural women as low-tech laboring subjects necessary for China's domestic development and participation in global capitalism.     

Children’s Ability to Learn Evolutionary Explanations for Biological Adaptation

Research Findings: Evolution by natural selection is often relegated to the high school curriculum on the assumption that younger students cannot grasp its complexity. We sought to test that assumption by teaching children ages 4–12 (n = 96) a selection-based explanation for biological adaptation and comparing their success to that of adults (n = 30). Participants provided explanations before and after a 10-min, analogy-based tutorial illustrating the principles of variation, differential survival, differential reproduction, inheritance, and population change. Although younger children (ages 4–6) showed minimal evidence of learning these principles, older children (ages 7–12) showed robust evidence of doing so, learning them at rates equivalent to adults. Participants of all ages, however, provided nonevolutionary explanations for biological adaptations (i.e., explanations referencing need, growth, and creation) nearly as often at posttest as they did at pretest. Practice or Policy: These results suggest that older elementary school-age children can be taught evolutionary concepts but that learning such concepts does not lead to the automatic replacement of nonevolutionary views of biological adaptation, which must be addressed separately.     

Is syllable segmentation developmentally constrained by consonant sonority within syllable boundaries in silent reading? Evidence in French children

There is agreement that French typically reading children use syllable‐sized units to segment words. Although the statistical properties of the initial syllables or the clusters within syllable boundaries seem to be crucial for syllable segmentation, little is known about the role of consonant sonority in silent reading. In two experiments that used audio‐visual and visual pseudoword recognition tasks with 300 French typically developing children, we showed a progressive increase in the use of syllable segmentation from the first through fifth years of reading instruction. The children were influenced both by an optimal ‘sonorant coda–obstruent onset’ sonority profile and by the individual position‐dependent consonant sonority within syllable boundaries. Orthographic and phonological statistical properties did not clearly modulate the response patterns. We provide innovative data to help further understand the developmental course of the use of syllable segmentation as determined by sonority. We discuss our results in the light of linguistic principles.     

Collaborative Exhibitions and Visitor Reactions: The Case of Nitsitapiisinni: Our Way of Life

Collaborative exhibitions built by aboriginal communities and museums often seek to reposition aboriginal peoples as the authors and experts of their cultures, and to assert their active and continued presence in the contemporary world. This article explores the impact of collaborative exhibitions on museum visitors' experiences and their potential to reshape the public's perception of aboriginal peoples. Interviews conducted with visitors to Nitsitapiisinni: Our Way of Life, a permanent exhibition created by Blackfoot Elders and museum staff at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, demonstrate that museum visitors rarely recognized the extent of the collaboration, and thus rarely equated Nitsitapiisinni with concepts of self‐representation or self‐determination. However, other messages were successfully communicated to museum visitors, namely the impact of colonialism, the efforts to revitalize Blackfoot culture, and the importance of Blackfoot spirituality. This study provides some interesting insights about public perceptions that will help promote deeper reflection on the issues surrounding collaboratively developed exhibitions and the first‐person authorship of First Nations cultures.     

Longitudinal Relations Among Parenting Styles,Prosocial Behaviors,and Academic Outcomes in U.S. Mexican Adolescents

This article examined parenting styles and prosocial behaviors as longitudinal predictors of academic outcomes in U.S. Mexican youth. Adolescents (N = 462; Wave 1 M_age = 10.4 years; 48.1% girls), parents, and teachers completed parenting, prosocial behavior, and academic outcome measures at 5th, 10th, and 12th grades. Authoritative parents were more likely to have youth who exhibited high levels of prosocial behaviors than those who were moderately demanding and less involved. Fathers and mothers who were less involved and mothers who were moderately demanding were less likely than authoritative parents to have youth who exhibited high levels of prosocial behaviors. Prosocial behaviors were positively associated with academic outcomes. Discussion focuses on parenting, prosocial behaviors, and academic attitudes in understanding youth academic performance.