How to Save the World and Other Lessons from Children’s Environmental Literature

This article argues that most contemporary children’s environmental picture books and easy readers published in the United States focus overwhelmingly on individual environmentalist acts and lifestyle changes, overlook the connections between environmental degradation and systemic social problems such as class disparities, and ultimately over-simplify environmental crisis. They typically encourage children to adopt environmentalist behaviors such as recycling that can be performed by individuals or families in the home, school, and local community, but do little to encourage civic engagement that would call into attention the intertwined ideological, economic, and political factors preventing profound environmental change. The analysis then examines several books that notably do inform readers about the larger political and economic issues and place a strong emphasis on environmental justice, a type of environmentalism deeply concerned with issues of race, class, gender, and economic inequality. Such texts are more likely to encourage an environmentalism that combines lifestyle and consumer choices with political activism. We need more books like this, as children’s texts that resign environmental action almost completely to individual choices and behaviors and disassociate environmental crises from their larger constitutive contexts do little to prepare young people for the socio-environmental challenges we face now and in the future.     

Txt msg n school literacy: does texting and knowledge of text abbreviations adversely affect children's literacy attainment?

This paper reports on two studies which investigated the relationship between children's texting behaviour, their knowledge of text abbreviations and their school attainment in written language skills. In Study One, 11–12‐year‐old children provided information on their texting behaviour. They were also asked to translate a standard English sentence into a text message and vice versa. The children's standardised verbal and non‐verbal reasoning scores were also obtained. Children who used their mobiles to send three or more text messages a day had significantly lower scores than children who sent none. However, the children who, when asked to write a text message, showed greater use of text abbreviations (‘textisms’) tended to have better performance on a measure of verbal reasoning ability, which is highly associated with Key Stage 2 (KS2) and 3 English scores. In Study Two, children's performance on writing measures was examined more specifically. Ten to eleven‐year‐old children were asked to complete another English to text message translation exercise. Spelling proficiency was also assessed, and KS2 Writing scores were obtained. Positive correlations between spelling ability and performance on the translation exercise were found, and group‐based comparisons based on the children's writing scores also showed that good writing attainment was associated with greater use of textisms, although the direction of this association is nor clear. Overall, these findings suggest that children's knowledge of textisms is not associated with poor written language outcomes for children in this age range.     

A cross‐sectional study of prosodic sensitivity and reading difficulties

In this cross‐sectional study, we explore the relationship between prosodic sensitivity (suprasegmental phonology) and phonological awareness (segmental phonology) and investigate whether a group of poor readers display significant suprasegmental phonological deficits in comparison to chronological age‐matched controls and younger, reading age‐matched controls. Phonological awareness assessments were administered along with a battery of prosodic sensitivity assessments drawn from recent literature. The results showed that poor readers were outperformed by their chronological age‐matched counterparts on all measures of prosodic sensitivity. A significant main effect of group was found on the revised stress mispronunciations task and the stress assignment task from the prosodic assessment battery, the former of which remained even after controlling for individual differences in receptive vocabulary and measures of phonological awareness. Significant relationships were also found between measures of prosodic sensitivity and phonological awareness (especially phoneme awareness). These findings emphasise the importance of both segmental and suprasegmental phonological skills in children's reading development.     

Associations between peer bullying and classroom concentration: evidence for mediation by perceived personal safety and relationship with teacher

Being bullied is associated with a psycho-social maladjustment during childhood. One hitherto largely overlooked correlate is disrupted classroom concentration. Using data collected from 364 9–11-year-old children attending seven junior schools in the UK, we tested a model in which children’s perceived safety in two contexts (classroom and playground) and their perceived relationship with their teacher were hypothesised to mediate the association between being bullied and classroom concentration. Two analytical approaches to testing multiple mediation – product of coefficients and bootstrapping – supported the model. None of the mediation effects was moderated by sex but they were by year; in all cases the mediation effect was stronger in the older children than in the younger children (but still significant among the latter). These data suggest mechanisms through which bullying might have its effects on classroom concentration. The practical and theoretical implications are discussed.     

do i know its wrong: children’s and adults’ use of unconventional grammar in text messaging

There is concern that the violations of conventional grammar (both accidental and deliberate) often seen in text messages (e.g., hi how is ya?!!) could lead to difficulty in learning or remembering formal grammatical conventions. We examined whether the grammatical violations made by 244 British children, adolescents and young adults in their text messages was related to poorer performance on tasks of grammatical knowledge, including translating grammatically unconventional text messages into standard English. We found that variance in the production of grammatical violations in naturalistic messages was inconsistently predicted by grammatical task performance. Specifically, primary school children who made poorer grammar-based spelling choices were more likely to make more grammatical violations in their everyday messages, and university students who failed to correct more grammatical errors in a given set of messages were also more likely to make such errors in their own messages. There were no significant relationships for secondary school students. We conclude that using unconventional grammar when texting is not a consistent sign of poor grammatical abilities, although there may be links between some aspects of grammatical skill and grammatical violations in text messages.     

GLABROUS INFLORESCENCE STEMS regulates trichome branching by genetically interacting with SIM in Arabidopsis

Arabidopsis trichomes are large branched single cells that protrude from the epidermis. The first morphological indication of trichome development is an increase in nuclear content resulting from an initial cycle of endoreduplication. Our previous study has shown that the C2H2 zinc finger protein GLABROUS INFLORESCENCE STEMS (GIS) is required for trichome initiation in the inflorescence organ and for trichome branching in response to gibberellic acid signaling, although GIS gene does not play a direct role in regulating trichome cell division. Here, we describe a novel role of GIS, controlling trichome cell division indirectly by interacting genetically with a key endoreduplication regulator SIAMESE (SIM). Our molecular and genetic studies have shown that GIS might indireclty control cell division and trichome branching by acting downstream of SIM. A loss of function mutation of SIM signficantly reduced the expression of GIS. Futhermore, the overexpression of GIS rescued the trichome cluster cell phenotypes of sim mutant. The gain or loss of function of GIS had no significant effect on the expression of SIM. These results suggest that GIS may play an indirect role in regulating trichome cell division by genetically interacting with SIM.     

The impact of the hybrid library on strategic management

This paper examines in detail one aspect of the eLib funded BUILDER hybrid library project ‐ the impact of the BUILDER Project on strategic management within the University of Birmingham. Data was collected from senior managers at the outset and end of the Project to explore their changing views on the concept of the hybrid library and its development, and to identify the extent to which the BUILDER Project had influenced their thinking. Although BUILDER was considered to be having an impact on many Schools, social, political and technological developments in the wider arena were having the most impact. It was acknowledged that the services and technologies developed through the Project would be valuable in supporting the transition towards a hybrid environment, and had worked consistently to do this. The paper sets this data within the broader context of factors influencing change in university strategic management over the past five years.     

Local education authorities’ approaches to provision for children with specific speech and language difficulties in England and Wales

Children with specific speech and language difficulties (SSLD) pose a challenge to the education system as a result of their language needs and associated educational and social‐behavioural difficulties. Local education authorities (LEAs) in England and Wales have developed language units to meet their needs but previous research has indicated this provision was inadequate. The development of inclusion raises questions regarding this type of provision, compared with full inclusion into mainstream schools. The present study reports on a national survey of LEAs in England and Wales (97 respondents, 49.5% response rate) and interviews with 37 LEA special educational needs managers. Provision varied by age group with designated specialist provision more prevalent at key stages 1 and 2 (age 5–11 years), and relatively little at key stages 3 and 4 (11–16). LEAs’ decision‐making regarding provision varied, influenced by the lack of common criteria, which was highlighted by the difficulties in distinguishing children with SSLD from those with autistic spectrum disorder. There were also difficulties translating policies into practice, including the shortage of speech and language therapists. The implications of the study are discussed with reference to inclusion.