From the research: Myths worth dispelling: Gender—Still a long way to go

With the obvious gains in pay and employment equity for women in the workplace during the last 50 years, both in measurable changes and in legislation designed to ensure such changes, some have assumed that gender discrimination is a thing of the past. However, despite improvements, equal pay for equal work and equal opportunities for hiring, promotion, and leadership positions remain elusive in many areas. Stereotype threat and gender differences in self‐positioning and communication are two contributors to differences in pay and position. Stereotype threat can result in reduced performance and a tendency for women to opt out of participation in fields and positions that are currently populated mostly by men. Gender differences in self‐positioning and communication can result in unwitting discrimination because employers and others fail to notice qualified female candidates. We should employ remedies for these (and other) factors that contribute to gender discrimination. This is likely only if we first acknowledge that gender discrimination is alive and well in today's workplace—whether intentionally so or not.     

The Bring Your Own Technology Initiative: An Examination of Teachers’ Adoption

This case study explored teachers’ concerns, use, and actual practices in their adoption of the Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) initiative. Participants were 12 secondary teachers in a private school setting. The Concerns-Based Adoption Model tools provided data: Stages of Concern Questionnaire (SoCQ), Levels of Use interview, and the Innovation Configuration Map. Twelve participants completed the SoCQ, and 6 of the 12 teachers participated in interviews and observations. After triangulating the data, we found that the majority of teachers indicated highest concerns related to self, placed at the mechanical Level of Use, and had non-ideal adoption practices on the Innovation Configuration Map.     

ADOLESCENT LITERATURE: A MISREPRESENTATION OF YOUTH‐AGED RELATIONSHIPS

Young people need to understand and have meaningful relationships with the elderly. One of the ways that this understanding can be initiated and enhanced is for adolescents to read literature that presents them with realistic and believable youth‐aged relationships. However, a reading and analysis of some of the available, contemporary adolescent literature that depicts youth‐aged relationships reveals that the attitudes, actions, and feelings of the fictional characters do not represent those of the youth and the aged in today's society.     

Enhancing Maternal Interactive Behavior and Child Social Competence in Low Birth Weight, Premature Infants

Effects of a comprehensive early intervention program for low birth weight, premature infants—the Infant Health and Development Program—on mother-child interaction were examined at 30 months ( N = 683). Small significant positive effects were found: Intervention mothers had higher ratings on quality of assistance; intervention children had higher ratings on persistence and enthusiasm and on an overall child rating of competence and involvement and lower ratings on percentage of time off-task; intervention dyads were rated as more synchronous. Of a set of initial status variables indexing biological and environmental risk, only 2 treatment interactions were found. Intervention group black children had higher ratings on enthusiasm and lower percentage of time off-task. Independent of treatment, maternal ethnicity and education were significant predictors of maternal and dyadic ratings, while ethnicity and birth weight predicted child ratings. Implications for early intervention and center-based care are discussed.     

Differential exposure to early childhood education services and mother–toddler interaction

This study examined the associations of exposure to early childhood education (ECE) services upon 2.5-year-old children's task persistence and enthusiasm and their mothers’ authoritative and authoritarian behavior and support stimulation. Families participated in the Infant Health and Development Program, an eight-site randomized comprehensive ECE to enhance the development of low birth weight, premature infants. Exposure was measured for 269 families who received at least one home visit and 1 day at the Child Development Center (CDC): 131 with lower exposure (64 ± 11.6 home visits and 206 ± 53 CDC days) and 138 with higher exposure (67 ± 9.2 home visits and 301 ± 21 CDC days). These two groups were compared to the follow-up group (540 with no exposure). Compared to no exposure, high exposure was associated with greater child enthusiasm and persistence and maternal support stimulation. Infant and mother test scores and temperament/depression scores, child's sex, and ethnicity were examined as moderators. Compared to no exposure, high exposure was related to maternal authoritative behavior toward girls, less authoritarian behavior for mothers with lower PPVT scores, and greater task enthusiasm from Black children.     

Picturing Objects in Infancy

Infants’ transfer of information from pictures to objects was tested by familiarizing 9‐month‐olds (N = 31) with either a color or black‐and‐white photograph of an object and observing their preferential reaching for the real target object versus a distractor. One condition tested object recognition by keeping both objects visible, and the other tested object representation by hiding both objects. On visible trials, infants reached more for the distractor, indicating they recognized the target object from its picture. On hidden trials, infants reached more for the target object, suggesting they formed a continued representation of the object based on its picture. Photograph color had no effect. Infants thus show picture‐to‐object transfer by 9 months with preferential reaching, even with black‐and‐white pictures.     

Variables that predict desire for work with special education adolescents

The target group was composed of professionals with a variety of psychology- and education-related roles. A set of variables was identified that could capture 75% of the variance associated with desire for work with special need adolescents. The variable set included participant perceptions of quality of special education training, as well as self-evaluation of personal characteristics such as sex, age, and attitudes toward special need adolescents.