Change in Parenting Democracy during the Transition to Adolescence: The Roles of Young Adolescents' Noncompliance and Mothers' Perceived Influence

OBJECTIVE: This study assessed the direct relation between young adolescents' regulated noncompliance and mothers' democratic childrearing practices as well as the potential mediating role of mothers' perceived influence during the transition to adolescence. DESIGN: Three years of self-reported adolescent noncompliance, perceived influence, and parenting democracy were gathered from 166 mothers and their firstborn children (55% female), ages 9 - 11 years at time 1. RESULTS: Longitudinal path analysis indicated a total effect between adolescents' regulated noncompliance and higher maternal democracy. In addition, the total effect was mediated by mothers' perceived influence, such that adolescents' regulated noncompliance at time 1 was associated with greater perceptions of influence at time 2, which, in turn, was associated with greater maternal democracy at time 3. CONCLUSIONS: Mothers with young adolescents who resist in a relatively mature, regulated manner tend to have more positive perceptions of their influence on their emerging adolescents' behavior. In turn, mothers expecting to maintain their influence despite normative adolescent resistance are more likely to use democratic parenting strategies, granting their adolescents more input in decisions.     

Paedagogica Historica: trendsetter or follower?

This article considers the role Paedagogica Historica has played in stimulating new approaches in the history of education within the international community since the emergence of the new series in 1900. Particular focus is placed on the volumes published in the wake of ISCHE (International Standing Conference in the History of Education) conferences and the special issues, which the editors began to promote in 1990 as a way of highlighting innovative scholarship in the field. The article considers a total of 55 issues. In addition to a presentation of the diversity of topics addressed, the article assesses the following: editorial strategies to reach a broader public and connect with specialised networks internationally; efforts to achieve international ranking for the journal; the ways individual scholars or national communities showcase certain approaches or themes in the history of education. Finally, the article will consider the limits to the journal’s efforts to establish trends in our contemporary digital age.     

Does big-fish–little-pond effect always exist? Investigation of goal orientations as moderators in the Hong Kong context

The big-fish–little-pond effect (BFLPE) posits that students with the same ability will have higher academic self-concepts when they are in low-ability classes than in high-ability classes. Our research puts the BFLPE under scrutiny by examining goal orientations as the moderators that may affect the size of the BFLPE. We collected data on mathematics self-concept, mathematics ability and goal orientation from 7334 Hong Kong junior secondary school students in 201 classes. We hypothesised that the BFLPE would be exacerbated for students who endorsed high extrinsic goals while the BFLPE would be attenuated for students who endorsed high intrinsic goals. However, the results did not fully support the hypothesis. We found that students who were highly motivated in general (both intrinsic and extrinsic) experienced stronger BFLPE. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

Children's participation as neo-liberal governance?

Children's participation initiatives have been increasingly introduced within various institutional jurisdictions around the world, partly in response to Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Such initiatives have been critically evaluated from a number of different angles. This article engages with an avenue of critique which argues that children's participatory initiatives resonate with a neoliberal economic and political context that prioritises middle class, western individualism and ultimately fosters children's deeper subjugation through self-governance. Respecting these as legitimate concerns, this article draws on two counter-positions to argue that while children's participation can certainly be conceptualised and practised in ways that reflect neo-liberal, individualised self-governance, it does not necessarily do so. To make this argument I engage, on the one hand, with Foucault's work on the care of the self, and on the other, with more collective approaches to participation.     

Letter knowledge in parent–child conversations

Learning about letters is an important component of emergent literacy. We explored the possibility that parent speech provides information about letters, and also that children’s speech reflects their own letter knowledge. By studying conversations transcribed in CHILDES (MacWhinney, 2000) between parents and children aged one to five, we found that alphabetic order influenced use of individual letters and letter sequences. The frequency of letters in children’s books influenced parent utterances throughout the age range studied, but children’s utterances only after age two. Conversations emphasized some literacy-relevant features of letters, such as their shapes and association with words, but not letters’ sounds. Describing these patterns and how they change over the preschool years offers important insight into the home literacy environment.     

Known Knowns and Known Unknowns

Abstract

Health care professionals often request information delivered stat. Patient treatment is urgent. Any hospital library, large or small, that uses Internet document delivery (IDD) systems can place information in the hands of the health professional faster. Libraries that use Internet document delivery technologies can provide health care professionals with information more quickly. Ultimately, it could reduce the length of a hospital stay and reduce health care costs. However, hospital libraries are faced with significant barriers that prevent them from utilizing electronic document delivery systems. docMD successfully overcame barriers and allowed small and/or rural hospital libraries to take advantage of the benefits of electronic document delivery that larger libraries have enjoyed for over a decade. It provides health professionals affiliated with smaller hospitals an equal opportunity to access professional literature quickly in order to make quicker, well-informed patient care decisions. The docMD pilot project investigated, eliminated the barriers and provided IDD services to eleven small and rural hospital libraries using a centralized document mediation center. This paper provides background information, describes the creation of the docMD service delivery model and discusses possible future project outcomes.     

Métissage on the Airwaves: Toward a Cultural History of Broadcasting in French Colonial Algeria, 1930–1936

This article explores the methodological challenges and possibilities of writing a cultural history of broadcasting in French colonial Algeria during the tumultuous decades between the two world wars. In a diverse, multi-ethnic colonial society, how can historians and media scholars evaluate audience reception? What meanings did radio broadcasting acquire in the colonial context? To answer these questions, this article considers the controversies surrounding two culturally hybrid broadcasts produced by Radio-Algiers during the 1930s. A careful examination of the remaining historical record concerning these broadcasts, from newspaper accounts to archival sources, exposes the cultural fluidity that typified everyday colonial life and reveals how radio broadcasting politicized music and oral language in novel ways. Broadcasting—as a purely sonic medium—challenged the classificatory mechanisms of the French colonial state and the racial and ethnic boundaries that undergirded colonial society. In consequence, historical memories of Radio-Algiers and its role during the waning years of the French empire deny the sonic cultural hybridity that flourished over the interwar airwaves.     

Organizational Dissent as a Function of Organizational Justice

This study examined the relationships between perceptions of organizational justice and enacting organizational dissent. Participants were 107 full-time employees working in various organizations. Results indicated that employee perceptions of distributive and interpersonal justice negatively predicted latent dissent, while perceptions of informational justice positively predicted latent dissent. Perceptions of interpersonal justice were the strongest predictor of latent dissent. Perceptions of justice were not related to articulated or displaced dissent. Future research should continue to explore triggering agents of dissent in organizations.