Teacher–child relationship quality: The roles of child temperament and teacher–child interactions

Young children's relationships with teachers predict social and academic success. This study examines contributions of child temperament (shyness, effortful control) and gender to teacher–child relationship quality both directly and indirectly through the frequency of teacher–child interactions in the classroom. Using an NICHD SECCYD sample of 819 first grade children, four findings emerged: (a) children's shyness, effortful control, and gender contributed directly to teacher–child conflict and closeness; (b) children's shyness contributed to the frequency of child-initiated teacher–child interactions, and children's effortful control contributed to the frequency of teacher-initiated teacher–child interactions; (c) shyness related to teacher–child closeness indirectly through the frequency of child-initiated teacher–child interactions; (d) the frequency of child- and teacher-initiated interactions contributed to each other. Results inform practitioners and researchers of characteristics that put children at risk for failure to form positive relationships with teachers.     

Disgust,Need for Affect,and Responses to Microbiome Research

Contributing to the literature on affective processing and attitude formation, this study investigates the effects of a discrete emotion (disgust) and an emotional disposition (need for affect [NFA]) on support for regulation in the context of microbiome research. Data from a web-based experiment (N = 1,005) showed that experienced disgust mediated the effect of disgust-eliciting information on support for regulation. This mediated relationship was moderated by NFA. More specifically, NFA moderated the path between experienced disgust and regulatory attitudes but not that between message exposure and experienced disgust. The two dimensions of NFA played different moderating roles: Emotional approach amplified the relationship between disgust and the attitudinal outcome, whereas emotional avoidance attenuated it. The study furthers understanding about how NFA influences emotional processing and contributes to research on disgust as a relatively understudied discrete emotion.     

Seeing the forest as well as the trees: general vs. specific predictors of environmental behavior

The domain of environmental protection is comprised from many sub-domains as recycling, conserving water, or reducing the consumption of energy. The attitude–behavior gap is partly explained by the gap between the specificity levels of the particular measured behavior and of its antecedent(s). The present study aimed at assessing the effects of general vs. domain-specific behavior’s proximal antecedents included in the theory of planned behavior (TPB) model (intentions, attitudes towards the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control) on performance of specific environmental behaviors (EBs) in five environmental sub-domains. We found that in all of the environmental domains examined, a specifically worded TPB model predicted specific behaviors better than a generally worded TPB model did. However, the magnitude of the improvement varied among behavioral domains and the improvement did not arise from the same TPB elements in every domain. The implications for environmental education and for EB research are discussed.     

On love,becomings, and true generosity for science education: honoring Paulo Freire

Cultural Studies of Science Education - In this editorial article, we draw on our experiences to create an opening for critical reflection in honor of Paulo Freire's centenary. We start by...