Gesture as a window on children's beginning understanding of false belief

Given that gestures may provide access to transitions in cognitive development, preschoolers' performance on standard tasks was compared with their performance on a new gesture false belief task. Experiment 1 confirmed that children (N=45, M age=54 months) responded consistently on two gesture tasks and that there is dramatic improvement on both the gesture false belief task and a standard task from ages 3 to 5. In 2 subsequent experiments focusing on children in transition with respect to understanding false beliefs (Ns=34 and 70, M age=48 months), there was a significant advantage of gesture over standard and novel verbal-response tasks. Iconic gesture may facilitate reasoning about opaque mental states in children who are rapidly developing concepts of mind.     

Bullying, violence, and risk behavior in South African school students

OBJECTIVES: To examine the prevalence of bullying behavior in adolescents from Cape Town and Durban, South Africa, and the association of these behaviors with levels of violence and risk behavior. METHOD: Five thousand and seventy-four adolescent schoolchildren in grade 8 (mean age 14.2 years) and grade 11 (mean age 17.4 years) at 72 Government schools in Cape Town and Durban, South Africa completed self-report questionnaires on participation in bullying, violent, anti-social and risk behaviors. RESULTS: Over a third (36.3%) of students were involved in bullying behavior, 8.2% as bullies, 19.3% as victims and 8.7% as bully-victims (those that are both bullied and bully others). Male students were most at risk of both perpetration and victimization, with younger boys more vulnerable to victimization. Violent and anti-social behaviors were increased in bullies, victims and bully-victims compared to controls not involved in any bullying behavior (p<.01 in all cases). Risk taking behavior was elevated for bullies and bully-victims, but for victims was largely comparable to controls. Victims were less likely to smoke than controls (odds ratio .83, p<.05). Bully-victims showed largely comparable violent, anti-social and risk taking behavior profiles to bullies. Bully-victims showed comparable suicidal ideation and smoking profiles to victims. CONCLUSIONS: Results were in keeping with Western findings. Involvement in bullying is a common problem for young South Africans. Bullying behavior can act as an indicator of violent, anti-social and risk-taking behaviors.     

Diversity research literature in school psychology: 1990–1999

This study is an extension of an initial study conducted by Wiese Rogers in 1992 that examined the diversity literature in school psychology journals. The purpose of this study was to review all research published in four major school psychology journals during the decade of the 90s for diversity content to determine if there had been an increase. Results indicated that 10.6% of the articles have diversity as a focus, a slight increase over Wiese Rogers's findings. Assessment continues to be the area that has the greatest number of diversity articles. Six reasons are proposed for the continued gap in the literature base. Implications for the field of school psychology and suggestions for increasing diversity articles are provided. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Imitative Youth (Russian and American Youth Movements)

Through a leadership for learning approach, a school–university partnership in a large, urban district was able to recruit, develop, and retain new and existing school leaders. Two cohorts of new leaders were trained while existing leaders enhanced their skills through professional development. Data indicated that the school–university partnership increased the overall percentage of new district leaders by over 19 percent, and met or exceeded all seven of its established targets for leadership development and sustainability.     

Development of the child care worker job stress inventory

After a series of instrument development studies, a mail survey was conducted with 196 randomly selected family day care providers (FDCPs) and child care center workers (CCCWs) residing in the state of Maryland (response rates were 76.6% and 70.5%, respectively). Embedded in the instrument were three job stress scales, specific to child care workers, measuring job demands, job control, and job resources. Extensive psychometric testing of the three 17-item instruments demonstrated several areas of strength. The job demands scale, because of its breadth of stressors covered, fared slightly worse on indicators of reliability (alpha = 0.77; mean interitem correlation [MIC] = 0.17; item-to-total correlations [ITCs] = 0.14 to 0.49) than did job control (alpha = 0.88; MIC = 0.31; ITCs = 0.26 to 0.69) and job resources (alpha = 0.89; MIC = 0.35; ITCs = 0.32 to 0.70). Known groups validity was demonstrated through a conceptually meaningful pattern of differences between FDCPs and CCCWs. Construct validity for all three scales was demonstrated by a pattern of stronger correlations with conceptually similar versus dissimilar instruments. Average correlations with similar versus dissimilar instruments were: job demands, 0.54 versus 0.24; job control, 0.74 versus 0.30; and job resources, −0.53 versus 0.30. Similar to the reliability analysis, results of factor analysis were stronger for job control and job resources than for job demands.     

Gender and Leadership in Academic Libraries

This study considers academic library personnel perceptions of gender and leadership associated with three obstacles – family, “double binds”, social capital – identified by Alice Eagly and Linda Carli in 2007. A survey was created that provides prompts to measure perception of these obstacles as they apply to both genders. Ninety-two library personnel from a random sample completed the survey. Findings from a t-test that describe and interpret the results are presented, along with themes coded from survey comments. Suggestions Eagly and Carli offer to improve leadership equity are adapted specifically to academic libraries.     

Community perceptions and utilization of a consumer health center

The purpose of this study was to understand factors that may affect the usage of a consumer health center located in a public library. More specifically, the authors wanted to know what health resources are of interest to the community, what patrons'' perceptions of their experience at the center are, and finally, how staff can increase utilization of the center. In general, perceptions of the center were positive. The findings support that participants appreciate efforts to provide health information in the public library setting and that utilization could be improved through marketing and outreach.Problems with health literacy—one''s ability to obtain, process, and understand basic information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions 1, 2—significantly limit effective dissemination and understanding of relevant health information, especially among racial and ethnic minorities where health literacy challenges are pervasive 3–5. People with limited health literacy skills have higher medical costs and use an inefficient mix of medical services 3, 6–13. This compromises their health and is a major source of economic inefficiency in the US health care system. Efforts to address low health literacy may result in reductions of health inequities, decreased medical costs, and enhanced quality of life 14. However, efforts to promote health literacy that seek to empower individuals to understand health information and act in their own interest remain an underexplored pathway to improved health outcomes 9.The National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) encourages libraries to reach out to low literacy groups in their surrounding communities to address literacy challenges 15–17. These actions have resulted in development of consumer health libraries, centers where patrons can get accurate and timely health information. Preliminary investigations of consumer health libraries have reinforced the value of these services 18, 19, but there is little information regarding the provision of similar services in other public settings.The Healthy Living and Learning Center (HLLC), located in a public library in Petersburg, Virginia, was established in 2012 to provide one-on-one assistance in accessing health information and community resources. According to 2010–2013 census data, 25% of Petersburg residents are below the poverty line 20. Localities surrounding the HLLC experience some of the most unfavorable health outcomes in Virginia 21. In addition, 16%–24% of citizens in the surrounding localities are illiterate 22.The public library setting provides an appropriate context to initiate consumer health centers outside of medical settings. Librarians are already being asked to meet consumer demands for health information 15–17, and the provision of accurate health information is a natural extension of the services that public libraries provide. The American Library Association reports that 62% of libraries report that they are the only source of free public access to computers and the Internet in their communities 23. According to a recent study from Pew, 35% of Americans 16 and older say they have used free Internet access points, 47% of whom have used these services to get health information 24. For a number of minorities, the public library is the only place they have Internet access 25. Thus, libraries not only remain a critical resource among the public, but may also have unique access to populations who are more vulnerable to health inequities.     

Can Didactic Transposition and Popularization Explain Transformations of Genetic Knowledge from Research to Classroom?

We will attempt a synthesis from various research perspectives that have analyzed the alterations that knowledge inevitably goes through while percolating into classroom activities. We will try to identify some of their causes and will illustrate them with examples in genetics. First, we will discuss some research on knowledge transformation when genetics knowledge is popularized (Staerklé and Clémence 2002), to show how knowledge is transformed in specific predictable manners as it moves from experts to general public. Then, we will draw from a large body of (French) research in didactic transposition (Chevallard 1991) in order to highlight what knowledge characteristically thrives or is lost as it percolates into school practice and learner’s knowledge. We will then draw from Huberman’s (Science Communication, 4(4), 478–510, 1983) analysis of knowledge use in schools the specificities of knowledge that teachers effectively use. All three perspectives reveal that cognitive and social environment are crucial determinants of what knowledge will be found in schools. An ecological metaphor explains how different cognitive environments from research into education favor knowledge adapted to specificities of this ecosystem. This transposition of knowledge is therefore not decay but inescapable and necessary. Ignoring this transposition has considerably reduced the effectiveness of many educational reforms. We will combine these three to propose an evolutionary perspective that could inform ways of expressing research into educational recommendations fed into the system to optimize the didactic transposition process.