Diversity on U.S. Public and Commercial TV in Authorial and Executive-Produced Social-Issue Documentaries

Where are diverse makers and subjects most likely to be found in U.S. TV documentary? This study compares commercial and public TV series, and also anthology formats (“authorial” series) and executive-produced formats. A content analysis for characters and makers showed that public TV authorial series are more diverse than either commercial or other public TV series. Independent documentaries have diversity value both in commercial and public TV settings.     

‘Fractured communities’: uncertainty,stress, and (a lack of) communal coping in Palestinian refugee camps

This study examined how communal coping reveals itself in Palestinian refugee camps and the conditions that promote or prevent its occurrence. Individual and dyadic interviews were conducted with 40 mothers and one of their adolescent children living in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. The results revealed that communal coping existed within the mother–adolescent dyad to a certain extent, but was rare within the larger context of the refugee camps. While families and neighbors did not typically verbalize their hardships and actively cope with them as a group, there was often an implicit recognition that they were all experiencing the same uncertainty and stress. Acting upon their uncertainty as a collective, however, was greatly hampered by mistrust within and outside the camps, due to widespread violence, privacy violations, vying for scarce resources, and disloyalty. Parents and adolescents also engaged in protective buffering whereby they attempted to reduce the stress of the family by keeping stress and fears to themselves rather than communicating about them. Even though protective buffering helped the refugees cope with chronic uncertainty and maintain a sense of normalcy, it prevented them from acting upon the problem as a group. Finally, parents emphasized that the child’s education provided hope for the future. Practical implications are discussed.     

Fear-motivated vicious-circle behavior maintained through secondary punishment

Two experiments attempted to establish vicious-circle behavior through fear motivation combined with secondary punishment. In Experiment 1, rats were trained with two CSs, a tone and a buzzer, paired with shock in different contexts. Secondary punishment based on delay and trace conditioning procedures facilitated running in fear-motivated rats, relative to four control groups. In Experiment 2, rats were given pairings of a tone CS with shock, and a buzzer CS with a drop into a water tank. Fear-motivated rats which received secondary punishment during either 33% or 100% of test trials exhibited self-punitive running relative to a nonpunished (0%) group and a backward-conditioning control group. Results indicate that “all secondary” vicious-circle behavior can be established through Pavlovian conditioning, thus supporting a conditioned fear interpretation.     

Adoption losses: naturally occurring or socially constructed?

The American definition of kinship based on biological ties, the practice of closed adoption, and stigmas associated with adoption may decisively influence adoption-related losses. Cross-cultural and historical accounts of adoption that do not apply to these contemporary American constructs of parenthood and practices of adoption suggest outcomes that are not as integrally based on loss. Adoption in infancy is defined as parenting a child with one set of (adoptive) parents and two (adoptive and birth) families. Implications for adoption research, policy, and practice are discussed.     

Experientially learning how to communicate science effectively: A case study on decoding science

The need for science communication programs is matched with the need for program evaluation. This case study is an evaluation of the “Decoding Science” program (DSP) [Rodgers et al. (2018). Science Communication, 40(1), 3–32], a science communication training program, and examines key experiential-learning themes [Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall]. Specifically, we discuss the program's emphasis on learning that science communication is a process that (a) is continual, (b) involves conflict resolution, (c) requires adaptation to the world, (d) requires environmental interaction, and leads to (e) knowledge creation. Additionally, we discuss our analysis of student feedback. Results suggest that the DSP successfully utilizes experiential learning to facilitate the learning of science communication techniques and that future evaluations can lead to the development and improvement of science communication training programs.     

Psychometric Properties of a Parental Questionnaire for Assessing Correlates of Toddlers’ Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior

This study examined the psychometric properties of a questionnaire developed with the guidance of the socialization model of child behaviour to understand modifiable correlates of toddlers’ physical activity and sedentary behaviour. Findings are based on 118 parents (33.7 ± 4.9 years; 86% female) of toddlers (19.3 ± 2.7 months; 48% female) from Edmonton, Canada in The Parents’ Role in Establishing healthy Physical activity and Sedentary behaviour habits study (PREPS). The PREPS questionnaire encompassed 21 variables across the constructs of the socialization model of child behaviour. Of the nine variables assessed for internal consistency reliability, eight had good (α ≥ 0.70) reliability. Of the 15 continuous variables assessed for 1-week test–retest reliability, 10 had moderate (intra-class correlation = 0.50–0.74) and 5 had good (intra-class correlation ≥ 0.75) reliability. Of the six categorical variables assessed for 1-week test–retest reliability, two had fair (К = 0.21–0.40), one had moderate (К = 0.41–0.60), one had substantial (К = 0.61–0.80), and two had almost perfect (К = 0.81–1.00) reliability. Of the 12 sedentary behaviour variables assessed for convergent validity, 7 were significantly correlated with children’s screen time, of which three were small (r ≤ 0.29), two were medium (r = 0.30–0.49), and two were large (r ≥ 0.50) effect sizes.