Parental Attitudes Regarding School-Based Sexuality Education in Utah

Sexuality education programs can be broadly categorized as either risk-avoidance or risk-reduction approaches. Health educators in Utah public schools must teach a state mandated risk-avoidance curriculum which prohibits the advocacy or encouragement of contraception. Multiple national surveys indicate that parents prefer a risk-reduction approach to sexuality education that promotes abstinence and the use of condoms or contraception for prevention of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection. To date, no survey of Utah parents has been conducted.

This study utilized an Internet survey to gather data from 344 Utah parents to analyze their preferences regarding school-based sexuality education, sexuality topics, and support for objectives from the National Sexuality Education Standards. The vast majority of Utah parents surveyed support a risk-reduction approach to sexuality education, a wide variety of sexuality topics, and the majority of National Sexuality Education Standards. Statistically significant differences were identified by parents’ education, income, attendance at religious services, and political affiliation. Results support that Utah laws and education policies should be reexamined to provide for instruction that aligns with professional recommendations, best-practice recommendations based on peer-reviewed research, parental attitudes, and the needs of Utah teens.     

Intervening or Ignoring: Learning about teaching in new times

In response to the rise of collaborative learning within education, two teacher educators redesigned their courses to explore the complexities of pedagogy within a New Learning framework. Multi‐age grouping provided opportunities for pre‐service teachers to work with others from different year levels on an interdisciplinary assessment task. As a result of this approach to teaching and learning, pre‐service teachers were challenged and resistance arose. These acts of student resistance provided opportunities for examining the dynamics and complexity of collaborative learning and the implications this has for teachers in new times. In particular, it explores the tension around intervening and ignoring students' resistances created by engaging in new learning pedagogy.     

In‐service Education and the Superintendency: Lloyd Wolfe in San Antonio,Texas, 1902–1908

During the early 20th century, practicing San Antonio teachers took part in several different types of in‐service education. This paper investigates the types of in‐service education present during the superintendency of Lloyd Wolfe (1902–1908), a progressive San Antonio educator who employed innovative approaches to in‐service education. Influenced by Francis W. Parker, Wolfe placed emphasis on methodology that stressed child‐centred activities and real‐world problem solving. The paper explores how Wolfe disseminated his ideology to his teachers through the lectures and content of a summer in‐service programme. It contemplates criticism from conservative San Antonio politicians who considered some of the approaches to in‐service education both too progressive and too costly. It demonstrates how personal ideology of particular superintendents shaped and changed teacher education programmes. Finally, the author places the San Antonio programme in a broader context that contributes to what is known about early teacher education programmes in the USA.     

Visualization of Twitter Data in the Classroom

The expression “big data” is ubiquitous in the business world today, but few undergraduate business students have the opportunity to gain practical experience with how new business analytics tools can be used in decision making. This article describes a set of hands‐on labs that prepare students to incorporate streaming data analysis into group research projects. Splunk is used to help students analyze and visualize streaming social media data. An evaluation of student projects and student survey results show that this practical approach of training students to manipulate and visualize big data was largely successful in achieving instructional goals.     

Charting new territories: re-assembling childhood sexuality in the early years classroom

Since the moral panic discourse is shutting down discussions about how children are making meaning of gender and sexuality, this paper argues that a new logic is needed for understanding childhood sexuality. A postdevelopmental logic is created by working with Deleuze and Guattari's [Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizoprhenia. Translated by Robert Hurley, Mark Seem and Helen R. Lane. London: Athlone and A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Brian Massumi. London: Continuum. (Orig. pub. 1980)] concepts ‘assemblage’, ‘desire’, and ‘territories’ to understand childhood sexuality in ways that do not rely on the notion of a ‘moral panic’. By re-assembling data generated from an exploratory study of talk by young children about gender and sexuality this paper creates new connections about childhood, gender, and sexualities. It does this by moving away from developmental framings, initiating a different dialogue about curiosities, human and nonhuman bodies, and desires, to chart new territories about childhood sexuality in the early years classroom.     

Enhancing Equity in Gifted Education: a framework for examining assessments drawing on the theory of multiple intelligences

In the United States, poor and minority students are disproportionately excluded from programs for the gifted. Current identification practices for gifted education programs are a primary barrier for these youngsters. This study investigated three alternative assessments for identifying students. Each was said to draw on the theory of multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1983) and to increase the identification of traditionally under‐served youngsters. This investigation asked: (1) Is it reasonable to associate increases in the identification of under‐served youngsters with these assessments? (2) Is it reasonable to associate each assessment with the theory of multiple intelligences? To answer these questions, qualitative data were analyzed against a framework of eight criteria. This revealed that no assessment met all eight criteria; each met a different subset of the eight.     

Assessing infant breastfeeding beliefs among low-income mexican americans

Focus groups were conducted with low-income, pregnant women and new mothers receiving services from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC program) along with their male partners and their mothers. All participants were Hispanics of Mexican American origin. The topics for the focus-group discussions were breastfeeding beliefs and perceptions. All participants were aware of the benefits of breastfeeding. Participants identified time, embarrassment, and pain as barriers to breastfeeding; discussed decision-making efforts regarding breastfeeding; identified cultural beliefs related to breastfeeding; and discussed the lack of care-provider support for breastfeeding.     

Viewing a phonological deficit within a multifactorial model of dyslexia

Participants were administered multiple measures of phonological awareness, oral language, and rapid automatized naming at the beginning of kindergarten and multiple measures of word reading at the end of second grade. A structural equation model was fit to the data and latent scores were used to identify children with a deficit in phonological awareness alone or in combination with other kindergarten deficits. Children with a deficit in phonological awareness in kindergarten were found to be five times more likely to have dyslexia in second grade than children without such a deficit. This risk ratio substantially increased with the addition of deficits in both oral language and rapid naming. Whereas children with one or more kindergarten deficits were at heighten risk for dyslexia, some of these children were found to be adequate or better readers. These results are discussed within a multifactorial model of dyslexia that includes both risk and protective factors.     

The Role of Policing Education in College Student Satisfaction with Police

While we know a great deal about how justice education may benefit those who work in the justice system, studies have yet to examine the potential impact of justice education among college student citizens more generally. We investigate the impact of police-related courses on students’ satisfaction with police officers. Specifically, we examine how the number of policing courses taken is related to perceptions of officer fairness and reported police satisfaction and whether these relationships vary across race. Analyses indicate that race is an important influence on the relationship between policing education and perceptions of fairness. Among white students, education was unrelated to perceptions of procedural justice in encounters with police. In contrast, policing education was a significant predictor of procedural justice perceptions for African-American males. Among African-American males, students who had completed more police-related education were less likely to report that they had been treated fairly during police encounters. We also find racial variation in the relationship between procedural justice and police satisfaction.