The American science pipeline: sustaining innovation in a time of economic crisis

Significant limitations have emerged in America's science training pipeline, including inaccessibility, inflexibility, financial limitations, and lack of diversity. We present three effective programs that collectively address these challenges. The programs are grounded in rigorous science and integrate through diverse disciplines across undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students, and resonate with the broader community. We discuss these models in the context of current economic constraints on higher education and the urgent need for our institutions to recruit and retain diverse student populations and sustain the successful American record in scientific education and innovation.     

Speech acts by mother and child: Determining their nature and form

The goal of the present study was to determine to what extent the psychological, social, and cultural features of the communication situation affect the production of speech acts during an interaction between an adult and a child. Variations in the nature of the speech acts produced (assertive, directive, expressive, and commissive) and in their linguistic form (imperative, declarative, interrogative, and exclamative) were studied in relation to three variables describing the communication situation: (a) a psychological variable, the mother’s child-raising style (coercive or inductive) which was assessed using a questionnaire on parental control behavior (MCCP, Tessier, Pilon, & Fecteau, 1985); (b) a social variable, the social role of the speaker (mother or child); and (c) a cultural variable, the origin of the dialogue partners (French or Canadian). For each cultural sample, 15-minute dialogues were recorded while 10 pairs of mothers in interaction with their 5 and 6 year old daughters performed a task involving drawing on a computer. The results suggest that for children between the ages of 5 and 6, the production of speech acts is mainly controlled by the social characteristics of the communication situation rather than by its psychological and cultural features. Mothers appear instead to be sensitive to all three kinds of factors. Moreover, the four types of speech acts were found to differ in their frequency of occurrence, linguistic form, and reaction to the psychological, social, and cultural characteristics of the communication situation. Finally, this study suggests that the effects of these characteristics on speech act production are not uniform, but vary according to the index under consideration.     

La participation des parents a l'ecole primaire trente ans apres: un objectif encore a atteindre

This study examines the perceptions which teachers, head teachers and parents have of the participation of parents in the running of primary schools. While participation has been widely advocated (in North America, Europe and Africa), it appears that there are still tensions between the school and the family. The study shows that parents who are members of school councils state that they favour participation while teachers express some doubts on the positive aspects. Headteachers are more convinced, however. A number of variables help to differentiate the results, such as environment (rural, semi-urban or urban), and the sub-group to which the respondents belong (parents who are members or non-members of school councils, and teachers of different grades). The discussion considers the need for dialogue and consideration of each person's position in the interest of creating conditions favourable to children's development.     

#SheBelieves: the use of Instagram to frame the US Women’s Soccer Team during #FIFAWWC

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to examine of the representation of women athletes during the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup. More specifically, we examined how individuals used various event-related hashtags (ie #SheBelieves and #FIFAWWC) on Instagram during the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup to frame identity, and challenge or reinforce gender stereotypes from the bottom-up. A content analysis of athlete photos containing #FIFAWWC (n = 706) and athlete photos containing #SheBelieves (n = 629) revealed that users primarily portrayed women athletes as athletically competent. Specifically, nearly 90% of Instagram posts containing either #FIFAWWC or #SheBelieves portrayed athletes in either athletic action or preparing for athletic action. These findings demonstrate that social media provide an opportunity to challenge gender stereotypes in women’s sports and thereby illustrate that social media users are willing to create their own frames around women athletes.