Marital Satisfaction,Family Emotional Expressiveness,Home Learning Environments,and Children's Emergent Literacy

The current study investigates associations among marital satisfaction, family emotional expressiveness, the home learning environment, and preschool‐aged children's emergent literacy skills among 385 Midwestern mothers and their children. Path analyses examined how marital satisfaction related to emotional expressiveness in the home and whether this path was associated with the home learning environment and children's literacy skills. Higher maternal satisfaction was associated with higher levels of positive and lower levels of negative family emotional expressiveness. Additionally, family emotional environments characterized by mothers with higher positive expression were related to better home learning environments, which in turn were associated with higher literacy skills in children. Study findings underscore the importance of marital and family processes when considering young children's academic development.     

Supporting Primary School Children’s learning in Digital Spaces at Home: Migrant Parents’ Perspectives and Practices

Using a sociocultural perspective and a case study design, this research examined how three migrant parents in Australia viewed and supported children’s learning in digital spaces and the reasons behind these perspectives and practices. The study found that the participating parents mainly valued and actively supported technology‐based mechanical learning of print‐based literacy and numeracy basics and disregarded the development of digital literacies. The participants’ views and practices were shaped by their desire for children’s social mobility, driven by their migration status and high educational levels, and further reinforced by their interpretations of what was valued in the Australian education system.     

Resettled Refugee Youth Leveraging Their Out-of-School Literacy Practices to Accomplish Schoolwork

This ethnographic study explores how three resettled refugee teens leveraged their out-of-school literacy practices to accomplish their schoolwork. As teens drew upon their out-of-school literacy practices, such as translanguaging and social media practices to make sense of homework, they created third spaces wherein they strategically merged their literacies to achieve their goals. This research provides implications for how educators can design learning environments that enable teens to do this type of complex work.     

Community Literacy Resources and Home Literacy Practices Among Immigrant Latino Families

ABSTRACT

This paper reports relationships among communities, families, and Spanish-speaking children's language and literacy development in kindergarten and grade 1. Findings from a study of 35 communities show that communities with greater concentrations of Latinos are less likely to have printed materials, and available materials are more likely to be in Spanish. Communities with higher income and education levels have more literacy materials in English. Contrary to predictions, there are few associations among community literacy resources, frequency of children's home reading activities, and children's literacy achievement. This lack of association is due to within-community variation in home literacy practices and to schools' impact on home literacy. However, there are associations among community and family language characteristics and child literacy outcomes in Spanish and English, suggesting that at least in the early stages of literacy development, communities' influence on Spanish-speaking children's literacy development is through language-learning opportunities rather than literacy-learning opportunities per se.     

Professional development laboratory: center for literacy and community services

We developed three Professional Development Laboratories: Centers for Literacy and Community Services that addressed four pressing needs in the current urban school crisis: the preparation of in-service teachers to be literacy specialists, the dire need for qualified teachers in urban settings, the professional development of uncertified urban teachers, and the literacy needs of the children and families these teachers serve. These centers were housed in three inner-city schools rather than at the university and thus were able to serve larger numbers of children. Since many of the teachers in these schools are novice or uncertified teachers, we offered on-site in-service courses in order to enhance their ability to help their students. By housing the Centers for Literacy and Community Services on site in the schools, we sought to reach students and families who might otherwise not be able to avail themselves of these services. Unique to this project was that our graduate literacy education students tutored students on site in schools, the university faculty worked alongside the graduate students, and both students and faculty provided services to enhance the professional development of teachers and administrators in the area of literacy. Additionally, this project was distinguished by the inclusion of a component designed to provide literacy education services to the families and caregivers of the children.     

A Cultural-Historical Study of How Children from Hong Kong Immigrant Families Develop a Learning Motive within Everyday Family Practices in Australia

This article draws on a cultural-historical theorization of child development alongside the Chinese concept of learning in order to study children's development in the Hong Kong Australian community. In particular, it aims to understand in detail how a 9-year-old child develops a learning motive under highly structured family practices. The data analysed were selected from a larger set of data involving 80 hr of video observations generated from the recording of everyday practices in three Hong Kong immigrant families. The findings indicate that encouragement plays an important role in bridging the gap between parental demands and the child's wishes, which assists the child to appropriate family values, thus facilitating the development of a learning motive and learning itself.     

Jobs,Wealth, or Place: The Faces of Community Economic Development

Summary

Multiple and conflicting practices characterize the field of community economic development. Much of the debate about these practices revolves around different understandings of the importance of jobs, wealth, and place. No overarching definition, typology, or theory, however, offers a plausible way to resolve these conflicts about community economic development goals, levers of change, and practices. One promising approach engages the complexity rather than trying to simplify it. Metaphors are multivalent images that call attention to crosscutting issues, underlying assumptions, and hidden connections. Metaphors enable a richer and more creative reading of neighborhoods and economies when used in planning and design. This article explores six metaphors with relevance for community economic development: plugging the leaks, brokering connections, asset management, building ladders and webs, creating level playing fields, and enhancing markets. How to support this complex version of community economic development challenges the ways in which we encourage innovation, investment, and learning.     

THE EFFECTS OF PERCEIVED AND ACTUAL FINANCIAL LITERACY ON FINANCIAL BEHAVIORS

A combined measure of financial literacy that includes both a test score of actual financial literacy and a self‐rating of overall financial literacy is used in this study. We find that the combined measure appears to provide greater understanding about how financial literacy affects financial behaviors. A large national survey of U.S. adults and households (n = 28,146) was used to investigate how this overall financial literacy is likely to change financial behaviors across five financial topics: credit cards, investments, loans, insurance, and financial advice. For each topic, we include 4–5 financial behaviors (22 in total) to demonstrate the consistency of the findings within and across topics. Although we are unable to identify a causal relationship, the results from the probit analysis show that both actual and perceived financial literacy appear to influence financial behaviors and that perceived financial literacy may be as important as actual financial literacy. (JEL D14, G00)     

Practical-Moral Knowledge: The Social Organization of Regulatory Processes in Academic Contexts

In this article, we developed a theoretical frame to analyze how practical-moral knowledge structures the regulatory processes of learning to control and direct behavior during literacy lessons in two elementary classrooms. We describe how regulatory behaviors were congruent with the local social and moral order, constituents of practical-moral knowledge. Variance in the practical-moral knowledge of each classroom revealed two different patterns of regulation: (a) a toggle or shift from other-regulation to self-regulation, with an emphasis on other-regulation and (b) a dynamic pattern of fluid shifts between other-regulation, coregulation, and self-regulation, with an emphasis on coregulation. We argue that regulatory processes do not originate within the individual but rather in and through learning practices.     

A Broader View of Language in School: Research from Linguistic Ethnography

Arguing that educational research into language and literacy has neglected the social and cultural dimensions of children’s language use, this article presents a review of recent research from linguistic ethnography which combines close attention to children and teachers’ language use with an analysis of context and social practice. This research reemphasises the complex role of language in children’s socialisation and learning and the importance of recognising connections and disjunctions between children’s language and literacy practices in and outside school, the influence of societal patterns of linguistic inequality and children and young people’s uses of language among themselves.     

Crafting Communities: Promoting Inclusion,Empowerment, and Learning between Older Women

Abstract

While social policy and planning documents are replete with ominous warnings about the cost of an ageing population, this article tells a different story about the productive and self-sustaining networks that exist among older women in the community who do craftwork. From our research conducted in Victoria, Australia during 2007–2008 we discovered a resilient and committed group of older women quietly and steadily contributing to community fundraising, building social networks, and providing learning opportunities to each other in diverse ways. Through our conversations with nine craftswomen we have been able to articulate clear links between the theory and models commonly espoused in the community development literature and the life-enriching practices used in organising informal community craft group activities. From our interviews with the older women we provide evidence of sustained participation, the generation of social capital, and the fostering of life-long learning. While none of the women we spoke to were trained in community development and did not use language commonly associated with feminist ideology, the relationship between the informal group work with principles of empowerment and self-efficacy were unmistakeable. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings for critical social work practice.     

Financial Education With College Students: Comparing Peer-Led and Traditional Classroom Instruction

This project compared the learning gains from teaching financial literacy skills to undergraduate students through two methods: traditional classroom instruction and peer financial counseling. Students at a southeastern university received instruction through either a semester-long course on family economics (N = 78) or a one-hour peer-led session (N = 149). Students in the peer sessions received instruction on either budgeting (n = 94) or credit (n = 55). Students in the course received extended instruction on budgeting, credit, and other topics. Comparisons of posttest learning revealed similar gains between the two methods on shared content and on planned financial behaviors. Results suggest additional investigation to explore peer financial counseling for teaching financial literacy skills may be warranted.     

The Northeast-Northwest Collaborative Adoption Project

SUMMARY

One of the exciting new directions in family research is the examination of shared and nonshared environmental processes underlying the learning of cognitive, literacy, and social-behavioral skills. The adoption design is a powerful method for testing theories regarding environmental mechanisms. In this paper, we describe the Northeast-Northwest Collaborative Adoption Project (N2CAP), an ongoing adoption study in which we are examining the role of parenting environments generally, and parent-child relationships more specifically, in the development of cognitive, reading and social-emotional outcomes in childhood. The goal of this study is to identify environmental influences that impact children's cognitive and social-emotional development using a genetically sensitive design, and to further the development of models of genotype-environment processes.     

Developing a Vision for the Common Core Classroom: What Does Elementary Social Studies Look Like?

In each edition of their book Doing History: Investigating with Children in Elementary and Middle Schools, Levstik and Barton (2011) encourage us to take a mental journey to imagine classrooms where students regularly “do history” (xi). The social studies experiences that many educators envision for elementary classrooms include teaching students to frame questions, read for information, and organize primary and secondary sources to share their knowledge with classmates. NCSS provides an infrastructure for social studies goals in which knowledge, skills and attitudes are developed in meaningful social studies lessons. When viewed through the lens of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects (CCSS ELA), we recognize the fundamental nature of aligning social studies standards with literacy strategies for elementary teaching and learning. The purpose of this article is to examine the usefulness of CCSS ELA for teaching elementary social studies. The authors share a vision for the “common core classroom” that includes a range of literacy strategies for teaching standards-based social studies.     

Family Financial Socialization: Theory and Critical Review

Financial literacy research of the past 40 years (1970–2010) has largely ignored the reasons for sociodemographic differences in financial outcomes. The primary purpose of this paper is to initiate a theoretical discussion regarding family financial socialization—what it is; why it is important; and how its tenets could help advance understanding of individual differences in financial literacy. To this end, we propose a conceptual model that integrates family socialization theory and recent trends in financial literacy research. The study concludes with an interdisciplinary critical review of 100 articles which provide illustrations, highlight gaps, and present opportunities for further research with many practical guidelines for advancing deeper understanding of financial literacy from a socialization perspective.     

Pathological integration,or, how East Europeans use racism to become British

East Europeans are integrating into life in the UK. This entails learning to get along with their new neighbours, but it also involves not getting along with certain neighbours. Integration is not confined to benevolent forms of everyday cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism and conviviality; it can also include more pathological forms, like racism. Whilst integration is generally seen as desirable, the learning that it entails necessarily includes less desirable practices and norms. The aim of this article is to show how East Europeans in the UK have been acquiring specifically British competencies of racism. This doesn't mean all East Europeans are racist or they always use racism; it does mean, however, that racism is a part of the integration equation. We focus on the racist and racializing practices of Poles, Hungarians and Romanians in Bristol in the UK. These East Europeans are using racism to insert themselves more favourably into Britain's racialized status hierarchies. This is a kind of integration.     

Adult Literacy Education and Community Development

SUMMARY

This article responds to the concern that low-literate community residents often are marginalized in community development processes. They are unable to give voice to their concerns, interests and their vision for their community. Perspectives and approaches in the fields of adult literacy education and community development are explored to determine how adult literacy education might be used to further the goals of community development. While there are parallels between these two disciplines, there are also barriers to overcome if an integrated approach to dealing with community issues is realized. This article reflects an interest in advancing a comprehensive approach to community development in communities with limited economic resources, low-level literacy and limited access. It seeks to address the issue of whether adult literacy education programs have a meaningful role to play in community development. The strengths of participatory approaches such as community-based literacy, and community development principles such as collective action, shared values, participation, social justice, political awareness and action, comprehensiveness, empowerment, and learning and reflection, facilitate an interdisciplinary approach.     

Determinants of Vaginal Cleansing,Application, and Insertion in Tete Province,Mozambique, and Products Used

Objective: In this article, we review insertion, application, and cleansing as they include the use of products other than water and have a number of harmful effects. Method: In 2007, a household survey of 919 women carried out in Tete Province, Mozambique, examined 8 vaginal practices. Results: Overall, 10% of the sexually active women reported regularly using these 3 vaginal practices concurrently. Of the women who practiced insertion, 65% used natural substances. A wider variety of products was used for applying substances on the external genitalia and for cleansing purposes. Conclusions: These findings have important implications for future HIV prevention, including in the use of microbicides.     

Literacy education,reading engagement,and library use in multilingual classes

The topic of this paper is literacy education and reading engagement in multilingual classes. What facilitates reading engagement in the language of instruction in multilingual classes? In this paper, we analyze reading engagement in a literature-based literacy program in Norway (2007–2011). The design was a research and development project in which teachers, researchers, and librarians collaborated within literacy education. We present pedagogical interventions within the project and analyze subsequent reading engagement among the students, based on a survey. The survey documented that the overwhelming majority of students were engaged readers two years into the project, measured by the students’ amount and frequency of voluntary reading, their attitudes towards reading and library use. The findings indicate that reading engagement in the language of instruction among both first- and second-language learners was facilitated by literature-based literacy education, nonsegregated educational provisions and use of library resources. The study shows that literature-based literacy education may reduce possible negative effects of low socioeconomic status and linguistic minority background on reading engagement in the language of instruction. This requires literacy education, which gives students extensive access to books, voluntary reading of fiction and facts and sharing of literacy events and library use.