Contested Rights: The Pedagogy and Logistics of Hosting Constitution Day

Research in global education has turned toward global citizenship education and the fostering of a more critical reading of the tenets of “soft” global education laid out over four decades ago in Hanvey's (1976) “An Attainable Global Perspective.” Interested in skill building and informed application of concepts forwarded within critical approaches to global education, this article brings the NCSS C3 inquiry arc together with standards for Global Competence Education within social studies education. Using food insecurity as an example, the conceptualization provided demonstrates how coupling the C3 with the Global Competence standards creates a framework that social studies educators can use to prepare students to participate as informed, responsible, and critically minded change agents within complex and unequal global systems.     

Early Life Stress: Effects on the Regulation of Anxiety Expression in Children and Adolescents

This study examined children's (N = 79; 9–10 years) and adolescents’ (N = 82; 15–16 years) ability to regulate their emotion expressions of anxiety as they completed a modified version of the Trier Social Stress Test for Children (TSST‐C). Approximately half in each age group were internationally adopted from institutional care (N = 79) and half were non‐adopted, age‐matched peers (N = 82). Institutional care was viewed as a form of early life stress. Coders who were reliable and blind to group status watched videos of the session to assess anxiety expressions using the Child and Adolescent Stress and Emotion Scale developed for this study. Children exhibited more expressions of anxiety than adolescents, and youth adopted from institutions showed more expressions of anxiety than their non‐adopted counterparts. The role of early life stress on observed anxiety expressions remained significant after controlling for differences in age, physiological stress responses measured through salivary cortisol reactivity, and self‐reports of stress during the TSST‐C. This suggests possible deficits in the regulation of expressive behavior for youth with early life stress histories, which cannot be explained by experiencing the task as more stressful.     

Innovations in care for children separated from parents: Transitioning from residential to family models of service

Research suggests that children develop best in families, but millions currently reside in residential care centers. Many residential care centers have transitioned their programmes from a to a family care model. Using a mixed methods design, the current study examined (1) antecedents to transition, (2) key elements in the process and (3) outcomes of transitioning models of care. Participants included 39 non-government organizations that had fully or partially transitioned to family care. Programmes collectively served 12 325 children and 29 499 families in 22 countries annually. Data revealed programmes perceived the change in the model was better for the families and children served.     

Mother–infant Interaction Quality and Infants' Ability to Encode Actions as Goal‐directed

The current study investigated the relationship between mother–child interaction quality and infants' ability to interpret actions as goal‐directed at 7 months in a sample of 37 dyads. Interaction quality was assessed in a free play interaction using two distinct methods: one assessed the overall affective quality (emotional availability), and one focused on the mother's proclivity to treat her infant as an intentional agent (mind‐mindedness). Furthermore, infants' ability to interpret human actions as goal‐directed was assessed. Analyses revealed that only maternal emotional availability, and not maternal mind‐mindedness, was related to infants' goal‐encoding ability. This link remained stable even when controlling for child temperament, working memory, and maternal education. These findings provide first evidence that emotionally available caregiving promotes social‐cognitive development in preverbal infants.     

Validation of a Stochastic Discrete Event Model Predicting Virus Concentration on Nurse Hands

Understanding healthcare viral disease transmission and the effect of infection control interventions will inform current and future infection control protocols. In this study, a model was developed to predict virus concentration on nurses’ hands using data from a bacteriophage tracer study conducted in Tucson, Arizona, in an urgent care facility. Surfaces were swabbed 2 hours, 3.5 hours, and 6 hours postseeding to measure virus spread over time. To estimate the full viral load that would have been present on hands without sampling, virus concentrations were summed across time points for 3.5‐ and 6‐hour measurements. A stochastic discrete event model was developed to predict virus concentrations on nurses’ hands, given a distribution of virus concentrations on surfaces and expected frequencies of hand‐to‐surface and orifice contacts and handwashing. Box plots and statistical hypothesis testing were used to compare the model‐predicted and experimentally measured virus concentrations on nurses’ hands. The model was validated with the experimental bacteriophage tracer data because the distribution for model‐predicted virus concentrations on hands captured all observed value ranges, and interquartile ranges for model and experimental values overlapped for all comparison time points. Wilcoxon rank sum tests showed no significant differences in distributions of model‐predicted and experimentally measured virus concentrations on hands. However, limitations in the tracer study indicate that more data are needed to instill more confidence in this validation. Next model development steps include addressing viral concentrations that would be found naturally in healthcare environments and measuring the risk reductions predicted for various infection control interventions.     

The Family Context of Assent: Comparison of Child and Parent Perspectives on Familial Decision‐Making

Assent guidelines currently fail to include an assessment of a child's decision‐making ability, experience and interest. This paper summarises a two‐stage study, conducted in the United Kingdom, exploring perspectives on children's decision‐making power and ability within their family, as an indicator for overall decision‐making readiness. Children desired to make some decisions but knew their parents held ultimate authority. Parents believed their children could make some decisions and actively trained them through involvement in daily decisions. Researchers should strive to include children in enrolment decisions to some degree, based on a consideration of their expectations for involvement informed by their daily family context.     

The Influence of Competition on Resource Allocation in Preschool Children

To examine how competition influences resource allocation in 4‐ to 6‐year‐olds, children were assigned to one of two conditions. In the experimental condition children colored a picture for a coloring contest whereas in the control condition they colored a picture to decorate a wall. Subsequently, all children participated in a resource allocation task with another child who was introduced as another participant in the coloring contest or who would also be coloring a picture for the wall. Finally, children were asked how many crayons (out of eight) they wanted to provide to the other child. In the resource allocation task, children made decisions about how to allocate stickers to self and other across four trial types: cost and no cost variations of both advantageous and disadvantageous inequality trials. Children were less prosocial in the experimental condition than in the control condition but only in disadvantageous inequality trials involving a cost. Children in the experimental condition withheld more crayons compared to children in the control condition. These results suggest that competition not only decreases prosocial behavior directly linked to the competition but also decreases generosity when provided with an unrelated resource allocation opportunity.     

Using Task Clarification and Feedback Training to Improve Staff Performance in an East African Nongovernmental Organization

The present study used a multiple-baseline design to illustrate the effectiveness of an intervention package consisting of a multipurpose job aid and feedback training in improving the performance of supervisors and animal trainers in a nongovernmental organization headquartered in East Africa. Prior to the intervention, the performance of three supervisors and three animal trainers was suboptimal. Performance improved when supervisors were taught to use the job aid and provide feedback, and reached a high and consistent level during a subsequent phase, in which supervisors used the job aid independently. Limited maintenance and generalization data suggest that the intervention package produced lasting and generalized effects, and social validity data suggest that supervisors viewed the intervention as acceptable. These findings appear to be the first experimentally controlled demonstration of the potential value of organizational behavior management in improving performance in nongovernmental organizations working in resource-poor areas.