Social Self‐Control,Externalizing Behavior,and Peer Liking Among Children with ADHD‐CT: A Mediation Model

This study investigated the role of externalizing behavior as a mediator of the relation between social self‐control and peer liking among children with attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder‐combined type (ADHD‐CT). A model was proposed whereby externalizing behavior would fully statistically account for the direct relation of social self‐control to peer liking. One hundred seventy‐two children ages 7.0–9.9 years with ADHD‐CT were rated by their teachers regarding their social self‐control and by their parents and teachers regarding their rates of externalizing behavior. Same‐sex classmates provided ratings of overall liking. Structural equation modeling was used to assess the proposed model. Results supported the proposed model of externalizing behavior as fully statistically accounting for the relation of social self‐control to peer liking. This study demonstrated the crucial role that externalizing behaviors play in the social impairment commonly seen among children with ADHD‐CT.     

Fertility Decline in Prussia: Estimating Influences on Supply,Demand, and Degree of Control

Change in marital fertility in 407 Prussian Kreise from 1875 to 1910 is modeled to depend on the gap between the number of desired surviving births, N*, divided by child survival, s, and the number that would be born under natural marital fertility, M, given the age at marriage. Some fraction of this gap is averted, depending on the propensity to avert unwanted births, D. Although none of these components is observed directly, we can estimate each indirectly under strong assumptions. Decline in N*/s accounts for twice as much of the decline in fertility as does an increase in D. Natural fertility rose during the period. Unwanted births increased slightly, despite a tripling of births averted. The most important causes of decline in N* were increases in female labor supply, real income, and health workers. A rising level of education is the most important cause of increasing propensity to avert births. Demand-side changes were important causes of the transition, but changes in readiness to contracept also were important, as was the interaction of the two.     

Attention to Maternal Multimodal Naming by 6‐ to 8‐Month‐Old Infants and Learning of Word–Object Relations

We examined whether mothers' use of temporal synchrony between spoken words and moving objects, and infants' attention to object naming, predict infants' learning of word–object relations. Following 5 min of free play, 24 mothers taught their 6‐ to 8‐month‐olds the names of 2 toy objects, Gow and Chi, during a 3‐min play episode. Infants were then tested for their word mapping. The videotaped episodes were coded for mothers' object naming and infants' attention to different naming types. Results indicated that mothers' use of temporal synchrony and infants' attention during play covaried with infants' word‐mapping ability. Specifically, infants who switched eye gaze from mother to object most frequently during naming learned the word–object relations. The findings suggest that maternal naming and infants' word‐mapping abilities are bidirectionally related. Variability in infants' attention to maternal multimodal naming explains the variability in early lexical‐mapping development.     

Children of Divorce

This mixed methods study identified six elementary teachers, who, despite the widespread marginalization of elementary social studies, spent considerable time on the subject. These six outliers from a sample of forty-six Michigan elementary teachers were interviewed, and their teaching was observed to better understand how and why they deviate from the norm. An autonomy-versus-control continuum is used to frame how teachers decide what, when, and how to teach. Challenging existing literature that suggests that additional attention to elementary social studies comes from testing pressure or by providing teachers with autonomy, findings of this study reveal that five of the six teachers taught social studies frequently and extensively because their schedules were externally controlled to designate specific time for social studies instruction.     

Children's Planning of Classroom Plays with Adult or Child Direction

This study examined the planning that occurred when children participated in classroom playcrafting with either adult or child leadership. In a first‐/second‐grade classroom in an innovative public school, we videotaped 11 sessions in which children volunteered to develop a play with small groups of classmates and seven sessions in which adult volunteers (parents and a grandparent) developed plays with small groups of children. The plays were crafted in one session of about an hour, and then usually performed for the class. More planning took place during child‐ than adult‐directed sessions (averaging 92 vs. 35 percent of the session's duration). The groups led by children were more frequently involved in planning of themes, planning of details of the themes, and especially in improvisationally mindstorming ideas than were the groups led by adults. In adult‐directed sessions, the adults often planned the play before the children joined the activity, and the children spent most of the session in non‐playplanning activities such as gluing and coloring puppets or rehearsal of lines designed by the adult in advance. We argue that opportunities to observe and participate in planning—which occurred more frequently in child‐directed than adult‐directed sessions—are important to the development of planning skills and of co‐ordination of plans with others.     

Education and internalized racism in socio-political context: Zimbabwe and Swaziland

We focus on the scarcely researched concept of internalized racism (INR), conceptualized as the internalization by blacks of white stereotypes about blacks, to investigate the extent to which it is impacted by education. Samples were drawn from two countries in Southern Africa, Swaziland (N = 308) and Zimbabwe (N = 319). We examined the contrasting socio-political contexts of a history of apartheid in Zimbabwe, and the absence of de jure segregation in Swaziland, the levels of INR, and the relationship of education to INR in both societies. Analysis showed that there was no difference in the levels of INR. Education, our variable of main interest, was negatively related to INR in both societies, and age, and a “sense of helplessness” were positively related to INR also in both societies, although the latter was marginally significant in Swaziland. We discussed the unexpected similarity of INR levels in these societies, and the potential of education to mediate negative psychological effects in both socio-political contexts.     

宗教与两方环境伦理学

林恩怀特争论始于怀特关于对基督教进行重新思考或者由非西方宗教取而代之的呼吁。林恩怀特争论已经被证明成为处理环境危机的一个障碍。由此而起的对基督教的辩护制约了亚洲和其他比较环境伦理学在西方的发展,没有产生对环境有益的结果。无论何时,当人们谈及宗教和环境的关系的时候,讨论都会迅速转向有关基督教对环境危机责任的讨论。这一争论的关键在于,怀特的论文在很多方面是对的:基督教的确在相当大的程度上造成了自然的世俗化,并且在中世纪,基督教在政治上对现在看来有害的人口增长的政策提供了支持,促进了科学和技术的发展,很多诸如此类的政策已经被证明对环境是有害的。但是,基督教还存在另一种对环境友好的传统,Assisi城的"圣芳济"运动就是其中一例,这种传统也许对于从环境角度重新认识基督教是有益的。但是,对于非西方国家环境伦理的发展,基督教将很难能够有所作为,非西方宗教也不大可能成功地在西方产生出某种环境伦理。因此,对于研究宗教的学者们而言,重要的是要走出谁应该为环境危机受到指责的争论,找到世界各主要宗教如何在其各自的文化范围内对发展环境伦理提供最佳帮助的方法。     

Civic Culture Meets the Digital Divide: The Role of Community Electronic Networks

The concept of social capital reflects the norms and social relations embedded in the social structure of societies that enable people to coordinate community action to achieve desired goals. Our research focuses on the role that norms of cooperation and civic and political culture play in addressing the "digital divide" in computer use and Internet access. We review evidence from mail surveys of randomly selected respondents in two rural Minnesota communities as well as qualitative focus group and archival evidence suggesting that the communities have adopted different approaches to technology diffusion. Whether information technology is viewed as a public or private good depends in part on the civic culture of a community.