Using a “child's‐eye view” of social success to understand the importance of school readiness at the transition to formal schooling

Recent research into school readiness has highlighted the importance of not only children's cognitive and socio‐emotional skills, but also the degree to which they have family support in the home. The current study examines the association between social success upon school entry and teacher‐ratings of school readiness as assessed by the Brief Early Skills and Support Index (BESSI), controlling for language ability. Importantly, social success was assessed using a “child's‐eye view” with peer‐reported assessments of both social preference and reciprocated friendships. A total of 244 children (131 boys, M_age = 61 months, SD = 4.78 months) in their first year of formal schooling participated. Child school readiness was found to be important for social preference, with the association being more marked for boys versus girls. Family support was the only independent predictor of children's reciprocated friendships. The use of the BESSI, with its broad scope compared to other measures of school readiness, highlights the importance of focusing both on a child's cognitive and socio‐emotional skills at school entry and their family support when exploring the association of school readiness to children's social success at the transition to formal schooling.     

Seventh-Grade Social Studies versus Social Meliorism

The Wake County Public School System (WCPSS), in the state of North Carolina, has gone through considerable recent effort to revise, support, and assess their seventh-grade social studies curriculum in an effort to serve three goals: comply with the Common Core State Standards (Common Core), comply with the North Carolina Essential Standards (Essential Standards), and create a curriculum that best serves students. Meanwhile, the curriculum theory of social meliorism was conceived of over a century ago. Since its inception it has influenced curriculum development and provided a foundation for many other curriculum theories that all start from an assumption that social meliorism holds to an accepted truth that the purpose of education is to improve society and address its injustices. Given contemporary discussions about how to achieve social justice, this is a philosophy that seems particularly meaningful when thinking about the ways that schools can help to accomplish the goals of social justice. I intend to investigate the seventh-grade social studies curriculum of WCPSS in 2014 and juxtapose it with the goals and ideals of social meliorism, determine how well the curriculum addresses the goals of that curriculum theory, and make suggestions for how a social meliorist might suggest modifying the curriculum to better serve the needs of society.     

中年级小学生笔迹工整性与自信心的关系研究

中文笔迹特征与人格特质关系密切，为了研究中年级小学生笔迹的工整性与自信心的关系，采用罗森博格《自信心量表》和中文笔迹评定材料对125名中年级小学生进行测试。结果发现：（1）中年级小学生自信者和自我感觉平常者比重大，约占95%，自卑者和超级自信者比重小，约占5%；(2)自信心和笔迹工整性正相关显著（r=0.24,P<0.05)；（3）笔迹工整性对自信心具有预测作用，笔迹工整性可解释自信心9.3%的变异（R2=0.093)；(4)笔迹工整性存在显著的性别差异(F=41.62,P<0.05)，男性笔迹得分的平均分显著低于女性。可以得出：（1）中年级小学生自信心状况整体良好；（2）受测者笔迹越工整，自信心越高；（3）笔迹工整性对自信心具有预测作用；（4）性别影响笔迹工整性，男生的笔记工整性不如女生。     

日本新订高中历史课程之特点与启示

2018年3月,日本发布新的《高等学校学习指导要领》。这是日本自第二次世界大战后70多年来,对高中课程最大规模的一次修订,体现了日本高中教育发展的新趋势,标志着日本从此告别“宽松教育”而走向“生存能力”教育。由“历史综合”“日本史探究”“世界史探究”组成的新高中历史课程,立足“人”的发展,构建了“必修+选修、通史+专题”的课程体系,课程内容更加突出本国史与世界史的联系,课程学习倡导“主题+探究”的学习方式。日本高中历史课程的内容设置及特点启示我们,高中历史课程编制应加强中国史与世界史的横向关联,课程内容应体现探究性学习要求。     

iDecide: supporting inclusive decision-making in European schools

iDecide is a KA3 - Support for policy reform project with partners from public and private sectors- from Cyprus, Romania, Greece, Ireland and Portugal. iDecide was conceptualised with the aim of supporting school leaders and teachers in their efforts marginalised groups, and to support their learning in their everyday decision-making. The iDecide toolkit supports the decision-making processes that the majority of schools face every day in all aspects of school life (visits and excursions, school projects, parental involvement, school canteen, homework, students’ council etc). The iDecide toolkit has the capacity to provide teachers and school leaders with practical guidelines for these common decisions in straightforward, simple language. It also gives school leaders the opportunity to retrieve pupils’ and parents' opinions through online polls and forum discussions. This short paper describes the iDecide toolkit functions.     

Early socialization of hostile attribution bias: The roles of parental attributions,parental discipline,and child attributes

The goal of this study was to examine child and parent predictors of children's hostile attribution bias (HAB) with a particular focus on exploring the associations between parents’ early attribution of child misbehavior and children's HAB in the transition to school age. Participants were 241 children (118 girls) of middle‐income families who were at risk for school‐age conduct problems. Multi‐method, multi‐informant data were collected on maternal attributions of child misbehavior, parental use of corporal punishment, and child attributes (i.e., verbal IQ, effortful control, theory of mind, and emotional understanding) at 3 years, and child HAB in ambiguous situations at 6 years. Results indicated that mothers’ internal explanations for children's misconduct may either reduce or increase children's later HAB depending on the specific content of attributions, such that mothers’ belief that children misbehave because of their internal state (i.e., emotional state or temperament) was associated with lower levels of child HAB, whereas attributing power‐based motives (i.e., manipulative, controlling intentions) in children was associated with higher levels of HAB. The findings are discussed with respect to appreciating the complexity of parents’ explanations for children's behavior, and considering parental cognition as a potential target for early identification and prevention of child HAB and related problems.     

Generalizability of an adult-validated model for predicting increased physical activity in after-school program children: Effects of treatment formats on fitness indicators

Inappropriately high weight in children is a persistent problem in the United States, and physical activity is often reduced in schools due to academic demands. Effective after-school programs could positively impact both physical activity and overweight/obesity, however previous reviews and meta-analyses have indicated minimal effects. Both 4- and 3-day/week versions of a social cognitive theory-driven physical activity/nutrition after-school program were evaluated against unstructured care to assess effects in children (overall M_age = 10.00 years, SD = .80). For changes over 9 months in body mass index (BMI), effects sizes (Cohen’s d) were .68, .40, and .07 in the 4-day (n = 70), 3-day (n = 70), and unstructured (n = 50) groups, respectively. Similar patterns of effects were found for changes in free-time physical activity and cardiovascular endurance. Incorporating a theory-based prediction model previously supported in teens through older adults, with and without medical disorders and health-risk factors, improvements in exercise-related self-regulation and self-efficacy, and mood, significantly predicted increased free-time physical activity (R² = .48). Effects significantly strengthened to R² = .62 when completion/non-completion of the recommended 300 min/week of physical activity was also accounted for. Change in BMI was inversely related to physical activity change, β=-.14, p < .05. The present evaluation process indicated promising effects, and indicated theory-based targets to foster future program improvements.     

身处异代成相知尽在悠悠故国情——从朱彝尊对周密《绝妙好词》的接受说起

《词综》是浙西词派的理论代表。《词综》和《绝妙好词》在宗派意识和对“雅”词的崇尚方面，表现出极大的相似性。这表明，朱彝尊在编选《词综》时曾自觉接受周密《绝妙好词》的影响。其深层原因在于，浙西词宗朱彝尊和周密有相似的遗民情怀。     

Parental income and the fruits of labor: Variability in homework efficacy in secondary school

Research in the sociology of education has shown that noncognitive traits are important predictors of educational outcomes and a mechanism of the intergenerational transmission of status. However, previous research on this topic typically posits that there is a constant effect of these traits with variable prevalences of these traits by socioeconomic status. Using time spent on homework as an example, I analyze income-based heterogeneity in homework efficacy, defined as the individual effect of study time on academic achievement, using a national U.S. probability sample of secondary students. Higher income students gain more knowledge from their homework time than their counterparts in all grades and all subjects except history, with greater group differences for math than for science and reading. These results are confirmed by models accounting for time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity in the 8th–10th, but not 10th–12th, grade windows. These results imply that increases in the amount of homework assigned may increase the socioeconomic achievement gap in math, science, and reading in secondary school.     

Dashed Hopes,Dashed Selves? A Sociometer Perspective on Self‐esteem Change Across the Transition to Secondary School

The transition from primary to secondary school challenges children's psychological well‐being. A cross‐transitional longitudinal study (N = 306; mean age = 12.2 years) examined why some children's self‐esteem decreases across the transition whereas other children's self‐esteem does not. Children's expected social acceptance in secondary school was measured before the transition; their actually perceived social acceptance was measured after the transition. Self‐esteem and Big Five personality traits were measured both pre‐ and posttransition. Self‐esteem changed as a function of the discrepancy between children's expected and actually perceived social acceptance. Furthermore, neuroticism magnified self‐esteem decreases when children's ‘hopes were dashed'—when they experienced disappointing levels of social acceptance. These findings provide longitudinal support for sociometer theory across the critical transition to secondary school.