Video gaming in adolescence: factors associated with leisure time use

The geographies of the current generation of young people are markedly distinct from previous generations by virtue of their access to a virtual playground. The vast majority of young people now engage in video gaming as a leisure activity. Drawing on findings from the 2009/2010 WHO Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study this paper set out to investigate the factors that might be associated with higher levels of video gaming. Information was collected from 4404 school students aged 11, 13 and 15 years, using anonymised self-completed questionnaires. Higher usage was defined as game play exceeding two hours a day. Separate analyses were conducted for boys and girls. For both genders higher levels of game playing was associated with early adolescence, opposite sex friends and minimal parental mediation. Bullying and going to bed hungry were associated with higher usage for boys only, while life satisfaction and family activities were linked to girls’ game playing only. Parents were identified as effective mediators of young people’s video game usage. The study identified gendered motivations for higher levels of game play, suggesting different interventions for boys and girls may be required in order for young people to create a balanced approach to video gaming.     

Differential predictors of academic achievement: individual and familial factor interactions with community poverty

We present an analysis of the contexts within which adolescents graduate from high school and enroll in college. Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health show that adolescents’ school engagement, maternal academic monitoring, and community poverty significantly interact to explain differences in high school graduation and college enrollment rates (n?=?7100). To examine this association, we performed weighted logistic regression analyses, controlling for gender, race, block level unemployment, and block level median income. Findings suggest that protective factors can help youth overcome the challenges associated with community poverty and achieve academically in low and medium levels of poverty, but that youth in high-poverty contexts may need more resources to reach higher levels of academic attainment.     

Towards intensive parenting? Changes in the composition and determinants of mothers' and fathers' time with children 1992–2006

Contemporary expectations of good parenting hold that focused, intensive parental attention is essential to children's development. Parental input is viewed as a key determinant in children's social, psychological and educational outcomes, with the early years particularly crucial. However, increased rates of maternal employment mean that more parents are juggling work and family commitments and have less non‐work time available to devote to children. Yet studies find that parental childcare time has increased over recent decades. In this paper, we explore the detail of this trend using data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Time Use Survey (TUS), 1992 and 2006. To investigate whether discourses on intensive parenting are reflected in behaviour, we examine a greater range of parent–child activities than has been undertaken to date, looking at trends in active childcare time (disaggregated into talk‐based, physical and accompanying care activities); time in childcare as a secondary activity; time spent in the company of children in leisure activities; and time spent in the company of children in total. We also investigate whether the influence of factors known to predict parental time with children (gender, education, employment status and the age of children) have changed over time. We contextualize our analyses within social and economic trends in Australia and find a compositional change in parental time, with more active childcare occurring within less overall time, which suggests more intensive, child‐centred parenting. Fathers' parent–child time, particularly in physical care, increased more than mothers' (from a much lower base), and tertiary education no longer predicts significantly higher childcare time.     

教学质量监控体系构建探索

教学质量监控是教学质量管理的重要方法和手段,如何构建具有科学性、发展性的教学质量监控体系是现阶段我国高等教育面临的一个重要任务。近年来,延安大学医学院狠抓教学质量管理,构建校内教学质量监控体系,对教学质量监控体系的构建作出了探索。     

Parent-worker relationships in child welfare social work: a Belgian case study

The involvement of parents within child and family social work has become an important research topic during the past few decades. Within this research, a lot of attention is paid to partnership, which is recognised as a dominant concept in current thinking about the parent–worker relationship in present-day practice. The debate on parent–worker relationships, however, seems to be mainly focussed on the individual relationship between the parent and the social worker. Based on a historical analysis of policy documents on a Belgian child and family welfare service, this article offers a historical and sociopolitical contextualisation of the current debate on the parent–worker relationship. The analysis reveals that sociopolitical ideas about the responsibilities of the state, the community and the private family have induced a continuous reflection on which children and parents should be seen as the most appropriate clients for a particular service, as well as an ongoing development of diagnostic instruments to legitimise inclusion and exclusion of families within child and family social work. Consequences for parent–worker relationships in child and family social work are discussed, as well as some implications for future research on child and family social work practices.     

Differential effects of parental control on preschool-age adjustment depending on child effortful control

This study examined whether parental control differentially predicted children's effortful control and adjustment depending on children's levels of executive control and delay ability. Using longitudinal data, the study included 241 preschool-age children and their mothers. Fifty-seven percent of the sample was lower income and included 64% White, 10% Latino/Hispanic, 9% Black, 3% Asian-American, 2% Native or American Indian, and 12% multiple racial/ethnic backgrounds. Interactions between aspects of parental and child control at 3-years-old were tested as predictors of mother-reported child effortful control at 4.5 years and teacher-reported adjustment at 5.5 years. Children's early levels of executive control and delay ability moderated the relations of some forms of parental control with child outcomes, although several hypothesized interactions were nonsignificant. Low parental autonomy respect predicted higher externalizing for children initially high in executive control but predicted lower externalizing for children initially low in executive control. Conversely, high autonomy respect predicted higher impulsivity for children low in delay ability but higher social competence for children high in delay ability. Finally, low maternal negative control predicted higher internalizing for children low in delay ability, whereas it predicted higher internalizing for children high in delay ability. These findings suggest that in some cases the type and degree of parental control should match a child's level of effortful control to support their social, emotional, and behavioral adjustment optimally.