The discreet charm of the children of the bourgeoisie: economic capital and its symbolic expressions at an elite business school

We address a largely neglected issue in contemporary research on cultural class divisions: economic capital and its associated lifestyles and symbolic expressions. Using qualitative interviews, we explore how adolescents from wealthy elite backgrounds, namely students at Oslo Commerce School (OCS), traditionally one of the most prestigious upper‐secondary schools in Norway, demarcate themselves symbolically from others. They draw symbolic boundaries against students at other elite schools in Oslo, more characterized by backgrounds with high cultural capital, accusing them of mimicking a ‘hipster’ style. Within the OCS student body, we describe identity work centring on styles of material consumption and bodily distinctions. The most salient dividing line is between those who manage to master a ‘natural’ style, where expensive clothes and the desired bodily attributes are displayed discreetly, and those who are ‘trying too hard’ and thus marked by the stigma of effort. We also show some interesting intersections between class and gender: girls aspiring to the economic elite obey the ‘rules of the game’ by exercising extensive control over their bodies and adhering to demanding bodily norms for their weight and slimness. Such rules are less evident among the boys, where a lack of discipline, unruliness, hard partying and even fighting constitute parts of the lifestyle valued. This article contributes to the field of cultural stratification, highlighting the importance of the ‘hows’ of material consumption when expressing elite distinction. It also adds new insight to the research field of elite education by showing how a mastery of ‘high‐end’ consumer culture is involved in fostering favourable dispositions at elite schools.     

Robust precision matrix estimation via weighted median regression with regularization

A precision matrix is an important parameter of interests because its elements describe useful association information among multiple variables, which has a wide variety of applications. For example, it is used for inferring gene regulation networks in genomic studies and stock association networks in financial studies. However, in many cases, the precision matrix needs to be robustly estimated due to the presence of outliers. We propose estimating a sparse scaled precision matrix via weighted median regression with regularization. Our weighted median regression approach is consistent under various distributional assumptions including multivariate t‐ or contaminated Gaussian distributions. This fact is illustrated with simulation studies and a real data analysis with monthly stock return data. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 46: 265–278; 2018 © 2018 Statistical Society of Canada     

Inferences in dynamic logit models in semi-parametric setup for repeated binary data

Binary dynamic fixed and mixed logit models are extensively studied in the literature. These models are developed to examine the effects of certain fixed covariates through a parametric regression function as a part of the models. However, there are situations where one may like to consider more covariates in the model but their direct effect is not of interest. In this paper we propose a generalization of the existing binary dynamic logit (BDL) models to the semi-parametric longitudinal setup to address this issue of additional covariates. The regression function involved in such a semi-parametric BDL model contains (i) a parametric linear regression function in some primary covariates, and (ii) a non-parametric function in certain secondary covariates. We use a simple semi-parametric conditional quasi-likelihood approach for consistent estimation of the non-parametric function, and a semi-parametric likelihood approach for the joint estimation of the main regression and dynamic dependence parameters of the model. The finite sample performance of the estimation approaches is examined through a simulation study. The asymptotic properties of the estimators are also discussed. The proposed model and the estimation approaches are illustrated by reanalysing a longitudinal infectious disease data.     

中小学教师研究共同体:价值审视、实践偏差及优化路径

构建中小学教师研究共同体是教师专业发展的现实诉求。依据成员构成和组成动机的差异,可以将教师研究共同体分为不同的类别。教师研究共同体能够促进中小学教师专业技能的改进与提高,加强教师间、学校间的协作与沟通,促进教育理论与教育实践的融合与创新。但在实践中却存在着教师研究共同体研究内容封闭化和同质化严重、活动主体虚空化和形式化凸显、成员身份缺乏认同感等问题。要突破教师研究共同体实践发展的困境并取得长足的进步,需要从三条路径进行优化:一是开展以"课堂"和"课题"为载体的行动研究,提高教师研究共同体的效能;二是营造宽松、包容的文化氛围,实现"我者"与"他者"的互助共生;三是加强外部合作主体的引入,促进教师研究共同体的"内外联建"。     

Rescuing a small village school in the context of rural change in Hungary

The paper discusses local responses to schooling policy in the context of the uneven differentiation and sharp social polarisation of the Hungarian countryside. Counter-urbanisation, on the one hand, has brought affluent urban middle classes to suburban spaces, on the other hand, peripheral areas are becoming impoverished with high unemployment, while there are rural areas where a process of ghettoisation is taking place. Parallel with these processes, rural education has had to face demographic decline and the shrinking ability of municipalities to maintain schools. The case study presented in this article illustrates the cultural and spatial barriers impeding the creation of co-operation in the field of education. Given that the community of the village concerned is remarkably vibrant, with strong intra-community horizontal ties, the concept of social capital is used to explain how bonding and bridging networks as well as “missing links” influence community actions, in this case a school-rescue operation.     

Positive quadrant dependence testing and constrained copula estimation

Positive quadrant dependence is a specific dependence structure that is of practical importance in for example modelling dependencies in insurance and actuarial sciences. This dependence structure imposes a constraint on the copula function. The interest in this paper is to test for positive quadrant dependence. One way to assess the distribution of the test statistics under the null hypothesis of positive quadrant dependence is to resample from a constrained copula. This requires constrained estimation of a copula function. We show that this use of resampling under a constrained copula improves considerably the power performance of existing testing procedures. We propose two resampling procedures, one based on a parametric constrained copula estimation and one relying on nonparametric estimation of a positive quadrant dependence copula, and discuss their properties. The finite‐sample performances of the resulting testing procedures are evaluated via a simulation study that also includes comparisons with existing tests. Finally, a data set of Danish fire insurance claims is tested for positive quadrant dependence. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 41: 36–64; 2013 © 2012 Statistical Society of Canada     

协同学视角下安徽省学前教育联盟中、高职学前专业课程的衔接

中高职学前专业课程的有效衔接，是现代中高职学前教育衔接的必然要求。以协同学为视角、以安徽省学前教育联盟为组织保障来探讨中、高职学前专业课程衔接是将理论应用到专业发展的有效模式。