Do girls and boys perceive themselves as equally engaged in school? The results of an international study from 12 countries

This study examined gender differences in student engagement and academic performance in school. Participants included 3420 students (7th, 8th, and 9th graders) from Austria, Canada, China, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Malta, Portugal, Romania, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The results indicated that, compared to boys, girls reported higher levels of engagement in school and were rated higher by their teachers in academic performance. Student engagement accounted for gender differences in academic performance, but gender did not moderate the associations among student engagement, academic performance, or contextual supports. Analysis of multiple-group structural equation modeling revealed that perceptions of teacher support and parent support, but not peer support, were related indirectly to academic performance through student engagement. This partial mediation model was invariant across gender. The findings from this study enhance the understanding about the contextual and personal factors associated with girls' and boys' academic performance around the world.     

Conceptualizing Professional Diaspora: International Medical Graduates in Canada

This paper applies the concept of diaspora to the analysis of the creation and maintenance of an ethnically diverse community of internationally educated medical graduates residing in Canada. Traditionally, the research on diaspora concerns ethnic communities that preserve their homeland ties while residing in foreign countries. We suggest, however, that ethnic roots are not imperative for the analysis of diasporic communities when other forms of shared values and meanings can become a basis for creation of collective identity. Reconfiguring both the homeland and host country as places of geographical and professional belonging provides opportunity to conceptualize an ethnically diverse group of immigrant physicians residing in Canada as professional diaspora. Probing the interviews with 67 international medical graduates living in Canada, we demonstrate (1) how they create medical diaspora, (2) what myths and sensitivities they share in constructing their professional and/or geographic homelands, and (3) the relationship they develop with their hosting society. We suggest that in spite of the increasing mobility of internationally educated health care providers, the analysis of professional diasporas could become a useful tool for analyzing complex relationships between home countries, hosting countries, and international travelers.     

Grounding compositional symbols: no composition without discrimination

The classical computational conception of meaning has been challenged by the idea that symbols must be grounded on sensorimotor processes. A difficult question arises from the fact that grounding representations cannot be symbolic themselves but, in order to support compositionality, should work as primitives. This implies that they should be precisely identifiable and strictly connected with discriminable perceptual features. Ideally, each representation should correspond to a single discriminable feature. The present study was aimed at exploring whether feature discrimination is a fundamental requisite for grounding compositional symbols. We studied this problem by using Integral stimuli, composed of two interacting and not separable features. Such stimuli were selected in Experiment 1 as pictures whose component features are easily or barely discriminable (Separable or Integral) on the basis of psychological distance metrics (City-block or Euclidean) computed from similarity judgments. In Experiment 2, either each feature was associated with one word of a two-word expression, or the whole stimulus with a single word. In Experiment 3, the procedure was reversed and words or expressions were associated with whole pictures or separate features. Results support the hypothesis that single words are best grounded by Integral stimuli and composite expressions by Separable stimuli, where a strict association of single words with discriminated features is possible.     

Early learning shapes the memory networks for arithmetic: evidence from brain potentials in bilinguals

Language and math are intertwined during children's learning of arithmetic concepts, but the importance of language in adult arithmetic processing is less clear. To determine whether early learning plays a critical role in the math-language connection in adults, we tested retrieval of simple multiplication in adult bilinguals who learned arithmetic in only one language. We measured electrophysiological and behavioral responses during correctness judgments for problems presented as digits or as number words in Spanish or English. Problems presented in the language in which participants learned arithmetic elicited larger, more graded, and qualitatively different brain responses than did problems presented in participants' other language, and these responses more closely resembled responses for digits, even when participants' other language was more dominant. These findings suggest that the memory networks for simple multiplication are established when arithmetic concepts are first learned and are independent of language dominance in adulthood.     

Acoustic differences between humorous and sincere communicative intentions

Previous studies indicate that the acoustic features of speech discriminate between positive and negative communicative intentions, such as approval and prohibition. Two studies investigated whether acoustic features of speech can discriminate between two positive communicative intentions: humour and sweet‐sincerity, where sweet‐sincerity involved being sincere in a positive, warm‐hearted way. In Study 1, 22 mothers read a book containing humorous, sweet‐sincere, and neutral‐sincere images to their 19‐ to 24‐month‐olds. In Study 2, 41 mothers read a book containing humorous or sweet‐sincere sentences and images to their 18‐ to 24‐month‐olds. Mothers used a higher mean F0 to communicate visual humour as compared to visual sincerity. Mothers used greater F0 mean, range, and standard deviation; greater intensity mean, range, and standard deviation; and a slower speech rate to communicate verbal humour as compared to verbal sweet‐sincerity. Mothers used a rising linear contour to communicate verbal humour, but used no specific contour to express verbal sweet‐sincerity. We conclude that speakers provide acoustic cues enabling listeners to distinguish between positive communicative intentions.     

Attention Skills and Risk of Developing Learning Difficulties

Attention is a heterogeneous function, composed of different components involved in acquiring and developing all cognitive and behavioural skills. Attentive difficulties, such as insufficient or inadequate control of the stream of occurring stimuli, have been linked to impairment in executive functions, impulsive behavioral style, academic failure, and difficulties in basic scholastic skills, such as reading and writing. Moreover, specific Learning Disabilities often occur along with and/or complicated by problems in attention. Considering that prerequisites of school learning evolve early in childhood, the overall goal of this study is to investigate the relationships between attention skills and the risk of developing learning difficulties. Specifically, this study attempts to contribute to better identification of the role of the attention measures in the early detection of risk signs of developing learning difficulties. Research has been conducted through a computerized battery to assess attention and an observational questionnaire aimed at identifying the risk of developing learning difficulties. The study examined a sample of preschoolers. The results showed that different components of attention, such as visual selectivity and reaction times, are diversely involved in the risk of developing learning difficulties and in the prerequisite of school learning.     

What Makes a Feminist? Predictors and Correlates of Feminist Social Identity in College Women

What factors predict self-identification as a feminist? College women ( N = 233) were given measures of feminist ideology, feminist identity development, evaluation of feminists, collectivism and individualism. Feminist identification was measured both as a dichotomous and a continuous variable. Measured dichotomously, feminist self-identification was predicted by not having conservative beliefs and having a positive general evaluation of feminists. In addition, self-identified feminists were more likely to believe in collective action, to hold liberal, radical, and womanist ideologies, and to endorse items in the Synthesis stage of identity development. They were less likely to believe a feminist is a lesbian, to endorse items in the Passive Acceptance stage, and to believe in the existence of a meritocracy. Measured continuously, degree of feminist identity was predicted by having a positive general evaluation of feminists, not having conservative beliefs, and endorsing items in the Revelation and Embeddedness/Emanation stages of identity development. The two measures of feminist identity were not entirely congruent, underlining the importance of methodological differences in measuring social identity.