Dilemmas and strategies in the counselling of Jewish and Palestinian Arab children in Israeli schools

Jewish and Palestinian Arab school counsellors in Israel face increasing demands to respond to the challenges posed by the current armed conflict in the region. In semi-structured interviews, 37 Jewish and Palestinian Arab counsellors were asked about their views regarding the role of the educational system and of counsellors vis-à-vis the ongoing conflict. While all respondents argue that schools and counsellors need to address the conflict and its consequences, Palestinian Arabs and Jews differed in their views as to the appropriate strategies and foci. Major dilemmas emerging from the counsellors’ reports are discussed.     

Enhancing Program Quality in a National Sample of After‐school Settings: The Role of Youth–Staff Interactions and Staff/Organizational Functioning

Using multilevel data from the national evaluation of Boys and Girls Clubs of America (BGCA), this study examined associations among programmatic structures, workplace and workforce characteristics, and relational practices of program staff as they relate to young people's ratings of their experience attending local clubs. The sample included 57,710 members and 5,231 staff members at 740 BGCA sites throughout the United States. Staff relational practices—including establishing caring relationships, setting high expectations, positive behavior management, encouraging youth input and agency, and cultural sensitivity—explained associations between staffing and organizational functioning and youths’ perceptions of the quality of their clubs. Findings suggest a central role of staff relational practices in establishing conditions that youth experience positively, and that staffing and organizational processes, including community engagement and teamwork and efficiency can be viewed as foundations for establishing a culture of positive adult‐youth interaction, which in turn can contribute to the promotion of positive youth development. Further, identification with the experiences of youth had a direct association with youths’ perceptions of club quality. These results underscore the importance of staff workforce development initiatives as key to improving youth experiences in after‐school programs.     

Fostering learner autonomy and critical reflection through digital video-journals in a university foreign language course

Many studies have documented the benefits of incorporating reflective journals into foreign language education at university level, though the pedagogic tendency has been to utilise these valuable learning resources to enhance students’ written language skills. This study focuses on how the production of a digital reflective journal in video format can assist in the improvement of oral language abilities in tertiary students of Spanish as a foreign language. With spoken language as the driving vehicle for this assessment task, the course coordinator and educator in charge aimed to promote the development of learner autonomy and self-reflection. In addition, to foster students’ agency in this process, the task incorporated the use of modern digital technologies, which are part of the repertoire of communication channels used by today’s university language learners. Findings suggest that completing this self-reflection assessment task afforded creative teaching and learning experiences, and generated opportunities for learners to improve critical thinking skills, written language proficiency and oral communication. It also heightened their motivation to engage with language-related cultural knowledge, and minimised feelings of anxiety towards communicating verbally in a foreign language.     

How I see me depends on how I see we: the role of attachment style in social comparison

The self-concept is a social, flexible construct that shifts in response to the salience of a relationship partner. Three related experiments found that the tendency to pursue closeness in relationships (as measured by attachment style) served as a moderator of the shift. Specifically, individuals who avoid closeness in relationships became less similar to salient friends via contrast effects, whereas those who pursued closeness in relationships became more similar to salient friends via assimilation effects. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for the nature of the self-concept and the importance of friendships.     

An observation on the role of context variability in free recall

The authors conducted 3 experiments investigating the effect of context variability and word frequency on free recall. Context variability refers to the number of pre-experimental contexts in which a given word is experienced. Both between-subjects and within-subjects manipulations of context variability demonstrated a distinct advantage for low context variability words. Standard word frequency effects were obtained in 2 of the 3 experiments, but the common finding of no word frequency differences in mixed lists of high and low word frequency may depend on the level (low vs. high) of context variability. The authors speculate that the advantage for low context variability items may accrue from better item-to-list context associations or better storage of contextual information as a consequence of the smaller pre-experimental contextual fan that these items possess.     

Situation models,propositions, and the fan effect

According to theories of language comprehension, people can construct multiple levels of representation: the surface form, the propositional text base, and the situation model. In this study, I looked at how the referential nature of memory probes affects the experience of retrieval interference. All the subjects memorized sentences about objects in locations (e.g., “The potted palm is in the hotel”). When memory probes were sentences and, therefore, referential and most closely associated with the situation model level, no interference was observed during retrieval for information that could be integrated into a common situation model. In contrast, interference was observed in such cases when the memory probes were concept pairs (POTTED PALM-HOTEL) and hence not directly referential. This is interpreted to mean that nonreferential memory probes involve surface form and text base representations more than do referential sentence probes.     

Implicit and explicit measures of sexual orientation attitudes: in group preferences and related behaviors and beliefs among gay and straight men

The relations among implicit and explicit measures of sexual orientation attitudes and sexual-orientation-related behavior and beliefs among gay men (Study 1) and straight men (Studies 1 and 2) were explored. Study 1 found relations between implicit and explicit measures of sexual orientation attitudes, large differences between gay and straight men on both implicit and explicit measures, and that these measures predicted sexual-orientation-related behaviors among gay men. Also, only straight men exhibited a negative relation between their attitudes toward homosexuality and heterosexuality. Study 2 found that as straight men held more negative attitudes toward homosexuality, they more strongly endorsed the importance of heterosexual identity and of traditional masculine gender roles. These endorsements mediated the negative relation between their attitudes toward heterosexuality and homosexuality. Implications for assessing attitudes toward sexual orientation and their relations for sexual orientation identity are discussed.     

Focused attention on one contextual attribute does not reduce source memory for a different attribute

In three experiments, participants were asked to learn a particular contextual dimension of a study episode for a later memory test. The hypothesis being evaluated was that focused attention towards learning a particular source-specifying attribute would decrease memory for a different attribute dimension. Although source memory for the attribute dimensions in the focus of attention were generally improved, memory was not diminished for contextual attributes ostensibly outside the focus of primary attention. The absence of any decrease in memory appears to be a somewhat general phenomenon because it was found with external-external, internal-external, and internal-internal combinations of attribute dimensions. The results may be most consistent with a model of cognitive processing in which people have separate pools of attentional resources rather than a single pool of general resources.     

Gender and orientation stereotypes bias source-monitoring attributions

Four experiments were conducted to determine whether gender stereotypes influence source-monitoring decision processes. Statements that were consistent with a male were more often correctly attributed to a male source and less frequently correctly attributed to a female. The reverse was true for items traditionally associated with a female. Both of these biases were reversed if participants believed the speaker was either a gay male or a lesbian female. These effects persisted under divided attention during test, suggesting that they are caused by automatic influences. But these biases were partially attenuated when participants first considered the detrimental impact of stereotypes. Because these biases were absent for gender-neutral statements, the results from this study show that the content of a memory can influence judgements about the context in which something was learned. The authors argue that the data are most consistent with a heuristic, early selection process that can be influenced by a conscious, late correction process (e.g., Jacoby, Kelly, & McElree, 1999).     

Situation models and retrieval interference: pictures and words

Previous studies have found that interference in long-term memory retrieval occurs when information cannot be integrated into a single situation model, but this interference is greatly reduced or absent when the information can be so integrated. The current study looked at the influence of presentation format-sentences or pictures-on this observed pattern. When sentences were used at memorisation and recognition, a spatial organisation was observed. In contrast, when pictures were used, a different pattern of results was observed. Specifically, there was an overall speed-up in response times, and consistent evidence of interference. Possible explanations for this difference were examined in a third experiment using pictures during learning, but sentences during recognition. The results from Experiment 3 were consistent with the organisation of information into situation models in long-term memory, even from pictures. This suggests that people do create situation models when learning pictures, but their recognition memory may be oriented around more "verbatim", surface-form memories of the pictures.